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I had not managed to catch The Clone Returns Home at any of the film fests in my part of the country since its release in January of 2009, so I am happy to report it is finally being released on DVD. This Japanese movie about a cloned astronaut who returns home to find his family is all about the human heart, and has won a number of festival awards including being nominated for World Cinema – Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at 2009’s Sundance Film Festival. If this film wasn’t coming out this week, Source Code would get me vote as the top movie released on disk this time around, but as it stands they are tied for first place. I can not really recommend Dylan Dog: Dead of Night as a quality movie, but if you are looking for some campy silliness it fits the bill nicely. Finally, Zokkomon is a Bollywood film about an orphan who was abused and abandoned, thought to be dead and therefore a ghost when he returned, and ends up a bit of a superhero.

In TV, Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe is a feature film length presentation starring Bruce Campbell, giving the story of how his character came to be the way he is today. Yes, I do know this isn’t quite genre, but it has Bruce Campbell; he is kind of a genre unto himself. Plus, I just love the series, so there it is.

In western animation this week we get yet another volume of Shaun the Sheep: Animal Antics for good silly fun. One of the things I like about this series is all the humor is visual, so you don’t have to speak English to enjoy them.

From Madhouse, we get Supernatural: The Anime Series, which might just be the first ever live action TV series turned into an Anime. I know it has been done before with things like Witchblade, but both the TV series of 2001 and the Anime series of a few years ago were base on a comic book of the same name. Here, the anime is directly based on the TV show, and even has the same actors voicing their characters for the English version.

In Anime, Angel Beats: Complete Collection tells the story of some dead teens being attacked by some angels, some angels rebelling against a god or two, and some other dead folks using supernatural powers against the angels, all staged around the student council for the world after death. This is noticeably different than High School of the Dead even if it should sound similar. Being re-released this week, One Piece – Collection 1 is the first 26 episodes of this long running Anime based on the Shonen Manga of the same name. And I do mean long running; there are already 508 episodes released in Japan not including the multiple movies, and they are still making them. This is an adventures on the high seas, pirates after the legendary One Piece to earn their fortunes, but the long term core of the story is the way the characters work together to protect each other. After a while you realize these are the people you want all of your friends to be like. If you shop around, you can pick this one up for as little as $20, so it is a good value as well.

In movies, Limitless is a driving story of artificially boosted intelligence, and what the implications might be. I loved this one in the theaters, and ordinarily it would get my vote for top pick, but also out this week is the live action version of Tekken.

In TV, the choice release is Doctor Who: Series Six, Part One. I am not in favor of the new trend of releasing half a season of a program at a time because they try to use it to raise the prices, but sometimes you can find some good deals on these, and this is one of those times. Plus, it’s Doctor Who, so I would be picking it up regardless. Also out this week, Torchwood: The Complete Original UK Series, packaging up the first two seasons with the miniseries Children of Earth into a single box set. If you bought the seasons separately, there doesn’t seem to be a lot new here; while they mention 10 hours of bonus features, that was about what you had on the original single season DVDs when you added them up, and no where does the BBC say if they are new features or the old ones recycled.

In Anime, Queens Blade 2: Evil Eye Series Part 2 continues the battle royal to determine the new ruler, as well as the practice of selling series in half-season chunks. And in classic re-releases, Gungrave – The Complete Series makes Gungrave affordable in a single box set; around $26 with a little shopping around.

Studio Ghibli is releasing their version of the children’s classic The Borrowers under the title Arrietty, the name of the 14 year old protagonist. That’s the DVD release, the movie was on the big screen last year in Japan, and this past January for the rest of Asia. They are actually releasing it in three versions, the original Japanese with subtitles, a US English dub being released here on February 17th, 2012, and a UK English dub coming out on the 29th (yes, later this month). The trailer is from the UK dub, thanks to io9 for the heads up.

The film choice this time is a toss up between two movies. On the one hand we have an an animation: Rango, starring Johnny Depp, a comedy about a lizard in the wild west. On the other hand, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is a live action story full of heart and its own fair share of humor. There was also supposed to be a Sci-Fi Noir film staring Antonio Banderas called Terranova coming out this week, but I haven’t found any solid information on it.

The western TV selection of the week is Robot Chicken Star Wars: Episode III. I still can’t believe they got George Lucas to do his own voiceover for these.

In Anime, Naruto: Shippuden (DVD box 7) brings us the next season in that series with more Ninja action and drama. The DVD release schedule is around a hundred episodes behind what you can watch online with the latest seasons simulcast. Finally, >Allison & Lillia DVD Generation 2 turns a simple vacation into a fight against all the people trying to kill them, complete with a liberal dose of aerial combat.

There are an assortment of movies coming out this week on DVD, and all seem to be action fantasy films. Starting with the visually stunning The Warrior’s Way, which is a definite east meets west entertainment. We haven’t seen martial arts in the wild west like this in quite a while, this time starring Korean actor Dong-gun Jang and not so Korean Kate Bosworth. While it is a bit more violent than it needed to be, it is still quite a lot of fun. The other extreme violence with amazing visuals release for the week is Sucker Punch, but it is not quite as much fun. The medieval entry is Season of the Witch with Nick Cage and Ron Perlman. From Japan comes Tetsuo: The Bullet Man, the story of a man who transforms into something else cause of experiments his father conducted on him. Finally, a modern retelling of a fantasy classic we have seen many times before, Beastly was trimmed back to a PG-13 specifically to pull in the target audience, the same audience that hung out for Twilight.

The winner in the TV category this time around is Warehouse 13: Season Two. This tasty series is sort of The X-Files meets Friday the 13th (the TV show, not the movies) with a liberal dose of steampunk thrown in. Season 3 kicks off on July 11th, and they have even announced a spinoff program, all about H. G. Wells and her work with Warehouse 12, solving crimes in the 1890s. One documentary program of note is the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens: Season Two, while the other is the Discovery Channel’s How The Universe Works. My personal favorite is the Discovery selection, which is cosmos-level science at its finest, But History’s program covers some interesting, if much more speculative, topics.

The western animation choice this time is Reboot: Seasons 3 & 4, for those who purchased seasons one and two the first time around. Bob works to protect Mainframe, while Dot, Enzo, and Fong all do their best to help: Warning: Incoming Game. If you have the Reboot: Definitive Mainframe Edition released at the same time as seasons one and two you already have all of these, but they are also re-releasing the Definitive set (the original run already sold out). This was both one of the earliest examples of CG 3D animation used in a continuing TV series, and the best and earliest conversion of computer processes into characters and personalities for such a series I am aware of. Even a few decades later, this is an impressive body of work, and whether you come to it for the quality animation, the great characters and storyline, or the fact that it is the direct successor to the original TRON movie plot and implications, this one is well worth your time to check out.

There are two selections worth bringing home in the new Anime category this week, the first being Rideback: the Complete Series, where an ex-dancer and her robotic motor cycle go head-to-head with a repressive government. While the bot-bike is a semi transformer, it has no free will or higher brain functions as far as I have seen to this point, but is just her ride and tool. The other new series is High school of the Dead – Complete Collection, where the zombie apocalypse attacks the schools, and the student body fights back with every home made weapon it can get its hands on. Both of these are a lot of fun, and I recommend them.

Also worth a look is Magical Witch Punie-chan in an OVA format. This one is a bit different than you might have been expecting; in order to gain the throne in her home Magical Kingdom, she has to spend a year going to school on Earth. No big deal, until you realize that everyone on the planet, from her classmates to her own magical familiar, is out to kill her with extreme prejudiced. And then there is Queen’s Blade 2: The Evil Eye Series – Part 1, where cat fights and fan service vie for your attention. One of my favorites, as you might suspect.

There are also a couple of re-releases this week; Galaxy Express for 2 incarnations, and Gungrave – Complete Collection for a single full round of weapons at full deployment.

The top movie this week is The Adjustment Bureau, yet another Philip K. Dick story given the big screen treatment. I thought the early 1960s stylization of the sets and costumes was a good choice, since that matched up with the era it was written in. Another good one is The Eagle, the dramatization of what might have happened to the Ninth Legion in 120 AD. To counterbalance those, we have Van Von Hunter, a silly live action movie based on an American comic but filmed by Tokyo Pop (you may have recently seen their movie Priest), a now defunct American production and distribution company for predominately Japanese properties. The other counterbalance is Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, just to prove silly movies still sell. I have never been able to figure out why these kind of movies made in the US are so offensive to me, and yet I love Gojira and the like from Japan. Actually the US release of Godzilla with Jean and Mathew was a favorite as well; maybe it’s the monsters.

For TV, Medium: The Final Season becomes available, as well as the full series in a single box set. While I am aware this series was based on someone’s real life, to me it will always be Fantasy.

New Anime this week starts with Bleach Uncut Box Set 9, another handful of episodes in this long running series about the world of the Soul Reapers. When I say a handful, I mean just that; episodes 146 through 156 are included here, only 11 of them. At this rate, it will be a while before we catch up with the current production run, which is somewhere around episode 275. The Kanokon OVA Collection is all about summer break and how the relationships evolve as the Fox Goddess and Wolf Goddess continue to vie for the heart of the human Kouta.

While not actually Sci-Fi or Fantasy, You’re Under Arrest is one of my favorite Anime series, and the Complete Full Throttle set is also the complete season 3. It has been a while since the last season, and this one starts off with one partner having returned from forensics training in the US, while the other one just finished JSDF (Japanese Self-Defense Force) Ranger training, which is as close to Green Beret as makes no difference. If you thought these two were dangerous to everyone anywhere near them before (criminal or not), wait till you see them now! And Kekkaishi – Part 1 has two childhood friends battling it out to see who gets to be the destroyer of monsters using barrier magic. While both are doing their best to protect their people, they are not the same gender, so some romantic tension gets added to the story.

Finally, this weeks classic series re-release is Blue Gender, where our protagonist wakes up from a few decades of suspended animation to discover that instead of the cure for his terminal disease that he was expecting, humans are being hunted as food by giant insects. As usual with such releases, you can pick up this quality series for dirt cheap if you shop around, $20 being the est price I found.