Spirited Away Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		5.0

Spirited Away Blu-ray Movie Review

In a partnership deal with Studio Ghibli and GKIDS, Shout! Factory has acquired the distribution rights to a number of titles in the Studio Ghibli library, including this re-release of of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001). For thoughts on the Oscar-winning animated feature and a/v specs, you can see my colleague Kenneth Brown's review of Disney's 2015 BD/DVD twin pack here. Shout! has also issued a Blu-ray & DVD Combo Pack with a new video encode. This edition comes with a slipcover, an Elite case for the discs, and a slim leaflet (see Screenshot #2). Cover art on the slip and keep case covers is identical (see #s 1 and 10).

Front of slip cover and back of BD case.

Spirited Away Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Spirited Away appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on a BD-50. While this appears to be struck from the same master as the Disney BD, Shout! has given this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer a higher average bitrate of 30000 kbps, which is virtually identical to Studio Ghibli's Japanese BD that is part of the The Collected Works of Director Hayao Miyazaki. The 2015 US disc averages 24.40 Mbps for the main feature. Shout! boasts a total bitrate of 36.24 Mbps for the whole disc. Capture #s 5-9 are extracted from the new disc.

Shout! has supplied twenty-five scene selections.

Spirited Away Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout!'s disc comprises three sound track options: an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 ES (4352 kbps, 24-bit), the original Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 ES Matrix, and a dubbed Dolby Digital 5.1 mix in French.

Shout! gives viewers the choice of three subtitling options: English SDH for the hard-of-hearing, English subtitles for the original language version, and French subtitles.

Spirited Away Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Shout! licensed most of the bonus materials on previous DVD and Blu-ray editions of Spirited Away. Missing are a very brief introduction by John Lasseter and the mini-featurette, "Meet Hayao Miyazaki." The extras come with English subs.

• Feature-Length Storyboards (Picture-in-Picture) (2:04:35, 1080p)

• "Behind the Microphone: Voice Talent" (5:42, upconverted to 1080p)

• Original Japanese Trailers (17:58, 1080p)

• TV Spots (3:57, upconverted to 1080p)

• "NTV Ghibli Special: The Making of Spirited Away" (41:53, 480i) [DVD only]

• NEW 12-page Booklet with Producer's and Director's Statements - in addition to the statements, this contains a half-dozen color pictures.

Spirited Away Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Spirited Away is arguably Miyazaki's best and most popular film. Presently, this Shout! BD/DVD combo is $7 cheaper than the Disney package released two years ago. It sports a new video encode and includes a slim booklet. My HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.