Studio Ghibli continues to embrace reality, will soon sell digital movies

By Sam Barsanti | December 3, 2019 | 3:51am

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Studio Ghibli continues to embrace reality, will soon sell digital movies

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Screenshot: My Neighbor Totoro

Two months ago, we reported that famed anime production house Studio Ghibli would be putting (most) of its library on HBO Max next year, making it the first time that films like Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro will be available on an American streaming platform (and proving that Disney’s not the only one willing to use mountains of cash to bolster its streaming offerings). Now, with Studio Ghibli and North American distributor GKids having apparently just realized that it’s 2019, digital copies of the Ghibli movies will soon be available for the first time later this month. In other words, throw out your expensive DVD box sets, because they are now worthless.

Actually, don’t do that just yet. This news comes from Variety, and it says that the price of each movie will be $20. That’ll be reasonable for classics like Howl’s Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke, but it’s going to seem pretty steep if you start buying, say, Tales From Earthsea. Variety says the “entire” catalog will be available on December 17, but it also says the (relatively) recent The Wind Rises won’t be available until late 2020, so not all of it will be available on that first day (which also seemed to be the case for HBO Max).