Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale is the feature film coming to theaters later this year, continuing the saga. This trailer has the Lisa theme song as its core, and a story line based on a nightmare from VR starting to spread into reality by way of AR. Not just based on the light novels by Reki Kawahara but actually written by her specifically for the movie, I am looking forward to seeing this one on the big screen.
Blue Exorcist: Kyoto Saga Episode 1 is coming to DAISUKE on January 6th! The new season of the show will be streamed by DAISUKI across an area that includes the US, Canada, Oceania, and Europe, so if you live in one of those you are just days away from all new episodes.
One of the movies I am looking forward to in 2017, Transformers: The Last Knight looks like a lot of fun. It will be hitting the Big Screen next June23rd, and no doubt be filled with the non-stop adrenaline pacing that Michael Bay is famous for.
The Fantasy A Monster Calls has won two awards and been nominated for 51 more before it even went into wide release, and may be the movie of choice this week. Underworld: Blood Wars puts Kate Beckinsale squarely between the Lycans and Vampires as she moves in to end the ages old war. Hidden Figures is the true story of the women who calculated the launches, orbits, and landings for the Mercury and Apollo space programs, and what they had to overcome to do it. It was a double whammy against them in the 19050s and 1960s because besides being female they were African Americans, but they were also some of the finest engineers this country has produced. Finally, Railroad Tigers is the story of a railroad worker in 1941 China who leads a team of freedom fighters against the Japanese to get food to the poor. Since it starts Jackie Chan, there is a chance it may have some comedic moments.
With the Christmas buying season over, very little in the way of new movies or TV is coming out this week. Operation Avalanche is another retelling of the Apollo Mission to the Moon as a conspiracy rather than the actual event. Based on the trailer, I suspect that Moonwalkers starring Ron Perlman was a more amusing variation on the concept. The real winner this week is Rurouni Kenshin Part III: The Legend Ends, bringing the latest live action cinematic retelling of the Samurai legend home. Finally, in Anime, The World God Only Knows: Ultimate Collection packages up both seasons plus the OVAs into a single box set for the first time. And that is pretty much it for this time around.
We get two versions of Princess Mononoke in movie theaters this January, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Studio Ghibli classic. On January 5th you can see the original Japanese version with English subtitles, while on January 9th you can watch the English Dub version. Both versions were the work of Hayao Miyazaki, but you may not be aware the English language version was written by Neil Gaiman, and performed by such talents as Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, and Gillian Anderson! The special event screening is a combined project of Fathom Events and GKIDS.