Excellent news! The next round of Studio Ghibli Blu-Ray discs have been announced - Laputa, Castle in the Sky and My Neighbors the Yamadas. Both are scheduled to be released in Japan this December 22.
I'm very pleasantly surprised to see that Nausicaa's BD design has been retained for future Ghibli releases. It's very stylish and abstract in the tradition of The Criterion Collection. No doubt the same bonus materials, like the miniature book, will be included once again. In fact, I can see these becoming prized collector's items among the Ghibli faithful.
Bonus materials appear to be the same as the DVDs, with trailers, commercials, and storyboards. A wealth of soundtracks and subtitles will be included, which is a very welcome feature. Is Ghibli counting on import sales for these movies? That would be an interesting prospect. Obviously, these films will find their way around the globe, but you know how cool it would be to have Castle in the Sky and My Neighbors the Yamadas playing on your big-screen television on Christmas and New Years'.
There is no word yet on when Disney will release these BD's in North America, but they will be coming, I assure you. It would be super cool if the American versions came in these packages, too.
19 comments:
I absolutely love Castle in the Sky's box. I know I'll get that on the fence about Yamadas tho, didn't really care for it back when I watched it a few years ago, probably need to re-watch it sometime soon.
you'll have to let us know exactly what subtitles and soundtracks (languages and versions!) are included when you can!
I knew if I persevered, I'd find an interesting blog....eventhough it took me nearly 2000 searches later!
For Asuka:
Castle in the Sky - Language(s)
Japanese (DTS-HD MA 2.0)
English (DD2.0)
French (DD2.0)
German (DD2.0)
Korean (DD2.0)
Cantonese (DD2.0)
Mandarin (DD2.0)
Subtitle(s)
Japanese, English, French, Korean, Cantonese Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Finnish
My Neighbors the Yamadas - Languages
Japanese (DTS-HD MA 2.0)
Japanese (LPCM 2.0)
English (DD5.1)
French (DD2.0)
German (DD5.1)
Korean (DD2.0)
Cantonese (DD2.0)
Mandarin (DD2.0)
Subtitle(s)
Japanese, English, French, Korean, Cantonese Chinese (Traditional), Mandarin Chinese (Traditional)
My debit card is going to be hurting...
Ja ne,
Paul
Paul
thank you eishagishi.
now comes the hard part (can i afford them?) sigh...
i hope everyone will forgive a tangentially related request for help.
i just received my new copy of the new R1 totoro with the blue and gold slip-case.
there are some odd misprints on the discs themselves:
1) the feature disc says "Festure [sic] Running Time Approx. 86 Minutes"
2) the bonus disc is labelled "BONOS"
do other people's copies share these errors?
my new blue and gold series totoro, bought new from one of the vendors on amazon, is freaking me out!
the printing of the discs and cover and the printing and embossing of the slipcase say "genuine", yet typos on the discs and in the back-cover text as well say that it's a lazy, slipshod kind of genuine — as if having put all the design work into the look of the new kiki and laputa, they then adapted it to totoro in ten minutes flat.
and did i mention the discs themselves are region 0!!!, and there is no "register this dvd" card or other literature/artwork enclosed?
i don't think it can be a bootleg (the quality of the printing is beautiful and the case is embossed and all that, and why would a bootleg introduce typos anyway?!) but the care put into the package is way below what you would expect from disney.
:(
can anyone clarify?
thank you to all fellow ghibli-ites in advance.
@asuka: Wow, that is a puzzler. Perhaps you just bought from a bad batch of DVDs. I don't remember any spelling errors on my disc, but I can be dyslexic sometimes. As long as the movie itself works fine, that's what matters most.
You shouldn't have to worry about bootlegs if you bought from a legitimate source. Ghibli bootlegs are pretty obvious, and they never use the actual DVD covers. The most common version is a box set with a crest on the front cover; all of the movies are, in fact, Video CDs, and not DVDs.
I'll be sure to check the package later today and check my Castle in the Sky disc.
thank you very much for your response, daniel! (as goes double for all the actual news and info on the blog.)
for the sake of completeness, mistakes on the back cover include the following:
"Japanese,and French Language Tracks"
"English,and French Subtitles"
(that is, in each case using a comma instead of a space)
peculiar.
You're welcome. I did check Totoro at the downtown Target on my lunch break, and nothing seemed really out of place to me. Perhaps there are spelling or grammar goofs on the back cover, and I missed it. But nothing appeared out of place. Indeed, I was pretty easily dazzled by the blue and gold covers. The Studio Ghibli DVDs look amazing.
Ah, well. When in doubt, turn on "Idiocracy" and watch for a few minutes, then be thankful that extra commas are the least of our worries. :P
thanks, daniel! maybe a bad batch. or just a few errors that escapes everyone's notice.
it does seem a strange contradiction (though maybe i'm reading too much in here): on the one hand the studio ghibli films are jewels in disney's collection, and worthy of such a smart release; on the other, totoro can be released without thorough proofreading! (and i don't know how a disney disc comes to be released without region coding, but i'm guessing carelessness on someone's part.)
oh well, i'm glad at least that noone else was concerned. maybe i can come to accept the release (both "Festure" and "Bonos"!) as just charming. ^_^
I just checked my copy of the latest Disney Totoro DVD set, and I have some not-encouraging news for Asuka-san:
There are no typos on either disc nor on the back of the case or the slipcover. The package does contain a "Disney Movie Rewards" card with a code number to "unlock" said rewards. The package also contains the mini-lithograph of the original Japanese theater poster art (the one featuring a single girl standing at the bus stop with Totoro). Also, AFAIK all US Disney DVDs are coded for Region 1 - my mutli-region laptop playback s/w reports my disc is indeed Region 1 (though not RCE - something that I thought all US Disney DVD's also used).
Sorry. Me thinks Asuka-san's copy may indeed be a boot.
Gomen ne,
Paul
Wait, wait, wait.
So since both the US and Japan are in the same Blu-Ray Region, this means that if/when Only Yesterday comes out on Blu-Ray I can finally import it and play it without compatibility issues and (if the above releases are an indication) subtitled in English?
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
EAT IT, DISNEY
thank you, eishagishi.
in that case, people should take care. i've been around a bit, and i'm not an idiot, and i've never knowingly seen a bootleg that was such a careful facsimile of the genuine article (though not quite careful enough!). i can't get over the slipcase.
thank you again. this is news i can use... to get a refund! i want that little poster reproduction to put with my kiki and laputa ones!
may i ask daniel or a visitor for some help? i've been enjoying some of the fansubs listed on the blog, but my hopelessness with computers is an obstacle. specifically... is there any easy way to convert a mkv file to something less outré, such as an avi file?
You can use eRightSoft SUPER ( http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html ), that would be the easiest way.
Anyway, if that doesn't work for you, or you don't like the way it show subtitles in converted files, I can write some tutorial about a not so easy way of converting that may achieve better results.
The Ghibli Library Blu-ray Discs look to be multi-region anyway, if the Nausicaä one is anything to go on; it's rather the price that will be the obstacle (and the European and Australian etc. editions will be region B-only to prevent the Japanese importing them; as that's impossible to do with the North American editions of Japanese films the studios have let them be multi-region for both the US and Japan as it makes no difference to the reverse-importing they're concerned with).
Why do you need to convert files? Is it just playing them you're having trouble with? If so, I recommend Media Player Classic for Windows (try this or this if it's still not working) and MPlayer OSX Extended for Mac OS.
This comment should actually be on an article about Nausicaa, but I'm lazy and so I just add it to the most recent post: io9 has a very favorable review of the Optimum Blue-Ray release of Nausicaa: http://io9.com/5685841/see-hayao-miyazakis-nausicaa-on-blu+ray-is-like-watching-it-for-the-first-time
Completely irrelevant to this post, but there was a blatant reference to Heidi in one of this season's new animes, Kuragehime:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms5Cv_fyXO8
I've never actually watched Heidi, but I recognized the setting; is this scene a reference to a specific scene in Heidi?
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