Spirited Away (News)

[Gibb]

The deal has been finalized between Disney and Studio Ghibli for this film known as Sen To Chihiro No Kamikakushi in japan. This agreement gives Disney full rights to the movie in North America as well as lots of other popular anime spots around the world. You can expect to see Spirited Away coming to American theaters in the fall.

Spirited Away is one of the highest grossing films of all time in Japan. It's about a little girl who enters the world of spirits and learns valuable life lessons. Whatever the case this movie seems very interesting and i'll have to check it out in the fall sometime :)

Source: www.animedream.org

[Vermillion]

I'm tired of Disney getting studio Ghibli titles. They seem to not put enough into them to make them the blockbusters they are in Japan. Last I heard Disney was not gonna get anymore Ghibli titles due to the huge lack of interest over here in the US. IMHO the huge lack of interest comes w/ the fact that Disney doesn't push the title and advertise it heavily. Plus stripping the Japanese audio tracks and not providing subtitles keeps it away from the Hardcore anime purist.

Disney actually did something good by letting Miramax take over the production of Princess Mononoke and it became a very good seller and even has subtitle tracks in the home DVD, making it a huge winner in my book. The Dubbed version wasn't bad either, I actually enjoyed watching both versions.

Let's just hope Disney learns that anime is not necessarily targeted for little children because it's a cartoon. Ghibli titles are primarily targeted for Adults, but are mild enough that kids can watch them too.

As much as I like Disney, they do not know enough about the anime community to be picking up titles and trying to figure out who they need to sell it to - the little children or the anime fans.