ADV Gets AIR
Today ADV Films co-founder Matt Greenfield announced that ADV has acquired exclusive home video and broadcast rights in North America for the anime series Air and the 85-minute Air Movie. Greenfield made the announcement during a panel at Anime Matsuri, South Texas’ largest anime convention. Volume one of the four-disc Air series will hit store shelves August 14, and the Air Movie is slated for release in late 2007.
Air is a fan-favorite series in Japan, having placed #32 in TV Asahi’s all time Top 100 Anime list (2006). A product of the famous production studio Kyoto Animation (Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, Inuyasha) and director Tatsuya Ishihara (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Kanon), Air is easily one of the most-anticipated series to reach our shores this year. The standalone Air Movie, which was produced by Toei (Air Gear, Kanon) and directed by Osamu Dezaki (Black Jack The Movie), is a fitting finale to the Air mania sweeping North America.
In announcing these acquisitions, Greenfield said ‘as anime fans ourselves, we’re very excited to announce that ADV will be releasing Air, as it’s already being ranked as one of the most popular anime titles of all time in Japan, and the fans who have seen it here the States are equally enthusiastic in their praise.’
Greenfield continued, ‘we’re also pleased to say that, while negotiating a title that’s split between two different licensors can be tricky, we have indeed secured the rights for both the TV series and the movie, thereby insuring total continuity between the English language versions.’
Synopsis: Yukito Kunisaki is a wandering puppeteer on a jouney to find ‘the girl in the sky,’ a tradition his family has held for generations. Upon arriving in a new town, he is befriended by a lonely young girl named Misuzu, who offers him a place to stay. Yukito soon begins to suspect that Misuzu has ties with ‘the girl in the sky’ when she begins to speak of dreams of flying, but before his suspicions are confirmed, Yukito meets two more mysterious girls. Now Follow Yukito as he pieces together the lives of three different girls to discover the truth of ‘the girl in the sky.’