Free Ged

[Aaron Gerow]

In an unprecedented publicity stunt, the producers of Tales of Earthsea 
(Gedo senki) are distributing a book for free about the film before its 
release on DVD. The book, Gedo o yomu, was the brainchild of the copy 
writer Ito Shigesato and features analyses of the film by Nakazawa 
Shinichi, Kawai Hayao, Sato Tadao and others (most were originally 
published elsewhere). About 1.1 million copies of the 208-page book 
(bunko size) have been printed and are available at bookstores across 
the nation. It is not for sale and cannot be ordered through Amazon (I 
picked up a copy at the small bookstore near our home).

Free magazines are enjoying a boom in Japan right now, but distributing 
a book like this as publicity for a DVD release is unheard of.

Aaron Gerow
KineJapan owner

Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University

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