Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond for a UK Blu-ray & DVD release

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Studio 4C returned to the spotlight to bring many of their titles to fans and newcomers over on Netflix but now Anime Limited have announced the rights to distribute both Genius Party and its sequel Genius Party Beyond for Blu-ray and DVD.

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It’s the end of the week and we have some exciting news to share with you are happy to announce that we (Anime Limited) will be releasing Genius Party and Genius Party Beyond in the UK.

Genius Party is a series of 7 short films released by Studio 4°C in Japan in 2007 that featured different creative minds from all sides of the anime spectrum coming together for each film. A popular tag line at the time was “7 Impacts by 7 Directors.” The followup Genius Party Beyond featured new 5 short films bringing more creative minds together.

“At Anime Limited we’ve always been big fans of unique film projects and Genius Party is no different” says Andrew Partridge, President of Anime Limited. “When you look at the directorial personnel involved Shinichiro Watanabe, Mahiro Maeda and Masaaki Yuasa, combined with the varying experiences working in anime from all involved this really is a wonderful project and I’m delighted we’re getting to bring this to the UK.”

At this time we can confirm that we will be releasing these on Blu-ray and DVD. We will have more details for you soon about our plans but in the interim you can watch the trailers for both and find a the complete list of films below.
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Genius Party covers 7 short films from 7 different directors:
■ Genius Party - Atsuko Fukushima, worked on Giovanni’s Island & Space Adventure Cobra
■ Shanghai Dragon - Shoji Kawamori, worked on Escaflowne & Macross
■ Deathtic 4 - Shinji Kimura, worked on Blood Blockade Battlefront & Steamboy
■ Doorbell - Yoji Fukuyama, worked on manga works like Don Giovanni & Gamura-Kahn
■ Limit Cycle - Hideki Futamura, worked on JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure & Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack
■ Happy Machine - Masaaki Yuasa, worked on Ping Pong & The Tatami Galaxy
■ Baby Blue - Shinichiro Watanabe, worked on Cowboy Bebop & Space Dandy

Genius Party Beyond covers 5 short films from 5 different directors:
■ Gala - Mahiro Maeda, worked on Evengelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo & Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo
■ Moondrive - Kazuto Nakazawa, worked on Linkin Park’s "Breaking The Habit" music video & Terror In Resonance
■ Wanna The Puppy - Shinya Ohira, worked on A Letter To Momo & Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
■ Tojin Kit - Tatsuyuki Tanaka, worked on Akira & Bubblegum Crisis
■ Dimension Bomb - Koji Morimoto, worked on The Animatrix & Macross Plus

You can check out both Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond on Netflix in Japanese with English subtitles.

Blog Anime Limited
 
Anime Limited To Release Genius Party Anthologies

Following the end of another weary working week, Anime Limited have confirmed plans to release Studio&nbsp;4&deg;C's iconic 2007 project <strong>Genius Party</strong> and its follow-up <strong>Genius Party Beyond</strong> in the United Kingdom on DVD and Blu-ray formats.

<strong>Genius Party</strong> is an anthology of seven short films helmed by veterans from across the anime industry, such as <em>Escaflowne</em> creator Shoji Kawamori, <em>Steamboy </em>director Shinji Kimura and <em>Cowboy Bebop</em>'s Shinichiro Watanabe. A follow-up collection titled <strong>Genius Party Beyond</strong> was released a year later, featuring short films by Mahiro Maeda (Director, <em>Evangelion 3.33</em>), Shinya Ohira (Key Animation, <em>A Letter To Momo</em>) and Tatsuyuki Tanaka (Key Animation, <em>Akira</em>) among others.

Andrew Partridge, the President of Anime LImited, had this to say regarding the acquisition:


&ldquo;At Anime Limited we&rsquo;ve always been big fans of unique film projects and Genius Party is no different. When you look at the directorial personnel involved Shinichiro Watanabe, Mahiro Maeda and Masaaki Yuasa, combined with the varying experiences working in anime from all involved this really is a wonderful project and I&rsquo;m delighted we&rsquo;re getting to bring this to the UK.&rdquo;


Trailers and more details regarding the <strong>Genius Party</strong> shorts can be found on Anime Limited's website.
 
Re: Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond

This is neat. I find it funny how many were asking for Mind Game but instead we get Genius Party.
 
Re: Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond

Cool, wasn't at all on my radar, but now I'm looking forward to it! (Now I just need to beg for the recent animator expo shorts on a Blu-ray).
 
Re: Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond

These are currently on Netflix for anyone who is curious and doesn't know. I need to get round to watching them myself.
 
Re: Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond

NoSurprises said:
Cool, wasn't at all on my radar, but now I'm looking forward to it! (Now I just need to beg for the recent animator expo shorts on a Blu-ray).
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Worth noting that Andrew dropped some reasonable hints about working with Studio 4C when they announced their Netflix partnership. He has made perhaps more overt hints that the Animator Expo shorts are coming, so begging probably not neccesary. :)
 
Re: Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond

Buzz201 said:
NoSurprises said:
Cool, wasn't at all on my radar, but now I'm looking forward to it! (Now I just need to beg for the recent animator expo shorts on a Blu-ray).
Click to expand...

Worth noting that Andrew dropped some reasonable hints about working with Studio 4C when they announced their Netflix partnership. He has made perhaps more overt hints that the Animator Expo shorts are coming, so begging probably not neccesary. :)
Click to expand...
Thanks for the heads up! Maybe begging will make it happen faster?.. :D
 
Re: Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond

Interesting, will definitely be bought, will have to check how long each film is. SOme of the art direction in the films look great, cannot wait!

edit - Beyond was my favourite short in the ANimatrix so really looking forward to Dimension Bomb!
 
Re: Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond

NormanicGrav said:
This is neat. I find it funny how many were asking for Mind Game but instead we get Genius Party.
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Wellll one thing at a time :D. Huge fan of Mindgame too...

AP
 
Re: Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond

Buzz201 said:
NoSurprises said:
Cool, wasn't at all on my radar, but now I'm looking forward to it! (Now I just need to beg for the recent animator expo shorts on a Blu-ray).
Click to expand...

Worth noting that Andrew dropped some reasonable hints about working with Studio 4C when they announced their Netflix partnership. He has made perhaps more overt hints that the Animator Expo shorts are coming, so begging probably not neccesary. :)
Click to expand...

Re Animator Expo - we remain dedicated to trying to do it though but that is hard until Japan gets a video release too :). Hell or high water here...

Oh by the by - more announcements to come this season of sales. One of which I signed while here in Japan last week :D.

Best,

AP
 
Re: Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond

anime_andrew said:
[Re Animator Expo - we remain dedicated to trying to do it though but that is hard until Japan gets a video release too :). Hell or high water here...

oh by the by - more announcements to come this season of sales. One of which I signed while here in Japan last week :D.

Best,

AP
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:)

You're like the santa claus of anime, some sort of senpai claus!
 
Re: Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond

anime_andrew said:
Re Animator Expo - we remain dedicated to trying to do it though but that is hard until Japan gets a video release too :). Hell or high water here...

Oh by the by - more announcements to come this season of sales. One of which I signed while here in Japan last week :D.

Best,

AP
Click to expand...

Great news, I've yet to see them myself, but I've heard good things. :D

"One of which" -- more than one announcement? Oooh... (If only there was an intruiged smiley :))
 
Re: Anime Limited licenses Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond

Of the four "films" added to Netflix at the same time, I'd probably most like to see a release for Princess Arete. I found it to be the most consistently enjoyable.

Genius Party has some really great moments but it's quite mixed. I guess I did enjoy around half of it quite a lot with a few other parts being reasonable but that still leaves maybe around a quarter or so as potentially skippable (on the plus side, that should be easier with chapters). I'd imagine different people will have different results.

I did like Mind Game quite a bit. I thought the start was a bit weak at times but if you go along with the weirdness it feels like there's some good stuff there.

There's a good chance I'd buy all four (three releases?) if they were all available.
 
I've yet to see Genius Party Beyond (I've held off in expectation of this announcement!) but Genius Party is a must see. It's opening and ending thirds contain some of the best animation of the decade - Kawamori's Shanghai Dragon, Yuasa's Happy Machine and Watanabe's Baby Blue all being bite-sized masterpieces that rank among the best work their creators have ever produced. The middle section is, sadly, the weakest and some bits will test your patience. Deathtic 4 is overtly influenced by Tim Burton and, fittingly, like much of the work of that man himself, doesn't add up to anything substantial or interesting. On the other hand, Doorbell *is* an interesting concept that's let down by its execution and form.

Then we come to Limit Cycle. What to say about Limit Cycle...it's borderline-unwatchable, pretentious twaddle. It's intellectual masturbation from start to finish. It's like The Tree of Life by way of Enter the Void if both of those films were terrible and had a James Dean fetish. Basically, it's if all the bad bits of Tree of Life were distilled into 20 minutes and directed by James Franco, with a script produced by the Yoko Ono tweet generator.

But it's definitely worth the price of admission for the rest of the shorts and, as I said in the AL thread, it would be cool if the Studio 4C shorts not compiled into the Genius Party omnibuses were included as extras.

And bring on Mind Game, which is a masterpiece from start to finish!
 
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