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Funimation Acquires Ghost in the Shell: Arise Anime
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North American anime distributor Funimation announced on Friday that it licensed the Ghost in the Shell Arise anime. It will release the anime in a special edition of 2,500 units on imported Blu-ray Disc with English subtitles. The release will have the imported Japanese O-card, film strip, and an English-translated art booklet. Funimation is offering this limited edition "prior to FUNimation's typical English language home video release."
Funimation will also screen the first two 50-minute parts of the four-part anime in a limited theatrical run later this year.
The anime's story is set in 2027, one year after the end of the fourth non-nuclear war. Newport City is still reeling from the war's aftermath when it suffers a bombing caused by a self-propelled mine. Then, a military officer implicated in arms-dealing bribes is gunned down.
During the investigation, Public Security Section 9's Daisuke Aramaki encounters Motoko Kusanagi, the cyborg wizard-level hacker assigned to the military's Secret Unit 501. Batou, a man with the "eye that does not sleep," suspects that Kusanagi is the one behind the bombing. The Niihama Prefectural Police detective Togusa is pursuing his own dual cases of the shooting death and a prostitute's murder. Motoko herself is being watched by Secret Unit 501's head Kurutsu and cyborg agents.
Kazuchika Kise (chief animation director for Otogi Zoshi, Blood-C: The Last Dark) is directing the series and designing the characters, and Tow Ubukata (Le Chevalier D'Eon, Mardock Scramble) is supervising and writing the scripts. Production I.G is producing the series, and Cornelius (Appleseed: Ex Machina) is composing the music.
The series stars Maaya Sakamoto as Mokoto Kusanagi, Kenichirō Matsuda as Batou, Tarusuke Shingaki as Togusa, Tomoyuki Dan as Ishikawa, Takurou Nakakuni as Saito, Youji Ueda as Paz, Kazuya Nakai as Borma, Ikkyuu Juku as Daisuke Aramaki, Mayumi Asano as Kurutsu, and Takanori Hoshino as Raizō.
Update: Funimation is offering this limited edition "prior to FUNimation's typical English language home video release."
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