Another trailer for the live action GHOST IN THE SHELL, and it looks even better with each new iteration, certainly from a visual perspective. Of course, at this point we know they have made a few changes with her backstory beyond just dropping her name, Motoko Kusanagi, and just using her former rank to identify her. But I am not going to worry about that. I will judge the movie on its own merits when I see it for myself. It is launching at the end of this month, and you can believe I will be in the theater on March 31st.
All forms of audio/video/text storage
This weeks must see film is obviously Logan, the third and final stand-alone Wolverine film starring Hugh Jackman, and maybe Patrick Stewart. I will definitely be in the theater for that one, but there is an additional option: Before I Fall. That one is a teen groundhog day with one girl trying to get through the day alive, unlike the last multiple times she went through it.
The winner this week has to be Marvel’s Doctor Strange, a real powerhouse of a movie, and one of my favorites for 2016. In Anime, every title listed this time is the complete series, so you won’t be missing anything with any of these. Actually, I Am is about a boy who can’t keep a secret, so he confesses his love to a girl… who tells him a secret about herself: she’s a Vampire. If he leaks this secret to anyone, she will be forced to leave school, but it seems everyone at that school has a secret, and he begins to learn them all. In Amagi Brilliant Park there are scantily clad fairies, giant mice and sniper-trained sheep occupying a run down amusement park that really is a magic kingdom in need of rescuing. The Betrayal Knows My Name is a story of love, reincarnation, and constantly mounting danger, with a twist. There are two titles this week that I thought were already both released, but I can’t find evidence to prove it. Red Data Girl is being released in a S.A.V.E. edition, so you can pick up the entire series for under $20. The classic Scrapped Princess is also coming out on disc as a complete series; I thought it had done that a decade ago, but all the references I can find are for single volumes with 4 episodes each, no collection.
There are some new songs from Fukuoka prefecture art-rock band PolkadotStingray (yes, it really is one word run together), the first one here is ELECTRIC PUBLIC posted last Sunday and rapidly approaching half a million view in just 6 days. That is the opening song of their 1st Mini Album Great Justice, which will be released on April 26th. The next track is the mermaid from their first E.P. release last year, Boneless E. P., and I almost put a pretty interesting Google Android commercial they did for an app that would let you search for photos of yourself. The song on that one is great, but I can’t see posting a commercial.
The Irregular at Magic High School anime series has a Feature Film coming out in Japan on June 17th, and it just got its first trailer. The original voice cast is here, but both the director and the anime studio have changed since the original TV series came out in 2014. I have no idea how much those changes might change the dynamic of the story-line, but it was solid as a light novel, solid as a TV series, and I expect it will be solid as a movie. Thanks to the folks at Otaku USA for the heads up on this one.
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei Movie PV by pKjd
We get a couple of very different movies this week. The gritty near future dystopia The Girl with All the Gifts, based on the novel by the same name from Mike Carey, is a story of spoor crazed zombies and human experimentation. On the other hand the fantasy Rock Dog is about a Tibetan Mastiff who wants to play music rather than guard sheep. I know which one I will be watching; how about you?