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Something to Watch: DVD’s

Top movie choice for the week has to be Captain America: The First Avenger. This one actually exceeded my expectations, and it is a suitable prelude to next year’s Avengers movie. Also out this week, Shaolin stars Andy Lau, Wu Jing, Jackie Chan, and Nicholas Tse, in a epic historical drama well worth watching. If it seems like I had already said it was coming out in an earlier week, I had. Which week it is coming out depends on who’s web site you believe, so I figured if I mentioned it both times there was a 50/50 shot I would be right one of the weeks.

There is an amusing looking documentary coming out this week; The People vs. George Lucas.

The TV choice for this week is also the western animation option, in the form of Robot Chicken: Season 5. Do not think this show has become any more subtle recently, it just gets more outrageous and hysterical with each new season.

In Anime I feel a little more confident saying that Himawari! Season 1 will be made available this week. Himawari is going to Ninja school but is not well prepared for the experience, even having to get rescued by a non-ninja teacher on her first day. Another combat high school series comes along in the form of Ikki Tousen: Great Guardians Part 2. In this series, great warriors of the 12 Kingdoms era are reincarnated as modern high school students, and continue their age old conflicts.

There is also a feature length film anime this week: Naruto Shippuden The Movie: Bonds. I am not sure exactly where this fits in the story arc.

Finally a re-release of a classic in a more cost effective package. You can pick up Witchblade – Complete Collection for as little as $21 if you shop around in its new Classic Collection version.

Something to Watch: DVDs

Movies this week kick off with Green Lantern, quite a fun little film for the action/adventure junkies. There is a related animation release, The best of Green Lantern, which seems to be a total of 5 episodes from 4 different series (I vote for just getting the compiled Justice League series and skipping this one). For folks looking for something noticeably sillier, we have Zookeeper.

Several interesting TV releases this time around, my favorite being the complete Chuck, Season 4. A couple of old classics finally coming out, including The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. released as a complete series, but broken up into two box sets (first and second parts). A related release for the same week, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Movies Collection brings out the 8 stand-alone Man From U.N.C.L.E. movies. Note these were not included in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. complete series attache case, which only had a single feature length film in it.

Speaking of complete, Doctor Who – The David Tennant Years is a 26 disk set of every David Tennant episode, special, confidential, animation, and anything else they could find. I have a hard time visualizing who they are going to sell this to, since everyone who might want it has already bought each season as they came out.

In western animation The Penguins of Madagascar: All-Nighter Before Xmas becomes available. This is from the TV series, not the movie production project.

For anime, Tales of the Abyss – Part 1 brings us the story of building global conflict in an alternate reality timeline filled with sorcery. Note that this title is also a platform game from Bandai/Namco if you are looking for a more interactive story format. Also out new this week is Naruto Shippuden Uncut Set 8, and this box set brings us up to episode 100 for the series. The final new title for the week is Kobato – Collection 2, a magical girl series where our protagonist uses her magic healing flask to ease the pain and suffering of others.

Ishida Hiroyasu graduation project

Ishida Hiroyasu is a brilliant young animator from Japan, and in March of 2010 I posted his Fumiko’s Confession; that video source is gone now, so I am re-posting it as the second video entry today. This year he turned in his graduation piece, called Rain Town, and posted it to YouTube just a week or so before the major earthquake/tsunami created such widespread destruction and loss of life across Japan. I have no idea if he survived that event, and because of it my attention was distracted from noticing this beautiful piece until now. I really hope he and his family are all right, and we will get to see more from this wonderful creator; with virtually no words he tells intense stories of the human heart.

Something to Watch: DVDs

This week we get Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a real roller-coaster of an action adventure movie. If you want some comedy with your action, I can recommend The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman, an unusual martial arts movie from China, where you follow the blade from owner to owner, getting a different story with each one. If you are more in a Fantasy kind of mood, Dragon Crusaders could be fun; nothing fancy here, it is just like the title says; a band of knights out to defeat a dragon. The final entry The Lost Future is a made for Syfy movie from last year.

In 1989 NBC aired a TV Miniseries of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days and it is getting re-released on DVD this week. The all star cast included Eric Idle which I find interesting because also in 1989 his fellow Pythons Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam also did an Around the World in Eighty Days TV series for the BBC, only theirs was a documentary in which Palin attempted to circumnavigate the globe without flying to see if Phileas Fogg could have done it.

In western animation the two pack of Scared Shrekless / Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins at a noticeably reduced price over getting them individually.

For anime, Mardock Scramble: The First Compression is finally being released in the US. This is the first of three science fiction stories that make up the series. In this one, the female cyborg Balot has only one purpose; to track down, capture, and/or kill the serial killer who murdered her. In Squid Girl – Part 1 we have a cute young girl who is a squid when she is in the water, now come ashore to conquer the human realm, but she is not having much luck with that last bit. Trigun: Badlands Rumble is a feature film that returns us to science fiction western that is Trigun. Rounding out our new releases, the Straw Hat Gang is back in One Piece – Collection 2.

The box set of Corpse Princess – Complete Collection brings the full story of the machine-gun wielding dead girl and her battle against the unnatural undead in a single package. Also Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple – Season 1 – Complete Collection is now out as a single set for the season rather than the two parts it had been.

New Rapparu Anime segment

Rapparu is an 18 year old animator from Tokyo who appears to have more raw talent than most teens and some adults. The first piece is called Tenkou Kotofumi according to Crunchyroll (I can’t read the kanji and confirm that). The only part of the animation he didn’t build himself was the music, he got that as a free download song from Trial and Error. He has also created a ton of amazing black and white line art animated GIFs, and he compiled some of them into the second video on this page. I haven’t found anything of his that tells an entire story yet (or at least not one with dialog), but I am looking forward to seeing what else he comes up with.