A Vampire Calls (film)

A Vampire Calls (ヴァンパイアが呼ぶ, Vu~anpaia ga Yobu) is a 2006 Japanese anime romance dark fantasy thriller film based on the 1994 novel of the same name by Hikaru Ishimoto. It was produced by Gonzo, directed by Mamoru Kanbe and written by Ryo Higaki and Mitsuhiro Yamada. Like the original novel, the film is about a student and part time delivery boy named Shou Arakaki, who one evening when returning home, saves a mysterious girl who only goes by the name Faye. It turns out, however, that Faye is actually the most powerful vampire in existence, as she inadvertently reveals when she saves Shou from a pair of vampires, one of which gets away before being slaughtered with the other one. Because of this, Shou and Faye forge an alliance to protect each other, but as they grow closer, feelings between them blossom.
Distributed by Kadokawa Herald Pictures, A Vampire Calls was released to theaters on October 14, 2006, and received positive reviews from critics. It was nominated for several awards, including the Japan Academy Film Prize for Animation of the Year, which it lost to another Kadokawa Herald release, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. The English version was licensed and produced by LIVE Entertainment and Kadokawa Pictures USA, with Hugo Weaving, Christian Slater, John Turturro and Katherine Heigl lending their voices to the film, and was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on July 6, 2007.
==Plot==
Coming soon!
==Cast==
Character 	Seiyū 	English Dub Actor
Shou Arakaki 	Tetsuya Kakihara 	Taliesin Jaffe
Faye 	Maaya Sakamoto 	Mela Lee
Tirich 	Jōji Nakata 	Hugo Weaving
Nizhalgal 	Shirō Saitō 	Christian Slater
Bunko Kimura 	Hiroyuki Yoshino 	Grant George
Mitsuru Otani 	Noriko Shitaya 	Sherry Lynn
Hisao Shintani 	Junichi Suwabe 	John Turturro
Takashi Mayeda 	Katsuyuki Konishi 	David Rasner
Otakay 	Kentarō Itō 	Jim Cummings
Lamia 	Gara Takashima 	Katherine Heigl
Asami Fujikawa 	Masami Suzuki 	Kari Wahlgren
Miho Arakaki 	Kumi Sakuma 	Dorothy Elias-Fahn
Shinichiro Takeuchi	Shō Hayami 	Mark Hamill
Yuu Chino 	Shōtarō Morikubo 	Benjamin Diskin
Juro Tsuchida 	Hikaru Midorikawa 	Jason Marsden
Ryoko Nakayama 	Rie Kugimiya 	Melissa Fahn
Other Vampires 	Hajime IijimaKeiichi TakahashiYutaka NakanoYuko Nagashima	David RasnerJack FletcherCorey BurtonKaren Strassman
Furuya Noburo 	Jūrōta Kosugi 	Dwight Schultz
Reporter 	Kazunari Tanaka 	Corey Burton
Narrator 	Kazuhiro Nakata 	Alan Shearman
===Additional voices (English version)===
*Tara Strong
*Philip Proctor
*Roger Craig Smith
*John DeMita
*Michelle Ruff
*Rebecca Forstadt
*Julia Fletcher
*Scott Menville
*Eddie Frierson
*Jonathan Nicholls
*Corey Burton
*Matt McKenzie
*Jill Talley
*Kerrigan Mahan
== Release ==
A Vampire Calls was released in theaters on October 14, 2006 by Kadokawa Herald Pictures. It was released across 245 theaters in the region, a wider release in comparison to the company's other releases. WOWOW, one of the members of the movie's production committee, ran a series of advertisements to promote the film, and additional support came from Mister Donut, McDonald's and the Daichi Kosho Company.
LIVE Entertainment and Kadokawa Pictures USA partnered to license the film for distribution outside of Japan, with plans for an American theatrical release in 2007. Despite the novel being titled The Vampire Who Saved Me in English, the film's title was left unchanged. The film received a wide theatrical release in the United States, opening in 2,468 theaters on July 6, 2007, with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer handling distribution, due to Paramount Pictures, who had forged a distribution deal with LIVE Licensing in 2004, not being keen on the film. The English dub of the film was directed by Jack Fletcher, written by writing duo Derek Haas and Michael Brandt, and featured the voices of Hugo Weaving, Christian Slater, John Turturro and Katherine Heigl, with anime dubbing regulars Taliesin Jaffe and Mela Lee in the lead roles of Shou Arakaki and Faye, respectively. The film additionally saw a few theatrical releases in other territories, including the United Kingdom, France, South Korea and Italy.
=== Home media ===
A Vampire Calls was released to DVD in Japan by Geneon Entertainment (ironically, not Kadokawa Video) on June 13, 2007. The film quickly became a hit on home video in Japan, reaching the top of the DVD charts in that week. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on October 16, 2007. The US DVD and Blu-rays both contain a featurette on the English dub, as well as a small handful of bonus features from the Japanese DVD release.
Category:2006
Category:2006 films
Category:2006 animated films
Category:Anime films
Category:Dark fantasy films
Category:Romance films
Category:Vampire films
Category:Gonzo
Category:Kadokawa
Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures
Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animated films