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Ishida Hiroyasu is a brilliant young animator from Japan, and in March of 2010 I posted his Fumiko’s Confession; that video source is gone now, so I am re-posting it as the second video entry today. This year he turned in his graduation piece, called Rain Town, and posted it to YouTube just a week or so before the major earthquake/tsunami created such widespread destruction and loss of life across Japan. I have no idea if he survived that event, and because of it my attention was distracted from noticing this beautiful piece until now. I really hope he and his family are all right, and we will get to see more from this wonderful creator; with virtually no words he tells intense stories of the human heart.

Starting today and running until October 2nd, the Science Museum in London is running the Player Live Gaming Festival. This event is broken into a couple of pieces, with the first part on September 28th being an adults-only presentation. It includes a smartphone driven scavenger hunt, a “silent disco” in the computing and math area and a round of speed dating in the temporary exhibit section. The Punk Science and Pub Quiz events also look pretty entertaining. The second round, on October 1st and 2nd, will effectively turn the museum (or at least the shipping gallery) into a life size game of Battleship. If more museums did this kind of thing we might find more people interested in learning. The museum is located on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London.

There are two interesting films hitting the theaters this week. If you are in an Action kind of mood, the one you want is Bunraku, starring Ron Perlman, Woody Harlson, Demi Moore, and Gatk (I believe this is his first time in an American movie). Kind of American movie anyways; the title and the plot line came from a traditional school of puppet shows from Japan, Gakt is a Japanese rock star, and they filmed the movie in Rumania. It is opening in very limited release, if it does well it may go to wider release down the road. If you are more in the mood for a dark comedy, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is the way to go. It is about two good ole boys on vacation at their dilapidated shack in the mountains when they are attacked by a bunch of preppy collage kids who have seen Texas Chain Saw Massacre one too many times.

This week we get Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a real roller-coaster of an action adventure movie. If you want some comedy with your action, I can recommend The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman, an unusual martial arts movie from China, where you follow the blade from owner to owner, getting a different story with each one. If you are more in a Fantasy kind of mood, Dragon Crusaders could be fun; nothing fancy here, it is just like the title says; a band of knights out to defeat a dragon. The final entry The Lost Future is a made for Syfy movie from last year.

In 1989 NBC aired a TV Miniseries of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days and it is getting re-released on DVD this week. The all star cast included Eric Idle which I find interesting because also in 1989 his fellow Pythons Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam also did an Around the World in Eighty Days TV series for the BBC, only theirs was a documentary in which Palin attempted to circumnavigate the globe without flying to see if Phileas Fogg could have done it.

In western animation the two pack of Scared Shrekless / Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins at a noticeably reduced price over getting them individually.

For anime, Mardock Scramble: The First Compression is finally being released in the US. This is the first of three science fiction stories that make up the series. In this one, the female cyborg Balot has only one purpose; to track down, capture, and/or kill the serial killer who murdered her. In Squid Girl – Part 1 we have a cute young girl who is a squid when she is in the water, now come ashore to conquer the human realm, but she is not having much luck with that last bit. Trigun: Badlands Rumble is a feature film that returns us to science fiction western that is Trigun. Rounding out our new releases, the Straw Hat Gang is back in One Piece – Collection 2.

The box set of Corpse Princess – Complete Collection brings the full story of the machine-gun wielding dead girl and her battle against the unnatural undead in a single package. Also Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple – Season 1 – Complete Collection is now out as a single set for the season rather than the two parts it had been.