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Something to Watch: Discs

I couldn’t find any genre movies or TV shows this week other than re-releases, but there is a TV show that comes close. Ripper Street: Season 3 is close to being a Steampunk police procedural, and so becomes worth mentioning. An actual Steampunk police procedural, and my favorite of the type, is Murdoch Mysteries, complete with guest stars Nikola Tesla, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Edison, Mark Twain, and many more. Sadly, that show is not having a new release this week. Another non-genre release worth mentioning is the Rolling Stones From the Vault: The Marquee Club Live in 1971 if you are looking for a taste of classic rock.

In Anime we do noticeably better, starting with Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!: Season 1 in a limited release. By limited I mean only one US store seems to be stocking it for its initial release, in this case RightStuf. The story of the Soul Reapers continues this week with the Bleach: Season 25 Uncut Box Set, bringing episodes 343 through 354 to the shelves. The currently streaming episode is 366, so this release finally puts us right up to date on the disc production.

Hayate the Combat Butler: Season 4 AKA Cuties is also out this week. This fantasy series (how can a Combat Butler be anything but a fantasy?) has a goodly balance of action and comedy, and if you haven’t been following it you can start from the beginning at Crunchyroll and stream your way up to the current season. Finally Origin: Spirits of the Past is coming out in a S.A.V.E. edition, allowing you to pick it up for around $12.

AwesomeCon 2015

Awesome Con in Washington D.C. this past weekend certainly lived up to its name, and its rep. They had a huge collection of actors, artists, and authors (and that only covered the first letter of the alphabet) doing their best to make the gathering memorable. Pretty much all of the guest actor/voice talent celebrities manned (personed?) a booth on the bottom level, off to the side of the hucksters area by the primary entrance, most of the time they were not doing a panel or presentation. Between those two groups were the artists, both Comics and Fine, with quite a few other visual disciplines mixed in. That last sentence gives you the idea, but not the scope, unless you expect there to be a hundred or more impressive illustrator/storytellers on the multiple-football-field sized area you are crossing to get to your next scheduled event.

They had some presentations I never expected, like Twisted Toonz, where a group of world class voice actors played out a famous movie as totally different characters than the ones in the original. This year the film was The Wrath of Kahn, and the voice of Wini The Pooh coming from the bridge of the Enterprise was one of the the least disconcerting aspects of that presentation. I can’t wait to see another show organized around the same principle, it was absolutely amazing and entertaining! Although the voice actor tasked with being Bill Cosby for one part of it kept looking out at the audience like he was trying to find an escape route.

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Something to Watch: Discs

In Movies this week we get Jupiter Ascending, another tasty sci-fi action romp from the Wachowski’s. We also get the direct to DVD Monsters: Dark Continent, taking place a decade after the original movie. Critics have commented it lacks the originality of its predecessor, and was instead just another war movie.

In TV we have Falling Skies: The Complete Fourth Season, coming out just in time to rewatch it before the 5th and final season starts on June 28th.

In Anime, Fairy Tail: Collection 4 has episodes 73 through 95, originally released as Fairy Tale parts 7 and 8. To put that in perspective Part 15 is about to come out on disc, and the current season is at episode 235. Also this week, Nobunagun is about alien invasion and a girl who can manifest weapons possessed by the spirits of historical figures. This is the complete series, 13 episodes in all.

Something to Watch: Discs

The movie selection Seventh Son is about the battle between mankind and supernatural forces that want to control or annihilate us. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of 7th sons of a seventh son to defend us. I don’t know if this is the first time it is being released as a single box set or not, but all 118 episodes of the Roger Moore interpretation of The Saint: The Complete Series will also be hitting the shelves this week.

In Anime Magi: The Kingdom of Magic has Aladdin and Alibaba attempting to survive the war they stirred up as episodes 14 through 25 run their course. And to think it all started because they were invading dungeons to steal their treasure. Student Council’s Discretion: Level 2 has the characters rewriting their own anime, adding new characters, advancing others, and generally cranking the silliness factor up to 11. Particularly if you enjoy recursive humor (anime that makes fun of anime and manga, in this instance) this is a good show to watch.