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A lot of things are being released this week, probably in the hopes you are in that holiday present shopping mood, so get ready for goodies. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is a great addition to the franchise, using the Tim Powers book as its jumping off point. Attack the Block is a comedy about urban combat with aliens from the producers of Shaun of the Dead and starring Nick Frost. There are also two made-for-TV Captain America movies in a packaged set, which were attempts at pilots for this failed 1979 TV series that never got made.

In addition there are two Sci-Fi documentaries this time, and The Captains looks very good indeed. Written and directed by William Shatner, it stars everyone who ever captained the Enterprise for the franchise and a ton of your favorite actors and actresses from the series. That one is definitely coming home with me. The other was a docudrama which did not get good reviews, the made for Lifetime presentation Magic Beyond Words: The JK Rowling Story.

Surprisingly, there was only one live action TV show that I found for this week: V: The Complete Second Season. Sadly there will not be a third season, so this is the last of this one.

Western animation starts off with Shaun the Sheep: We Wish Ewe A Merry Christmas, yet another nearly wordless romp of complete silliness. Also out, Star Wars The Clone Wars: The Complete Season Three brings us the next round of Star Wars tales. Finally Batman: Year One is a first class addition to the animated caped crusader collection with an all star voice cast.

Two new anime series become available this week, the first of which is all about otaku. Oreimo Complete Limited Edition DVD Box has the alternate title My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute for those who prefer English. It is a story about a little sister addicted to anime and eroge, and when her older brother discovers this by accident she gradually turns him into an ally in her fight to keep it all hidden from her parents and classmates so she can keep enjoying her hobby. She also ends up noticeably corrupting him into the ways of an otaku. This is subbed not dubbed, has all 12 episodes of the original series, the 4 episodes of the OVA, a 24 page booklet with the character designs, a set of 16 “end cards” (postcards for collectors, one for each episode) and a full poster. And with all of that, the extras on the disk are just the usual clean opening and closing segments without anything much else. That seems pretty minor until you realize that they did a different open and closing song/video for every episode, and all 32 of them are here. In other words, this is a show about otaku built the way an otaku would want to collect it! Great job, Aniplex!

The other new anime this time around is Ray: the Complete Collection, about a young woman grown to be spare parts for the wealthy. Her eyes were harvested before she was rescued by a renegade surgeon, and a decade later her synthetic eye replacements are part of the reason she is considered one of the best surgeons ever. The surgery is just a means to an end, a cover for her true mission; to rescue the other children she was raised with, and bring the organ harvesters to justice.

It has been reported that Himawari: Complete Collection is coming out this week as well, but it does not appear as available with that date on very many of the sites that sell mostly anime, and doesn’t appear on Amazon at all, while Barnes and Noble says October 25th just for season 1, so I can not put a lot of confidence into the announcement.

In the category of anime already available but being re-released in more cost effective or otherwise desirable packages we have three. First on the list is Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid – Complete Collection which makes this funny high school war zone series available for as low as $19 if you shop around. On the same day, the Hell Girl – Two Mirrors Complete Collection box set becomes available, the first time to find the entire season two storyline in a single box set. Finally, Bamboo Blade – The Complete Series [S.A.V.E. Edition] is again a very wallet friendly version coming in at less than $20 if you shop around.

Finally, a classic of Giant Mecha proportions is getting re-released in its entirety: Robotech. Old school giant robots defending humanity from alien destruction, these were several different series that were tied together by their basic premise. It is being released in a single box set with the entire series called Robotech: The Complete Original Series (catchy title, huh?) or you can pick them up separately as First Robotech War: Macross Saga at 36 episodes, Robotech: Masters Saga – Second Robotech War at 24 episodes, and Robotech: New Generation – Third Robotech War at 25 episodes.

Movies this week kick off with Green Lantern, quite a fun little film for the action/adventure junkies. There is a related animation release, The best of Green Lantern, which seems to be a total of 5 episodes from 4 different series (I vote for just getting the compiled Justice League series and skipping this one). For folks looking for something noticeably sillier, we have Zookeeper.

Several interesting TV releases this time around, my favorite being the complete Chuck, Season 4. A couple of old classics finally coming out, including The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. released as a complete series, but broken up into two box sets (first and second parts). A related release for the same week, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Movies Collection brings out the 8 stand-alone Man From U.N.C.L.E. movies. Note these were not included in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. complete series attache case, which only had a single feature length film in it.

Speaking of complete, Doctor Who – The David Tennant Years is a 26 disk set of every David Tennant episode, special, confidential, animation, and anything else they could find. I have a hard time visualizing who they are going to sell this to, since everyone who might want it has already bought each season as they came out.

In western animation The Penguins of Madagascar: All-Nighter Before Xmas becomes available. This is from the TV series, not the movie production project.

For anime, Tales of the Abyss – Part 1 brings us the story of building global conflict in an alternate reality timeline filled with sorcery. Note that this title is also a platform game from Bandai/Namco if you are looking for a more interactive story format. Also out new this week is Naruto Shippuden Uncut Set 8, and this box set brings us up to episode 100 for the series. The final new title for the week is Kobato – Collection 2, a magical girl series where our protagonist uses her magic healing flask to ease the pain and suffering of others.

You might not of heard of any of the interesting movies this week, but a few of them are quite good. I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK is a 2006 romantic dramedy from Korea that mostly takes place in a mental institution. Yes, it is every bit as quirky as that description makes it sound, and it goes places you wouldn’t expect; I have owned the subtitled import version of the film for years, and it is quite worth the time to experience. This first domestic release is also subtitled rather than dubbed into English. Lunopolis has won fistfuls of awards at film festivals all over the world and tells a sci-fi drama about lunar occupation, cover ups, and conspiracies. Done documentary style, this one looks quite good. And there is Phase 7, a sci-fi/horror/comedy that has been compared with Shaun of the Dead, all about the end of the world.

In live action TV we have The Bionic Woman: Season 3, the spinoff from the 6 Million Dollar Man. I thought both of those series were campy when they were made, but unlike Knightrider they are still watchable today.

On the animation front, I don’t have a clue why the production team behind Chop Kick Panda are not all in jail for copyright violation, since it is a direct ripoff of Kung Fu Panda, but they have a new one coming out this week as well. On the other hand, The True Story of Puss ‘n Boots is a legitimate original work based on the public domain source material, but this time the cat has a French accent rather than Spanish.

In anime, La Corda D’Oro: The Complete Collection tells the entire story of a slacker girl given a magic violin by an interesting fairy. More interesting for me is Glass Maiden – Complete Collection about an offbeat detective agency and an impossible girl.

This week we get Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a real roller-coaster of an action adventure movie. If you want some comedy with your action, I can recommend The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman, an unusual martial arts movie from China, where you follow the blade from owner to owner, getting a different story with each one. If you are more in a Fantasy kind of mood, Dragon Crusaders could be fun; nothing fancy here, it is just like the title says; a band of knights out to defeat a dragon. The final entry The Lost Future is a made for Syfy movie from last year.

In 1989 NBC aired a TV Miniseries of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days and it is getting re-released on DVD this week. The all star cast included Eric Idle which I find interesting because also in 1989 his fellow Pythons Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam also did an Around the World in Eighty Days TV series for the BBC, only theirs was a documentary in which Palin attempted to circumnavigate the globe without flying to see if Phileas Fogg could have done it.

In western animation the two pack of Scared Shrekless / Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins at a noticeably reduced price over getting them individually.

For anime, Mardock Scramble: The First Compression is finally being released in the US. This is the first of three science fiction stories that make up the series. In this one, the female cyborg Balot has only one purpose; to track down, capture, and/or kill the serial killer who murdered her. In Squid Girl – Part 1 we have a cute young girl who is a squid when she is in the water, now come ashore to conquer the human realm, but she is not having much luck with that last bit. Trigun: Badlands Rumble is a feature film that returns us to science fiction western that is Trigun. Rounding out our new releases, the Straw Hat Gang is back in One Piece – Collection 2.

The box set of Corpse Princess – Complete Collection brings the full story of the machine-gun wielding dead girl and her battle against the unnatural undead in a single package. Also Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple – Season 1 – Complete Collection is now out as a single set for the season rather than the two parts it had been.

Not much in the way of movies this week; the only things I could find are Aliens vs. Avatars and Area 51, neither one of which I find worth watching.

In TV, we have Fringe: Seasons 1-3 in a single box set. What I find strange about this release is the pricing; at Amazon as an example the season 1 through 3 box set runs $162.00; but you can pick up season 1 for $19, season 2 for $25, and season 3 for $37, totaling up to $81, or half of what the first 3 seasons box set runs. Also out this week is Castle: The Complete Third Season, which I have to mention because it stars The Captain.

In Anime, the main release is the feature movie The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. This only got a very limited theatrical release in the US, so for most fans this will be their first opportunity to see it. It came out in Japan between the first and second season of the Aliens/Espers/Robots/Time Travelers show, but I am not sure where in the story arc it properly resides. Also out this week, Katanagatari Premium part 2 continues the katana collection adventures with foes forced to cooperate if they have any hope of success. Looking at the picture on the series home page you could be forgiven for coming to the conclusion the series was a romantic fantasy rather than assembling a weapons supremacy. On the other hand, Amagami SS IS about romance across alternate universes, where we get to see what happens to different versions of the same boy in different timelines. One of the nice touches in this series is that each episodes closing theme song is sung by the female protagonist for that episode. This series is based on an eroge, or Japanese romance game.

Top of the movie list this week is Thor, another world class entry in Marvel’s steady build to The Avengers. A related release is Marvel Knights: Thor & Loki, Blood Brothers, which is a motion comic, that bastard child of comic books and animation. Personally, I like motion comics, particularly the ones with quality artwork, which this seems to have. Also of note this week, Star Wars: The Complete Saga finally has it’s Blue Ray release. The only reason it didn’t get top billing this week is that everyone who is interested already owns all these movies, so this becomes a way to sell you again something you already own. Now if they had a trade-up deal, where you got half or more of the money you originally paid for them off the cost for the new set when you turned them in, this release would have definitely gotten top billing. Finally, a few Asian films getting US releases this week. First, True legend tells the story of a retired Qing dynasty general who is attacked and left for dead, with his son kidnapped. The true story of what he went through to train up and get his son back was the source of the “King of Beggars” legend. Then a classic film that helped pave the way for independent women in martial arts movies, 1968’s Golden Swallow tells a tale of a woman falsely accused of crimes committed by another.

Carrie Fisher: Wishful Drinking isn’t a movie but rather a documentary, but I think it will be well worth checking out, if only for her commentary on being Princess Leia.

The top TV spot this week is a bit hard to judge. For me it is a tossup between Sanctuary: The Complete Third Season and Supernatural: The Complete Sixth Season. I have enough arguments for and against each series being the stronger contender that they pretty much even out. And it is entirely possible that Camelot: The Complete First Season might beat them both out; I don’t know because I missed scheduling that series on my DVR and haven’t seen any of it yet. Luckily it is available on Starz Video on Demand, so I will watch a few episodes before making any decisions as to how good it is. Also new this week is about the only reality show I watch, coming out with Mythbusters: Collection 7. If I had the right kind of engineering background, this show would be my dream job. Finally there is The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Fourth Season, which I mention for completeness. I want to like that show, I love the premise; if only it didn’t have the laugh track I might be able to watch it without cringing.

For western animation, Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space is still more wackiness from Dreamworks, and has the original cast including Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, and Kiefer Sutherland. If you liked the original feature length movie you will no doubt want to add this short to your collection. I know it will certainly be following me home the day it comes out. In fact, I will be looking for the bundled set, where they combine it with Scared Shrekless, another great short available for the first time this week.

in Anime, MM Complete Collection is a twisted tale about some very troubled people, and I am not sure having them all in the same support group is the best option for them (including the god; he is also a bit twisty). Then there is Kekkaishi Set 2 continues the story of the teenage boy training to kill monsters with his childhood sweetheart. This release brings us to the half way point in this particular story arc, since each box set contains 13 episodes and the full series has 52.