Red Dwarf Nippon

Japanese BTE and RDX boxset gets release date.

31 October, 2014

There's been a glaring gap in the DVD collections of Red Dwarf's avid fanbase in Japan for the past few years, as the fact that the episodes have to be specially edited and re-dubbed for release over there has meant that Back to Earth and Series X have so far remained unreleased. But you might recall our mentioning a few months back that the fan group known as the "J Team" had been working away at getting an official release of both series out there next year - and we're delighted to confirm that the set now has a release date.

The day to mark in your calendars (assuming you're either in Japan, or willing to order things from Japan over the internet) is Tuesday 3rd February 2015, when the four-disc boxset will go on sale. It features all three parts of Back to Earth, and all six episodes of Series X - but that's not all, as its 360-minute running time is also bulked out with nearly an hour's worth of deleted scenes (which we presume have been overdubbed as well!) and half an hour of interviews with the voice actors.

And what of those voice actors? Well, the J Team and broadcaster NHK have managed to reunite almost all of the same voice cast that were previously known for dubbing Red Dwarf in Japan - with just one exception. Sadly, Sukekiyo Kameyama, who had traditionally voiced Kryten, passed away last year - but his replacement, Hiroshi Iwasaki, has something of a track record for voicing famous sci-fi androids, as he's also the Japanese voice of Star Wars' C3PO (as well as, er, Rowan Atkinson).

Aside from that change, however, Japanese fans can welcome back Masashi Ebara (known for dubbing Tom Hanks and Bill Murray) as Rimmer, Kenyu Horiuchi (who has frequently been Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck and Charlie Sheen) as Lister and Koichi Yamadera (a hugely famous anime voice artist who's also often voiced Eddie Murphy and Jim Carrey) as the Cat.

If you head on over to amazon.jp you can find the series available to pre-order now at the price of ¥6,827 (or around forty quid). We'll bring you news on cover art and any additional features as soon as we get it...

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