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Live-Action Black Butler Gets Blu-ray Release in the U.K.

Funi fans might be so jealous but they can always import it.

Kadmos1 wrote:

Funi fans might be so jealous but they can always import it.

Especially since it's region-free! And for Rurouni Kenshin fans who aren't in the know, the UK steelbook blu-rays for the first movie and upcoming second movie are also region-free! Why it's arranged that way, I don't know, but it makes even me wish it happens more often.

Thanks to mdo7 for the news tip

Kadmos1 wrote:

Funi fans might be so jealous but they can always import it.

Especially since it's region-free! And for Rurouni Kenshin fans who aren't in the know, the UK steelbook blu-rays for the first movie and upcoming second movie are also region-free! Why it's arranged that way, I don't know, but it makes even me wish it happens more often.

But sadly, I don't know if we will see a region 1 release for this film.

mdo7 wrote:

But sadly, I don't know if we will see a region 1 release for this film.

Maybe that's partly why it's region-free to begin with, to help remove that kind of issue.

Well I hope it's not expensive to import.

I still can't figure out why no one in NA has picked this...up

Sheleigha wrote:

I still can't figure out why no one in NA has picked this...up

Could the fact that all the reviews I've read rate it from boringly mediocre to outright dross have anything to do with it?

Sheleigha wrote:

I still can't figure out why no one in NA has picked this...up

Could the fact that all the reviews I've read rate it from boringly mediocre to outright dross have anything to do with it?

There are a few trend stories out there right now about how Japanese films aren't marketable outside of Japan and how, aside from Ghibli output, they perform poorly in international film festivals. It's considered a handicap and something they need to fix if they want the kind of box office and prestige that comes from having internationally marketable product, but I'm not at all sure how the industry itself there is approaching that or if they even care.

I don't know if bad review is the cause, but I remember Zac said something about Japanese films not being marketable and I'll quote:

Zac wrote:

There are a few trend stories out there right now about how Japanese films aren't marketable outside of Japan and how, aside from Ghibli output, they perform poorly in international film festivals. It's considered a handicap and something they need to fix if they want the kind of box office and prestige that comes from having internationally marketable product, but I'm not at all sure how the industry itself there is approaching that or if they even care.

I don't know how the UK and Australia got it but US/Canada can't get this film, and Funimation beside picking up the live-action Yamato are not picking up Japanese film like they used to in the past.

Yay an answer! I even wrote into Hey Answerman about it months ago and it never got used :/

I didn't think they did that bad, honestly, and it is a good question why the EU and AU markets have been picking them up. Pretty disappointing the Funi isn't picking them up either, since I'm still surprised they got the Mushishi movie.

Japanese audiences, typically a patient group, will show up for long-winded, defanged pics, but foreign audiences are less tolerant. “These self-censored films have never been accepted by the overseas market,” says Takamatsu. “The free creativity seen in films by Miike, Kitano, Sono and others has produced better results overseas.”

While some argue that with such a big domestic market, the Japanese biz can afford to regard foreign sales as simply the mint after the banquet, Takashi Nishimura, who as managing director of UniJapan is responsible for promoting Japanese film abroad thinks differently.

“(The Japanese film industry feels) a sense of crisis that the domestic market is no longer enough,” Nishimura said last year at the Intl. Film Festival of India in Goa. “But Japanese films are made only for Japanese.”

But again I don't know why Europe and Australian are picking these up (along with Korean films and other Asian cinema), while North America is stuck picking up other non-Japanese Asian cinemas.