Okay, so last week I was all excited about the Hong Kong BD release of Mamoru Oshii’s “The Sky Crawlers”; I was all set to buy it and everything. But then I got distracted by some other shiny things and saved it for later.

Well, guess what? The domestic version arrived in my mailbox the other day — turns out Sony’s releasing the title in North America on May 26th. (You can pre-order it here.)

This was nice. Usually, I have to actually buy a given title and leave it sitting around unwatched for several months before the North American edition comes along.

Latest examples: The first season of “Gavin and Stacey”, bought used in Notting Hill last fall and released here this week, and “Johnny Got His Gun”, picked up in a Vienna bookstore a couple of days later — and released in a fine SE from Shout! Factory last month.

It’s got to the point where I’m actually considering muling those duplicate PAL discs back to the UK and using their value towards the purchase of new stuff. Like, I dunno, the English BD edition of “Son of Rambow” — which, now that I’ve expressed interest in it, will be announced for release here at home about three hours after I buy the thing.

Ah, well. Nobody said life was going to be easy.