NCM Fathom announced at San Diego Comic-Con that it will host the four-day Anime Bento Festival at 250 theaters nation-wide featuring premiere North American big-screen showings of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles and Fullmetal Alchemst: The Movie--Conqueror of Shambala from FUNimation and Lupin the III: The Castle of Cagliostro and Karas: The Prophecy from Manga Entertainment plus bonus features every night. Castle of Cagliostro--an early, 1979 Miyazaki film featuring the master thief Lupin III isn't as well known as his later work, but is a lot more fun and is deserving of more popularity among the mass audience, and Karas was one of last year's top anime feature film releases.  And, while screenings at 250 theaters isn't big by Hollywood standards, it is big news for anime. 

 

'We've had incredible success with the anime category in the recent past and NCM Fathom is excited to debut the first annual anime festival in theatres with the hottest anime titles provided by the top anime studios in the industry,' said Dan Diamond, Vice President of NCM Fathom.

 

The festival will be held at select AMC, Entertainment Group and Georgia Theatre Company movie theatres with the following schedule (each starting at 7:30 p.m. local time):

 

Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles--Wednesday, Sept. 19th

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Movie: Conqueror of Shambala-- Thursday, Sept. 20th

Lupin the III: The Castle of Cagliostro--Wednesday, Sept. 26th

Karas: The Prophecy--Thursday, Sept. 27th

 

Tickets will be available beginning August 11th from participating theaters and online from NCM Fathom.