A Midnight Rose

A Midnight Rose (堀越「信じたい」, Horikoshi: Shinjitai, lit. Horikoshi I Want to Believe) is a 2004 anime romance drama film based on the 1999 light novel series Horikoshi: A Tale of Love by Ryotaro Sekizawa, who wrote the movie's screenplay. It was directed by Koji Masunari and produced by Studio Deen, who previously produced Teen Samurai. The film, like the light novel series, follows a hapless Horikoshi High School boy named Naoki Miyashita, who is diagnosed with ADHD and fairly antisocial until one night when he befriends Katsumi Hino, who is considered to be the princess of the class he takes, and slowly, a romance blossoms between them as they try to deal with their own internal struggles and fears along with various events happening in their lives. The Japanese version of the film features the voices of Hiroki Takahashi, Yukari Tamura, Shigeru Chiba, Jun Fukuyama and Chafurin.

A Midnight Rose was released to theaters in Japan by Toho as a double bill with another Ryotaro Sekizawa adaptation, Yellow House, on August 13, 2004. The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States, where it grossed $1.2 million. It overperformed in the American home video market, generating more than $8 million in home video sales and $12 million in home video rentals. It received favorable reviews from critics.

Plot
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Theatrical
A Midnight Rose was released to theaters in Japan by Toho as a double bill with the film adaptation of Yellow House, another film based on a Sekizawa work, on August 13, 2004.

Universal Pictures' Focus Features licensed the film for distribution in North America. The film was in a limited number of theaters in the United States on April 8, 2005, before expanding to a few additional theaters on April 15. It was released in two formats: a subtitled release featured in fewer theaters, and an English dubbed version that featured the voices of Frankie Muniz, Brittany Snow and Jeff Daniels. As the light novels had not been published in America by the film's release, it was retitled to A Midnight Rose by the distributors.

Home media
The film was released on DVD in Japan by Bandai Visual on April 13, 2005 and on VHS and DVD in the United States by Universal Studios Home Video on August 9, 2005. The US DVD release contains a featurette on the English dub, an interview with Ryotaro Sekizawa, production drawings and the American and Japanese trailers. A Japanese Blu-ray of the film was released on March 11, 2009.