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San Francisco to Premiere Hunter x Hunter, Naruto, Library Wars Films
posted on by Egan Loo
The 2013 J-POP Summit Festival announced on Monday that it will launch the Japan Film Festival of San Francisco, "the first fully-dedicated annual Japanese film event for Northern California and the S.F. Bay Area." The July 27-August 4 event will host director Shinsuke Satō (Gantz, Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror, The Princess Blade, Sand Chronicles) at the U.S. premiere of his live-action Library Wars film on August 2 and 3.
V6 idol group member Junichi Okada (Tales from Earthsea, From Up On Poppy Hill ) and Nana Eikura (Mei-chan no Shitsuji, Boku wa Imōto ni Koi o Suru) star in this adaptation of Hiro Arikawa's Toshokan Sensō action novel series. The story is set in a future version of Japan. A law threatens to clamp down on freedom of expression in 2019, and Iku (Eikura) joins the Library Defense Force, a military unit dedicated to protecting books from being confiscated. However, she finds that the job of her childhood dreams is harder than she bargained for, especially with her hard-nosed instructor Atsushi (Okada).
The festival will also host the U.S. premieres of:
Hunter × Hunter: Phantom Rouge film (August 3)
Naruto Shippūden: The Lost Tower film (July 28)
Resident Evil: Damnation film (July 28)
The anime slate also includes:
the San Francisco premiere of Mamoru Hosoda's Wolf Children film (July 28)
the encore screening of Tiger & Bunny the Movie: The Beginning (August 2)
The festival will screen the live-action film adaptations of:
Kyoko Okazaki's psychological manga Helter Skelter (San Francisco premiere, August 3)
Minoru Furuya's psychological manga Himizu (San Francisco premiere, August 4)
Nobuhiro Watsuki's historical action manga Rurouni Kenshin (San Francisco premiere, July 28 and August 1)
the science-fiction anime Space Battleship Yamato (West Coast premiere, August 4)
In addition, it will show:
Miwa Nishikawa's comedy Dreams for Sale (San Francisco premiere, July 27)
the How to Build a Mobile House documentary about architect Kyohei Sakaguchi (U.S. premiere, July 27)
Takashi Miike's new thriller Lesson of the Evil (U.S. premiere, July 27 & July 30)
the suspense film Platinum Data (U.S. premiere, August 1 and 3) with Kazunari Ninomiya (Gantz, Letters From Iwo Jima)
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