Little Touch of Heaven (ヘブンズタッチ, Hebunzutatchi, lit. Heaven's Touch) is a 2005 anime romantic comedy-drama film directed by Nagisa Miyazaki from a story by Mamiko Ikeda, who co-wrote the film's screenplay. It was animated by Zexcs, and co-produced by Shochiku, Geneon Entertainment, Dentsu, and Genco. Starring the voices of Hisayoshi Suganuma, Mamiko Noto, Daisuke Namikawa, Katsuo Nakamura, Hoko Kuwashima and Masatoshi Hamada, the film is about Koichi Furukawa (Suganuma), a student who generally shuns anything to do with romance and love due to his parents' divorce, him wanting to focus on his studies, and an incident with another student (Kuwashima), however, things begin to change when his childhood friend, a half-Japanese half-American girl named Shizuka Thornton (Noto) returns home and begins to rekindle her friendship with him.
Little Touch of Heaven was Zexcs' first feature film production and their second original work after Kikō Sennyo Rōran in 2002. It was first released to theaters in Japan by Shochiku on June 11, 2005, where it grossed ¥4.3 billion. Paramount Pictures acquired the American distribution rights, and an English-dubbed version featuring the voices of David Gallagher, Camilla Belle, Harvey Keitel, Ashley Tisdale, Nathan Lane and Dennis Quaid was released on July 14, 2006. It received generally favorable reviews from critics and grossed an additional $63 million outside of Japan for a worldwide total of $90 million.
Plot[]
Coming soon!
Cast[]
| Character | Seiyū | Dub Actor |
|---|---|---|
| Koichi Furukawa | Hisayoshi Suganuma | David Gallagher |
| Asami Sanada (younger) | Alexander Gould (younger) | |
| Shizuka Thornton | Mamiko Noto | Camilla Belle |
| Ariel Winter (younger) | ||
| Ryo Kitamura | Daisuke Namikawa | Keith Silverstein |
| Tsutomu Hirayama | Katsuo Nakamura | Harvey Keitel |
| Hitomi Mikami | Hoko Kuwashima | Ashley Tisdale |
| Kichirou Ohara | Masatoshi Hamada | Nathan Lane |
| Nobuo Maeda | Takahiro Sakurai | Jeff Bennett |
| Suzume Furukawa | Sumi Shimamoto | Dorothy Elias-Fahn |
| Daichi Furukawa | Kazuhiko Inoue | Jess Harnell |
| Mizuki Sanda | Sanae Kobayashi | Michelle Ruff |
| Hideki Tamashiro | Mamoru Miyano | Eddie Frierson |
| Fumiko Suto | Ai Nonaka | Bridgit Mendler |
| Ayaka Morimoto | Akemi Kanda | Wendee Lee |
| Yasuhiro Yamamura | Mahito Tsujimura | Dennis Quaid |
| Chieko Yamamoto | Sayaka Ōhara | Jodi Benson |
| Hikari Domen | Tomoko Kawakami | Tara Platt |
| Eiji Matsushima | Jun Fukuyama | Jack De Sena |
| School Announcer | Hōchū Ōtsuka | Stephen Apostolina |
| Shizuka's Parents | Michie Tomizawa Hiroaki Hirata |
Bridget Hoffman Steve Blum |
| Additional Students | Kenichi Suzumura Naomi Shindō Hiroyuki Yoshino Kenji Nojima |
Rob Paulsen Kate Higgins Steve Staley Yuri Lowenthal |
| Teachers | Hiroaki Hirata Shinichirō Miki |
David Cowgill Robert Clotworthy |
Additional Voices[]
- Newell Alexander
- Steve Blum
- Rif Hutton
- Philece Sampler
- David Cowgill
- Elisa Gabrielli
- Bridget Hoffman
- Robert Clotworthy
- Michael Sorich
Production[]
The film began development at the then newly formed Zexcs in 2000, from a pitch by Mamiko Ikeda, who was inspired to come up with the story for the film after seeing A Penguin's Memories sometime prior. Nagisa Miyazaki was appointed to direct the film the year afterward. As Zexcs was still a relatively small company at the time, the film was largely financed by a small variety of companies consisting of Geneon Entertainment, Dentsu, Genco, and distributor Shochiku.
The original script, written by Ikeda, was titled Koichi's Story, but would be changed to Heaven's Touch in Japan and internationally to Little Touch of Heaven. The voice cast for the film was announced in 2004, along with the release date.
Release[]
Theatrical[]
Little Touch of Heaven was first released in Japan by Shochiku on June 11, 2005. It opened in 215 theaters before expanding to 223 later on. During it's release in Japan, the film made back ¥4.3 billion.
Around the time of the movie's release, Paramount Pictures had interest in releasing an anime film for their 2006 slate, after the successes of A Tale of Shimakita and The Place Promised in Our Early Days, along with home video sales with anime they distributed for LIVE Licensing. LIVE, however, was busy focusing on Bob Adams: Final Fate as well as The Sky Guardian; at this same time. Air: The Motion Picture, which LIVE did license, was relegated to a straight to DVD release, and Paramount was unable to bring over New Ballad of Tobio: The Movie due to the brief kerfuffle over the Tobio rights because of the CBS and Viacom split. Ultimately, as a compensation, Paramount looked at external anime production companies to see if they could find a film to release, and ultimately decided to pick up Little Touch of Heaven for release.
In the United States, Paramount Pictures released the film in 2,846 theaters on July 14, 2006 (with a $14 million marketing cost). The English dub of the film was directed by Bridget Hoffman, written by Tom Rogers and featured the voices of David Gallagher, Camilla Belle, Harvey Keitel, Ashley Tisdale, Nathan Lane and Dennis Quaid. Two English language trailers for the film were created by Paramount to promote the film, both of which featured the song You and Me by Lifehouse. During it's theatrical release, it opened at #2 at the domestic box office behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, grossing $21,834,039 million in it's opening weekend. It went on to make $47.8 million with an additional $15.3 million, for a combined total of $90 million worldwide.
Home media[]
Little Touch of Heaven was released on DVD in Japan by Geneon Entertainment on October 19, 2005. This release contained a filmmakers' commentary, a behind the scenes featurette, and the Japanese theatrical trailer.
In the United States, the film was released on DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray by Paramount Home Entertainment on November 21, 2006, becoming one of the first anime films released on the latter two formats. These releases contain a production featurette on the English dub, the Japanese behind the scenes featurette (with English subtitles) and the American theatrical trailer for the film.