There is a great set of three articles over at Anime News Network about copyright’s as they apply to fandom, written by a lawyer who specializes in Intellectual Property law. While they specifically address Anime fans, the concepts discussed are equally valid for any genre fans. They are well written and easy for the non-lawyer to understand, and I highly recommend checking them out. The first article is What Is A Copyright And What Does It Do?, the second is Copyrights And Fandom, the third is Defending Yourself. There is a fourth article yet to come, discussing what is in the courts and pending legislation, and how it may effect your ability to watch or buy shows or merchandise. As with all discussions about the law online, there is a legal disclaimer at the end of each article. Ironic, that.
Terrestrial Human
This week’s best bet is Jack the Giant Slayer, which started life as Jack and the Beanstalk but veered off in a new direction pretty quickly. There is also The Frankenstein Theory, which has the interesting premise that Mary Shelly’s book was not a work of fiction. For myself, I will be at Jack, because it looks like a lot more fun.
In movies the Man from Shaolin is coming out, a martial arts story. I should point out this is the 2012 movie starring Li Zhang, not the 2010 collection of 1980s films starring Jet Li that had the same name. Also, the Japanese action/adventure fantasy Red Tears appears to have been renamed Monster Killer for its US release. No American genre releases this week that I could find, and nothing really in live action TV.
We do considerably better in Anime, with Battle Girls: Time Paradox releasing the complete 13 episode collection. Hideyoshi is going to fail her history exam without some divine intervention, so she stops by a shrine to make a prayer and an offering. She gets transported in mid prayer to what appears to be a version of feudal Japan populated entirely by women, and immediately is on a quest to gather together the mystical armor required to help a warlord conquer the land. The Qwaser of Stigmata: Collection 2 brings the next dozen episodes in the tale of Qwaser and Human pairs in their battle for the High Circuit. And it looks like being paired with a super-powered being just might be contagious, as one of the women goes through a startling transformation.
The prize for longest title this week goes to Heaven’s Lost Property the Movie: The Angeloid of Clockwork, in which yet another not quite human girl comes to make Tomoki’s life stranger than he expected. Finally, Nisemonogatari is the sequel series to Bakemonogatari, continuing the supernatural adventures of apparitions associated with women the protagonist knows. However, at roughly $120 for 11 episodes of 25 minutes each, this one is way overpriced, and that is after the drop from the original price of $150. So I will just be watching it on Crunchyroll until a better deal comes along. If you are doing the same thing, start with Bakemonogatari, or you will never be able to figure out what is going on in the newer series.
The 50th anniversary of Doctor Who is coming up in November, and they are making a ton of wonderful specials for it, on top of the actual new episodes in both audio and video format. One of those specials is An Adventure in Space and Time, about how Doctor Who came to exist. David Bradley gets to play actor William Hartnell for this one, while Jessica Raine is the show’s producer Verity Lambert. Check out the exclusive Radio Times photo of Dave as Hartnell, and enjoy this video snippet of the recreation of the pivotal scene from the very first Daleks episode.
BBC America got off to a fine start when they created their very first original series with Copper, and it looks like they are upping the ante with Orphan Black. A chance encounter of an apparent pair of twins separated at birth begins to look more like a cloning experiment run amok in fairly short order. This one will be rolling out in March, I have no intention of missing it.
A couple of tunes in Russian I like, that also have tasty video’s with them. The first is ANA BASTON with her song Li-Lu, the second is Pavlova’s song Часы. I don’t have a clue what they are about, but I like the music and visuals both, and Pavlova is definitely Clockpunk.