Bandai Visual USA, a subsidiary of one of the key anime studios in Japan, has announced that it is teaming up with Image Entertainment to release high quality collector editions of classic anime in North America under the Honneamise imprint.  The model for the collector-style DVD releases will be Image's Criterion Collection and the first two releases under the Honneamise label, which takes its name from the 1987 anime classic Wings of Honneamise, will be Mamoru Oshii's Patlabor 1 and Patlabor 2 movies, both of which were previously released in the U.S. by Manga Entertainment.

The release of Patlabor 1 is slated for April 25th and the limited collector's edition (price yet to be determined) will be a deluxe two-disk set that will include Japanese and English audio tracks, packaging illustrations by Yutaka Izubuchi, a remastered  Japanese 5.1 audio track, a new English audio track, a 'making of' documentary, Japanese trailers and TV commercials, a complete 300-page storyboard book drawn by Oshii with English translations, and a 184-page manual with past interviews, articles, artwork and drawings.