American distributor GKIDS and streaming service Shout! Factory has announced this Monday that they will be releasing Satoshi Kon’s Tokyo Godfathers film on Blu-ray disc. This will be the first time for the said film to receive a Blu-ray release. According to their website, the film’s Blu-ray disc and a BD/DVD combo pack will be out on stores on June 2. Both releases will have an English dub as well as the original Japanese audio dub.
The Blu-ray release will include bonus features such as an interview with Shakina Nayfack, the English dub voice for Hana, as well as Kon’s short film “Ohayo”. This will be the first time that the said short film is made available outside of Japan.
GKIDS and Fathom Events held special screenings of the film in 4K resolution in different theaters in the United States. The film was screened with English subtitles on March 9, while the new English dub was screened on March 11.
GKIDS describes the film’s story as such:
“In modern-day Tokyo, three homeless people’s lives are changed forever when they discover a baby girl at a garbage dump on Christmas Eve. As the New Year fast approaches, these three forgotten members of society band together to solve the mystery of the abandoned child and the fate of her parents. Along the way, encounters with seemingly unrelated events and people force them to confront their own haunted pasts, as they learn to face their future, together.”
Tokyo Godfathers premiered in Japan in 2003, with Columbia Tristar distributing the film in US theaters that same year. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the film on DVD in 2004. It is directed by famed director Satoshi Kon, known for his other works like Perfect Blue (1997) and Paprika (2006). Tokyo Godfathers was loosely based on the novel Three Godfathers written by Peter B. Kyne. Kon also wrote the script for the film, along with Keiko Nobumoto. Nobumoto is most known as the head scriptwriter of Cowboy Bebop.
The film won the Excellence Prize at the 2003 Japan Media Arts Festival.
Source: Anime News Network