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Something to Watch: DVDs, 18Feb14

The only movie I could find this time was an almost-direct-to-DVD release called Battle of the Damned, which is basically Dolph Lundgren and his Robots vs. a Zombie virus outbreak in a remake of Escape From New York. I say almost because it did show up in some theaters in Germany last year, but nowhere else that I am aware of.

We do better in TV, with Game of Thrones: Season Three, bringing the next book of the George R.R. Martin series to the home. I realize that is also only a single title, but the category makes up in quality for the difference.

Where we really make out this week is in Anime; not only more than one title, but more than one excellent title! Ever dream of being able to join your school’s Robot Research Club, and build a giant fighting robot based on your favorite Anime, that would then battle it out in competitions? If so, Robotics;Notes: Part 1 is a must see, from the folks who did Chaos;HEAD and Steins;Gate. But be careful what you wish for; when a sentient AI program begins giving the club members hints about secret robot designs hidden online, things take a turn for the really strange. Naruto Shippūden the Movie: Blood Prison is actually the 5th movie about the Nine Tailed Fox and his ninja friends. They should probably start putting numbers directly in the titles so you wouldn’t have to wonder. In this one, Naruto is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and ends up in prison inside a castle, which I suppose must mean a dungeon. He befriends a few of the inmates and gears up to get free, whatever way he can.

Jormungand is the story of a child soldier desperately seeking those who murdered his family, who ends up as the newest bodyguard for Koko. She is an arms dealer who brings the Boom to the downtrodden masses while preparing for her own version of World Peace. This is one of those instant gratification releases; while season 1 and season 2 are two separate box sets, they are being released on the same day. Folks like me who go nuts being forced to wait 6 months or a year to find out how the story turns out really appreciates that. Of course, in 6 months they will no doubt release both seasons in a single box set for about $5 more than just one season will cost you now, but who wants to wait? I should probably also mention this is from the team that brought you Black Lagoon, so you should expect quite a large helping of ultra-violence and amorality.

Finally, Time Bokan: Royal Revival i just too funny for words. A classic Anime is getting remade, but to select which series of the original 9 different seasons with different casts, the bad guys from the original shows are building their own giant mechas and having a race. Except, the bad guy’s robots in Anime only do one thing really well; get destroyed in some visually stunning fashion. Plus, they are bad guys; cheating and dirty tricks are their stock in trade. My favorite quote about this program is: It’s Grand Theft Mecha Vs. Super Moron Kart as the baddies slam, bash and dirty trick each other to the finish in TIME BOKAN: ROYAL REVIVAL! This one is actually from 1993, and was first released on DVD in the US in 2005. This re-release does mark the first time you can get it in Blu Ray in North America, and if you haven’t seen it before it is quite amusing.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 11Feb14

In movies, Ender’s Game was one of the rare films that is true to the book it is based on; both versions are telling exactly the same story. With an excellent cast, powerful performances, and amazing special effects, it is definitely worth joining anyone’s permanent collection. I don’t remember seeing The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box in theaters near me, but it is now coming to disc. It was meant to be the first in a series of YA Steampunk stories based in the Victorian Era’s British Empire, but it did not get good reviews or much in the way of box office revenues, so I suspect it will be the last, instead.

In TV, Sherlock: Season Three continues the brilliant series driven by Steven Moffat. I am seriously waiting for season 4 next year. The Returned is a twisty little series about a group of people who came home to learn that they had died years ago, and when the currently living start dying off it becomes obvious something has followed them back. It isn’t quite a remake of the TV show Les Revenants, but it lives in the same zip code. Doctor Who: The Moonbase is one of the lost stories, available only in partial video episodes, audio drama, or picture book form. It is one of the Patrick Troughton tales for which they have now used animation to restore, so you can watch all four episodes. Not as good as they did for Enemy Of The World or The Web Of Fear, where they actually recovered the original video footage to restore, but a step closer to getting the whole story the way it was meant to be experienced.

In Anime, Kamisama Kiss is about a ordinary young girl who suddenly became a god at the touch of a stranger’s lips. As she struggles to get her new realm under control, she realizes that life may be worth going for, after all. MM! is about a masochist named Sado who joins a club to seek help with his emotional problems. The clubs president may or may not be a god, but certainly wields some interesting powers, and some of the other members include a girl terrified of men and a nurse who forces all her patients to cosplay. The other club members are a bit strange, even by this groups reckoning. Finally, Strike Witches: Season 2 S.A.V.E Edition gives you the girls who were airplanes continuing to defend the home planet from alien invasion during WWII, at a very affordable price. The Funimation home page seems to be saying Season One S.A.V.E edition on BR/DVD is also about to come out, but since I already own it I have to believe they mean they will be re-releasing it. Or maybe the blurb is for a different country.

Something to Watch: DVDs

In Movies About Time is a romantic fantasy involving the Groundhog Day premise; you do each important event over until you get it right. It was in the theaters just a month or two back, I feel certain they are going after the Valentine crowd with this one. It is a very nicely done movie with a lot of heart, so not a bad choice. The animated comedy Free Birds also comes to disc, but although I am an animation fan I can’t say this one really caught my attention. A better bet for animated entertainment this week is Justice League: War, a direct to DVD feature film.

In TV, while not a fantasy, the historical epic The White Queen deserves a mention, about some power mad women who stopped at nothing to get on the British throne.

We do much better in Anime this week, leading off with Fairy Tail – Part 8. This magical guild continues to do as much damage to their fellow guilds and the surrounding buildings and terrain as they do to the demons they are called upon to defeat. AKB0048 Next Stage Complete Collection is a bit silly but a lot of fun, as season two rolls out the 77th generation of the ultimate IDOL group going across the galaxy singing and shooting. Why shooting? A number of planetary governments have outlawed “things that disturb the heart”, including music. So the girls swoop down on a planet, set up a live concert which is also spread on the planetary net, and sing and dance until the police and soldiers show up. At that point, they have to fight their way back off the planet and head for the next one. If nothing else, this series is a great way to collect a bunch of AKB48 music. BTW, the English version of their home page is broken at the moment, dumping you back to the Japanese version if you try to go to it, but all of their other English pages appear to be working.

Blessing of the Campanella: Complete Collection is a mash up of medieval quests and robotic harems, with supernatural meteor showers and automaton artisans. Plus a lot of time spent hanging out at the beach in between quests and mysteries. This package includes all 12 episodes of the series plus the OVA. I found the provenance of this a bit confusing at first, since the home page with streaming video in the US is over at Funimation, but the DVD release is coming from Nozomi/Lucky Penny/Right Stuf. It turns out that the original simulcast run was at Funimation in 2010, with a DVD release from that distributor in 2011. Normally I do not post re-releases here unless they are important in some way, but I completely missed the series the first time around. Since it is new to me, I am claiming that as justification and posting it anyways.

Something to Watch: DVDs 28Jan14

There is not a lot coming out this week, but there are a few things. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is animated silly fun, and the only US movie I can recommend this week. From Korea we get The Cat, a story about a woman murdered on an elevator with her cat being the only witness. Park Min Young takes the cat in at the request of the police, only to have strange visions and mysterious events start to happen to her. And from Italy, France, and Spain, Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D has all the sex and violence they could cram in and still get an R rating, with Rutger Hauer as Van Helsing. That last is an interesting choice, since he played Dracula in 2005’s Dracula III: Legacy. And I am not quite sure why the only web site I could find for this Italian movie was in Japan.

The only TV show worth mentioning is Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain, an award winning animated series about trying to take over the world, which was wiped out by the network that bought it for broadcast.

In Anime, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan: Demon Capital: Set 1 is the only new release, continuing the story of the Nura Clan’s fight against the Yokai. One of the most powerful Yokai, which are somewhere along the demon-monster-spirit spectrum, has returned to Earth after his defeat by the Nura several generations ago. They will have to defeat him again to protect their town and family. These 13 episodes are part one of season 2. There is a cyberpunk classic being re-released this week: Serial Experiments Lain – The Complete Collection. The artwork and animation are amazing, the story is a surrealistic mystery that takes place among the Wired, from a time before the world went wireless. If you haven’t seen this one before, you get another chance. You can also watch it online at the Funimation home page linked here.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 14Jan14

In Movies Riddick hits the shelves this week, both as a stand-alone and as part of the Riddick: The Complete Collection 4 film package. For those scratching their heads, this includes an animated story called Dark Fury that was released direct to DVD just after the first film came out. The remake of the cult film Carrie is also out this week.

I haven’t found any genre TV coming out this week, but Top Gear: Season 20 is being released, and they are always a lot of fun.

In western animation, Marvel Knights: Wolverine versus Sabretooth is being billed as the final battle between these two long-time foes. The Marvel Knights brand is for showcase stories that allow the best writers and illustrators to push the bounds of cannon, if not ignore them entirely, so anything is possible. I should also mention that this is a motion comic, rather than a true animation, a media style that Marvel excels at.

In Anime, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic is your basic dungeon quest, merging and changing the stories of Alibaba and Aladdin. This set is season 1, giving you the first 13 episodes of the series. The show is also streaming on a number of services, including Crunchyroll and Hulu. The release of Naruto: Shippuden Box Set 17 brings us episodes 206 through 218 of the ongoing story of the 9 Tailed Fox. The current episode streaming on their site is 344, if you were wondering. Also beginning to catch up, One Piece Season 5 Part 5 brings the tail of Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates to episodes 313 to 324. Of course, the currently streaming episode from Tokyo is 627.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 7Jan14

In Movies, Big Ass Spider! includes two actors I really like, Greg Grunberg and Ray Wise, and is very Tremors-like in its approach to dealing with the giant rampaging arachnid terrorizing Los Angeles. And yes, Greg is once more playing a cop, but a non-telepathic one this time. The other movie of note isn’t genre, but a fun little comedy about identity theft, desperate marriages, and gangland murder called Key of Life. It is in Japanese with English subtitles.

In TV we have Being Human: The Complete Third Season, the Syfy channel remake of the excellent British TV series. We also get the Blue Ray release of Star Trek Enterprise: The Complete Third Season. It has been available since 2005 in DVD, this is its first time available in Hi def, as far as I am aware.

For Western animation Archer: The Complete Fourth Season give us more bumbling spys to grin about.

Anime brings us Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne Season 2, also referred to as Set 2, with more intergalactic combat and intrigue, and alien mysteries to solve. And did I mention the giant robots the girls fly into battle? Aria The Natural: Part 1 is the first 13 episodes of season 2, and continues the story of the three friends determined to become the best gondoliers on the planet Aqua (called Mars before it was terraformed).

I don’t usually mention re-releases, but Patlabor: The Mobile Police Collection 4 comes out with episodes 37 through 47 of pure giant robot police mayhem, and this time around they have Blue Ray covered. This aired in Tokyo from 1988 through 1994, and pretty much set the standard for wacky police mecha shows, with a host of Anime giants involved with the production.