Anime fans in the U.K. will have to wait a long, long me before they can buy Your Name on Blu-ray

Amazon lists release date for hit Makoto Shinkai movie.

Among its other merits, director Makoto Shinkai’s anime phenomenon Your Name includes a ridiculously catchy insert song from Japanese rock band Radwimps. It’s titled “Zenzenzense,” which translates to “Past Past Past Life.”

▼ A large number of those 85 million-plus views come from me.

The song’s title is sort of appropriate, in that some people outside of Japan feel like they’ve been waiting four lifetimes for a chance to finally see the film. See, Your Name is in a state of limbo as far as its worldwide availability is concerned. In Japan, it’s already been in theaters long enough to become one of the most successful movies, animated or not, of all time in the country, and it’s been setting records in other parts of Asia as well.

However, anime fans in English-speaking regions have had much less opportunity to watch the film. Though it had its world premiere screening at Los Angeles’Anime Expo convention last July, the only other U.S. theaters to have shown it so far are a handful of facilities in and around the City of Angels, as part of the process to qualify Your Name for consideration for an Academy Award. In the U.K., it’s seen a wider, though still severely limited, release, leaving many Shinkai supporters on both sides of the Atlantic hoping for a Blu-ray release to come quickly so that they can finally see what all the excitement is about.

Unfortunately, it looks like they’re in for a long wait.

Amazon U.K. now has a listing for the Blu-ray, for which it gives a release date of October 30, 2017. On the plus side, it’s priced at just 16.99 pounds (US$21), which is a pretty affordable price for an English-region anime movie, and far less than Japanese retailers charge for anime Blu-rays in the medium’s home country, but on the downside, a late-October release in the U.K. probably indicates that the U.S. isn’t going to be getting a release before the fall of next year either.

To add a bit of historical perspective, year-plus waits for English territory anime releases used to be the norm, back when the international market was smaller and slower moving. In the modern era of online simulcasts, though, overseas fans get to enjoy brand-new TV anime simultaneously with heir counterparts in Japan. Overseas home video releases of theatrical features, though, remain the exception, since the overseas home video release generally has to wait while the standard progression of Japanese theatrical run, overseas theatrical screenings, and Japanese home video release unfolds. Add in a few months to minimize the chance of Japanese consumers reverse importing lower-priced overseas market disks, and it adds up to what’s bound to feel like an excruciatingly long time until English territory fans who can’t make it to a screening finally get to see Your Name.

But hey, at least they can listen to “Zenzenzense” a couple more times while they’re waiting.

Source: Amazon U.K. via Otakomu
Top image: Amazon U.K. (edited by RocketNews24)

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