Unboxing [UK]: Momotaro Sacred Sailors - Collector's Edition (BD/DVD)

Today I went in HMV and acquired another Anime Limited release. This is a unique anime and is pretty controversial, but nevertheless it's an important one to the animation industry.

Momotaro Sacred Sailors (Momotarou: Umi no Shinpei) is a 1945 anime film from director Mitsuyo Seo, studio Shochiku Animation Institute and published by Shochiku. This is the first ever feature length anime film released as a World War II Propaganda video. Because it's a propaganda film it's going to be controversial for many but for me I'm more interested about what the animation was like and how it came to be, which is why this Anime Limited release is pretty interesting.

Momotaro also includes a short film called The Spider and the Tulip (Kumo to Tulip) which was released in 1943 by director Kenzou Masaoka and the same animation studio mentioned above. So overall we have one feature-length anime film and one short anime film in one collection. Anime Limited have the UK & Ireland rights while Funimation have the US & Canada rights.

The UK Collector's Edition release offers the two films on both Blu-ray and DVD across a disc each. Due to the age of the films (remember these two were made back in the 1940s), they are both Japanese audio with English subtitles. The subtitles are locked during playback. The Blu-ray is region locked to B and the DVD is region locked to 2 in NTSC format. Also included with the release is a 128-page book called "Sacred Sailors: The Life and Works of Seo Mitsuyo", which was written by Dr. Jonathan Clements. Jonathan Clements is well-known in the industry and he's also the author of Anime: A History and co-author of the Anime Encyclopedia. He's pretty big in the UK anime community also.

You can order the film on Amazon UK as a collector's combo pack.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages: Japanese

Audio: Dolby TrueHD 2.0

Video: 1080p HD Native 4:3

Region: B

Subtitles: English

Subtitles Locked: Yes

Discs: 1

DVD Specs:

Languages: Japanese

Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0

Video: SD NTSC 4:3

Region: 2

Subtitles: English

Subtitles Locked: Yes

Discs: 1

Plot Synopsis (via Anime Limited):

Momotaro Sacred Sailors played a major part in setting the stage for the rise of anime and was Japan's first feature-length animated film. A notable accomplishment for its time, the project was funded by the Navy Ministry of Japan during World War II. Along with another early masterpiece, Spider and Tulip, these films have been restored into HD so a whole new audience can see the milestones of the industry and historical artifacts from World War II.

On-Disc Extra Features:

Funimation Trailers

Collector's Edition Extras:

Rigid box with clean artwork on front side and spine, information is on the back side

Sacred Sailors: The Life and Works of Seo Mitsuyo, a 128-page book from Dr. Jonathan Clements

Momotaro Sacred Sailors is available as a Blu-ray and DVD combo pack from Anime Limited.