Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Two years after the events of the 1997 game *Final Fantasy VII*, the animated film *Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children* picks up with hero Cloud Strife and the people of the rebuilt city of Edge. A mysterious illness called Geostigma has spread, infecting both Cloud and a young orphan named Denzel. When a trio of villains—Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo—begins kidnapping children afflicted with the disease, Cloud is drawn into a rescue mission. He soon learns that the trio intends to resurrect the villain Sephiroth using the remains of the alien Jenova, forcing Cloud and his former allies to intervene. The film was directed by Tetsuya Nomura, written by Kazushige Nojima, and produced by Yoshinori Kitase and Shinji Hashimoto, with animation by Visual Works and Square Enix. It is part of the larger *Compilation of Final Fantasy VII* media series. The Japanese voice cast includes Takahiro Sakurai, Ayumi Ito, and Toshiyuki Morikawa, while the English dub features Steve Burton, Rachael Leigh Cook, and George Newbern. Released in Japan on DVD and Universal Media Disc on September 14, 2005, it arrived in North America and the United Kingdom with English voice acting on April 25, 2006. Critics praised the film’s animation and CGI but found the plot difficult to follow for those unfamiliar with the game, and noted a thin connection between action sequences. It won the Maria Award at the 2005 Sitges Film Festival and the Best Anime Feature award at the 2007 American Anime Awards. The original release became one of the best-selling animated films in both Japan and the United States that year. An extended cut, *Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete*, debuted on Blu-ray in 2009, adding 26 minutes of new and expanded footage to the original 101-minute runtime. This version was credited with driving a significant spike in PlayStation 3 console sales during its release week. By May 2009, the DVD and UMD releases had sold over 4.1 million copies worldwide. The *Complete* version returned to Japanese theaters from January 19 to February 1, 2024, and to U.S. theaters on February 21, 2024, to promote the launch of the video game *Final Fantasy VII Rebirth*.