With a new theatrical film coming out in 2017, Warner Bros. Japan is looking to reconnect audiences with the original work as the 1978 TV series Haikara-san ga Tooru is getting a home video release. The forty-two episode series will be getting both a DVD and Blu-ray box that’s working from the film negative for a new 2K scan will arrive on December 21st, 2016. The DVD set is priced at 41,040 yen while the Blu-ray is priced at 48,600 yen. The show will be spread across seven discs and extras include the commercials and a booklet at the moment.
The original manga was serialized in Shoujo Friend and had eight compiled volumes originally before getting a four-volume bunko edition. Here’s hoping Kodansha USA will take a chance on bringing out the bunko version here to help celebrate.
Plot concept: Benio Hanamura is a 17-year-old schoolgirl in Tokyo during the Taisho era. Benio lost her mother when she was very young and has been raised by her father, a high-ranking official in the Japanese army. As a result, she has grown into a tomboy—contrary to traditional Japanese notions of femininity, she studies kendo, drinks sake, dresses in often outlandish-looking Western fashions, and isn’t as interested in housewife duties as she is in literature. She also rejects the idea of arranged marriages and believes in a woman’s right to a career and to marry for love. Benio’s best friends are the beautiful Tamaki, who is much more feminine than Benio but equally interested in women’s rights, and Ranmaru, a young man who was raised to play female roles in the kabuki theater and as a result has acquired very effeminate mannerisms.
[Source: Haikara-san ga Tooru]