Ever since we announced our acquisition of NARUTO – and our plans to bring it to the UK on Blu-ray for the very first time – we’ve had many of you asking for more details of what to expect and when.
©2002 MASASHI KISHIMOTO
Well, today is the day where we get to unleash all of our plans for the series upon you, so grab your headband, make some complex hand gestures, and get yourself comfortable as we reveal all. Oh, and above all else… believe it!
Let’s start with the most important piece of news first – the pre-order window for the first instalment of NARUTO on Blu-ray begins retail-wide on Thursday, 11th July, so make sure you have that date noted in your calendar as your invitation to begin Naruto Uzumaki’s journey at your favourite retailer.
With that out of the way, let’s move on to our next important question – what our release plans for the original NARUTO series look like!
As you’ve come to expect from Anime Limited, we’ll be releasing the series in both Collector’s Edition and Standard Edition Blu-ray formats, so let’s tackle each in turn.
Collector’s Edition Blu-ray
If you’re looking to own the greatest release of NARUTO that money can buy, then you won’t want to miss the series on Collector’s Edition Blu-ray.
Our Collector’s Editions for the original NARUTO series will be spread across a series of four Collector’s Edition sets. Each of these sets will contain eight discs, so our four sets will constitute the following episodes:
Set 1: Episodes 1-55
Set 2: Episodes 56-110
Set 3: Episodes 111-165
Set 4: Episodes 166-220
All of the discs across our release of NARUTO are being authored by ourselves for the UK, to provide the best quality viewing experience we can muster. It’s worth reminding you at this point that NARUTO comes from a pre-widescreen era, so the entire series will be presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio, using materials supplied to us by the Japanese licensor. Needless to say, the entire series will be available with both English stereo, and Japanese stereo audio with English subtitles.
Of course, when it comes to our Collector’s Edition release, the discs themselves are only part of the equation, so allow us to introduce you to our…
NARUTO Collector’s Edition Set 1 – With AllTheAnime.com Exclusive Box
One question we heard regularly from you was “Is there going to be a single box for the entire series?”, and so with that in mind we’ve crafted this glorious set, exclusively available on our own AllTheAnime.com store to offer you exactly that.
This exclusive edition of set one comes with a bonus rigid box (which you can see in the image above), which has space for sets two, three and four, giving you one beautiful box adorned with all of your favourite characters to house the entirety of NARUTO to cherish forever.
Beyond this, each Collector’s Edition set will come with its own rigid slipcase, inside of which are stored two Amaray cases (each of which has a reversible sleeve) which will house the eight Blu-ray discs present in each release, alongside a 32-page art booklet for each volume, focusing on character artwork from the relevant story arcs of the series.
This brings us to another piece of good news – our designs for the entire series are already approved and production underway! We know and appreciate that you don’t like having a long wait between volumes of an on-going series, so we’ve done everything that we can to ensure that there’s a regular cadence of releases of NARUTO – when it comes to these Collector’s Editions, you can expect one to land in retail every couple of months, with our Part 1 Collector’s Edition set for a retail release date of 2nd September 2024.
We’ll be showing off the artwork for the remaining Collector’s Edition moving forward as we get closer to the release date of each set, so stay tuned to see what the rest of your NARUTO Collector’s Edition will look like!
NARUTO Collector’s Edition Set 1 – Retail-wide
Outside of our own store, you’ll be able to find our regular Collector’s Edition Set 1 at all of your usual favourite retailers – this doesn’t include the additional box to house the entire series, but the rest of the contents are unchanged.
Each of these four Collector’s Edition sets will retail with an SRP (Suggested Retail Price) of £99.99 – of course, look out for retailer discounts at every online retailer, including our own!
Standard Edition Blu-ray
If you’re a NARUTO fan that is looking for something a little simpler, then fear not, as we’ll be releasing the series on Standard Edition Blu-ray alongside our Collector’s Edition releases, with pre-orders for our Part 1 Standard Edition also opening on July 11th, with the same retail street date of September 2nd 2024.
Our Standard Edition releases of the series will comprise of eight volumes – each of which will be a single, standard Amaray package, containing four Blu-ray discs and all of the same on-disc content as their Collector’s counterparts. The episode split of these Standard Edition volumes will be as follows:
Set 1: Episodes 1-27
Set 2: Episodes 28-55
Set 3: Episodes 56-82
Set 4: Episodes 83-110
Set 5: Episodes 111-137
Set 6: Episodes 138-165
Set 7: Episodes 166-192
Set 8: Episodes 193-220
As with our Collector’s Edition sets, all of our designs for the entire series have been created and approved already, to ensure consistency across the entire release on your shelf, and allowing us to ensure a regular cadence of releases without a long wait between volumes. When it comes to our Standard Edition releases, you should expect to see a new set drop on broadly a monthly basis from the commencement of our release in September.
To kick things off, you can take a look at our designs for parts one and two of the series below!
Each Amaray case will contain four discs, and also sports a reversible sleeve with alternate artwork if you so prefer too! We’ll be showing off the artwork for future volumes on a regular basis as we move through our release of the series.
Each Standard Edition set will retail with an SRP of £49.99, and will be available at all of our favourite UK home video retailers.
And that pretty much wraps up our look at NARUTO on UK Blu-ray – we can’t wait to start releasing this incredible series and getting into your (and our) hands – if you have any questions, be sure to let us know or drop us a message in the comments!
©2002 MASASHI KISHIMOTO
Of course, our thoughts are already turning towards NARUTO Shippuden, but it’s fair to say we won’t be sharing any news on that until we’re closer to the end of the release schedule for the original series. So for now, let’s luxuriate in our excitement for NARUTO on Blu-ray, and as always, thanks so much to all of you for your support – it means a lot to us.
