Off topic, but I love Japanese cuisine and wanted to share these with you. NHK is a Japanese organization that an American would think of as a cross between PBS and the FCC, and they have a ton of excellent programming in their library. They have been streaming live online for a number of years, but they recently added an On Demand interface to their web site and their apps, so you can watch and listen to shows on your schedule. Besides the Manga/Anime/Games/Music shows I watch without fail every week, their collection includes an excellent assortment of Japanese Food programs, both video and Radio Recipe collections. Plus, they broadcast in 18 languages, one of which is English, so you don’t even have to learn to speak Nihongo to follow along. If you have ever gone to a Japanese restaurant and had a meal you really enjoyed, you will be surprised at how easy it is to cook them yourself. Just as a bonus, all of these programs are free to enjoy.
There are several good choices this week, with the first being Star Trek Beyond. Have no doubt, I will be in the audience for that one, probably paying the extra for the 3D IMAX variant. For those needing a serious influx of silly, Ice Age: Collision Course also includes a spaceship, although it may bounce of more planets than the Enterprise does.
There are a number of good choices this week, starting with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC’s first group superhero outing. For a more mundane conflict, the Thai/Hong Kong film Kill Zone 2 is about an undercover cop and the crime boss he is trying to bring down. If you are looking for something noticeably lighter with a positive attitude, Underdogs may be the animated feature film for you (yes, this is a re-release of the 2013 feature animation, but so few people in the US know about it I thought it was worth mentioning again). There is also an interesting documentary: Outatime is the story about how a group of fans teamed up with a movie executive to save the most famous DeLorean ever, the one from Back To The Future. There are even a couple of Music oriented docudramas in the form of Miles Ahead and Elvis & Nixon. If there were regular TV genre releases this week they slipped right past me.
Anime brings Yona of the Dawn: Part 2, with the princess chasing the dragons and preparing to take her country back by force. This is an enjoyable series that throws a few anime tropes on their heads while fully embracing others, and overall I like it. A Certain Magical Index II: Complete Collection brings another 24 episodes of science based magic excitement onto the small screen, with an encoded grimoire containing catastrophic magic stolen by persons unknown, and the Science Society restarting a program to create a generation of people with a range of psychic abilities (see A Certain Scientific Railgun for the details of how that is going).
Plastic Memories Volume 1 is a beautiful trans-species love story about a human and android, but at $10 per 23 minute episode for the first half of the story, it is way overpriced; I will enjoy it on streamy until someone puts it out more reasonably. Likewise, Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie – Part 1: Beginnings / Part 2: Eternal, the first two feature films of the franchise, will require you to pay $1 for every 3.5 minutes that you watch (and that’s at the discounted off of list price), but that is at least a bit better than the previous title.
On the flip side of that coin, Fractale – The Complete Series and Kamisama Kiss: Season 1 are both coming out in a S.A.V.E. edition, so they will be more cost effective than ever to add to your collection.
Taka of One OK Rock recently posted a few covers online, and they are fairly amazing. The first is Zayn’s song Pillowtalk, and I thought it strange he was covering a former One Direction singer’s work until I saw and heard the original version of the song. The second track is Adele’s powerful anthem Hello, and that one was never a surprise. Considering what a master of rock Taka is, it is nice to get an idea about which more relaxed tunes he appreciates enough to add his own renditions to the worlds musical collection.
This is from back in 2014, but I only found it this week, courtesy of Laughing Squid. The amount of video available these days is staggering, and the surprise is not that we miss things, but that we manage to keep up with it at all. Even though it’s old, it struck a chord with me, so I had to share it.
Toho is releasing GANTZ:O on October 14th, at least in Japan. It is a 3D modeled CGI presentation, as opposed to the original 2d hand drawn (at least the key frames) animation, and the more recent live action version only used 3D CGI for the special effects and aliens. This one is also a feature film based on the Manga, like the live action films, where the 2D animation was a series that spanned half a year.