My Neighbor Totoro & Howl's Moving Castle Blu-rays
Posted February 16, 2013 11:44 PM by Webmaster
Walt Disney Home Entertainment has revealed its plans to bring two classic, highly anticipated Studio Ghibli animated films to Blu-ray this Spring: My Neighbor Totoro and Howl's Moving Castle. While the studio has yet to detail technical specifications or special features for either release, both titles are available for pre-order and are set to arrive on May 21st.
My Neighbor Totoro: Disney presents a Studio Ghibli film about the magic of friendship and sisterhood from Academy Award-winning director Hayao Miyazaki (Best Animated Feature, 2001, Spirited Away). Celebrate the 25th anniversary of My Neighbor Totoro, available for the first time on Disney Blu-ray, with a new HD digital transfer and perfect picture and sound. Follow the adventures of Satsuki and her four-year-old sister Mei as they discover their new neighbor is a mysterious forest spirit named Totoro who can only be seen by the eyes of a child. As Totoro introduces the girls to his extraordinary friends, they embark on the journey of a lifetime. Featuring the voice talents of Tim Daly, Lea Salonga and real-life sisters Dakota and Elle Fanning, My Neighbor Totoro is an amazing animated adventure the whole family will fall in love with.
Howl's Moving Castle: A simple young girl called Sophie is put under a curse by the evil Witch Of The Waste, transforming her into an ugly old woman. Ashamed of her appearance, Sophie deserts her hat shop and heads into the hills in search of a cure. She comes across the strange, yet awesome Moving Castle, the abode of the much-feared magician, Howl. Inside the castle, Sophie befriends the fire demon Calcifer, who can see through the spell and offers to help her return to her natural form. For his efforts, however, Sophie must help Calcifer break the contract he has with Howl, the details of which he is forbidden to explain. So Sophie assumes the position of the castle's cleaning lady and gets close to the young, handsome Howl, who takes a fancy to the young Sophie, whom he can also see behind her withered facade.
Howl's is kinda unexpected but not unwelcome (probably my favorite of Miyazaki's more recent films). Totoro is tied for my favorite movie of all time with 2001.
Even though everyone of Miyazaki's works should be on Blu-ray it appears Disney is saving the best, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away for last. Hope they also consider Porco Rosso of being deserving of hi-def.
finally! I kind of expected Spirited Away before Howl's Moving Castle, since it's so popular.. but personally I like HMC more, so awesome. two of my favorites.
if only they'd release Princess Mononoke soon.. I heard that Disney let the rights go though, maybe I'm wrong though, but if they did then another studio would probably have to release it. I also wouldn't mind having The Cat Returns on BD even though it seems to be one of the more obscure Ghbili titles, never hear much about it, maybe it's because it's not Miyazaki.
Both of these have been available with American English dubbed audio on Blu-ray in Europe for some time. It is odd that it should take so long to release them in the US.
For those wondering why Disney hasn't released Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away, it's because Studio Ghibli hasn't released them on BD in Japan yet...
Howl was the first Studio Ghibli film I ever saw and I loved it, so that's a sure-fire buy for me. I hear Totoro is great too, so I might as well pick that up as well.
I love both these classics, but I just can't bring myself to spend $30 or more for what should be closer to $20. I am tired of being ripped off by companies like DIsney.
Lord help us, Disney is going to try to subtitle two things at once... this can't end well. Perhaps we'll have a studio first, not only will they get the "literal" subs wrong, but they'll take it as far as having Totoro's subs on Howl and Howl's subs on Totoro! Possibly both even being dubtitles on top of everything! With Disney in the mix, anything is possible (except proper subtitles)!
P.S. Don't buy Laputa: Castle in the Sky Blu-ray from Disney, if you haven't caught my theme yet, they butchered the subtitles, AGAIN (though, get the disc from any other country, and you'll be fine).
Guys going by the patten Disney will only release Blu-Rays for the ones that have already been released in Japan. So going by this trend, Kiki's Delivery Service will most likely be the next blu-ray which would probably be on same day as 'From Up On Poppy Hill'.
So what I'm trying to say is: go ask Ghibli not Disney for next blu-ray release.
And I just imported My Neighbor Totoro for $42 shipped from Hong Kong. It is a bare bones release, but the audio/video are top notch and true to the source. This is a great option if you can't wait for the North American release (or don't trust Disney will do a good job), and don't want to pay $80 shipped for the Japanese discs.
I would not get the European releases as they have DNR issues.
I haven't watched Totoro since I rented the Fox VHS years ago. I bought the Disney DVD when it was released and couldn't sit through the new English dub because the Fanning sisters were extremely annoying. If only they'd give us that old English dub back I'd be happy. I'll still probably pick this up though if the price is right.
