This time Pixels arrives home with the mind numbing premise that Aliens take our inclusion of video games on the Voyager disc as a declaration of war, and return the attack with one of their own. Don’t think that Pixels is strange, though, because also this week an underground classic of a film comes out on disc: Forbidden Zone. It seems back in 1980, Richard and Danny Elfman, along with their Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo theater troupe, decided to assemble the stuff they were doing into a movie. The results were one of the strangest and most offensive films ever made, and someone had the guts to finally release it as a 2 disc set, the film on DVD, the soundtrack on CD. I don’t actually recommend that film to anyone because of the included offensive parts, but it is extremely bizarre sci-fi fantasy, so I have to at least mention it. There are also several live concert DVDs coming out this week for the musically addicted, including the Prismatic World Tour from Katy Perry, Roxy the Movie from Frank Zappa (The videos of the December 1973 concert series that became the album Roxy and Elsewhere), and From the Vault: Live at the Tokyo Dome 1990 from the Rolling Stones.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail Limited Edition Castle Catapult Gift Set is one of the sillier things they are doing in honor of the film’s 40th anniversary this week. It is a re-release, obviously, but I had to at least put that title in print, so you could imagine just how interesting the box set with accompanying catapult looks. In TV the Doctor Who: Christmas Specials Giftset includes all of the so far available David Tennant, Matt Smith, and Peter Capaldi Christmas Specials. Plus, they are throwing in a Sonic Screwdriver with every set, but they don’t mention which Doctor’s screwdriver is included. Quite frankly, that takes care of four of my Christmas gifts this year with two of each.
In Anime, Black Bullet: Complete Collection tells of a virus spreading fast and mutating rapidly, giving their hosts unexpected powers and abilities, along with a compulsion to attack others to continue to spread the virus. The entire thing is 13 episodes long, as is Blade & Soul: Complete Collection. In Blade, Alka has been her clan’s assassin her entire life, but now her clan is dead and she lives only to destroy those who killed them.
Continuing favorites include Lupin III vs. Detective Conan The Movie, which is a crossover story between the 2 series created in 2013 that has lots of action and humor. Plus it is a hoot to see a favorite thief go up against a favorite detective, leaving me a bit confused about which one to cheer for. One Piece: Season 7 Part 3 has episodes 410 through 421, but before you get your hopes up you are getting there, the current episode is 714, or maybe 715 by now. Or maybe even 716, I saw 714 listed a week or two back, but I am not sure what day the new episodes come out, so I don’t know how many times it has changed since then. Sailor Moon R: Season 2 Part 2 brings episodes 69 through 89 home, meaning the battle against the time traveling Black Moon royal family story arc, or at least a lot of it.
I left Aldnoah.Zero: Set 2 to the final paragraph because even though it is a new release, it is only half a season’s worth of episodes, 7->12 to be specific. Even that is only a quarter of the series so far, which runs to 24 episodes; and I try my best not to reward marketing teams which release things in tiny pieces so they can sell a lot of them for what other groups make the price of an entire season or better. While I will sometimes mention something with 6 episodes like this series, it will only happen when they are quite good (or 6 or fewer IS the total number of episodes available). The other side of that coin this time around is Dance in the Vampire Bund: Complete Series S.A.V.E. Edition, S.A.V.E. standing for Super Amazing Value Edition. The S.A.V.E. releases are quite inexpensive box sets that give you an entire series but generally run you one side or the other of $20, and you can catch them for $12 or so when sales happen. So even though most of those series are a year or two old, and have usually already been released as a complete series, I find them worth telling folks about, so they can get the most Anime for their buck (which is the way I always try to buy this stuff).
