The wonderful voice of Yūko Suzuhana has been driving the Wagakki Band for years, a band blending traditional Japanese musical instruments and Western rock in ways never heard before. This past November, she finally got her first solo mini-album, Cradle Of Eternity, with a different musical sensibility but that same powerful voice. Here is a taste of each, first the song Cradle Of Eternity from the album of the same name, then the track Strong Fate from the Wagakki Band, and finally the more mellow Wagakki Band track Okinota yu, just posted Tuesday. Enjoy!
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With Scarlett Johansson, Beat Takeshi, and Pilou Asbæk heading up Section 9, the live action version of Ghost In The Shell is a movie I have been waiting roughly 25 years for someone to make. Only a few more months to go before we get to see it! The Super Bowl spot has some new footage we haven’t seen before.
This animated short is too adorable for words! The audio is Moses Supposes from 1952’s Singing In The Rain, the animation itself is very well done. Thanks to GoBoiano for the heads up on this one, and thanks to Bowing for doing the animation and posting it. At least it looked like he was one of the creators when I fed his statements through Google Translate.
The winner this week may be The Space Between Us, about the first person born on Mars. When he returns to visit the Earth, find his father, and meet the first new people in his life, they discover his body can not handle the environment. We also get Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back, the second movie in the Steven Chow series.
The Western releases are all animated this time around. Justice League Dark has Batman teaming up with various DC heroes with supernatural powers to fight a demonic assault on Earth. It seems like Dreamwork’s Trolls was just in the theaters, but now it is coming out on Disc as well. I should also mention Disney is re-releasing 1940’s Pinocchio in Blue Ray format, for those who appreciate classic animation.
In Anime God Eater Pt 2 is the second half of a 12 episode series, but with a list price of $89 for 6 episodes, I will be watching it on Daisuki or Crunchyroll until the distributor comes to their senses. Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei Herz continues the Magical Girls story begun in season 1, where the unasked-for powers continue to turn the most mundane tasks into adventures to be survived. I don’t think this last one is really genre, but the story line of Shomin Sample: The Complete Series is off the wall enough to be considered fantasy, so I am including it here.
Earlier this week I mentioned the upcoming North American theatrical release of Your Name, and included the main theme by RADWIMPS. I thought this was a good opportunity to share a few other of their many songs, the first of which is the 2017 version of Iin Desu Ka, AKA Is That OK?, recorded just a few weeks ago. The next track is Kigō to Shite or As a Sign from December of 2015, the third is their 2009 song The Mind, the last is 2011’s With You and Sheep and Blue, or close to that. The band’s been around since 2001 and got their first major record deal in 2005, and have released a lot of music over the years. If you like what you hear, there is a lot more of it to track down and listen to.