Source: VIZ Media, MediaLab press releases
Special Thanks to Evelyn Dubocq and Erik Jansen

Packaging art for the NARUTO Uncut Season 2 Volume
2 Box Set. Photo courtesy of Warner Home Video.
© 2002 Masashi Kishimoto

VIZ Media, LLC has announced their list of DVD titles scheduled for release in April 2010. This includes the final box set release of NANA, the next episodic releases of the popular BLEACH and NARUTO SHIPPUDEN series, and the latest box set release of NARUTO SHIPPPUDEN.

Also releasing is the live action feature film, K-20: THE FIEND WITH TWENTY FACES, from VIZ Pictures.

VIZ Media DVD titles are distributed (in English) in the U.S and Mexico by Warner Home Video and in Canada by Allegro.
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Biker Vengeance on Region 1 DVD
Source: Section23 Films press release
Special Thanks to Mike Bailiff

DVD cover art for BUYUSENKI BATTLE CHRONICLE. Photo
courtesy of Section23 Films. © 2008 Zen Pictures

Next month, genre film distributor Section23 Films and Switchblade Pictures will release the unrated limited edition DVD of BUYUSENKI BATTLE CHRONICLE.

Mix motorcycles, drugs and yakuza under pressure and the result is bosozoku, the brutal motorized street gangs that terrorize Japan armed with swords and baseball bats.

Kyosuke Jinnai was the leader of the “Buyusenki,” the largest group of its kind in the Kanto region, but sick of the violence, he had planned to give it all up to make a family with his pregnant girlfriend. Instead, all of that was stolen from him in a moment of savage betrayal, and the man who dreamed of a life of peace has instead been transformed into an angel of death!

The streets of Japan will be paved with blood in BUYUSENKI BATTLE CHRONICLE!
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Source: Section23 Films press release
Special Thanks to Mike Bailiff

HELL GIRL: TWO MIRRORS COLLECTION 1. Photo
courtesy of Section23 Films.

Home video distributor Section23 Films today announced its May slate of DVD releases, including the second season of the hit anime series HELL GIRL from Section23 client Sentai Filmworks.

Sentai will also release three other anime series sets in May, including YOU’RE UNDER ARREST: FULL THROTTLE COLLECTION 2, SAMURAI HAREM – ASU NO YOICHI COMPLETE COLLECTION and EYESHIELD 21 COLLECTION 1.

Also releasing in May from Sentai Filmworks, APPLESEED BLU-RAY EDITION which includes an all new English dub featuring the cast of APPLESEED EX MACHINA!
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Cute Japanese high school girls become undead monsters in the splatter horror comedy VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL.
Photo courtesy of 4Digital Media. © 2010 Pony Canyon /Concept Film /Excellent Film Partners

Source: 4Digital Media, Arias UK Ltd. press releases
Official Movie Site: VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL (Japan)
Special Thanks to Chris Meyer

Cover art for the new British DVD of VAMPIRE GIRL VS
FRANKENSTEIN GIRL. Photo courtesy of 4Digital Media.
© 2010 Pony Canyon /Concept Film /Excellent Film Partners

From Yoshihiro Nishimura, the man behind the outrageousness of TOKYO GORE POLICE and THE MACHINE GIRL comes this crazed response to both TWILIGHT and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, a film that consistently overwhelms the viewer in its sheer dementia…

Based on a manga by Shungiku Uchida, VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL (Kyuketsu Shojo tai Shojo Furanken, 2008) will be released on DVD (£15.99) in the UK by 4Digital Media on 15th March, 2010.

Handsome high school student Mizushima (Takumi Saito) receives Valentines Day chocolates from a new student, Monami Arukado (Yukie Kawamura). Little did he know that the chocolates contained traces of Monami’s vampire blood. He gets infected from eating them and Monami confesses that she wants to live with him forever as vampires. Keiko Furano (Eri Otoguro), Mizushima’s girlfriend, sees the two on the school rooftop kissing and in a state of hysteria, attempts to throw Monami off the roof but falls off herself instead.

Keiko dies but her father, Kenji Furano (Kanji Tsuda), the mad scientist, resurrects her as Franken girl. Thus begins a deadly combat between Franken Keiko and Vampire Monami in the name of love. As we all know, this kind of Vampire vs. Frankenstein conflict can only be solved by fighting, beating, stabbing, chewing, clawing and a showdown high atop Tokyo Tower!
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Theatre Also Announces Lecture on Anime Icon Hayao Miyazaki, and Screenings for 2010 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival
Source: VIZ Media, MediaLab press releases
Official Site: NewPeopleWorld.com
Special Thanks to Evelyn Dubocq and Erik Jansen

The new anime movie MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM UC (UNICORN)
will make its US premiere at VIZ Cinema on March 19th.
Photo courtesy of VIZ Media. © 2010 Sotsu, Sunrise

VIZ Cinema in San Francisco, CA, the nation’s only movie theatre dedicated to Japanese film, has announced a variety of notable film screenings, festivals, lectures and other special events to be held throughout the month of March.

Activities kick off on March 5th with Patrick Macias’s new film/lecture series Tokyo Scope: The Wild and Crazy World of Japanese Cult Films. VIZ Cinema will present the NEW PEOPLE Artist Series Festival, a special collection of six insightful documentaries, from March 6th – 9th. The fest includes the U.S. theatrical premieres of several films featuring the Neo-Japanese “Hip-Hop-Samurai” painter Hisashi Tenmyouya, the cynical artistic genius of Makoto Aida, and the life and work of master sculptor Katsura Funakoshi.

The Allure of Hayao Miyazaki, a lecture given by Fred Schodt and Beth Cary (translators of Miyazaki’s autobiography Starting Point: 1979-1996) will be held on March 10th. VIZ Cinema also partners with the 28th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival to present DEAR DOCTOR on March 17th.

And anime fans won’t want to miss VIZ Cinema’s just-added week long screening of the MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM UC (UNICORN) feature film (58 min) running March 19th – 25th. The movie makes a special U.S. debut only one month after its original premiere in Japan.
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New Anime and Live Action Region 1 DVDs
Source: Section23 Films press release
Special Thanks to Mike Bailiff

DVD cover art for MARIA-HOLIC COMPLETE COLLECTION,
now on sale. Photo courtesy of Section23 Films. © 2009
Minari Endo/Shaft

Section23 Films, America’s fastest-growing genre film distributor, is pleased to announce two new DVDs that will blow your mind. From Section23 client Sentai Filmworks comes the fun new anime MARIA-HOLIC COMPLETE COLLECTION, collecting the entire series in one cool set. Next up is RYUJI THE YAKUZA, a hard-boiled thriller from Switchblade Pictures. Both DVDs were released on February 23rd.

MARIA-HOLIC COMPLETE COLLECTION is a romantic comedy set in an all-girls school, where androphobic transfer student Kanako searches for her yuri partner but instead runs into a cross-dressing boy with a sadistic personality. Featuring unusually lush, playful art direction from studio Shaft, MARIA-HOLIC veers wildly from serious send-up to outrageous parody of popular anime tropes. This is one over-the-top series!

Every man needs a code, and RYUJI THE YAKUZA is no exception. Ruthless, cunning and loyal, Ryuji is the perfect Yakuza. But violate his sense of honor, and he’ll take you down – no matter who you are! Like the Man with No Name, Ryuji is an enigmatic, indomitable force for justice.
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Japanese bookstores are now selling the Toho SFX DVD Collection which packages classic movies with a collectible booklet.
© 2009 Toho Co., Ltd. © 2009 KK DeAgostini Japan

Author: Ed Godziszewski
Official Site: KK DeAgostini Japan

Cover for Toho SFX DVD Collection Vol 2: MOTHRA VS
GODZILLA. © 1964 Toho Co., Ltd. © 2009 KK DeAgostini Japan

One of the recent trends in Japan is take movie and TV series that have long been marketed on video, LD, and dvd and repackage them a new way to sell them yet again to the public. The preferred approach is to produce a bare bones DVD, bundle them with an A4-size booklet, and introduce a new volume every 3-4 weeks, thus bypassing video sales arrangements and allowing the product to be sold as a book in bookstores.

Always one to look for ways to sell the same movies to collectors many times over, Toho jumped on this bandwagon recently and intends to sell 55 titles from their special effects film catalog. Sold by a company named DeAgostini starting in September of 2009, the Toho SFX DVD Collection has been a huge seller in its first few months, moving well over 200,000 units of each of the 11 titles released to date. Not bad for films, many of which have had at least at least 6 different home video releases over time.

So what do you get for your ¥1990 (roughly $22 at today’s exchange rate) per volume?
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Eighteen Classics to Screen During Festival at Stanford Theater
Source: Stanford Theater, akirakurosawa.com

Director Akira Kurosawa, ca. 1952. Photo courtesy of the
Margaret Herrick Library.

The historic Stanford Theater in Palo Alto, California reopens this weekend after remodeling and is off to a huge and auspicious start. Beginning February 20 and running through March 30, the theater will feature an Akira Kurosawa Film Festival.

The festival will feature no less than eighteen of Kurosawa’s classic films, starting with THE SEVEN SAMURAI, considered by many to be the greatest film ever to come out of Japan. Also on the schedule are such films as RASHOMON, THE BAD SLEEP WELL, IKIRU, THE LOWER DEPTHS, HIGH AND LOW, KAGEMUSHA, SANJURO, THRONE OF BLOOD, and RAN.
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Burning Godzilla roars over the crowd at Winter WonderFest 2010. Photo by Ed Godziszewski. © 1995 Toho Co., Ltd.

A Look at the Winter Model and Toy Collectors Show Held in Tokyo on February 7, 2010
Author: Ed Godziszewski
Official Site: Wonder Festival

Owing to an accident in 2008 which occurred at the Tokyo Big Sight, former home of Wonder Festival, this biannual mega collectors event was canceled for the year 2009. But after securing a new venue at Makuhari Messe, WonderFest is back and bigger than ever.

Ed Godziszewski presents a look Winter WonderFest with nearly three dozen photos of the latest Godzilla, Gamera, and Ultraman collectibles coming from Japan.
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PONYO, the latest masterpiece from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, will be released on DVD and Blu-ray in North America on March 2.
Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. © 2008 Nibariki – GNDHDDT. © Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Source: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, Inc. Press release
Official Movie Site: disneypictures/ponyo
Special Thanks to Jackie Cavanagh

On March 2, 2010, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment will release several titles from legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki’s latest, PONYO, will be available in both Blu-ray and DVD, while the classics CASTLE IN THE SKY, KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE, and MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO are returning as Special Edition DVDs with brand new extra features.
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Source: Section23 Films press release
Special Thanks to Mike Bailiff

DVD cover art for TO LOVE RU COLLECTION 2, now on
sale. Photo courtesy of Section23 Films.

Section23 Films, America’s fastest-growing anime distributor, is pleased to announce the TO LOVE RU COLLECTION 2 DVD set from Sentai Filmworks, which goes on sale today at finer retailers everywhere.

TO LOVE RU is the story of the alien princess Lala who runs away from home and ends up on Earth, where she ends up with a high school boy named Yuuki Rito. Lala falls for the hapless Rito, even while he tries to hook up with his long time crush. It’s a cosmic love triangle with lots of laughs and plenty of fan service.

As if being accidentally engaged to a demon-like alien princess while attending high school and still making points with the girl he REALLY likes wasn’t enough to keep Rito on the edge of insanity, he’s now stuck with an more dangerous challenge: living up to the expectations of Lala’s devil-like father, King Deviluke! And if that’s not bad enough, the girl Run (aka, sometimes, the guy Ren) decides to make her move on Rito, the school is overflowing with even more not-so-well disguised ghosts and aliens (some of whom need an education on how to emphasize their feminine side,) SOMEBODY lets word slip that Lala is actually an alien princess, and to cap it all off there’s a trip to the waterpark PLUS the obligatory Hot Springs episode! Love isn’t a battlefield… it’s the War of the Worlds in TO LOVE RU COLLECTION 2!!!
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THE WOLFMAN ©2010 Universal Pictures

THE WOLFMAN Production Notes
Source: Universal Studios
Official Movie Site: thewolfmanmovie.com

Production Information

“Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright…”
—Gypsy legend

In the 1930s and ’40s, Universal Pictures released a series of horror films that created a new genre of entertainment for audiences: the monster movie. By transforming themselves into such iconography as Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, The Mummy and The Invisible Man, legendary performers including Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and Claude Rains committed to celluloid nightmares previously only available to the imagination of readers.

One of the most haunting of these creations has been with us since Lon Chaney, Jr. introduced him in 1941. A lone man forced to give in to the most primal side of his spirit haunted moviegoers who breathlessly watched as he transformed into something inhuman. When the moon was at its fullest, he unleashed a primal rage born from the darkest shadow of his psyche. Part man, part demon…his curse was eternal.

SciFi Japan gives you all the information you need to know about this remake of the classic Universal icon.
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Harumi Kiritachi, Eiji Funakoshi, and Yoshiro Uchida run for their lives in the original GAMERA. The movie will finally get an official DVD release in America as
GAMERA, THE GIANT MONSTER. Photo courtesy of Shout! Factory. © 1965 Kadokawa Pictures, Inc.

Shout’s Cliff Macmillan Discusses the First Official Region 1 Release of the Early Gamera Movies
Author: Keith Aiken
Official Site: Shout! Factory
Special Thanks to Bob Johnson

A SciFi JAPAN EXCLUSIVE

An early look at the cover art for Shout! Factory’s
GAMERA, THE GIANT MONSTER DVD. Photo courtesy of
Shout! Factory. © 1965 Kadokawa Pictures, Inc.

The original series of Gamera movies is finally getting a licensed and authorized Region 1 DVD release, courtesy of the Los Angeles-based entertainment company Shout! Factory.

On May 18, 2010, Shout! will unleash GAMERA, THE GIANT MONSTER – SPECIAL EDITION on DVD for the first time in its unedited original version, with English subtitles — in anamorphic widescreen from an all-new HD master. The DVD includes a 12-page booklet with an essay by director Noriaki Yuasa, a photo gallery, trailers and more. The collectible GAMERA, THE GIANT MONSTER – SPECIAL EDITION DVD is priced to own at $19.93.

SciFi Japan is pleased to present an early look at the DVD cover art for GAMERA, THE GIANT MONSTER, a look back at Gamera’s release history in the United States, and an interview with Cliff Macmillan, Vice President of DVD Production and Acquisitions for Shout! Factory. Enjoy!
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Get the 20TH CENTURY BOYS 2: THE LAST HOPE DVD and More for Free, Courtesy of VIZ Pictures and SciFi Japan
Source: VIZ Pictures
Official Movie Site: 20thboysfilms.com (US), 20th Boys (Japanese)
Special Thanks to Rieko Fuji

A SciFi JAPAN EXCLUSIVE

VIZ Pictures is offering SciFi Japan readers the chance to
win a 20TH CENTURY BOYS 2: THE LAST HOPE Gift Pack
containing the DVD, poster, and button. Photo courtesy
of VIZ Pictures. © 1999, 2006 Naoki Urasawa, Studio Nuts
/Shogakukan © 2009 “20th Century Boys” Film Partners

The popular 20TH CENTURY BOYS (20-Seki Shonen) live-action movie trilogy is now being released on Region 1 DVD by VIZ Pictures and VIZ Media. The films are based on the critically acclaimed 20th Century Boys manga series created by Naoki Urasawa, which is a national phenomenon in Japan, selling over 20 million copies to date. The 20TH CENTURY BOYS movies were released in Japan by Toho and quickly shot to the top of the domestic box office. The three films made their US premieres at the VIZ Cinema in San Francisco in August of 2009.

VIZ Pictures and SciFi Japan now follow up December’s 20TH CENTURY BOYS 1: BEGINNING OF THE END Gift Pack Giveaway with a new contest for the second film in the series, 20TH CENTURY BOYS 2: THE LAST HOPE. SciFi Japan readers in the United States and Canada have a chance to win one of three Gift Packs, each with the 20TH CENTURY BOYS 2: THE LAST HOPE DVD, the US theatrical poster, and a 20TH CENTURY BOYS button.

The 20TH CENTURY BOYS 2: THE LAST HOPE DVD will be available for purchase on February 16th. The suggested retail price is $24.92.
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Source: VIZ Media, MediaLab press releases
Special Thanks to Evelyn Dubocq and Erik Jansen

Cover art for BLEACH Volume 26. Photo courtesy of VIZ
Media. © Tite Kubo/Shueisha, TV Tokyo, dentsu,
Pierrot

VIZ Media, LLC has announced their list of DVD titles scheduled for release in March 2010. This includes the final box set release of HONEY AND CLOVER, the next installments of the POKÉMON ELEMENTS series, as well as the latest episodic releases of the popular BLEACH and NARUTO SHIPPUDEN series.

Also releasing is the live action feature film – HISASHI TENMYOUYA: SAMURAI NOUVEAU from VIZ Pictures.

VIZ Media DVD titles are distributed (in English) in the U.S and Mexico by Warner Home Video and in Canada by Allegro.
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Covers for the DVD, DVD Memorial Box and Blu-ray editions of ULTRA GALAXY: MEGA MONSTER BATTLE ©2010 Bandai Visual

New Ultraman Movie On DVD & Blu-ray In Japan With English Subtitles
Author: Jim M. Ballard
Official Movie Site: Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy
Source: Bandai Visual

The latest Ultraman movie MEGA MONSTER BATTLE: ULTRA GALAXY (Daikaiju Batoru Urutora Ginga Densetsu THE MOVIE) will be released on DVD and Blu-ray in Japan on April 23 and will feature English subtitles. The DVD editions will be Region 2 encoded (only compatiable with DVD players in Japan, Europe and other Region 2 countries), while the Blu-ray disc will be fully compatiable with Blu-ray players in North America.
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Special Theatrical Screening Planned for February 9th; DVD Arrives on February 16th
Source: VIZ Media, MediaLab press releases
Official Movie Site: 20thboysfilms.com (US), 20th Boys (Japanese)
Special Thanks to Evelyn Dubocq and Erik Jansen

DVD cover art for the North American release of 20TH
CENTURY BOYS 2: THE LAST HOPE. Photo courtesy of VIZ
Pictures. © 1999, 2006 Naoki Urasawa, Studio Nuts
/Shogakukan © 2009 “20th Century Boys” Film Partners

VIZ Pictures, an affiliate of VIZ Media, LLC that focuses on Japanese live-action film distribution, will release the science fiction feature 20TH CENTURY BOYS 2: THE LAST HOPE (20-Seiki Shonen: Dai 2 Sho- Saigo no Kibo, 2009) on DVD on February 16th in North America through its distributor, VIZ Media. 20TH CENTURY BOYS will carry a MSRP of $24.92 US / $35.99 CAN.

The 20TH CENTURY BOYS saga is based on Naoki Urasawa’s manga series, 20th Century Boys (published in the US by VIZ Media), which has become a national phenomenon in Japan, selling over 20 million copies of the 24 volumes. Urasawa is the creator of many famous works such as the hit manga series, Monster and Pluto also published in the US by VIZ Media.

In 20TH CENTURY BOYS 2: THE LAST HOPE it is 2015, and “Friend” rules a disturbing new world. Kenji has been missing since the Bloody New Year’s Eve of 2000, and his niece Kanna is now in high school. Her history textbook contains a fabricated story about Kenji and his friends being the terrorists behind the horrific events of 2000. Kanna, knowing the truth, openly resents this, and as a result she is marked as a problem child by her teacher and sent to the Friend Land program because of her anti-Friend behavior.
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Astro Boy (voiced by Freddie Highmore) is surrounded by Stingers in the feature film ASTRO BOY, playing February 23rd at the Barbican Centre.
©2009 Imagi Crystal Ltd and Summit Entertainment, LLC. © Tezuka Productions Co., Ltd.

ASTRO BOY and THE SKY CRAWLERS Screenings in London
Source: Barbican Centre, Sarah Harvey Publicity press release
Special Thanks to Helene Muron

The Barbican Centre in London continues their JAPANIMATION event series with screenings of the computer animated film ASTRO BOY (2009) this month and Mamoru Oshii’s THE SKY CRAWLERS (Sukai Kurora, 2008) in March. Both films will be introduced by anime expert and author Helen McCarthy (The Anime! Movie Guide, Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation, and founder of the magazine AnimeFX).
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