I couldn’t find a single new genre release in western Movies or TV, but there are a few eastern titles this week. Tokyo Ghoul √A – Season Two continues the war between Ghouls and Humans, cranking up the action and horror as old friends transform and new perils arise. Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign brings the first dozen episodes of the potential extinction of humanity as the vampires grow ever more numerous and hungry. In Shirobako: Collection 2 the five friends once in the animation club are now reunited and ready to create their first professional Anime, if only they can make it work. This was one of the most impressive Anime programs of 2015 for me, both for its recursiveness (an Anime about making an Anime, in the tradition of Golden Boy and Anime Runner Kuromi) and for its fond waves of recognition to some of the most amazing Anime creators in the industry today. I can’t say it anywhere near as well as others already have, so let me pass along links to a few of the better articles about it, from Rocket News 24, from Kotaku, and from Otaku USA. It also indirectly made public some of the sadder details, like the fact that many of the animators and voice actors that work on these projects are only paid a dollar an hour, not exactly a living wage. If you have ever wanted to create your own anime, this is a must-watch!
On the Big Screen this July, Nerve was sci-fi until a decade or so back, and looks like a very nicely done thriller. Based on the novel of the same name by YA author Jeanne Ryan, it seems like Eagle Eye meets John Dies in the End could have been the inspiration. I will be in the theater to check this one out when the time comes.
Kevin Smith is going to be building the TV show version of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, all because he did such a good job directing some recent episodes of The Flash. Some people at MGM saw those episodes and offered him a shot at creating a TV show for them, and that is what they decided on. As he said on a podcast at the Kevin Smith Blog: Basically you just do the entire movie for season one, then season two you finally do the sequel we’ve all dreamed about, Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League. I can’t wait! No guesses who might carry it yet, but this is one TV show I have been waiting a few decades for them to make. Thanks to pretty much everyone for the heads up on this, but the first one I saw was from Cheryl Eddy at IO9, which is part of Gizmodo these days.
Roald Dahl wrote the story, Steven Spielberg directed the movie, and Disney is distributing it; The BFG is finally coming to the big screen in July. The Big Friendly Giant has been a children’s classic since it was first published, I am looking forward to seeing how they did with this iteration of it.
The only interesting film this week is The Angry Birds Movie, but that’s OK. Next week we get two winners to chose between, X-Men: Apocalypse and Alice Through the Looking Glass.
The one new Movie title isn’t genre, and Janis: Little Girl Blue looks like it actually came out this past week. But it is an excellent documentary about an amazing artist who we lost too soon, so I had to mention it anyways. The IP Man Trilogy puts 3 of the movies in that series into a single box, at a noticeable savings over buying them individually, so if you don’t have them already now might be the time. Likewise DC Universe is releasing a number of their animated feature films two to a box for the price of one this week, including Son of Batman/Batman: Under The Red Hood, All-Star Superman/Superman Doomsday, and Superman vs. The Elite/Superman: Unbound. TV is represented by Nova: Rise of the Robots, also not genre but very worth watching.
We do better in Anime, with some actual new genre titles like Assassination Classroom – Season 1 Part 1 bringing the first 11 episodes of the series home. Akame ga Kill: Collection 2 is the second half of that rather twisted story line, this time with the old enemies working together. Black Butler: Book of Murder has two OVAs about Ceil and the Demon Butler, and a cast that includes legendary author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; that alone should make this an important selection. Finally Gunbuster: The Movie tells the tale of the monsters between the stars, and the humans who go out to fight them. The time dilation caused by their near light speed transitions means the ones they go out to protect may be long dead before the battle is even joined.