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Yes, it is true; the game is migrating to the small screen. Black Rock Shooter on TV will lead the winter lineup in January on Fuji TV’s set of programming. Hatsune Miku sings the theme song for the series with the musical group Supercell and the composer Ryo, and a one hour OVA was previously put together by Studio Ordet with a release to magazines. As of a few days ago, a game edition of Black Rock Shooter with animation by ufotable also hit the shelves. If you are a fan of the game, keep your eye out for the Anime.

The second in the series of Mardock Scramble movies is going to be rolling out shortly, and in honor of that there will be a live-broadcast talk event on Ustream and Nico Nico Douga at 7PM Tokyo time tomorrow, 30Aug11, which is 5AM PST, and 8AM EST, but at least all on the same day. The guests on screen include the writer (Tow Ubukata wrote both the sci-fi novels and the screenplays), the director, and the lead actor (actress, in this case). The first film doesn’t get released in the US for another month yet on September 27th, but the English trailer for it is now available (the second one here), and it will be OnDemand from The Anime Network in October.

Both of the two offerings this week seem to be in the horror field, which I am not a fan of (unless the film has a good level of comedy to balance it out, which these don’t appear to have). If I had to pick one, I suppose it would be Apollo 18, because at least that one takes place off Earth, unlike Shark Night 3D. But I think I will give them both a pass, and use the time I free up to catch up with some current Anime series I am behind on, instead.

The movie choice for the week for me is Gantz, the live action variant of the Manga and Anime favorite. While some of the reviews I have read complain about it’s pacing, I really don’t care, I just want it for my collection. And if it bothers me enough, like anybody else I could always re-edit it to exclude the boring bits. Anyways, this is just the first in the set; Gantz 2 will be out soon, so I will reserve judgement until I see how the entire work fits together. Red Faction: Origins is the only movie of interest out this week in English, giving some serious detailed background to the game environment that spawned this film. From Thailand, Panna Rittikrai’s latest offering BKO: Bangkok Knockout is also out this week, continuing the work he did in Ong Bak and Chocolate.

Police, Adjective is not genre but rather crime comedy from Romania’s Corneliu Porumboiu that has won awards from all over the globe, and Norwegian Ninja is action comedy based on Norway’s major government scandal of 1984 (pick up some great wallpapers from the flic here). I pretty much had to mention these two, since they are each different in their own way from anything else you might have seen.

Notice how I went out of my way to avoid mentioning A Big Box of Zombies, with 8 zombie movies that were made from 1936 to 1971. While it is important to study your enemies to be ready to defend yourself come the Zombie Apocalypse, I really don’t think that this collection is the optimal way to do that. But it is fun. *grin*

TV this week is the latest version of a classic: Nikita: The Complete First Season. The successor to 1990’s La Femme Nikita movie and the subsequent TV series that ran from 1997 through 2001, this new spin on the story is a whole lot of fun.

In Anime, Neo Angelique Abyss: The Complete Collection tells of life on Arcadia, where evil demons battle the small number of Purifiers set against them. The humans are not doing very well, but Angelique may hold the secret that will allow them to survive. Ikki Tousen: Great Guardians Part 1 was supposed to be released this week as well, with Part 2 coming in October, but Media Blasters has announced that they have evaluated the market and decided to do a single box set release of the entire series, but that will not be available until March of next year. Great Guardians is the third season to become available in the US, although there is now a 4th season in Japan and they are working on a fifth.

There is a new Sci-Fi MMO coming out called Wildstar from NCsoft and Carbine, and based on the trailer it looks like a world of fun. You get to select whether you want to be an Explorer, Soldier, Scientist, or Settler (three of the four classes are represented in the trailer) and head out for adventure on unknown worlds. At the moment you can sign up to help test the beta version, but I haven’t found a reference to when it goes into live mode. Thanks to the folks at Crunchyroll for the heads up on this one.