News

U.K. Release of Ice October 24

A new British video label, Cine du Monde, will release the anime film Ice on October 24. (The company's web-page is down as of writing, although its page on Ice is cached here; the company also has a facebook page.)

On its facebook page, Cine du Monde indicated that the DVD will be sub-only, unlike the edition being released by Sentai Filmworks in America, which includes a dub. Asked if the label would release further anime titles, Cine du Monde said, "It really depends what we can get our hands on."

ICE is directed by Makoto Kobayashi, who is also known for his mechanical designs on such titles as Giant Robo, Last Exile, and the upcoming sequel Last Exile -Fam, The Silver Wing-. The story takes place in the near future when all male humans in the world have died off and only 20,000 females remain living in the Tokyo ward of Shinjuku. While some of the survivors decide to accept humanity's death sentence and live bacchanal lives, other fight over a mysterious substance called ICE that may be humanity's salvation. PPM animated the project.

Yuko Oshima, Erena Ono, Tomomi Kasai, and Natsuki Satō of the female idol group AKB48 voiced roles in this anime. After screening in film festivals in Tokyo, San Paulo, and Chicago, the ICE movie opened in Japan in 2008.

Cine du Monde's other announced titles are live-action films, including the notorious 2002 Japanese horror picture Suicide Club (directed by Shion Sono), due for release on September 19. The film, about an epidemic of grisly suicides in Japan, is adapted from the manga Jisatsu Circle by Usamaru Furuya.

Via Anime UK News;