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For some years now, I have been a big fan of the work of Studio Ghibli. Aside from the weird and wonderful story lines, the films themselves are an absolute visual feast, and whilst some of the more recent works have used CGI to enhance certain scenes, they still believe strongly in traditional cell animation.

Sprited Away (2001) was their breakthrough film and was the first (and still the only) non-english-speaking, animated film to win an Oscar. This really helped Studio Ghibli gain some exposure in the West. Did you know that voice-overs in some Ghibli films have been done by Christian Bale, Patrick Stewart, Timothy Dalton, Billy Crystal and Willem Dafoe?

I have the Studio Ghibli collection on DVD, but am now eagerly awaiting the re-releases of the films on Blu-Ray. The DVD versions films do look good up-scaled (especially the more recent ones), but I am really looking forward to seeing the extra detail, particularly in the gorgeous backgrounds. I really hope they re-master the older versions for Blu-Ray too, as some of the older films don't have the best print transfers to DVD.

So although there is no solid news of when the Blu-Ray versions will be released - Studio Ghibli are releasing their latest film "Ponyo On a Cliff By the Sea" and the Ghibli Blog has some hi-res images from it - you can really see the brush and pencil strokes in the backdrops. So while we may not see any Ghibli Blu-Ray releases this year, at least there is a new film to keep us fans occupied!

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