One of the most interesting and surprising Anime’s I have seen in a while is Time of Eve (Eve no Jikan) from Studio Rikka. The visual quality is amazing, and uses 3D environments with traditional 2D character animation to very good effect. But it is the stories themselves which make this series special; each episode focuses on a character (human, robot, or android) and explores their relationship with a member of the opposite phylum. This wonderful little series started life as webisodes in 2008, and was migrated to TV in 2009. They have made a theatrical version which hit the big screen in Tokyo and Osaka this spring, and you can watch the TV version streaming online at Crunchyroll. I really hope they do a second season of this one, and release the movie to the US soon.
This one looks very interesting; from October 10th to the 24th this year the USA Science & Engineering Festival will take place in the Washington, D.C. area. Billing itself as the the country’s first national science festival, it already has over 500 organizations signed up to participate, and will end with a two day Expo in the nation’s capital according to their official blog. This event will give science & engineering groups the opportunity to present themselves to the public with hands-on science activities to inspire the next generation of researchers and developers. The teams involved are wide ranging, and include such diverse outfits and events as the 4H National Youth Science Day, the You Can Do The Cube competition, a presentation from Hollywood Movie Physics, and the Versatile Mr. Freeze from FermiLabs, to name but a few. And yes, you can follow them on a boatload of social media tools, including Twitter.
A very nice image capture sequence video presented by an Astrophysicist I trust on a news channel I don’t… thanks to Comcast Dot Net for the source video for this presentation, and The Hubblesite in the US and Space Telescope in Europe for the science behind it.
Not a lot out this weekend, but there are a few that might be worth seeing. Vampires Suck is silly fun poked mostly at the Twilight franchise (OK, pretty much totally at the Twilight franchise). For the first time ever I can honestly say that the parody was better than the film it was making fun of, at least in terms of acting, cinematography, believability, scriptwriting, and a few other details. I suspect that has less to do with how good the parody is and more to do with how bad the original was, and I will be seeing the parody if someone pays me enough to make wasting my time that completely worthwhile (and only then).
While on a more serious topic, and with far superior actors, What If… still bears a noticeable resemblance to the other film in one respect; it is a modified remake of another movie. This time around, the original I associate this with is one of the true classics of film making: the Frank Capra/Jimmy Stewart legend It’s A Wonderful Life, itself a modern day retelling of the Scrooge story. From what I can tell from the write up and the trailer, other remakes like Mr. Destiny or What Women Want may be better representations of this film, but I am always willing to check out a new Paratime story, and so few of them make it to the big screen.
I never thought I would be saying this, but they actually made a sequel to Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, called The Lost Skeleton Returns Again. The key points of this release in the IMDB Writeup seem to be that the returning actors are wearing the same clothes, and the director promised not to make another sequel. With luck it will be as funny as the first one.
I have been looking forward to the release of The Good, The Bad, The Weird since it hit a limited theater run earlier this year. This is a cowboy train robbery movie that takes place in the Chinese Wild West (Manchuria to you and me), with multiple groups including Korean Outlaws, Chinese Bandits, and the Japanese Army all going after the treasure. If it is a fraction as good as the trailer it should be a hoot, and funny besides.
Another one I have been anticipating is the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Season 2 complete collection. There is some debate on whether it comes out this week (one site puts it as far back as September 14th), and no indication as yet whether it includes the feature film, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. But I really do like the storyline, and season one had what may be my favorite song used in an Anime (at least in the top ten), God Bless.
There are a few darker releases this week; Casshern Sins continues the classic tale already presented with both a live action feature film and an animated TV series, about the cyborg who murdered the moon but may offer redemption and salvation to the robotic populace. Shigofumi: Letters from the Departed tells the animated tale of Kanaka (a talking walking staff) and Fumika (I’m not dead yet) as the Shigofumi Mail Carriers delivering messages of hate and love from the dead to the living. This rather strange and macabre series is Subbed, not Dubbed. I have always thought that which is better changes from one series or film to the next, and is a function of the fidelity of the translation and the quality of both sets of the voice actors.
Yes, the Scott Pilgrim Avatar Creator can be used by you to create an Avatar and share it with the world. I was a bit disappointed they only let you enter two characters for the age (I was going for 105, but it only gave me 10). And I might have gotten a LITTLE distracted when I realized I could also play the web page as a game while building the Avatar. I think the one I built lives here.
