Animeland 2025 - A Clearer Picture of the Film's Fate, and Big Future Plans

Hey everyone! First of all, happy (late) Phantom Blood day! As of the 17th, the film has officially turned 19 years old. Isn't that wild?

Anyway, thanks to pizza_rigatoni on Discord, back on January 21st of this year, we received a magazine article from the French magazine Animeland that contains an interview with Junichi Hayama, talking about Hokuto no Ken and, obviously, Phantom Blood. What he had to say solidifies the story of what happened to the film after its theatrical run, and it's a curious one. (Thanks to the Jojo's Bizarre Encyclopedia for the translation.)

To quote Hayama:

"It seems that those responsible for the original work didn't like the final product. It was a feature length film that was even screened for several days. We had some pretty bad luck, as we were unable to make corrections in time for the theatrical release. The decision was made to release it nonetheless, despite the corrections we still hadn't added. Thus, we opted to add corrections to the home video release on DVD/Blu-ray. We had even gotten corrections from Mr. Araki. So I reworked the storyboards accordingly. We were awaiting Shueisha's response, which didn't seem to be coming."

So to start, we now know that the film was not liked by those who made the manga, and if the wording is to be taken literally, by even Araki himself. This also confirms that the film was, in fact, going to get a home release, with revisions by both Hayama and Araki. However, the story gets spicier at the tail end of the interview:

"Then, all of a sudden, they contacted us saying they were going to take care of everything that still needed to be done, and asked us to give them all the production materials: the storyboards, the cels, everything related to the corrections! "We're going to make this presentable. Don't worry," they told us. Then, nothing. Everything had been taken from us..."

So, Shueisha finally responded, requesting the film's assets, to which Hayama and company obviously complied. Then... silence. Not a word. Not then, and certainly not now.

So let that sink in for a moment -

Shueisha has not mentioned or done anything with the film after its theatrical run since 2007.

Not only that, but now it can be very safely assumed that Shueisha are the ones in direct control over the film in its entirety, considering that AP3 shut its doors back in 2023. So now, we have a clearer idea as to where we can aim our sights in regards to any sort of official rerelease.

And speaking of said aim, I've been thinking... thinking of something big.

Phantom Blood's 20th anniversary is next year, and it still has thousands of people that are interested in seeing the film being out in the public again (thanks everyone!). But now that we know that Shueisha is in control, I'm thinking of starting a... movement? Campaign? I don't know what to consider it - regardless, at the bare minimum, I've begun using the hashtag #ReleasePhantomBlood2007 in some of my social media posts. However, I'm collaborating with some people to make this potentially MUCH bigger; something that could garner attention not just from the JoJo fandom and from lost media hunters, but from the general public eye.

From Shueisha's eye.

And what better time to pull such a stunt off than on the eve of the film's 20th anniversary. This would NOT be a harassment campaign - we'd simply need to keep getting people to talk about the film, to keep expressing interest in it, so that Shueisha can see said interest and potentially do something about it. From some of our points of view, it's literally free money for them to rerelease it, regardless of the film's quality.

This plan is still very much in its infancy, so nothing major is going to happen yet, especially considering the fact that we have just less than an entire year to make this happen. However, I encourage you all to start using the hashtag #ReleasePhantomBlood2007 or something in a similar vein to start getting the ball rolling. The heavy hitting pieces are being planned, and will come around in due time.

I believe that's all I have to say for now. Happy late Phantom Blood day, and here's to finding the film!

Stay positive my friends!