hardtack

Surprised not to see a post on this here yet, but here is a cut and paste of a post I made on DVDPlaza:

Finally, the official release of Howl's Moving Castle on DVD has been set for the 16th November in Japan.

Here at Amazon (best prices)

Some details in English (from Nausicaa.net):

Standard Edition:
2 disc set
Disc 1: Film. Letterboxed, Japanese Audio (DD 2.0 and DD EX), English Audio (DD 5.1), Japanese and English subtitles.
Disc 2: Storyboards, trailers, documentary of Howl premiers in Venice and US, interviews of DWJ, staff, and casts of the English version
VWDZ-8076
4,935Yen

Special Edition
4 disc set
Disc 1: Japanese version (DD 2.0 and DTS-ES), no subtitles )
hardtack's note: - I think the above is incorrect, as looking on the Amazon Japan site, they definitely have English subtitles listed for Disc 1.

Disc 2: Japanese, English, French, Mandarin, and Cantonese (all DD 2.0), subtitles in these five languages
Disc 3: Same as the Disc 2 of Standard Edition
Disc 4: Miyazaki and Moebius Talk, documentary of the US premier, "Hello, Mr. Lasseter" (a clip of Miyazaki and John Lasseter meeting again), a lecture by Mitsunori Kataama (CG director) about the CG in movie.
VWDZ-8084
8,925Yen - (another hardtack note: - I have ordered this one and after taxes are removed and with Amazon's 22% discount, it comes to 6630 yen)

Also released on Nov. 16th:
Ghibli ga Ippai Special Short Short
Includes: Sorairo no Tane, On Your Mark, Portable Airport, Space Station No.9, Various Commercials, Nandaro
VWDZ-8078
3,900Yen - (and yet another hardtack note: - I have ordered the Special Shorts as well, and after taxes are removed and with Amazon's 20% discount, it comes to 3040 yen)

A boxset containing the "Howl" Standard Edition DVD and the Studio Ghibli Shorts DVD will be released as well.
It comes with a "Dore Dore no Uta" CD (a song used in Yomiuri Newspaper TV commercial, which Ghibli animated)
VWDZ-8086
8,925Yen

If you preorder, you can get a clip of the 35mm film.

Cover images and detailes in Japanese:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...0909/buena.htm
http://www.tsutaya.co.jp/sp/howl/index.zhtml

Giles

glad to see a DTS-ES track on the Japanese edition (as they previousily had done with "Spirited Away")

rexinnih

I've been waiting for this announcement!

Brooklyn

Ordered the 4 disc and the shorts early this a.m.
at 36 minutes of content the Ghibli Shorts dvd costs more than a buck a minute
after shipping. ...But I have to have it

manicsounds

Just got the 4 disc set,
and as i found, the 4 subtitles on disc 2 (besides the japanese)
are in fact subtitles for the Japanese language track and NOT captions for their respective languages.

also, it seems that disc 1 doesnt include english subtitles,
but i am still trying to check that out. (i'm not home from the store yet)

but disc 1 does not have a subtitle menu,
but it might be remote access only. get back to everyone tomorrow on it more.

BrunnenMatt

Thanks manicsounds, that would be greatly appreciated if you could do that .

...BMatt

Brooklyn

Mine's scheduled for delivery today so I can check as well.
...Though Nausicca.net now has an update claiming there aren't any on disc 1.
Looks like no subbed DTS

Brooklyn

Nope, no subtitles on disc 1 (by either the menus or the remote)
The only selections are the film, chapter listings and sound settings (Dolby Digital 2.0 and DTS-ES).

manicsounds

OK, here's my review of the 4 disc set.

Non Japanese speakers might be a bit disappointed......

Disc 1 includes a superb DTS-ES Matrix track along with the 2.0 surround,
unfortunately no subtitles are provided on that disc

Disc 2 has 5 languages options in 2.0 surround and subtitles for each language.
These are all literal translations of the Japanese script,
and are NOT captions.

So the only way non-japanese speakers can watch the movie
is through disc 2 with only the moderate 2.0

The extras are not as stacked as you might think.

Disc 3 has about only 40 minutes of extras (excluding the multiangle storyboards) The Pete Docter and Diana Wynn Jones interviews are in English with nonremovable Japanese subtitles. The questions for them are in Japanese text only, so for most of you, you have to figure out what the question was. The documentary of the premiers runs quite short. It interviews with people around the world and their reaction after watching it. animation historian John Culhane is interviewed for a second too.

Disc 4 has only about 1 hour of extras

On Disc 4, Moebius and Miyazaki is an interesting segment, but of course it is in Japanese and French and is about 15 min. long. The US premier at MoMa has some interviews with Miyazaki and the english cast, but Billy Crystal and Christian Bale are nowhere to be found.

"Hello Mr Lasseter" is quite fun, where Miyazaki made a surprise visit to Pixar on the day they were screening the English version for the first time.

The final extra on disc 4 I havent gotten to yet (about the CG of the Castle)


One thing very disappointing on this release is that there isnt a making-of doc like on the US Spirited Away disc, the Cat Returns disc, or the mammoth 3-disc Making of Princess Mononoke set......

I wonder what other regions will get......

RichardW

That sucks balls.

Giles

it aint' as deluxe as the Japanese box set but hey, it's got DTS

Howl's Moving Castle (DTS Version) (Hong Kong Version

rexinnih

Sending my 4-disc back to amazon.co.jp and ordering this one. Need subtitles with my DTS.

RichardW

This is the most disappointing R2 Japan Miyazaki yet. I hope this isn't what future releases will be like.

hardtack

Hope I'm not too late to be of assistance, but this is what I posted on the UK DVD Forums:
================
Well, Amazon Japan were kind enough to admit the error on their part (listing English Subs for Disc 1 of the 4 disc SE; see my post above) and have offered to refund the full cost of the DVD to my card and have asked me to keep the DVDs, the return mail cost being prohibitive. Great customer service!!
================

Email them on [email protected] and explain that you would otherwise have opted for the cheaper 2 disc release.

Giles

unless it's a hidden track - DTS is NOT on the Hong Kong edition, despite what YesAsia states. Got my copy in the mail today, and it says on the back there are two audio tracks: Dolby Digital 6.1 EX (Japanese) / Dolby Digital 5.1 (Cantonese). Needless to say, I am a bit miffed.

there is now another version with DTS-ES sound, here:

http://us.yesasia.com/assocred.asp?C...section-anime/

and another Korean (lower priced) edition here:

http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.asp...section-anime/

can anyone confirm if the latter does in fact have a DTS track ??

hardtack

No, that edition does not have DTS... only the excellent Korean 3 disc LE has DTS with English subtitles. I whole heartedly recommend the Special Limited Edition (Korean) and at just a few dollars more than the 2 disc version you cite above, I recommend purchasing from www.dvdfromkorea.com who have fast delivery and great customer service.