It is a sad week when the optimal DVD live action movie release is a choice between Mongolian Death Worm or Bonnie & Clyde vs. Dracula (although the latter did win a bunch of Film Festival awards). I think I’ll pass this week, but there are some Anime goodies.
Usually I avoid reality shows like the plague, since they offend me, but this is closer to a documentary series. So I thought I should at least mention Stan Lee’s Superhumans: Season One, which has been running on the History channel.
For Anime, Eden of the East: King of Eden tops the list for me this week. A feature film length presentation continuing the story begun with last years TV series, Eden of the East. The tale moves back to the USA, and the other Selecao are becoming more active trying to eliminate Takizawa and create their own version of a more perfect Japan.
Another Anime title of note is the Girl Who Leapt Through Space, about an A.I. Leopard who comes out of hyperspace to seek repair. Akiha helps out, a soon joins forces with Itsuki of the police to battle the brain colony Nerval, who wants to enslave all humanity. And a new entry in the long running Naruto franchise, Naruto Shippuden: Box Set 6 also hits the shelves this week.
I almost never mention single volumes here, considering anything less than a box set to not be a cost effective way to collect series programming, but K-ON! Volume 1 finally brings the rock anime to the US, and even if it isn’t genre, this one is worth a look see.
Of lesser note, Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl: Vocal Collection is a bit of a mystical gender bender now re-released under the Vocal Collection flag. For those who haven’t seen my previous posts on Vocal Collections, they are not as you might suspect radio plays bringing new stories to the series. Rather they are exactly the same Anime series previously released Subbed (Subtitled), now available Dubbed with an English soundtrack. I haven’t quite made my mind up as to what I think about these, since on the one hand it seems like a ploy to get you to by the same TV series twice, once in each spoken language. But on the other hand, when they do release the Dubbed version, it is generally for around $15 to $20 dollars for an entire season of episodes, making it very attractively priced while simultaneously more accessible to a wider audience.