Western publisher GKIDS has announced they’ve picked up the North American rights to distribute the Angel’s Egg 4K remaster.

The previously announced Angel’s Egg 4K remaster will be distributed by GKIDS in theaters nationwide, just in time for the film’s 40th anniversary coming in 2025. This will be the first time the cult classic by Mamoru Oshii is officially released in the Americas.

As covered in our previous report, the new Angel’s Egg 4K remaster is being made by scanning the original 35mm film negatives and remastering each frame into 4K, with Oshii overseeing the entire process with his approval.

The new licensing deal was negotiated during this year’s Cannes festival by Rodney Uhler of GKIDS and Jason Bressand of Gebeka International (a Hildegarde – Goodfellas Company). The new remaster is the latest collaboration between GKIDS and Oshii, after their 4K remaster for Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.

“Angel’s Egg has long been a cult classic, an object of fascination among dedicated animation fans,” said GKIDS’ President David Jesteadt in a press release. “After almost forty years, this masterpiece retains all of its beauty and power, and we are thrilled to do our part in bringing the film to a new generation of audiences in the way it deserves to be seen.”

Here’s a blurb on the classic film’s new release:

Forty years after the film’s original release, GKIDS is proud to present an all-new 4K restoration of the film, which is being supervised by director Oshii, in cinemas nationwide for the first time next year.

First released directly to home video in 1985, the film is a creative collaboration between internationally acclaimed director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell), who wrote and directed the feature, and revered artist Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy, Vampire Hunter D). The film beautifully intertwines Oshii’s thematic reflections on philosophy and theology, with Amano’s distinctive ink painting style, culminating in an arrestingly beautiful hand-drawn allegorical fantasy.

Official Synopsis: In an underwater city, a young girl takes care of a large egg she holds carefully in her arms – a treasure that she believes is an angel’s egg. A boy with a gun arrives in search of a bird he saw in his dream. At first it seems as if feelings of sympathy are developing between the two. Then, one night, the boy crushes her precious egg.