'Genius Party' and 'Genius Party Beyond' Lead First Wave of GKIDS Home Video Exclusives.
GKIDS Films are North America's leading independent distributor of animation films for family and adult audiences. Over the past few years, they've been best known for bringing quality animation to the big screen. Now it seems they are beginning to expand their home entertainment releases, with the announcement of their first wave of direct to home video releases.
GKIDS have announced the Studio 4℃ anthologies Genius Party and Genius Pary Beyond and anime features The Case Of Hana and Alice and Summer Days With Coo will be released on home video in the US for the first time.
It's a new approach for the distributor, and a potentially exciting one. It opens up the possibility of a much wider of titles getting released- not every animated film will do well in cinemas. And it's an interesting line up of titles, too. Summer Days With Coo will be the first English-language release of the film, whereas the other titles have previously been available via Anime Limited in the UK.
The titles are all due for release during 2019 but specific dates or formats are to be confirmed.
About THE CASE OF HANA AND ALICE
When Alice transfers to a new middle school, she hears an urban legend about a student who disappeared the previous year and is suspected to have been killed by his fellow students. Even worse, Alice discovers that she lives next door to his former house, a supposedly haunted home now occupied by a reclusive classmate named Hana. Hana and Alice decide to investigate this "murder case" together, but soon find their lack of detective skills may be an obstacle, in this unusual and charming film from famed writer-director Shunji Iwai, in which a shaggy-dog mystery tale ultimately gives way to a wonderfully nuanced story of young female friendship, and the fantasies and thrills of everyday teenage life.
About GENIUS PARTY and GENIUS PARTY BEYOND
From groundbreaking animation outfit STUDIO 4°C, creators of MFKZ and the upcoming Children of the Sea, comes an extraordinary project with a simple vision: to take an all-star team of the some best animators working in Japanese animation today, and give each free reign to tell a unique short story. The results are GENIUS PARTY and GENIUS PARTY BEYOND, two animated anthology films full of boundless imagination, fantastic worlds, and unique visual styles.
About SUMMER DAYS WITH COO
One day, Koichi Uehara, a fourth-grader living in the suburbs of Tokyo, picks up a fossil that looks like a large stone while on his way home from school. To his surprise, he has picked up a baby Kappa (a Japanese mythical water creature), who has been asleep underground for the past 300 years. Koichi names this baby creature "Coo" and brings him to live with his family, and soon the two are inseparable friends.
However, trouble abounds as Coo struggles to adjust to life in suburban Tokyo, and begins to miss his family, leading Koichi and Coo to embark on a summer road trip adventure in search of other Kappa. Directed by Keiichi Hara (Miss Hokusai, Colorful), one of Japan's leading animated film directors, SUMMER DAYS WITH COO is a heartwarming and magical summer adventure.
