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Something to Watch: Discs

The few movies being released this week all appear to be low budget direct-to-video offering, like A Cinderella Story: If the Shoe Fits (done as a musical), RZ-9, and Robot World. OK, one exception, I think The Angry Birds Movie may have been played in a theater somewhere. TV has some serious winners though, with Gotham: Season 2 and Once Upon A Time: The Complete Fifth Season being the two I am most excited about. I am sure I would be more excited about The Vampire Diaries: The Complete Seventh Season if I had made it to the fourth season yet. It seems I have way more things I try to watch than there are hours in the day, so I end up getting behind on some of the shows.

In Anime Punch Line is about a Time Traveler who was evicted from his body, a Hero of Justice and her Fembot sidekick, a Ghost Cat Spiritual Master, an unskilled and alcoholic Exorcist, a competition grade Gamer Girl and her alien pet, and an Extinction Level Event on a collision course to wipe out the human race. Which it does, several times; good thing the time traveler refuses to give up, working hard to recover his body and join with his friends to save the planet! Assassination Classroom: Season 1 Part 2 continues the tale of the alien teacher and the students trying their best to kill him; he has promised that if they succeed, he will not destroy the Earth the way he did the Moon. I am sure no one needs any explanation about what Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal: Set 1 is about.

In Trinity Seven: Complete Collection Arata’s town was destroyed, his beloved cousin removed, and he was transported to another world where his new magical powers hold the only key to his return to Earth. Provided, that is, that he can keep the seven deadly girls alive through the trans-dimensional attacks that plague his new world. Blood Blockade Battlefront has denizens of the netherworld teaming up with Superheroes to defend both realms from an evil plot to take over their worlds. Finally, Charlotte Volume 1 contains the first 7 episodes of the 12 part story of adolescents who gain special powers, only to lose them a few years later. While it starts out looking like a high school wish fulfillment fantasy, it doesn’t take many episodes at all before they start revealing the much darker under-story, and the secret war being waged across the world.

Wild Cards on TV!

George R.R. Martin announced his shared superhero universe Wild Cards is coming to TV, and I cheered for a good 30 minutes. Melinda M. Snodgrass has been deeply involved with the project from the beginning as both a writer and an editor, and she will be an executive producer for the new TV show. UPC will be bringing it to the small screen, and since they have produced such shows as Mr. Robot, Killjoys, The Magicians, and 12 Monkeys, I have high hopes they will give Wild Cards the treatment it deserves. There are no guarantees, of course; back in 2011 I reported on their announcements about the Wild Card Movie that never got made. But perhaps if the show does as well as I expect it will we might get to see them on the big screen after all some day.

Something to Do: Movies

The live action remake of Pete’s Dragon could be quite amusing. It certainly benefits from the advances in CGI animation and compositing that have been made over the last several decades. If you are in the mood for something less family friendly, the animated film Sausage Party features a sausage trying to discover the truth about his existence, and what he learns is terrifying. I don’t know that I find either of them compelling enough to make me actually part with my money to see them in the theater.

Something to Watch: Discs

While genre movies seem to be missing this week, TV has Stephan King’s 11.22.63, an eight episode mini series about people traveling back in time to alter the Kennedy Assassination so it never happened. Also available is Supergirl: Season 1, now migrated to the CW network, which is a great call all around. They are the de facto DC Comics TV network now; they have added Super Girl to the channel already carrying Arrow, The Flash, and Legends Of The Future. I can’t wait to see what interesting crossover story lines they all build together.

In Anime, Absolute Duo: The Complete Series is about Koryo Academy, a training center for the art of war, where the students forge their souls into weapons. But Tor’s first combat experience is simple compared to his social situation at his new school. Together in Garo The Animation: Season One Part Two, León and Alfonso find each other an team up to begin winning their country back, even though they have radically different ideas about what their country is. Finally, in Barakamon: The Complete Series, uptight young calligrapher Handa punches out a critic, gets shipped out to a prison/rest camp, and has his life turned upside down.

Something to Stream: Tales of Zestiria the X

Tales of Zestiria the X jumps straight into fantasy statecraft and combat, right from the beginning of episode 0 (yes, this series starts at the actual first integer of any numeric sequence). The artwork and animation are both quite good, although so far not spectacular except for a few fleeting scenes. The characters and dialog introduce what seems to be this series strong suit; its densely layered plot elements and action sequences, weaving together to form the basis of an excellent story, and story telling environment. Like all the other shows from this season, it is only 4 or 5 episodes along at this point, so there is no way to know if this is going to end up being one of the classics or an also ran. But I really like what it has shown us so far, and will keep watching it to the end of the season if only to find out if they can keep up the quality throughout, and deliver on the implied promise. I have high hopes, since this year marks the 20th anniversary of the Tales Of family of animations, with this being the latest.

I am watching this series on Daisuki, which has a number of shows you can’t see anywhere else, which makes sense; they are a consortium of Japanese Anime creation companies, and not a North American distributor of Anime, after all. They have just entered the Premium Subscription phase of a streaming services life cycle, and I am happy to report they are following the Crunchyroll Anime Business Model. In other words, your free registration with them allows you to watch everything the paid premium service gives you, with 3 differences:

1) Premium watches 1 hour after it airs in Tokyo, Free sees it 1 week after.
2) Premium has limited commercials (Free’s more numerous commercials are currently only promos drawing you into other anime shows they are running, but that won’t last once they can market it).
3) Premium can watch in true HD, as can Free. Guest (you didn’t sign up for a log in) tops out at SD.

That last point is different than Crunchyroll, which does not differentiate between unregistered and registered free, as far as I can tell. And the second point reminds me a bit more of Hulu rather than Crunchyroll, come to think of it, because there are NO commercials on Crunchyroll Premium. And all of these differences between providers explains why I watch it on Daisuki rather than Funimation, even though I have a Funimation Premium account which I really enjoy. For the most part, they only let you watch a few episodes of any given series until you sign up for the Funimation Premium account. I understand the business model, but would rather support the others, which are more appealing to me as a consumer.