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Something to Watch: Discs

The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power is pretty much it this week for live action films, while DuckTales, The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp does it for western animation films. The first is direct to disc, while the second hasn’t been in theaters since 1990. I could also mention John Wick, which isn’t genre but could be fun.

In Anime we get One Piece: Collection 11, because you just can’t have too many episodes about friendly pirates. A Certain Magical Index: The Movie; The Miracle of Endymion has a space elevator under construction as the setting for a battle between science and magic, with a miraculous singer as the prize. Kamijo and Index have the fight of their lives on their hands in this one. Chaos Head: The Complete Series is coming out in a S.A.V.E. edition, so you can pick up this twisted expedition into paranoia for a very small price. Finally, the parallel universe romantic fantasy Amagami SS Plus brings a continuation of the original seven stories.

Something to Watch: Discs

In Movies we get Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who is John Galt, the final film which completes the trilogy adapted from Ayn Rand’s novel. We also get Horns, a fantasy based on Joe Hill’s novel. Left Behind is another fantasy about how the world fell apart after a lot of people evaporated off the planet suddenly. They are also releasing the 1967 classic The Sword of Doom on Blue Ray for the first time. I didn’t find anything interesting in the way of genre TV shows this week.

In Anime, Fairy Tail: Collection 3 brings episodes 49 through 72 to the shelves in one box, complete with all the collateral damage those wizards are famous for. The collection editions are a lot more cost effective than the individual seasons, which run at the same price for half the number of episodes; you just have to be willing to wait a bit longer for them to be released. Likewise, One Piece – Collection Box 1 puts the first 4 seasons into a single box set, for a total of 103 episodes. The second one of those will be along in February.

Qwaser of Stigmata: Complete Collection contains all episodes from season 1, season 2, and the OVAs. Super powered combat with a battle for the fate of mankind puts the sisters Mafuyu and Tomo in danger, but it also gives them the power to help determine the outcome. Fantastic Detective Labyrinth: Complete Collection is about a boy detective in a Shinto filled with supernatural crime, 30 years after Tokyo was destroyed. Also, Dog & Scissors is being released on Blue Ray (previously only available as a DVD), a fantasy about a boy who is reincarnated as a dog owned by his favorite author… only he can not read as a dog.

Something to Watch: Discs

There isn’t much this week, no real surprise since the shopping season is pretty much over. In movies I only mention Stephen King’s A Good Marriage because of the author. Likewise, I only mention the TV show Banshee: The Complete Second Season because its from Alan Ball, who turned True Blood into a small screen roller coaster of a show. Without those mentions, I don’t think I would have anything to put there.

In Anime, Onimonogatari: Shinobu Time is the Fourth arc to the Monogatari series’ second season. Time traveling is involved, and The Darkness is coming to take everyone over. In case you were wondering, Monogatari is how you say Story in Japanese, and Oni is the word for Demon, so the second season is called Demon’s Story, where the first season Bakemonogatari means Ghost or Monster Story. The light novels these are based on are quite good; if you are a fan of them, this DVD/Story Arc is the 11th book in the series.

Something to Watch: Discs

7 Assassins is the movie this week, about a group of assassins who have banded together to rid the government of corruption. This movie is quite good, even if it does have a death toll that could rival a Shakespearean tragedy adapted by George R.R. Martin, as the reviewer linked here said.

TV has Continuum: Season Three, with another roll of the time-travel dice pushing Kiera still farther from her original timeline. If you live in Canada you can get the Enhanced Video experience by watching it online, with original bonus webisodes, extended scenes, and behind-the-scenes content in each Continuum Season 3 episode. You can get a lot of that from Continuum on Syfy, but not all of it, and not as nicely integrated. US viewers should go for the discs to get the full effect. We also get Dominion: Season One this time around, about the war between the angels and humanity. I am sure you won’t be too surprised to learn Humanity is in trouble.

The Anime stand out this week is Sword Art Online: Extra Edition, the bit that came between the first and second season, an OVA that comes in at just 100 minutes. It sets the stage nicely for what comes next, and brings its own context and development. There is also One Piece; Season 6 Part 3, which may not sound like much but is 11 full episodes. What Japan calls a TV season is everything produced in a year, and since they go around the calendar with this series, each actual season ends up being 10 to 12 episodes long.

Why We Love Cowboy Bebop

I have been waiting for years for Cowboy Bebop to come out in Blue Ray, and it finally happened today. I am going to try not to watch them in one non-stop marathon. I am going to try to savor them, maybe one episode a day. OK, maybe two, and four per weekend day. And I will be listening to the soundtrack a lot, possibly the most amazing Anime soundtrack ever recorded (go Yoko Kanno!).

Something to Watch: Discs

If you are in the mood for action/fantasy then Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is probably just what you are looking for. This particular reboot is my favorite of the TMNT video offerings so far, and a whole lot of fun. On the more serious side, we get The Maze Runner this week as well, based on the YA series of novels by James Dashner.

TV gives us Extant: The First Season, a CBS sci-fi program that has been picked up for a second season. With humans, aliens, and robots, it is at its core a story about the human heart.

In Anime, A Certain Magical Index II: Part Two continues the magical story line from Academy City, a place where ESPers are produced through genetic engineering (as explained in A Certain Scientific Railgun). An encoded grimoire containing catastrophe magic has been stolen, and Index must be protected lest the thieves use her to unlock its secrets. In the Ambition of Oda Nobuna our protagonist is thrown back in time, and on arriving in a Sengoku period timeline noticeably different than our own promptly gets a historical figure killed. He will now have to do the work originally done by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, to help unify feudal Japan.

We also get Bleach: Season 23 with episodes 317 through 329 with the continuing story of the Soul Reapers. The really exciting Anime news for me this week is about a re-release: Cowboy Bebop is finally available in Blue Ray! I am going to have to watch that all over again, from the beginning. If you haven’t already seen it, you have a serious treat in store. Besides buying the discs or watching it at the Funimation site linked above, you can catch it on Toonami as Adult Swim does its Cowboy Bebop Marathon the weekend after Christmas.