Studio Canal is finally releasing Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning Spirited Away in gorgeous high definition in the UK.
It’s been 13 years since they released their only Oscar-winning movie, which went on to scoop the award in 2002 for Best Animated Feature.
24 November is the new date set for Miyazaki’s wonderful otherworldly story to hit shelves, having previously only been available in the UK on DVD. The likes of Amazon will stock the film, as well as a number of high street retailers, which indicates the increased mainstream popularity of their anime features.
The film did gain a Japanese Blu-ray release some months ago, so, as per usual with Ghibli fans in the UK, patience was required until we were finally granted an official release here. However, sales in Japan didn’t do as well as was expected, mainly because it coincided with ‘Frozen’s’ home release, and was trounced by the Disney flick.
Spirited Away joins a number of other Studio Ghibli Blu-ray releases, which have seen ‘Princess Mononoke’ and, quite recently, ‘The Wind Rises’ available in the UK on Blu-ray.
Fans will also be pleased to hear that a 12-disc collection is out in November, which covers movies from 1979 right up to 2013, according to Blu-ray.com.
What the new disc set offers is a Blu-ray and DVD combo pack, but aside from that, I’d love to see some new bonus features exclusive to the HD transfer. The imported 2-disc DVD and UK version had some nice extras (more so the former), so it’d be great to get some insight into the world of Studio Ghibli and the fascinating process of how their films are created.
Seeing as Hayao Miyazaki has now retired, it would been wonderful to see some behind-the-scenes footage into the painstaking effort he and his team went to to bring it to life, but as of yet the extras are unconfirmed.
Are you excited for this HD release of ‘Spirited Away’ in the UK?
