Viz Pictures has announced that it has acquired the rights to the live action film Happily Ever After (Jigyaku No Uta), a controversial comedy directed by Yukihiko Tsutumi and based on a manga by Yoshiie Gouda.  Viz Pictures has set up a number of theatrical showings of the film starting in Seattle Washington where it will appear from August 15-21st at the Grand Illusion Cinema, followed by showings at the Scottsdale International Film Festival in Scottsdale, Arizona on October 4th and an October 10th screening at the Japanese Film Festival at the University of Pittsburgh.  Viz Pictures will release Happily Ever After on DVD in February of 2009.

When Happily Ever After was released in Japan in 2007, its portrait of a submissive, co-dependent, and devoted wife shackled to a boorish, unemployed and often abusive husband raised considerable controversy.  Director Tsutumi (Memories of Tomorrow) handles the controversial subject matter in a darkly comic and very humanistic manner that refuses to oversimplify the situation or the complex characters who have to deal with bad luck, failure, and dim prospects.