This week’s selection is another spooky but funny animation, ParaNorman. A town is invaded by zombies, and their only recourse is to ask the help of the strangest kid in town. It certainly looks like silly fun to me.
The top spot in movies this week goes to The Hunger Games, which I suspect may do as well as a DVD as it did as a book and movie. This one will definitely be coming home with me, and I am looking forward to seeing if they can sustain the momentum in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Also out this week, Juan Of The Dead brings still more humor to the Zombie Apocalypse. And for fans of the classic Japanese giant monsters series, Gamera: War of Monsters Collection has 6 movies of the giant turtle god being reissued together in a box set. And finally in the live action feature films category, The Sword Identity comes our way from China. I am sure you will be shocked to learn it is a historic martial arts epic.
In TV we have Dr. Who: Greatest Show in the Galaxy, a Sylvester McCoy classic tale with Sophie Aldred as Ace. Another option is Dexter: Season 6, which is also coming out in a box set of seasons 1 through 6.
Western animation brings us Marvel Knights Astonishing X-Men: Torn, and I do have to say I have been enjoying the entire Marvel Knights series.
New Anime releases start with Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror, a feature-length presentation that has Haruka off in a wonderland like environment searching for her lost treasure. The trailer looks cute as hell, I will be interested to see if the animation quality is consistent and how the story holds up. Another new entry this week is called This Boy Can Fight Aliens, which is good, because Earth has been invaded. Except, of course, the boy has lost his memory and doesn’t have a clue how to use his powers. This is an OVA, not a feature film or a TV show, and the entire thing is only 28 minutes long, so unless it comes with some outrageous extras I am thinking it is overpriced.
The third and last new entry for this week is One Piece – Collection 7, with the Straw Hat Gang continuing to contend for the crown of King of the Pirates. Besides the new stuff, there is a re-release in more cost effective packaging: Trinity Blood – The Complete Series reduces the price over buying the seasons separately by a good 25%. And I do like their tag line: Vampire action without all that teen angst.
H+ The Digital Series launched this week online, and it looks like a very interesting project. The stage is globe-spanning, the cast includes a few old favorites, and the plot is intriguing. You can upgrade yourself by getting a chip implant called HPlus, which gives you internet access just by thinking about it. But then a virus is released and one third of the H+ users (which is most of humanity by that point) die overnight. Some of the survivors go offline, some stay online, and some were never part of the network, but they all try to put their world back together. Besides the web site they are also running a You Tube Channel, and you can watch the first six episodes now by subscribing to it. There is a good interview over at Tor you might like to read as well.
More music from Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. I saw this terminally kawaii artist for the first time on J-Melo on the NHK World channel last year, and every song she does is just addictive. I have noticed two basic reactions to her music; you can’t stop playing the same song over and over, or you run from the room screaming half way through the first repetition. I seem to fall in the former category. I am also sure it will be no surprise to anyone that she is neck deep in the Tokyo Kawaii Fashion Scene.
Animated romantic musical comedy horror is a lot of fun, and the latest entry in this admittedly rather tiny niche market is Hotel Transylvania. Target date for release is September 28th, and I for one intend to be there to see it.
Written and sung by The Phenomenauts, this is a near-punk anthem to a world class astrophysicist, Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson. Someone had to inherit the mantle from Carl Sagan, and it turned out to be Neil. Thanks to Laughing Squid for the heads up on this one.