Miyazaki's First Film On DVD

files/pictures/picture-35.jpgManga Entertainment brings Hayao Miyazaki's first film to DVD and VHS. THE CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO is the first film written and directed by anime pioneer and visionary Hayao Miyazaki (PRINCESS MONONOKE, KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE). Loosely based on French novelist Maurice Leblanc's ARSENE LUPIN: GENTLEMAN THIEF adventure, the film follows Lupin, an underworld version of Sherlock Holmes, who is famous for swindling goods from the rich around the world. First introduced in the late 1960s in a Japanese comic book by Monkey Punch, the character Lupin III is the fictional grandson of LeBlanc's famous Lupin character, a modern-day James Bond. Lupin III adventures became some of Japan's most popular stories with three television series, five movies and numerous made-for-TV movies. The animated movie THE CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO was the second movie featuring the Lupin character and was originally made in 1979. In addition, a Sony Playstation game of CAGLIOSTRO was released in January 1997. Moreover, film footage was used in an early 1980s laserdisc-based arcade game called CLIFFHANGER. In the film, Lupin III and his right-hand man, Jigen, travel to the fictional European country of Cagliostro to find the counterfeiter who swindled them. The DVD features digitally re-mastered visuals and sound in letterbox format, and is available in English, Japanese and Japanese with English subtitles. The DVD is priced at US$29.95 and the VHS is $19.95.