There is very little genre coming out this week, with the animated Disney fantasies The Good Dinosaur and The Lion Guard being pretty much the only Western exceptions. Anime does a bit better, with Tokyo ESP: Complete Series taking place in a world where flying fish bestow paranormal powers, and only the penguin can overcome them. Meanwhile, police without powers are rounding up all the gifted they can get their hands on, and are either killing them outright or forcing them into concentration camps where they are worked to death. This is not a good time for Rinka to gain powers, but she does the best she can with them to protect her family and friends. In Ga-Rei-Zero: Complete S.A.V.E. two sisters are teenage exorcists fighting demons using sacred swords each night, until one of them becomes possessed. Now the other sister has to decide whether to kill her, or let her run around slaughtering innocents.
Funimation is bringing the Psycho-Pass Movie to US theaters on March 15th and 16th. The Sibyl System uses extensive surveillance and biological monitoring to determine who is likely to commit a crime. When they find one the police remove potential criminals from the population before they become a problem. But some are bypassing the system and attacking without warning, and Inspector Akane Tsunemori is tasked with bringing them to justice. Normally a movie like this would be a stand-alone taking place in the same universe as the anime TV series, with the same characters in a separate story, but not in this case. This is actually the culmination of the TV series, bringing the story to its end. If you have been following the series from the beginning, this is your chance to see the conclusion on the big screen. If you haven’t been watching it until now, you have time to see the entire series before the theatrical presentation; you can catch it on Funimation or Hulu.
As previously mentioned, also in March The Boy and the Beast will be brought to American theaters by Funimation. That one will be at the beginning of the month, on March 4th, and I am including the new US trailer for it. This being Monday I would normally be talking about what will be hitting the theaters this week, but sadly the answer is Nothing. If you missed Deadpool last week this would be a good time to see it.
There isn’t much out this week. In Movies Steve Jobs hits the shelves, and will hopefully recover some of the money it lost in the theaters. It was a bit too cerebral for audiences raised on a diet of explosions, car chases, and sex scenes, and it didn’t have a mega-star playing the title role, so it never got the traction it deserved on the big screen. I didn’t see anything for western TV, which makes me think I may be missing something.
Anime has Space Brothers 7 with episodes 76 through 87; there should just be one more collection to finish the tale of the sibling astronauts. Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2Wei! has Illya going head to head against her evil magical clone in a 10 episode series that follows up the previous season. Finally, Bleach Movies: The Unforgiven Double Feature are the 3rd and 4th Bleach movies, packaged together and released at a discount.
Released last week, Flumpool‘s new CD includes the theme song for the TV and Movie series Ajin: Demi-Human, Yoru Wa Nemurerukai? (Can You Sleep At Night?), which is the first track here. The Anime series itself just started airing in January, and runs for 13 episodes. This song was also the OP for the trilogy of movies of the same franchise; the first hit theaters in Japan in November, the second should be out roughly in May. According to Cruncyroll it will be streaming in North America on Netflix soon, but as of yesterday I wasn’t finding it.
The second track is their 2012 single Because… I am, and the third is Awakening Identity, which was posted online in April of 2015. I am not sure when it was actually released, as this was posted in support of their album The Best 2008-2014. The band also has a nice collection of ballads, but I tend to prefer music with a pulse, so I posted the ones I liked.
Freaks of Nature has a strange premise: Zombies, Vampires, and Humans all live in harmony, until Aliens invade the Earth. The cast includes Patton Oswalt and Joan Cusack, which is enough to convince me I need to see this Comedy/Horror. I should probably also mention Spectre, Daniel Craig’s last turn as James Bond, which didn’t do that well with the critics, but might still be worth watching. The Horror film Crimson Peak didn’t have a lick of comedy in it that I heard about, so I will be passing on that one. If there was any genre TV this week it snuck right past me with nary a ripple.
In Anime, Shirobako 1 is the rather recursive tale of 5 women who work for an Anime company, and according to the reports it is a fairly accurate depiction of the industry. This is the first half of the series, with the second coming along in May. Likewise Akame ga Kill: Collection 1 is the first half of its series, with a group of renegade assassins out to bring down the corrupt empire which bought and trained them. Finally, Lord Marksman and Vanadis: The Complete Series tells of two enemies who must work together to save a nation from destruction.
The movies this week include The Last Witch Hunter with Vin Diesel. I missed this one in the theaters, I will catch it when it gets on one of the premium services I already have. There are also two animated feature films, Batman: Bad Blood is a direct to video story that may have The Dark Knight on the dark side. And the 1937 animation classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will be released on Blu Ray/Digital HD for the first time, completely remastered and restored. Finally I have to mention Simon Pegg’s Man Up, which isn’t genre but is a whole lot of fun. Supposedly. Sadly it didn’t play at a theater close enough to me so I could see it on the big screen, but I will get to see it now.
TV has Falling Skies: The Complete Fifth Season and the continuing battle of alien invaders vs. human defenders. Since that was the final season, you will also be able to pick up Falling Skies: The Complete Series in Blu Ray or DVD. We also get From Dusk Till Dawn: Season Two this week, one of a number of spin-offs generated by the original film.
Anime finally gives us the next episode of a true classic after entirely too long a wait! Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo is hitting the shelves, and as a person who was trying to watch it 3 years ago, I am thrilled to finally see it make it into the light of day. It is a reboot of one of the iconic Anime series of all time, and now we just have to wait for the fourth and final part to be released. The other release this week is worth everyone’s attention is From the New World, where the lines between Time and Space may blur, but the lines between people are razor sharp.
Night on the Galactic Railroad is a classic from the 80s telling the story of a young kitten who faces problems well beyond his age. The Festival of Stars becomes his escape, and he and his childhood friend are thrilled as the Galactic Railroad whisks the two away for parts unknown! Then there was Blade Dance of the Elementalers: Complete Collection, where maidens try to control spirits, before the Demon King gets their contracts before them.