Movies have Alien Outpost, while TV brings Bitten: Complete Second Season and the Witches Of East End: The Complete Season 2. None of those did particularly well with the critics or the ratings.
In Anime Atelier, Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky contains all 12 episodes of the mismatched alchemists working together to save their world. Noragami: The Complete First Season has a slacker god with no shrine or worshipers trying to help a girl who’s soul keeps slipping out of her body.
Yes, this is the series that asks that age old question: Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Except the protagonist is doing anything but trying to pick up girls, they just seem to collect around him. The anime series is based on the light novel of the same name, what in the US might be called a Novella or Novelette, written by Fujino Omori and illustrated by Suzuhito Yasuda. This is my favorite anime of the spring 2015 season (although there are a few others which are quite tasty and almost as much fun, which I make sure to watch each week), and although the season is winding up, it doesn’t look like the story line is. In fact, becoming the fastest growing adventurer now seems to be the set up for what the quest becomes in the next season, not the goal for this one. Although as we get to the end of the first season, the advice his ghostly grandfather keeps giving him makes a lot more sense once we learn who that grandfather is. If you haven’t been following this one, use the Crunchyroll link and binge-watch it this weekend to get yourself up to speed.
This Disney flic looks like a lot of fun! Zootopia is by definition the kind of Utopia where humans never existed, but the anthropomorphic animals who lived there were extremely HumanEsq. It has a great premise and some good 3D CGI animation that brings the characters to life in ways beyond what the creators were trying for, I suspect. I have enjoyed everything they have shown us of it so far, and can’t wait to see more.
Pay attention; this might be the world we end up with if we are not careful. A Darwinian Future is not exactly a positive way to move forward through time, but it is one of the potential paths the human race might follow soon. I had to include the VFX Breakdown as a stream for this entry, so you could appreciate the construction. This was made by 3 folks: 2 Actors and 1 Camera person. When was the last time you saw a production pipeline that small that created a story you wanted to watch? As if that wasn’t amazing enough, all post production was done by one guy on a home computer. Meaning, you could create a movie this good yourself, at home, in your spare time.
It is finally time for Terminator Genisys to hit the big screen on July 1st, complete with Arny as a couple of Terminators. It looks absolutely amazing, so I will be in the theater for this one. There is also a film called Robot Overlords coming out this week, which looks like it could be interesting. If I only have time to see one, I know which one is getting my money.
Movies have Last Knights this week, which comes under the Epic Fantasy category. The film did not do well with the critics, and I don’t believe I will be watching it myself. Much more interesting is the indi film Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter, about a Japanese office assistant who mistakes a VHS thriller for a documentary and goes off for the hunt of her life. This is a much more surreal fantasy, but it is actually based on a true story. The only TV show worth mentioning here also seems like a total fantasy to me, although I suspect the show creators intended it to be more like real life: Banshee: The Complete First Season starts with the premise of the Amish Mafia, and gets rapidly less realistic from there.
Finally the actual fantasy film Forbidden Empire looks like it could be a lot of fun, I intend to check it out and see if it lives up to its promise. It is a Russian film based on Nikolai Gogol’s story Viy, and appropriately released there under the name Viy 3D. The story is about an 18th century explorer who sets out on an epic journey to map the forbidden uncharted lands of Transylvania; what he learns scares the holy living crap out of him, and more than likely most of the audience. It has already been signed off for a sequel which is filming in China, starring Jason Flemyng, Rutger Hauer, and Anna Yo, with help from Jackie Chan Stunt Team. I can’t wait to see how it does.
In Anime, Space Brothers – Collection 3 brings episodes 27 through 38 to the shelves, continuing this amazing story about the conquest of space and what it means to one family. In .hack//G.U. Trilogy our protagonist must unlock the mystery behind a computer glitch capable of leaving players comatose, and possibly killing them. Turn A Gundam – Part 1 brings us the first 25 episodes in an epic about the separation thousands of years ago of the two branches of Humanity, one on the Earth, the other on the Moon.
For the bridge between sci-fi and fantasy this week we have A Lull in the Sea: Complete Collection, a variation on the Turn A Gundam story, except with the separation of humanities branches being between below and above the sea. There is also BlazBlue Alter Memory, where it takes a serious combination of technology and magic to defeat the beast out to obliterate the human race.
There are a number of excellent titles out this time around on the pure fantasy level as well, starting with Magical Warfare, which has a Kendo geek suddenly finding out he has to become a magician to survive and protect those he holds dear. The Irregular at Magic High School team also has a new release this week, although limited in scope to 7 episodes. Tokyo Ravens: Season 1 Part 2 is a supernatural fantasy featuring otherworldly battles and forgotten promises, and worth taking a peek at.
My Little Monster: Complete Collection is about an impassive girl who meets a trouble maker in a brand new love story. While not exactly genre, it has enough fantasy elements to satisfy my immediate needs in a story line.