While we keep our fingers crossed for a North American pickup, Anime Limited has added another feature film to their slate with the acquisition of The Murder Case of Hana & Alice. The feature film came out in Japan back in February of this year and got its home video release in August. The property is a prequel anime film to the live action feature, which was simply called Hana & Alice. That came out back in 2004 after originally starting as a series of short films designed, of all things, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Kit Kat in Japan. The original film was directed, written and produced by Shunji Iwai, who has returned to direct this piece as well. This film is designed around showing how the two lead characters met for the film that’s already out there and both actresses are returning to voice the characters.
The new film is also got a manga adaptation that began in February while a novel adaption is coming as well for full mass media coverage.
Live action film concept: Hana and Alice are friends from childhood. Alice is lively but a bit reckless, and Hana is always picking up after her friend’s messes. But Alice is capable of doing good deeds as well, like introducing Hana to her first crush. Alice believes in love at first sight, and she acts on her belief, pursuing a high school student and dragging along the reluctant Hana. Then Alice suggests to Hana to consider the boy’s friend, Miyamoto, as a possible boyfriend. Although she doesn’t seem interested at first, Hana soon finds herself accepting her friend’s recommendation and falling for him
