Shout Factory and Eleven Arts Anime Studio will release on Blu-ray MAQUIA: When the Promised Flower Blooms. The release will be available for purchase on February 5.
Winner of Best Animated Film at the Shanghai International Film Festival and awarded Best Film for Fantastic Discovery at Spain's Sitges Film Festival, Maquia makes its way to home video following its nationwide theatrical release earlier this year. This release is presented in Japanese with subtitles, and with an English dub. Bonus features include the featurette "Making of Maquia," trailers and TV spots.
Maquia is the directorial debut of renowned and prolific screenwriter Mari Okada (Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day and The Anthem of the Heart). A heartwarming story of a mother's love and irreplaceable time, the film dives into the dilemmas of motherhood, adolescence, femininity, and leadership. Okada wraps all these poignant themes into a sweeping epic with well-developed characters, emotional gravitas, stunning visuals, and an exhilarating score by composer Kenji Kawai (Ghost in the Shell).
Though only 15, Maquia knows she will live for centuries without aging past adolescence. She belongs to the Iorph, a clan of ageless beings just like her. Maquia's elders warn her not to fall in love with anyone outside their realm, lest she wish to encounter true loneliness in the end. But fate pushes Maquia out into the mortal world one night, when an invading territory separates her from the clan. There she discovers an orphaned baby, Arial, and takes him in as her own child. From this point, Maquia will suffer extreme heartbreak in the name of motherhood, as she watches Arial grow and seeks to reconnect with her lost Iorph friends, all torn apart by the cruel world of Mesate.
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms captivates audiences, anchoring its imaginative fantasy setting in universal and deeply moving themes. Maquia will surely carry the torch for films like Your Name. and In This Corner of the World, infusing pure artistry and pathos into anime.