DVDizzy.com

Except Criterion will never release an animated film. I could name countless animated releases that would fall right into their mission statement, but they're too biased against the medium for some idiotic and close-minded reason.

_________________
"If your life had a face, I would punch it." - Kim Pine, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Oh, really? They don't have any animated films in their catalogue? Wow, didn't know that. Since all their releases are region A, I don't own any Blu-rays from Criterion. But I always had this romantic image of a bunch of film loving nerds in my mind and thought they would be pretty open minded. :/

They released AKIRA on Laserdisc and technically some of the Brakhage they've got out on Blu-Ray could be considered animation but they just seem to avoid it for some reason.

Criterion also released Animal Farm under their Eclipse label.

_________________


MY DVDs

Let's not go counting pennies. They have a few exceptions, but out of their 500+ releases - nearly 99.9% are live-action.

Which is a disgrace.

_________________
Visit Animation Activist to discover excellent foreign, older, cult, underrated, and obscure animated films you may never have heard of before! There is life beyond Disney!

Amazon has now listed the release date for all three of these titles as May 22, confirming rumors. There is also now a $8.00 off special offer available:

Order The Secret World of Arrietty and an eligible Studio Ghibli title to save $8 on your total purchase. Offer ends June 22, 2012.

You can order any of the following four titles alongside Arrietty to get the discount:

- Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
- Castle in the Sky
- Whisper of the Heart
- Ponyo

Offer ends June 22, 2012.

_________________
"If it's not Baroque, don't fix it!" - Cogsworth | My Blu-ray collection | My Studio Ghibli blog

^ I saw your post on Blu-ray.com and readily took advantage of that $8 coupon. It kind of sucks because they jacked up the prices for Whisper and Castle so the coupon doesn't help that much from the prices they were before, but I still took the deal. Thanks for posting!

_________________
The Divulgations of One Desmond Leica: http://desmondleica.wordpress.com/

I agree. There's plenty of animated films that would fit their 'mission'. Ghibli, other anime like Satoshi Kon and Makoto Shinkai, Jiri Trnka, Yuri Norstein, the list could go on.

though with disney's track record with cover art....

_________________

All such good filmmakers!

_________________
Visit Animation Activist to discover excellent foreign, older, cult, underrated, and obscure animated films you may never have heard of before! There is life beyond Disney!

Only 11 days to go until the North American release of Castle in the Sky, Whisper of the Heart, and The Secret World of Arrietty on Blu-ray in North America.

Here are early reviews on each from Blu-rayDefinition.com:

Castle in the Sky
Whisper of the Heart
The Secret World of Arrietty

Credit goes to forum member Jafar at Blu-ray.com for sharing these.

I'm really excited to get all three of these titles, and have them pre-ordered on Amazon with the $8 coupon for buying another title alongside The Secret World of Arrietty. May 22 can't comes soon enough!

_________________
"If it's not Baroque, don't fix it!" - Cogsworth | My Blu-ray collection | My Studio Ghibli blog

Thanks for posting those reviews! But if the information is accurate (and I suspect that it is), then it looks like Castle in the Sky is *still* dubtitled.

Honestly, Disney, is it really that hard? Thank goodness I have a fan-translated script.

_________________
- John

Yeah, it seems that way, and that's what a lot of people were complaining about after the original poster shared these links on the Blu-ray.com forums.

At least we have the option of importing the Japanese Blu-rays, if you can afford them!

_________________
"If it's not Baroque, don't fix it!" - Cogsworth | My Blu-ray collection | My Studio Ghibli blog

Are you saying the Japanese blu-rays have proper subtitles? I'm asking because the Japenese DVDs had the same English subtitles as the American DVDs.

_________________


MY DVDs

Well, the American releases *did* originally have proper subtitles, but that changed for the 2010 re-release when an error resulted in two identical dubtitle tracks on the disc, instead of one track for the dubtitles and one track for the original script translation.

I would assume that the Japanese blu-rays have the more accurate subtitle track that was on the original American DVD release (which, although it had some typos and wasn't entirely accurate, was still way better than the dubtitles we have now).

_________________
- John

^Really, Cuz I turned on the titles and saw some very different dialog.

_________________

I own the Japanese Blu-ray and it has the same subtitles as the original DVDs as far as I can tell.

_________________
~Remember, every downhill has its uphill.~

The Ghibli Blog and ToonZone.net reported today that Sentai Filmworks has acquired the rights to release Studio Ghibli's 1988 film Grave of the Fireflies on Blu-ray in North America!



No release date has been confirmed yet but it is rumored to be this year. Sentai Filmworks previously acquired the DVD rights to the film and released a new DVD edition (shown above) on 3/6/12. The previous DVD edition by Central Park Media had long been out of print in North America.

_________________
"If it's not Baroque, don't fix it!" - Cogsworth | My Blu-ray collection | My Studio Ghibli blog

Kiki's Delivery Service and So Yesterday released in Japan on Dec. 5.
Hopefully US releases can follow shortly.

Also, Grave of the Fireflies will be released by Sentai Filmworks on Blu-ray in the US November 12.
http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2012/07/29/sentai-filmworks-licenses-nakaimo-anime

_________________

"Good and bad are labels created by people. Nature doesn't have such concepts."

Is there any reason to buy the Japan Ghibli Blu-rays, versus the U.S. Disney-released Ghibli Blu-rays?

I know the Japan discs do not have the dubs. Just having subs would be okay with me.

But what I am really concerned about is the image sharpness/clarity, the colors, and the audio.

Studio Ghibli animations are among my favorite ever and I want the absolute best image and audio quality available!

Is there any difference in the image & audio quality of the Disney releases versus the Japan releases?

Or are they identical?

Thanks!

_________________
Visit Animation Activist to discover excellent foreign, older, cult, underrated, and obscure animated films you may never have heard of before! There is life beyond Disney!