Skip to main content

Something to Watch: DVDs

Top movie selection this time around absolutely has to be Tai Chi Hero, the sequel to the amazing Steampunk Tai Chi Zero. This film series is very hard to describe properly, but it is a world of fun, and I recommend it highly. 6 Souls might be interesting as well, I suppose.

I didn’t find any TV series this time around, but Anime did slightly better with three entries. Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere: Season Two continues the national maneuvering for power and position, and I mean that quite literally. It looks like we finally get to see the Armor of Deadly Sins in action this time around as well. Natsume’s Book of Friends: Season 4 finds our protagonist still tracking down the Yokai (monsters, spirits) listed in his grandfathers book and giving them back their rightful names. But now he must also consider his future, and make some hard decisions. Finally, Ruin Explorers is a 4 episode OVA about two highly trained magic users who can’t spell right (I am pretty sure the pun is intentional) in a race to collect three artifacts before their opponents beat them to it. This one looks pretty amusing for old school Anime, it is vintage 1995.

SIGGRAPH 2013 Emerging Technologies Preview

SIGGRAPH 2013 is coming up on July 21st through the 25th, with the latest and greatest in graphics development for movie production, gaming platforms, and scientific visualization. Some of the presentations and exhibits each year focus on new and emerging technologies, and as usual they have put together a prevue of some of the more interesting ones. A few of these are silly, and more of them need context to understand their potential applications, but a couple of them are obvious game changers that will revolutionize how we do things once they get into full production. And as a special bonus, I am including their Real Time Preview for this year as well.

New Ghost In The Shell: Arise!

It is true, there is a new Ghost In The Shell project with an all new series of videos and a new story line. This one is called Ghost in the Shell: Arise! and it is made up of four 50 minute episodes. It looks like it will bring all our favorite characters back together again in that same cyberpunk universe we have enjoyed so many times before. Episode 1 hit the big screens in Tokyo last week, but I figure it will be at least the end of July before the DVDs get released here and we get to enjoy them. There may be a few rare theaters that will throw this on the big screen in the US, but I haven’t found any yet. If you find one of them, give me a shout; I would really like to be there!

The Boy Who Lept Through Time

OK, he didn’t leap, he took the train, but I couldn’t resist. The movie Enoshima Prism takes place three years after the death of their friend, where Shuta boards a train at the Enoshima Station while dwelling on the loss. Instead of taking him to another station, the train lets him off in the same place but three years in the past, giving Shuta a very short time to figure out how to save Saku before history repeats itself and he dies again. That is actually the 8th out of 10 trailers they have released for the movie, with the film itself hitting the big screen in Japan in August. No word yet on when it will become available in the US, but it looks pretty interesting so I am hoping soon.