Fans of anime films might find the name Mamoru Hosoda to be quite familiar. After all, he’s one of the biggest names in the feature-length anime film industry. He started with The Girl Who Leapt Through Time on July 15, 2006; and then went on for a grand total of six anime films thus far. With the most recent being Belle in July 16, 2021; and including some of the best songs ever heard in an anime film. However, it’s not just Belle. All of them received quite a bit of critical acclaim, even for the weirder ones like Wolf Children.

Honestly, it seems like Mamoru Hosoda has got quite the touch with anime films. Thus, you can now understand why GKIDS wants all of them to themselves.

GKIDS Acquires Mamoru Hosoda NA Distribution Rights: Details

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time NA key visual.
It all began with the time-travelling high school girl, and now you can see it too.

GKIDS is proud to announce that they have acquired the North American (NA) distribution rights to Mamoru Hosoda. No, not the man himself. I mean his anime films. All of them. From The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars under studio Madhouse (Death Note, One-Punch Man season 1, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End) to Hosoda’s anime films starting with Wolf Children under Hosoda’s and Yuichiro Saito’s very own Studio Chizu, all of these anime films will now feature GKIDS as their primary distributor.

One of GKIDS’ earliest distribution projects was the theatrical release of Summer Wars, when Mamoru Hosoda had already cemented his position as one of the most exciting animation directors. We were honored to deepen our relationship with the release of his two latest films, Mirai and Belle, and are excited to now be able to showcase the full breadth of Hosoda’s ambitious storytelling across his film catalog, featuring some of the most acclaimed and successful Japanese animated films of all time.

GKIDS’ President David Jesteadt

According to GKIDS, Summer Wars and Wolf Children will enter their catalog immediately, while The Boy and the Beast and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time will do that sometime next year in 2025. How so, you might ask? Well, GKIDS plans to bring all of these anime films back for both theaters and home video. The how is currently up in the air at the moment though. We’ll just have to wait for them to give us that news later.

Tune back in to THS to find out more about Mamoru Hosoda works and other anime films when we do.