Maiden Japan brought out the Wings of Honneamise film back in 2013 after it was out of print for several years and it then saw a June 25th, 2019 release for a new edition of it. With a film that goes back to 1987, we don’t tend to expect to hear much about it in general but something pops up every few years. We learned back in March 2022 that Bandai Namco Arts is currently working on a 4K release of it from the original 35mm master print. The distributor is also planning a theatrical run of some sort using the original audio materials but nothing was firmed up about this at the time in Japan.
Now, the distributor has set an October 28th, 2022 theatrical release for it with details to come in Japan in terms of the length of run and locations, which will vary. A trailer supporting the announcement is available below as well.
For those who go back a ways with this film, remembering the struggles to get a non-windowboxed release way back when or dealing with the jitter, it’s a whole different world now.
Check out our Thirty Years Later piece on the film.
Plot concept: Set in a world eerily similar to our own, war between the Kingdom of Honneamise and its archrival, The Republic, seems inevitable. But even as the two nations’ rapidly evolving technology creates new ways to wage greater and more deadly forms of warfare, a small group seeks to use those same advances to propel mankind forward into the future and into space in their world’s first manned spaceflight program.
For astronaut candidate Shirotsugh Lhadatt, it’s not just a journey beyond the reach of the atmosphere, but a personal odyssey as he grows from an aimless young man into a leader willing to put everything on the line in order to move the human race forward and away from the brink of Armageddon.
