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NIS America Licenses Cardcaptor Sakura TV Anime

NIS America announced on Wednesday that it will release the Cardcaptor Sakura anime series in a Blu-ray Premium Edition and DVD Standard Edition in North America. Both editions will include a bonus monaural English-dubbed track, and will ship on August 5.

The Premium Edition, which will retail for US$249.99, will include all 70 episodes on nine Blu-ray Discs, a 76-page hardcover art book, clean openings and endings, and a collectable slip case. The Standard edition will ship in three 4-DVD volumes for US$59.99 each.

NIS America describes the story:

Ten-year-old Sakura lives a pretty normal life with her older brother, Toya, and widowed father, Fujitaka. At least she did, until the day she returned home from school to discover a glowing book in her father's study. After opening the book and releasing the cards within, Sakura is tasked with collecting each of these magical cards, while trying to live the life of a normal fourth grader. In the monumental task of collecting all the cards, Sakura must rely on her friends and family, and decide what she finds most important in life.

The series was previously licensed by Nelvana and released in English as the heavily-edited Cardcaptors. A sub-license allowed Geneon Entertainment (formerly Pioneer Entertainment) to release the series on subtitle-only DVD and VHS beginning in 2000, though the company halted DVD distribution in 2007. Discotek licensed Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie, which was previously owned by Geneon, last year and plans to release it on home video this year. Geneon had also licensed the franchise's second movie, Cardcaptor Sakura: The Sealed Card, which received a new dub from Bang Zoom! Entertainment.

Tokyopop released CLAMP's original manga series in two editions and Dark Horse Comics released the series in omnibus format.