The animated choice this time is The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature which is good silly fun, as you would expect. But the live action option has to be Once Upon a Time, the Chinese epic fantasy about love across the incarnations and across time. It looks like the live action version of Tokyo Ghoul is being released as well, but not in this country.
The heir to Studio Ghibli is Studio Ponoc, and they are about to roll out Mary and The Witch’s Flower, their first feature film. It is good to know this kind of quality animation will continue to be created.
We get nothing this week that is definitively genre, but we do get animated silliness in the form of The Emoji Movie, and a kick-ass spy flic with Atomic Blonde. We also get Wolf Warrior 2 bringing the rest of the high-adrenaline level excitement for the week, and Mubarakan has the corner on romantic comedy fun.
The Western world has Spark: A Space Tail as its offering, which does at least have an impressive line up of Voice Actors. Of course, we also have Smurfs: The Lost Village, and no, I am not handing out a link to that one. GATE: Complete Collection was my favorite Anime of 2015/2016; I am not going to tell you anything about the events of the two seasons themselves, but I am going to give you the setup/backstory that took place before the first episode started: When a Gate between universes opened up in Tokyo over half a million mounted warriors poured out, ready to conquer the world. They were humans, elves, animal people, and magicians, armed with bows, axes, swords and spells, and they killed several thousand civilians in their initial surge across the city. An Otaku officer in the Japanese Self Defense Force recognized what was going on and rallied a local military response, saving thousands in immediate danger in the process. As more forces were mobilized the attackers found themselves up against assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, tanks, grenade launchers, mortars, and shoulder-launched missiles. Only the few hundred invaders left to guard the Gate managed to get home alive, and most of them were wounded; the JSDF followed them through the gate and took over the town on the other side and the surrounding countryside for kilometers in every direction. What happened after that is the story of this series, and their universe will never be the same.
The winner this week is Despicable Me 3 (which is actually the 4th film in the series), hands down and no doubt about it. While I will definitely be in the theater for that one, it is not the only choice. The Little Hours is a very twisted medieval romantic comedy that takes place in a convent, and may give Despicable Me a run for its money on the comedy front but with a noticeably older audience.
We get a new animation from Studio Ghibli with The Red Turtle, a brilliant story which needs no dialog to make its meaning known. MindGamers is a story about true possibilities for neural networks to interface to the wetware in our skulls, and not all the potentials are positive things. This one played in theaters across the country on a single night, if you missed it here is your next chance to catch it. A Dog’s Purpose is based on the book of the same name, and is included because reincarnation comes under the heading of fantasy in some cultures, and therefor genre.
Anime has a confusing entry today, with One Piece Movie: Gold and One Piece: Heart of Gold both coming out, two completely different animations. The live action Black Butler: The Movie is coming out this week as well, two hours of demonic butler revenge saga! Grimgar: Ashes & Illusions contains the complete series of amnesiac adventurers lost in a fantastic world. Season 2, part 2 of Garo: Crimson Moon continues the trials of the commoners exposed to the depredation of the demons and monsters that roam the night, while the rich and powerful stay safe inside the shielded part of the city. Only the wearers of the Golden Armor fight to protect them, and they can not be everywhere at once. Nurse Witch Komugi R is the complete collection of Magical Girl/Idol turned Nurse (Magical Nurse turned Idol? Nurse Idol turned Magical Girl? I don’t watch this series, so I am noticeably vague on the details) stories. I also have to mention the re-release of the classic Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, a classic from the Gundam Universe that was a subplot of the primary story from 1996 to 1999.