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After New Years we get a few movies worth checking out, including Paradox, a story about a theoretical physicist who’s wife is murdered. He build a paratime device to allow him to jump between parallel universes, looking for one in which she is still alive. Unicorns is about a teenage girl who retreats into a fantasy world when her first romantic entanglement turns violent. This one doesn’t seem to be genre really, but it is as indie as they come, so I thought I should at least mention it on the off chance it does go into a fantasy realm.

Shaolin Warrior comes very close to being genre, since all martial arts movies are fantasy films at heart. I don’t mean because of the various gods and demons that sometimes populate them, that is a matter of personal belief and spiritual worldview. I am referring to the superhero-like powers the fighters have, which enable them to do many things on a par with Captain America, Thor, or Spider Man. The other movie that looks interesting this week is CBGB, a movie about the punk scene centered around the legendary club n New York.

In TV there is a BAFTA-nominated fantasy/supernatural program focused on teens called Wolfblood. They are high school aged werewolves who must hide what they are even from their closest friends, or their entire specie may be hunted down and killed. Like being in high school wasn’t stressful enough. This release is the first season of the CBBC series, hopefully season 2 will be along soon.

In Anime, So I Can’t Play H: Complete Collection is not the most subtle series you will run across (Hint: in these kind of titles, the H always stands for Hentai). This is about a teenage boy who makes a deal with a Shinigami to let her use some of his essence to stay in this world, but instead of taking years off his life like a normal goddess of death would do, she drains off his lecherous libido. Now he has to figure out how to get those feelings back, or he will completely miss out on a major aspect of any mans youth. Fate/Zero: Complete 2nd Season continues the epic of the Holy Grail Wars, with Zero being (rather confusingly) the 4th such war, but the first one to take place.

Ikki Tousen: Great Guardians is the third series in the original martial arts with exploding clothes franchise. Each of these high school students is the reincarnation of one of the most famous martial artists from throughout history, and they will battle it out to see who is the best. Chrono Crusade is coming out in a S.A.V.E. edition, which means if you shop around you can pick up the entire series about the premiere Combat Nun of the 1920s (and her demon sidekick) for around $20.

In my book, it’s still the holidays until we hit New Years, so one more set of images is allowed. This time around it is the star at Seven Dials, and some more stars from just a few blocks away. Blocks is kind of a lose term in London, and any other city that is a thousand years old or better, I suspect. The place wasn’t exactly planed and designed, but just kind of grew there as people built stuff. So no two blocks are the same size, and roads rarely meet at 90 degree angles, which looks kind of strange to anyone who grew up in a city laid out on a grid. Seven Dials itself is a perfect example; 7 roads all intersect at a single circle, pretty much at the same angles as the points on that star, hence the name of the neighborhood.

SevenDials Star

More Stars

The day after Xmas, December 26th, is often called Boxing Day, but not because they have a bunch of boxes they need to throw out (although that would have been my guess). Rather, after all the important people have celebrated the holiday, they hand out Xmas Boxes to the servants, peons, and blue collar workers who had to keep everything going during the first celebration. I find this more than a bit depressing, so I will just jump straight back into the lights. This time around a few of the Oxford Street offerings, which were quite amazing. Besides the lights above the street which everyplace else had, they included some optional choices to layer entire buildings in lights, which was quite exceptional.

Oxford Street 1

Trees Upstairs