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Something to Watch: Discs

The top western choice this week is Sherlock: Season Four, an excellent series I can’t watch enough of. The only other release that keeps it from being the only genre option in its category is Guardians of Oz from animator Jorge Gutiérrez who did The Book Of Life.

In Anime, Attack on Titan: The Complete First Season finally comes out in a single box set, for the same money as getting the Part 1 or Part 2 releases by themselves. Garo: Crimson Moon is Season Two, Part 1, for more golden armor vs. demons battle. Triage X: Complete Series has a team of nurses who moonlight as assassins, taking out the bad guys for 23 episodes. Finally, while Infinite Stratos 2 has already been released, they are coming out with a Premium Edition that, for a mere hundred dollars more, will give you an additional $20 worth of booklets and trinkets.

Something to Stream: Ronja and iBoy

Amazon streaming video is releasing Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter next Friday, the 27th. Based on the Astrid Lindgren fantasy novel and put together by Goro Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli, with Gillian Anderson narrating the story. On that same day, Netflix will launch iBoy, a movie about a teen with cell phone superpowers running around London. I plan to check them both out, as they both look interesting in completely different ways. The Ronja trailer is here, see my previous post for the iBoy trailer.

The Virtual Human: Hellblade

I found this video amazing; it is an explanation of how they used a real person to create a game character, and in the process invented the combination of technology needed to allow that person to act in real time in the game. Which means that anyone with deep enough pockets (which would have to be very deep, at this point) could schedule time to get themselves scanned and processed, buy the gear including the head mounted camera system, and do the same thing. It allows you to be fully immersed in the 360 VR game environment as yourself, with everyone able to see and hear you, right down to your current facial expression. Of course, it will be a decade or so before the price comes down enough that the rest of us get to try this out, but its good to know it is on the way.

Something to Do: Movies

The dialog-free feature animation The Red Turtle was created by teams from France Belgium, and Japan. As the trailer makes obvious, the Japanese partner on the project was Studio Ghibli, nice to know I can see a new film by them this long after the studio closed. Also this week, the Lost in London LIVE experiment, where Woody Harrelson will create a movie live and stream it into theaters in real time. That one is on Thursday the 19th, and I might have to go see it just to find out it he succeeds.

Something to Watch: Discs

The one western program I am excited about this week is 12 Monkeys: Season Two, the Syfy channel show with a great cast and story line. Roger Cormen is still making workmanlike films on shoestring budgets, and his Death Race 2050 is the latest to be released direct to disc. The animation Long Way North has been winning awards on the Film Festival circuit for the last year or better, but it never got a wide theatrical release, and also comes out direct to disc this week. And then there is Surf’s Up 2: Wave Mania, which I have also found no theatrical release for, but it might have been on TV at some point. This is a joint project between Sony Pictures and the WWE, with a number of their star wrestlers doing the voice actor work for the surfing penguins.

We don’t have much in Anime this week either. Nothing new, and just the latest box set each for two returning favorites. Naruto Shippūden Set 29 has episodes 362 through 374, while Fairy Tail: Collection 6 gives us episodes 121 through 142. Both of these long running shows are well worth following.