Anime producer and distributor Right Stuf, alongside its Nozomi Entertainment division have today announced that the Maria Watches Over Us, Season 3 DVD set will be available for purchase beginning the 8th January 2013 in North America.
This new DVD set repackages all five direct-to-video (OVA) episodes of the anime series’ third season, plus its five specials, in a single DVD keepcase. It features Japanese audio, along with English on-screen translations, and two English-language subtitle tracks: one with regular dialogue subtitles and a second, special subtitle track that retains the Japanese honorifics.
The Maria Watches Over Us anime is based upon a series of novels – written by Oyuki Konno and illustrated by Reine Hibiki – that began in 1998 and spans 38 volumes. Short stories related to the series have been published in the shoujo magazine Cobalt, and a manga adaptation was serialized in the anthology magazine Margaret. The series’ publisher, Shueisha, produced 14 drama CDs (featuring radio-style plays), and there are also several Internet radio plays, a live-action film adaptation and a spin-off novel series.
The anime adaptation of Maria-sama ga Miteru – also referred to by fans as “MariMite” – encompasses two, 13-episode TV seasons, a 5-episode OVA (original video animation) as its third season, and a 13-episode fourth season, which aired on Japanese television during 2009. All four seasons are licensed for English-speaking audiences by and available on DVD from Right Stuf’s Nozomi Entertainment.
The DVD set will be released as a litebox format and will be avaialble at a cost of $29.99 for 225 minutes of content. Special features included on-disc will be: character bios, art galleries, liner notes, and Nozomi Entertainment trailers.
