Unboxing [UK]: The Garden of Words - Film (Blu-ray)

It's time to unbox the latest All the Anime release, The Garden of Words on Blu-ray.

Note that this post has been updated (8th November 2015) to reflect the new blog format and add additional notes to the release.

The Garden of Words is a short anime film (like the director's other work 5 Centimeters per Second) with amazing visuals and is a must see for owners with access to HDTV. This is Makoto Shinkai's fifth major work and is still one of my favourite Japanese anime directors around.

This Anime Limited release is a standard barebones release with just the main film on 1 Blu-ray disc. Due to the film length the distributor decided not to make a collector's edition. The film does contain a couple extras including commentary for both the English dub and original Japanese audio. The film is only compatible with Region B players. Oddly enough this UK release doesn't contain on-screen subtitles for the English dub.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages: Japanese, English

Audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1 [Japanese], DTS-HD MA 5.1 [English]

Video: 1080p HD Native 16:9

Region: B

Subtitles: English [Japanese language]

Subtitles Locked: No

Discs: 1

Plot Synposis (via Anime Limited):

We have met, for each of us to walk forward.

Takao, who is training to become a shoemaker, skipped school and is sketching shoes in a Japanese-style garden. He meets a mysterious woman, Yukino, who is older than him. Then, without arranging the times, the two start to see each other again and again, but only on rainy days. They deepen their relationship and open up to each other. But the end of the rainy season soon approaches...

Extra Content:

English Commentary

Japanese Commentary

Interviews

Storyboards

English Production Skills

The Garden of Words - Japanese Trailer

The Works of Makoto Shinkai (Japanese Trailer Retrospective of his other major works)

The Garden of Words is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Sentai Filmworks (North America), Madman (Australia) and All the Anime (United Kingdom). The UK release will also be included as part of the upcoming planned Shinkai Collection in development from All the Anime.