The fall 2016 anime series The Great Passage, aka Fune wo Amu, found a home on the home video front last summer with Discotek Media picking it up. The streaming has continued on since then but that’s now getting ready to come to a close as Amazon Prime Video has now listed an October 13th, 2020 expiration date for the series on the service. We definitely recommend getting in on that if you’re in the midst of watching it or the home video release will be your only option.
The home video release arrived with a February 25th, 2020 debut as a complete series for the eleven episode run. It’ll be in Japanese with English subtitles only and a Blu-ray only release priced at $39.95 for the 250-minute set. No extras are solicited with the show just yet but you can check out the cover artwork below.
Toshimasa Kuroyanaga directed it based on the series composition by Takuya Sato. Character designs were handled by Hiroyuki Aoyama with Zecsx handling the animation production.
The Japanese cast includes Takahiro Sakurai as Mitsuya Majime, Hiroshi Kamiya as Masashi Nishioka, Maaya Sakamoto as Kaguya Hayashi, Tetsuo Kaneo as Kouhei Araki, Mugihito as Housuke Matsumoto, Yoshihiko Sakakibara as Kaoru Sasaki, Chiwa Saito as Remi Miyoshi and Yoko Hikasa as Midori Kishibe.
The opening theme song is “Skiokaze” by Taiiku Okazaki and the ending theme song “I&I” which will be performed by Leola.
Plot concept: Venture out into a sea of words.
Dictionaries are ships that guide people through a sea of words and help us all to understand one another. This is the guiding principle at Genbu Books’ Dictionary Editorial Department where they are in the process of creating a brand-new dictionary, “The Great Passage – Daitokari,” designed for the modern era.
Just when production is underway, the Chief of the department must retire. Shortly after this news comes down, one of their editors, Masahi Nishioka, runs into a salesman from their company, Mitsuya Majime, while out at one of their vendors. Majime has a real love and appreciation for words, and is invited to join the Editorial Department where he can put his talents to work.
The outgoing Nishioka and Introverted Majime seem like a mismatched pair at first, but form a strong team which play off each other’s strengths. It is a years-long journey to create a dictionary from scratch, but together, they may just make it through this “Great Passage: and make “Daitokai” a success.
