Teen Samurai

Teen Samurai (Japanese: ティーンサムライ, Hepburn: Tīnsamurai) is a 2000 Japanese animated drama film produced by Warner Bros. Japan, LLC and animated by Studio Deen. It was directed by Hiroshi Watanabe and written by manga writer Ryotaro Sekizawa; The story revolves around a boy in contemporary Japan, who has flashing memories and dreams of having lived in a different time period. He eventually realizes he was once a samurai who died in battle and had reincarnated and now he ends up using what he remembers of his skills to help others around him, while also having to put up with a corrupt headmaster.

The film was released in Japan on August 12, 2000, and was later released in the US in select theaters on May 10, 2002. It was the first anime project that Warner Bros. Japan was involved in the production of. The film received positive reviews from critics, with praise towards Sekizawa's writing, the characters and animation. It grossed a worldwide total of $6 million at the box office. The film's US box office performance had exceeded Warner Bros.' expectations, and partly led to the creation of Warner Independent Pictures in 2003. Similarly, the film's success prompted Ryotaro Sekizawa to allow anime projects based on his works, having previously been largely hesitant about the idea after his dissatisfaction with the 1991 Quincy OVA.

Plot
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Japan
To promote the film, Ryotaro Sekizawa wrote a manga adaptation of the film, which was serialized by Kodansha from September 2000 to May 2001. It was released to theaters in Japan on August 12, 2000.

Teen Samurai was released on VHS and DVD by Warner Home Video on February 14, 2001. An "International Version" DVD was released on February 6, 2002, which contained multi-language subtitles. A UMD version was later released in 2005, followed by an HD-DVD release on August 9, 2006. The movie was released on Blu-ray on March 14, 2007.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Japan released the 4K remaster of the film on Ultra HD Blu-ray and regular Blu-ray Disc on June 13, 2018.

North America
Warner Bros. released Teen Samurai in select theaters in North America on May 10, 2002, in both Japanese with English subtitles and an English dub. Despite the film's American release being quite limited, being released in 47 theaters before expanding to 55, it did fairly well at the box office, making back $1.1 million at the box office, exceeding Warner Bros.' profitability target. The film's success partly led to Warner Bros. establishing the Warner Independent Pictures banner in 2003, though only a handful of animated films were released under the label.

On September 24, 2002, the film was released on VHS and DVD by Warner Home Video in the US. While the VHS release is dub-only, the DVD version utilizes both the English and Japanese audio tracks, though visually it is the US theatrical version, with the opening and closing credits replaced with English-language ones. In addition, the American release's end credits are longer than the Japanese version, with an additional music piece being used to fill out the remaining fourty-five seconds of credits, thus resulting in silence when the Japanese audio track is selected.

The film had it's television premiere on Cartoon Network's Cartoon Theatre in an edited version censoring some violence on June 21, 2003. It was later broadcast uncut on Adult Swim on March 12, 2005 and again on October 14, 2005 to promote The Story of Quincy.

Warner Archive released the film on Blu-ray on April 5, 2016. Unlike the DVD release, the Japanese version was presented separately from the English version due to the minor edits in comparison between the two versions. This marks the first time the Japanese cut had been released in the United States since the initial theatrical release.