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Something to Watch: DVDs, 2Apr13

I almost skipped the movie mention, because the only release I am aware of, Earth’s Final Hours, is a made-for-Syfy schlockfest that even the Syfy channel won’t admit to any more. If you have to have a movie this week, at least Freeloaders is silly fun, even if it isn’t genre.

TV does better, with Douglas Adam’s holistic detective Dirk Gently coming out. If you haven’t seen the show yet, it is quite true to the book. Also out, Dark Matters: Twisted but True is hosted by John Noble (the mad scientist from Fringe) and run on the Science Channel. considering the subject matter they made an excellent selection for the host.

In Anime, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan is a story about a boy who is a middle school student by day, and a Yokai, or Spirit/Monster/Demon, by night. His grandfather is leader of the clan, and he must decide whether to take over in his grandfathers place, or become fully human and abandon his heritage. Hyakko: Complete Series is about a crazy school girl who makes robot clones of herself and creates havoc wherever she goes. You guessed it, Hyakko is a comedy.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is a much more serious tale, following the struggles of two children and an adult who band together in their fight to return home to their families in the aftermath of a quake centered on Tokyo itself. They make their way through seemingly insurmountable obstacles past heartbreaking scenes without knowing if their families are even still alive.

New Doctor Who, Orphen Black, The Nerdist this weekend

Yes, this Saturday is the start of the new season of Doctor Who, and the premier of the new series Orphan Black on BBC America. If that wasn’t enough, Chris Hardwick will be following that block up with the new season of The Nerdist. I have already programed my DVR to grab all 3 shows each week, and I am really curious to see how Orphan Black works out. It is a new BBC America production, and I was quite impressed with what they did with Copper, I am hoping this new show will be every bit as twisted and convoluted.

New RWBY trailer

Rooster Teeth, the folks who brought us that masterpiece of combat comedy Red Vs. Blue, have a tasty new animation project: RWBY. The latest trailer is the top one, the Black trailer. After that are the earlier trailers, the White and Red. They haven’t released the Yellow trailer yet, but this will give you an idea of what the new series is up to. I find the style on these very interesting, almost like they recorded Machinima and then rotoscoped them into Anime. Which wouldn’t be a huge surprise, since Red Vs. Blue was some of the finest machinima ever made.

Something to Do: Movies, 29Mar13

The Host is a story of alien invasion, body snatchers who push out the human spirit, but some humans fight back hard. Based on the book by Stephenie Meyer, we get no sparkling vampires this time, so I think it might be worth taking a look at. Also out, GI Joe: Retaliation claims it is better than the first film, and I hope that’s true. I thought the first one was technically well done, but somehow I just wasn’t able to connect with the Joe characters. Possibly because they were supposed to be the good guys, but they killed off even more innocent bystanders than the bad guys and didn’t seem to notice, let alone care. Perhaps they fixed that problem by now and surgically attached souls to the bodies of the warriors.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 26Mar13

The winner this week is Tatsumi, based on Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s autobiographical manga, A Drifting Life. While Tatsumi idolized Osamu Tezuka, and met him in postwar occupied Japan as a young Manga artist/writer, he decided after a while that he didn’t want to just write stories for children. So in the 1950’s he invented Gekiga (dramatic pictures), a new adult oriented genre of graphic novels. Manga (irresponsible pictures) and Gekiga started influencing each other as time went on, with even Tezuka trying his hand at it by the 1980s. Of course here in the US everyone just calls both genres Manga, even though lots of people prefer Gekiga without knowing that’s what it is. Besides segments of Drifting Life, 5 of Tatsumi’s best stories are also brought to life in this feature length animation.

The classic Futureworld is being re-released on Blue Ray, just as Westworld was a while ago. 1997’s French/Italian film Virtual Weapon isn’t a classic, and it also isn’t getting the blue ray treatment, coming out in DVD format only, but at least it is getting released. The Dinosaur Project looks like a home made cross between Blair Witch and Jurassic Park, and won’t be coming home with me.

In TV Continuum: Season One is out Tuesday, and I find I haven’t quite made my mind up about it yet. I really enjoy watching it, I like the characters and the way they interact with each other, and it is good quality production. They don’t seem to be evolving the characters or advancing the story arc very fast at all, though there has been a lot of background and setup. I am hoping that the pace picks up soon, because they have a lot of potential that I would love to see realized. Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out was a TV special they did to run between episodes IV and V. I like Lego versions of films and movies, they are always fun to watch.

In anime, Phi-Brain: Puzzle of God is releasing season 1 collection 1, the first 13 episodes of the series. Kaito love to solve puzzles, but now he is trapped inside one with his friend and if he doesn’t solve it correctly they both die. If he does solve it, a hidden organization will just set more fiendish puzzle traps for him to resolve. This show is particularly fun if you enjoy solving puzzles, you can play against Kaito and see if you can beat him to the solution as you watch. You can also watch it on Crunchyroll if you want to see what it is like.

Amagami SS+ Complete Collection continues the story of Junichi’s evolving relationship with his girlfriend… in each of seven parallel universes. As with the first season, each girl and universe gets two contiguous episodes to explore how the relationship progresses. This is an interesting exploration of the way life changes as the result of our decisions, and I don’t think I could compare it to anything quite so much as the movie Sliding Doors; if you are a fan of one, you will love the other.

Shakugan no Shana season 3 comes out in two parts, each a box set, and continues the story of the near-dead human boy and the spirit warrior woman. But now they are on opposite sides in a massive spiritual battlefield, with the future of the whole world at stake. If you were wondering, you can also watch this one online over at the Funimation channel.

Finally, InuYasha the Movie: The Complete Collection puts all four of the feature length films from that series in a single Blue Ray box set, at a reasonable price. And yeah, that is another series you can watch online, this time over at Viz Anime.