The main film this week is The Jungle Book, the latest iteration of the Rudyard Kipling classic. The composited Live Action/CGI makes this the best looking version yet, and is an example of just how good the technology has gotten. The last time Disney told this story they did it with hand drawn animation, and that was the best anyone had seen up to that point, so this continues their tradition. While the most widely publicized, this isn’t our only choice this time around; Adam Green’s Aladdin will be making its way to a limited number of screens, and looks interesting enough to check out.
TV has Heroes Reborn: The Complete Event Series, and I was thrilled to discover it has 13 episodes. Somehow my DVR only captured the first 12, when I got to the end of my binge watching session I thought they left it like that to try to get the fans to pressure NBC to do another season. It turns out it does have an actual ending, and I am going to get to see it after all. Movies has the DC direct to video animated Justice League vs. Teen Titans; I am afraid I am not a fan of the animation style, it is reminiscent of bad Saturday morning cartoons from the 70s and 80s. Someone is also releasing all of the Alien and Alien vs Predator movies in a single bundle; if you don’t already have them, now is your chance to get the entire collection at once.
In Anime, Gugure! Kokkuri-san is about a doll girl who summons a Kokkuri-san, or fox ghost, by accident. He decides to haunt her and cook for her, because all she eats are cup noodles, and he can’t stand it. Maken-Ki! 2 is the second season of this school for magical combat, done as comedy with a large helping of fan service. While it isn’t genre, Tonari no Seki-kun: Complete Collection are short, fun little episodes about the Master of Killing Time. Each day he sits at his desk in school and creates complex diversions to entertain himself, driving the girl at the next desk out of her mind from the distraction. While he never manages to get caught, her reactions pull plenty of attention from the teacher. It is pretty amazing how they manage to fit so much tension and humor into a show only 7 minutes long per episode.
The post-Armageddon series God Eater took a 3 month break between the biologic battles of episodes 9 and 10, now they are back to finish up the first season. Episode 10 just posted to Crunchyroll this past Monday, with new episodes each Monday. As with a number of other series, God Eater aired first on Daisuke, so you can watch 10 through 13 there already. Both sites have both free and paid accounts you can sign up for, and you can watch anything they stream with a free account. The paid accounts have some added benefits, like watching the shows a week earlier or getting them without commercials. Both streaming services also have free iOS and Android apps you can use to watch your favorite shows on your smart phone or tablet, and each service has pros and cons with different aspects of the account set up.
The most interesting thing about Daisuke is the titles they carry. They are a consortium of 6 Anime companies based in Japan, rather then a North American distributor like Crunchyroll, Funimation, or Viz. Which means they have a mix of some of the shows the other 3 carry, they show some titles a week or more before any of the others have them, and they even have some shows that aren’t carried by the North American distributors at all. Of course, there are more than 6 Anime companies in Japan, which means each of the others carry titles that Daisuke, nor their local competitors, have. Personally I can’t afford to have paid accounts with all of them, plus Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Acorn, etc, on top of my cable company bill (best broadband bandwidth for the buck, bar none). So I am evaluating who has what, and which titles in each ones library I can not live without. If I can only afford a couple of monthly service fees, I want to make sure I end up with the best ones.
This week sees Hardcore Henry on the big screen, a man who has been brought back from the dead by his wife just before she gets kidnapped. He has no memory and doesn’t know the city he is in, and his wife’s kidnapper is a powerful warlord with an army of mercenaries. Worse, he has a plan for world domination which involves reanimating the dead, which is how Henry came back. The movie was filmed first person style, so you spend the thing seeing everything from Henry’s viewpoint, which is a little confusing on the action sequences. I probably won’t be seeing this one myself, but it is genre so I had to mention it here.
Movies brings us Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which would be enough for me if that was all there was, but we get a bit more. Identicals is a rather twisty little film about people who take over the lives of others, to the point where they lose track of their own identity. Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie closes out the Ghost In The Shell: Arise prequel, ending with the scenes that began the very first movie. I get to mention it here rather then in the Anime section because it actually did play on the big screen in US theaters.
TV has Doctor Who: Complete Series 9, which was a fun season that I wouldn’t have minded if it had had still more episodes. We also get The Expanse: Season 1, a first class interpretation of the books series, and I am happy to see they have signed off on creating the second season.
In Anime, Parasyte The Maxim: Collection 1 is a tale of a body snatching alien and the human he permanently attached to when he mistakenly ate and replaced his hand, instead of his head. Now the rest of the invaders want them both dead, so they have to work together to survive in this first half of the series. Rail Wars takes place in a parallel time line where the nationalized railway system was never privatized. While a lot of the story arc is involved with agitators and saboteurs trying to take control of the rail system away from the government, a good bit of it is slice-of-life tales of the day to day workings of the system as valid in this universe as in that one. We also have new stories for a few old favorites, with Lupin the Third: Jigen’s Gravestone, and Naruto Shippūden: Uncut Set 26.
If you have played this even once, the reality of the Ratchet & Clank movie can be summed up with their tag line: Kick Some Asteroid! It will be on the big screen at the end of April, just a handful of weeks from now.