Funimation has announced the US dates for the live action Attack On Titan movies to be in theaters, with September 30th for the first, and October 20th for the second. They made the announcement a bit over a week ago, I have been trying to find a list of theaters that will be showing it to link here, but I just haven’t found one. The official movie page does have an opt-in email registration where you can sign up to get those announcements as they become available, at least. In the meantime, here is the official US trailer.
The film Z for Zachariah takes place after the end of the world, where the three known survivors end up in a love triangle. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and author Robert C. O’Brien had another of his books turned into a movie, The Secret of NIMH. But I am just not sure that a movie with only 3 actors in it can hold my attention all the way through. The other option this week looks more interesting to me, but may be on far fewer screens: Memories of the Sword is a Korean historical fantasy taking place during the Goryo Dynasty.
In Movies I have to consider Big Game a fantasy, even though I don’t think that was the intention of the film makers. The plot has a thirteen-year-old boy armed with a bow and arrows who has to save the President (Samuel L. Jackson) from a group of kidnappers while fleeing across Finland. The trailer was quite nicely done, I think it might just be a fun film. We also get Lego DC Super Heroes: Justice League Attack of the Legion of Doom!, action adventure on the silly side from DC Comics and Warner Bros. Studios.
TV has The Walking Dead: The Complete Fifth Season, which gives you plenty of time to catch up with the show before season 6 starts on October 11th. I figured this program would last two seasons, three tops; I obviously underestimated the attraction of Zombies. While not genre, I enjoy the show a lot and so will mention Elementary: Season 3 also comes out this week. The network the show runs on, CBS, now has its own OTT streaming service, CBS All Access, allowing you to watch the shows the day after they air on your computer, tablet, or smart phone.
In Anime the new show is Kamigami no Asobi: Ludere Deorum, in which Zeus decides that the gods have lost touch with the mortal world. His solution is to kidnap Yui and throw her into a garden with 8 hunky gods, assigning her the job of teaching them about humanity and mortality. The gods being so easily bored, things get way more interesting than most mere mortals would ever find comfortable.
There are also a number of returning shows with new seasons, which run the gamut of categories. Love Chunibyo & Other Delusions! Heart Throb brings season 2 home, to follow in the footsteps of the original story. Not only does he have delusional Rikka to deal with, but now his childhood delusional reinforcement buddy Satone Shichimiya is back, ready to drag him into a fantasy world he may never escape from. The combat-gamer series Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works, better viewed on their CrunchyRoll Page, also brings us a new series worth of episodes. And as usual Fairy Tail: Part 16 brings us another 11 episodes in this wonderful ongoing saga.
Another great rock band from Japan are the Ulfuls, and they recently posted a new song, Sporty Party, that I really like. See all the athletic gear folks are wearing in this video? They recorded this as the ASICS “training ware” campaign song, which lead me to believe it might be a commercial. When I did a bit of research, it turned out the campaign was to enter a contest in which you had to answer questions on a survey. They will pull the names of 20 folks who entered and give them each a pair of premium Ulfuls live tour tickets, with a choice of venue of either Tokyo or Osaka. The contest started yesterday and runs until September 18th, so if you live near Japan or are traveling there soon and want to enter the contest go to the Sporty Party Campaign web site and fill out your entry. The tour will be recorded as part of their “Ulfuls tour 2015 Bontsubiatsuatsu (Live House ed)” release coming out later this year. The song Sporty Party will be on their new album Bonn Zwi Wai Wai being released on September 9th.
Previous Ulfuls posts: Ulfuls with Muppets, Ulfuls
My favorite Anime series this season was GATE, and it pretty much still is. But now Daisuki has an exclusive on a new truly kick ass show that has caught my attention: God Eater is an amazing project, using edits and camera work normally reserved for the better live action programs, and almost never seen in animations. The animation quality itself is also far better than normal, with a lot more attention to detail. I should mention that by “Exclusive” I don’t mean they are the only service that has it, but it looks like they do have any given episode a good 4 weeks ahead of the competition. So if you find this one as worthy of attention as I do, that is an excellent reason to sign up for a Free Daisuke Membership, and maybe even consider getting a premium/paid membership, if you like what you see there well enough.
The core story line is also grittier than the other offerings, but seems to be extracted/stolen directly from Attack On Titan; giant god-like creatures are breaking through the protective walls humanity is hiding behind, and eating everybody they can catch. While they are doing all the parts of it so much better than we have seen before, it is sad that they didn’t come up with their own plot line, but only swiped someone else’s story. Of course, the people that read the original Manga might argue with that interpretation, but that is how it appears to me.
If you didn’t make SIGGRAPH 2015, and I didn’t, there isn’t much I can say that will make sense about this Emerging Technologies Contributor. I know Shogyo Mujo isn’t a person, but more a process and team effort. Specifically, Shogyo Mujo utilizes 360-degree projection mapping to take an artistic sculpture to the next level by projecting the images, suitably distorted to map across the physical surface in ways that capture our gaze, as artwork that pulsates to the music. I found it a bit hypnotic to tell the truth, and plan to try my hand at this newly created art form whenever I can find the time to experiment with it.