Both sites have made the announcement front page news: Funimation is teaming up with (or perhaps merging with is more accurate) Crunchyroll. They will be sharing titles, with each side playing to their strengths; Crunchyroll continuing to bring you streamed subtitled shows within an hour of their airing in Japan, Funimation using their in house voice acting team to get them dubbed and available streaming in English in just a few weeks, and available for digital downloading or disc purchasing. I haven’t seen any mention of what happens to those of us who own premium memberships with both companies yet, I am hoping the new operation rewards us for years of loyalty with some kind of discount combo membership.
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Max Steel has Max McGrath getting together with the alien cyborg/robot Steel to combine into a superhero. The human doesn’t have a clue, the Borg’s awareness is unresolved, but when they combine good things happen. Yes, this all is based on a game from the last century, but it has some serious amusement value.
For the 15 folks on the interwebs who haven’t already seen this, here you go! The Netflix/Marvel production of Luke Cage is going to be a monster when the entire first season hits on September 30th, if the response to AKA Jessica Jones is any indication. And while my work schedule won’t allow me to power through it, I figure I will have seen it all by the time 3 days has gone by.
The animated feature film The Wild Life is the story of Robinson Crusoe as told by the Parrot and other animals who were living on the deserted island at the time. It looks quite amusing, and I expect to be in the theater for it. The other film this week is Demon, about a bridegroom who gets possessed by something supernatural at his own wedding. Not being a horror fan, I will be opting for the animated comedic fantasy.
In movies, Equals is about a society genetically engineered to be emotionless, in order to wipe out war and crime; too bad for the couple falling in love despite their DNA. Tale of Tales is a twisted dark fantasy based in Medieval Europe and filmed by a British/French/Italian team which looks rather interesting. Now You See Me 2 isn’t really genre, but it is quite a good movie. If there was anything new in TV, it slipped right past me.
In Anime Psycho-Pass: Season One is the first time you could get the entire season in a single box set in the US (previous availability was only in a Japanese all-region import disc for noticeably more money). A dystopian police procedural where the weapons decide the punishment for having the wrong attitude and a percentage of the population are imprisoned for crimes they haven’t committed yet, the show explores some uncomfortable possibilities. Rin-Ne 2 brings another Anime season of Rumiko Takahashi‘s beloved Manga home. The broke half-blood sort-of Shinigami continues to help the dead on their path to reincarnation, having a series of hair raising adventures in the process. Fairy Tail: Part 21 brings still more collateral damage and combat comedy from the wizard’s guild that doesn’t know when to stop in episodes 240 through 252. High School DxD BorN is season 3 of this supernatural fan service favorite; the war between Heaven and Hell continues, and they are fighting to protect the underworld from destruction. Gundam Build Fighters Try is more sporting event than life or death combat, growing that universe in a more peaceful direction.
Just Chronicle is a fairly new Pop-Punk Band from Japan, with their first national release mini-album Million Falls coming out this past December. The first track here is the first track from that CD, Fire, the second song is the first track from their single released six months earlier, both the song and the disc being called Glitter. Apparently a Single in Japan can have up to three tracks on it because this one does, while a mini-album is anything from 5 to 9 songs (Million Falls has 6 tracks on it, most of them fairly tasty), and starting at 10 songs the CD is an entire album. While this may be their first national release, they had another First Mini-Album back in 2012 called Shake The World that had some good tunes, but no longer seem to be available.