January 2002

January 31, 2002 Susan Napier on NPR's Marketplace *Morning Report* January 31
You can catch Marketplace's report on anime this Thursday by either tuning in a radio or listening via RealAudio (same day only).

An MP3 of the show is now available



Susan is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of "Anime: from Akira to Princess Mononoke".

Thanks to Susan Napier for posting the news on the MML.

January 29, 2002 Lots of Berlinale Details
"Sen" will be shown at the Berlinale on the following days:


The Berlinale Palast seats 1500 people, the Cinemaxx 7 about 600 people. The Royal Palast offers five different cinemas, ranging from 60 to 900 seats. The Berlinale schedule doesn't tell which one of these the film will be shown in.

Thanks to Hanno Mueller for the write-up and MML posting.

January 28, 2002 "Sen" on DVD in June **in Japan**
According to this post "Sen" will be appearing on DVD June 19. In a Battle of the Release Dates, this site is claiming a June 4 release date.

No official word from Buena Vista and/or Studio Ghibli.

Thanks to the AnimeOnDVD forum for the tip.

January 26, 2002 Taiwanese DVD Release Schedule
The Taiwanese BVHE site now lists a release date for the following films:



As the Taiwanese release dates are typically a few months behind the Japanese release dates; inferring the remaining unannouced Japanese DVDs is no longer guesswork. The Japanese DVDs might all be released in 2002, but it looks like a few might slip into 2003.

The DVDs will include the Japanese audio track plus an all new Mandarin dub. Chinese subtitles are also included.

Thanks to Daniel Liang and Steve Underwood for the news.

January 25, 2002 "Sen" in German Film Festival
The film (retaining its original Japanese title) will be shown at "Berlinale", the largest film festival in Germany. "Sen" is the first animated film in the festival's history. The festival runs from February 6 to February 17.



Thanks to Knut Brockmann and René Pfeifer for the news.

January 25, 2002 Ghilbli Museum Shorts in New York City
"The Whale Hunt" and "Koro's Big Day Out", short films created specifically for the Studio Ghibli museum, will show at the 2002 New York International Children's Film Festival. The NYICFF screened the new English dub of "Castle in the Sky" back in 1999.

The showing is set for March 4 at 4:00pm. "Panda! Go Panda!" will also screen with the two shorts under the program title, "Miyazaki: New and Old".

Additional screenings are planned for March 30 at noon, and March 31 at 2:30pm.

Details at the NYICFF website.

Thanks to Jonah Moulin for posting the news to the MML.

January 25, 2002 French Mononoke DVD Details, "Le voyage de Chihiro" Delayed
Two editions of "Princesse Mononoke" are scheduled for release in France on March 20. A normal edition (identical to the R1 DVD) and a collector's edition that includes a single 35mm frame from the film.

Another edition (super-hyper-deluxe?) with even more goodies is scheduled for a September 23 release.

For more details (including box scans) please visit:



The theatrical release date for "Le voyage de Chihiro" is now April 4 (according to the French edition of "Premiere" magazine) or April 10 from this site.

Thanks to Xavier Paul and Martin Kaegi for the news.

January 24, 2002 How to Tell Disney You Want Kiki on DVD
For the past several months there has been a page on the Disney website about a DVD version of "Kiki's Delivery Service". It turned out that the page was posted in error. However, they have now *changed* the page saying this title is not available on DVD *BUT* then they have a link where you can vote it you would like to see them release it on DVD. Click here to access the page.

The message and the link are on the left under the cover picture. If you click on that, you get a form to fill out with your name, email address, choice of whether you want it on DVD or VHS and a space for comments. A comment isn't necessary, but if you do put one, please be polite and positive. Saying "I would buy all the Ghibli films on DVD if you were to release them" gets a lot more mileage with them than "Die Disney Scum!" ^_^

Thanks to Wayne Unten for the information.

January 18, 2002 Brief Peek Behind the Scenes
The Softimage online magazine covers Studio Ghili's use of their software in this article. It's somewhat of a thinly-veiled advertisment, but does contain interesting tidbits.

Thanks to Justin Leach for posting the news to the MML.

January 15, 2002 New Bootlegged DVD Covers
Bootlegged DVDs using the same cover design as the R2 DVDs of "Kiki's Delivery Service" and "Totoro" have started to surface on auction sites. This practice will undoubtedly continue as future films are released on DVD.

Read the descriptions carefully for the telltale "all region" or "all zone" giveaway. Please consult the Video Guide pages if you are unsure about an item's legitimacy.

Thanks to Jeff Roberie for the information.

January 14, 2002 Various Pieces of News
A special double-feature is taking place in Melbourne (Australia) on January 19. "Metropolis" and "Princess Mononoke" (sub) are scheduled to show at The Astor Theatre at 1:00pm on the 19th. Click here for details and to purchase tickets.

There's a writeup of the group interview done with Hayao Miyazaki while in France over at midnighteye.com.

Miss the BBC Scotland radio show?



Thanks to Gary Watson for a reminder about the interview. Thanks to Ben Campbell-Barry for posting the Melbourne news to the MML. Thanks to Ian for recording and posting the MP3s.

January 10, 2002 BBC Radio Scotland Broadcast
A 7 minute discussion about the works of Studio Ghibli is scheduled for broadcast on The Brian Morton Show at 6:10pm (GMT) on Friday, January 11th. The program repeats at 10:10pm.

Andrew Osmond and Helen McCarthy are scheduled to make appearances.

No radio access? Listen live on-line via RealAudio.

January 7, 2002 German "Mononoke" VHS Release, No DVD
First reported on de.alt.anime, "Prinzessin Mononoke" is slated for release on April 18, 2002. Rentals will be available starting April 4.

Hanno Mueller contacted BVHE and posted the following to the MML:

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The VHS video tape coming this April will be full-screen because "that's company policy on animation."
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A DVD is not planned for release in Germany:

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The main reason is that Buena Vista International hasn't given BVHE Germany the publishing rights for a DVD release.

"We don't even know who has these rights for Germany and we ourselves were unable to find out about it. Sometimes," I was told, "our mother company keeps us uninformed on such issues."

A different company could pick up the DVD release rights. He doubts that anyone would do that. Mononoke had ridicilously low audience figures in Germany and it wouldn't make any business sense.
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Thanks to Hanno Mueller and Jens Vogel for the information.