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We have two titles from the DC Universe this week, with Gotham: The Complete Third Season and the animated DCU: Batman and Harley Quinn both hitting the shelves. I find the live action TV show addictive, at least the first two season, so I look forward to binging my way through it. The fantasy comedy Killing Hasselhoff will also be out this week, so I suppose I should mention the associated non-genre comedy Baywatch will also be out come Tuesday. Finally, Anime has Ushio & Tora: Complete TV Series, a tale of yokai vs. human vs. yokai.

There are several interesting films out this week, although some of them will be in limited release. The classic Terminator 2: Judgment Day has been reprocessed into 3D, and there are now a couple generations of Terminator fans who have never seen it on the big screen in the first place to enjoy it. Birth of the Dragon tells some of the Bruce Lee story, although according to his daughter they completely bypassed his philosophy of both Martial Arts and storytelling, so she bailed on the project as not representing her dad. Unleashed is a modern fantasy about a woman whose cat and dog were turned into handsome male humans, it has been winning awards all over the festival circuit and looks very amusing. There is a new French animation called Leap!, original title Ballerina, also coming to theaters on Friday. France has been at the forefront of international film making since the 1890s, and has been creating some amazing animations at least since WWII. They may only have a few movies which break across the language barrier each year, but the ones that do are usually minor (and sometimes not so minor) masterpieces. If you live within driving distance of one of the larger Megaplex theaters, one of them may be carrying The Villainess, a South Korean movie about a woman trained from youngest childhood to be an assassin for a criminal organization. When a government agency offers her freedom and a place in society if she works for them for a decade, she jumps at the chance to escape. When they betray her in turn, the vengeance train goes off the rails and rampages down main street. And one more that I really want to see is the Bollywood film A Gentleman. A RomCom where a case of mistaken identity changes everything!

The best western option this week is Gotham: The Complete Third Season, and I do love how each season is a little more twisted than the last. The related DCU release is DCU: Batman and Harley Quinn, a road trip story where the two are tracking down Poison Ivy, and Batman is losing it still more by the minute! And then there is Killing Hasselhoff, possibly the strangest and funniest movie of the actors career. Anime releases include Bakuon!!: Complete Collection, plus Beyond the Boundary, and finally Rainbow Days: Complete Collection.

The genre entry is Dave Made a Maze, and indie fantasy which has been quietly winning awards at film festivals for a while now. I suspect it won’t be getting a lot of screens across the country, so you may have to hunt for it if you want to see it. The Hitman’s Bodyguard isn’t genre (beyond the fact that it looks like it is straight out of a comic book), but it does look like it will be silly fun. Decisions, decisions…

This week brings the latest in the long running franchise with Alien: Covenant. By the time this one hit the theaters I had seen everything I needed to see of that universe, so I haven’t seen it yet, and feel no compulsion to do so now. I do love every one of the films that has Sigourney Weaver in it, though. I am going to have to include the TV series Riverdale: Season 1 this time, because it is so different from the comic books I remember reading that it seems like something from another world to me. I did enjoy it quite a bit, and am happy that Season 2 will be on the air in October.

Anime has the continuation of two long-running favorites with Fairy Tail: Collection Nine, and One Piece – Season Nine, Voyage Two. We also get Food Wars! Complete Collection in both a regular and limited box sets.

The latest Daoko song, just posted today, is called Big Fireworks, and is the theme song for the new animated motion picture Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?. The film opens in Japan on the 18th of this month, and is a remake of a 1993 live action drama of the same name. This one is a slice of life Anime with a side order of time travel, I can’t wait to see it! The animation work itself looks excellent, I hope they don’t wait a whole year before bringing it to the big screen in North America. Oh, yeah, the last trak is Daoko’s Good bye Goodbye from the J-WAVE SONAR MUSIC SPECIAL SHOW CASE about 3 months ago.