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Free! Series' New Screen Project's Announcement Video Streamed
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Kyoto Animation began streaming a promotional video on Sunday for the Blu-ray Disc and DVD home video release of its High Speed! -Free! Starting Days- film. The video features the announcement of the Free! franchise's "new screen project." The announcement did not indicate the new project's medium or format.
In addition, the video reveals that there will be an event on March 19 at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan in Tokyo. Nobunaga Shimazaki, Tatsuhisa Suzuki, Toshiyuki Toyonaga, Kōki Uchiyama, Kenji Nojima, and Satoshi Hino – who all star in the High Speed! -Free! Starting Days- film – will be present at the event. Both the Blu-ray Disc and DVD first print limited edition of the film contain a priority sales ticket for the event. The Blu-ray Disc and DVD shipped in Japan on July 20.
Kyoto Animation's first Free! anime about the Iwatobi High School Swim Club premiered in July 2013, and Crunchyroll streamed the anime as it aired in Japan. Discotek released the first season on DVD in North America. Free! Eternal Summer, the second television anime season, premiered in July 2014, and Funimation released the second season for streaming and home video in North America with an English dub. Crunchyroll streamed the English dub of the first season last December, and it plans to release the season on both Blu-ray Disc and DVD.
The High Speed! -Free! Starting Days- film is directly inspired by the High Speed! novel that was loosely adapted into the original Free! television anime. Whereas the Free! anime centers on Haruka and the other swimmers during high school, High Speed! followed them during middle school. The second volume of the novel series shipped in July 2014. The film opened in Japan last December on 120 screens, selling 67,829 tickets for 95,546,400 yen (about US$774,000), and ranking #5 in attendance during its opening weekend.
