Gintama is the story of an Edo era Samurai in a Japan where Aliens have invaded and taken over the Earth. Skyscrapers and traffic jams came to Kyoto centuries ahead of schedule, and the simple life was over. The manga and anime have gone on for hundreds of episodes, and now we finally get a Live Action Gintama Movie bringing this excellent series to the big screen. It looks like the release date is around July of 2017.
James Patterson’s bestselling YA book series Maximum Ride made the transition to movie format, but it didn’t play anywhere near me; now I get a chance to see it as they release it to DVD. The animated film Storks may be the best bet this time around, good silly fun from the studio that did The Lego Movie. There are also a couple of documentaries that look interesting, Oasis: Supersonic being about the rise, reign, and implosion of the band, while Hitchcock/Truffaut is all about the 1962 week long meeting those two had when they dissected the film industry.
Anime has an unusual release either this week or next, depending on which web site you believe: Attack on Titan 20 Special Edition w/DVD is a manga/graphic novel that included a DVD with an anime episode not released anywhere else. Owarimonogatari 2 is only 6 episodes long, being the second half of the season, but it does tell the complete Shinobu Mail story arc. Finally Shakugan No Shana S: OVA Series is now available in a S.A.V.E. edition, but considering it only contains four 23 minute episodes being able to pick it up for just under $20 doesn’t seem like much of a deal.
The first major public event for the new live action Ghost In The Shell took place several weeks ago in Tokyo, and has been posted online by a number of folks; the one used here is from Germany’s Movie Maniacs team. This was the event where they released the first full trailer, and also did some interview time with actor/filmmaker Beat Takeshi (Takeshi Kitano) and actress Scarlett Johansson, both of whom were named. Also on stage for the interview was director Rupert Sanders, only named Rupert in the video segment, with actor/interviewer Chris Peppler of NHK fame doing the Master of Ceremonies job and asking all the questions. They start the video off with the musical segment that accompanies the Shelling of the Ghost footage led and directed by composer and musician Kenji Kawai, who they also never named. I figured it was appropriate for me to name everyone correctly here.
This is a teaser rather than a full trailer, but it does give you an idea of what the Live Action version of Fullmetal Alchemist is going to look like. Sadly I couldn’t find a version with English subtitles I could post here, but if you go to the home page I linked they have one you can watch.
We get two animated western films this week, with The Secret Life of Pets being my vote for the best choice. Mind, Lego Star Wars: Freemaker Adventures is probably also a good option, but since I haven’t seen it yet I have to go with the one I have seen and know I like. The Lego Star Wars set is the first season, totally 13 episode, 22 minutes long each.
Anime starts out with the Live Action Attack on Titan The Movie: Part 2, but I am sad to report I have seen no mention of the Live Action TV show that accompanied the movies. By all reports it wasn’t very good, but being a completest I would still like to see it. Rurouni Kenshin Part II: Kyoto Inferno is also the second Live Action film in a series that started life as a Manga, then an Anime, although this one will have a total of 3 films in the set, the third one being released in January.
Bikini Warriors: The Complete Series is actual Anime, with the emphasis on Fan Service and a premise so silly this definitely qualifies as Comedy. Speaking of Comedy, Fairy Tail: Part 22 has episodes 253 through 265 and all the magical collateral damage we have all come to expect from this series. Little Busters Ex is an OVA spin off of the Little Busters! Ecstasy variation of this anime based on a lite graphical novel that is sometimes a game. Ninja Slayer kicks reason to the curb, and includes some animation that looks like it was done by pre-teens drinking way too much coffee. I am unclear who the target audience is for that one, I only know it does not include me.
Seiyu’s Life: The Complete Series is based on the Doujinshi by voice actress Masumi Asano, and its all about (surprise!) Voice Acting! In fact Seiyu is the Japanese word for a Voice Actor, and there are a number of big-time voice actors doing cameos in this series. If you ever wanted to get an insiders eye view of what it takes to become a successful voice actor in the world of Anime, you need to watch this series.
There are a lot of family friendly choices this time, starting with the live action remake of Pete’s Dragon from Disney. Spielberg’s take on Roald Dahl’s The BFG is also by way of Disney, and also family friendly. The animated adventure comedy The Wild Life has one of the more cleverly done interactive web sites that I have seen, is a world of fun, and again, is family friendly. It is also still another excellent example of the kind of quality animation work coming out of Belgium and France this century. I do have to admit that Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is family friendly for only certain totally twisted and dysfunctional variations of the word Family (or Friendly, for that matter), which should be obvious from its R rating, but it is a total hoot as well. See this one, just don’t let your kids in the room while you are watching it.
In Anime, Death Parade: The Complete Series has a simple premise: When two people die at the same time, they have to fight. The one who wins gets to live again, the one who loses is gone for good. Decim is the arbiter:a judge who determines whether or not a soul is worthy of reincarnation. At least until he until he meets a mysterious young woman whose fate seems impossible to decide, and the real story gets underway. Knights of Sidonia: Battle for Planet Nine, Complete Collection is season 2 of this series, and includes all 12 episodes plus the movie. This is not the first anime series to explore what it means to be human, or even the first to do so while the characters DNA is being rewritten, but it does have a somewhat unique approach to the question. The first part of one of this years most edge-of-your-seat shows, God Eater 1, also becomes available this week. I will be waiting for them to put all 13 episodes into a single box set myself, but it is good to see they are making it available in however limited a form.