With the Christmas buying season over, very little in the way of new movies or TV is coming out this week. Operation Avalanche is another retelling of the Apollo Mission to the Moon as a conspiracy rather than the actual event. Based on the trailer, I suspect that Moonwalkers starring Ron Perlman was a more amusing variation on the concept. The real winner this week is Rurouni Kenshin Part III: The Legend Ends, bringing the latest live action cinematic retelling of the Samurai legend home. Finally, in Anime, The World God Only Knows: Ultimate Collection packages up both seasons plus the OVAs into a single box set for the first time. And that is pretty much it for this time around.
James Patterson’s bestselling YA book series Maximum Ride made the transition to movie format, but it didn’t play anywhere near me; now I get a chance to see it as they release it to DVD. The animated film Storks may be the best bet this time around, good silly fun from the studio that did The Lego Movie. There are also a couple of documentaries that look interesting, Oasis: Supersonic being about the rise, reign, and implosion of the band, while Hitchcock/Truffaut is all about the 1962 week long meeting those two had when they dissected the film industry.
Anime has an unusual release either this week or next, depending on which web site you believe: Attack on Titan 20 Special Edition w/DVD is a manga/graphic novel that included a DVD with an anime episode not released anywhere else. Owarimonogatari 2 is only 6 episodes long, being the second half of the season, but it does tell the complete Shinobu Mail story arc. Finally Shakugan No Shana S: OVA Series is now available in a S.A.V.E. edition, but considering it only contains four 23 minute episodes being able to pick it up for just under $20 doesn’t seem like much of a deal.
As Christmas gets ever closer you would expect there to be quality new releases, and there are. Suicide Squad was a very pleasant surprise after all the dark DC movies, which I am pretty sure was a direct result of how much fun (and how much money it made) Marvel’s Deadpool generated. Trying to jump on that bandwagon was the best thing any DC movie director ever did, and the results were the first DC movie since the 80s I wanted to watch a second time. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children lived up to the book very well, and I can only hope they go ahead and turn all of the books in that franchise into movies. Morgan is a different story, leaning a bit too close to horror for my tastes.
In Anime, Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! Heart Throb is season two of this story, and everyone’s relationships continue to undergo changes; not least of which is chuunibyou-plagued Satone, who keeps showing up in the most unexpected places and times. Will her delusions shatter the delicate relationship the other three are forming? In Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace, the Complete Series, a serial killer dispenses justice while the police and investigators race to shut him down, before the copy cat killers take out everyone left standing. The artwork and animation are somewhere between gorgeous and grotesque, the music is interesting, and the plot line is keeping me guessing. If you are a fan of murder mysteries the odds are good you will like this one. This time around we also get One Piece: Season 8 Voyage 5 with episodes 505 through 516, and The Legend of the Legendary Heroes: The Complete Series in a S.A.V.E. edition.
We get two animated western films this week, with The Secret Life of Pets being my vote for the best choice. Mind, Lego Star Wars: Freemaker Adventures is probably also a good option, but since I haven’t seen it yet I have to go with the one I have seen and know I like. The Lego Star Wars set is the first season, totally 13 episode, 22 minutes long each.
Anime starts out with the Live Action Attack on Titan The Movie: Part 2, but I am sad to report I have seen no mention of the Live Action TV show that accompanied the movies. By all reports it wasn’t very good, but being a completest I would still like to see it. Rurouni Kenshin Part II: Kyoto Inferno is also the second Live Action film in a series that started life as a Manga, then an Anime, although this one will have a total of 3 films in the set, the third one being released in January.
Bikini Warriors: The Complete Series is actual Anime, with the emphasis on Fan Service and a premise so silly this definitely qualifies as Comedy. Speaking of Comedy, Fairy Tail: Part 22 has episodes 253 through 265 and all the magical collateral damage we have all come to expect from this series. Little Busters Ex is an OVA spin off of the Little Busters! Ecstasy variation of this anime based on a lite graphical novel that is sometimes a game. Ninja Slayer kicks reason to the curb, and includes some animation that looks like it was done by pre-teens drinking way too much coffee. I am unclear who the target audience is for that one, I only know it does not include me.
Seiyu’s Life: The Complete Series is based on the Doujinshi by voice actress Masumi Asano, and its all about (surprise!) Voice Acting! In fact Seiyu is the Japanese word for a Voice Actor, and there are a number of big-time voice actors doing cameos in this series. If you ever wanted to get an insiders eye view of what it takes to become a successful voice actor in the world of Anime, you need to watch this series.
There are a lot of family friendly choices this time, starting with the live action remake of Pete’s Dragon from Disney. Spielberg’s take on Roald Dahl’s The BFG is also by way of Disney, and also family friendly. The animated adventure comedy The Wild Life has one of the more cleverly done interactive web sites that I have seen, is a world of fun, and again, is family friendly. It is also still another excellent example of the kind of quality animation work coming out of Belgium and France this century. I do have to admit that Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is family friendly for only certain totally twisted and dysfunctional variations of the word Family (or Friendly, for that matter), which should be obvious from its R rating, but it is a total hoot as well. See this one, just don’t let your kids in the room while you are watching it.
In Anime, Death Parade: The Complete Series has a simple premise: When two people die at the same time, they have to fight. The one who wins gets to live again, the one who loses is gone for good. Decim is the arbiter:a judge who determines whether or not a soul is worthy of reincarnation. At least until he until he meets a mysterious young woman whose fate seems impossible to decide, and the real story gets underway. Knights of Sidonia: Battle for Planet Nine, Complete Collection is season 2 of this series, and includes all 12 episodes plus the movie. This is not the first anime series to explore what it means to be human, or even the first to do so while the characters DNA is being rewritten, but it does have a somewhat unique approach to the question. The first part of one of this years most edge-of-your-seat shows, God Eater 1, also becomes available this week. I will be waiting for them to put all 13 episodes into a single box set myself, but it is good to see they are making it available in however limited a form.
The wonderful animation Kubo and the Two Strings comes out this week, if you missed it in the theaters you definitely want to catch it now. It is also one of the best instances of stop motion filming I have seen, possibly surpassing Box Trolls. Kevin Smith’s Yoga Hosers is also out this week, a sort of horror-comedy from Canada. Even though it isn’t genre I do have to mention Mechanic: Resurrection, if you are in the mood for action it is the film to watch this week.
In Anime Aquarion Logos: Part 1 is the first 6 episodes of Season 3 of the Aquarion series. The battle is between text and voice to determine which parts of the world are erased and which are saved. Likewise Gatchaman Crowds Insight is season 2 of the Gatchaman Crowds series, in which select Humans and Aliens wear suits which help them manifest their special powers and protect the Earth. Asterisk War Part 2 is the second half of the first season, and since there is a second season I expect waiting until they put the entire thing out in a single box set for a more reasonable price is the way to go.