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Something to Watch: Discs

In movies, the only real choice this week is Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, the conclusion of this world-class trilogy. We lost Robin Williams shortly after this one, but everything else about this film is spot-on! There doesn’t seem to be anything in TV this time, at least not that I have found.

In Anime Familiar of Zero: Knight of the Twin Moons continues the adventures of the sorceress with very little control of her magic. Her control is so bad that when it came time for her to summon a familiar, she ended up with a human from our world rather than a magical creature. Now Louise the Zero and her familiar Hiraga Saito have to try to rescue the newly crowned Queen Henrietta from her kidnappers while the world plunges into war. In The World God Only Knows: Season Three – Goddesses the demons Keima must capture are hiding inside real goddesses, and even worse, those he has conquered before. How does he defeat them this time?

For those looking to continue a favorite, Fairy Tail: Part 15 brings us episodes 165->175 of some of the most deadly and hilarious magic duels ever recorded. To put that in perspective, the link I included to Hulu’s Fairy Tale collection tops out at 302 episodes at this point.

Oscar Week 2015: Animated Features

I love the fact that even the folks putting together the Academy Awards realize that animation is a wonderful way to create and share stories that could never be told any other way. Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee created Frozen last year, won a ton of awards, and this year they got to host the Oscar party for all their fellow animators as their reward. I think they approached this with the right style, sharing a small but important slice of each nominees production, and then interviewing them about it, so they could share their vision with the world. This is a wonderful presentation; enjoy!

Something to Watch: Discs

The best selection this week is the animated Marvel feature Big Hero 6, with a soft robot in an iron suit as one of the 6. The film is a bit of a homage to all things anime, and has a lot more humor than I was expecting. Dragonheart 3: The Sorcerer’s Curse is the next direct-to-disc release in the Dragonheart franchise, with Ben Kingsley as the voice of the dragon this time.

In Anime Space Brothers: Collection 1 is literally about two brothers training to be astronauts, and this pack is the first 13 episodes in the series. There are at least 3 more seasons to the story after this first set; Crunchyroll is currently up to episode 99, I believe. Tiger & Bunny: The Rising is a feature film length presentation which has Bunny teamed up with a new partner on Hero TV as they fight to protect the citizens of Stern Build. In Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! Yuta has worked hard to get past the belief he has has secret knowledge and hidden powers, but now a neighbor with that same belief system has shown up to drag him back into his delusions… or are they? Diabolik Lovers finds a girl living with six hansom but non-human boys, and she has to work hard to keep them at fangs length.

New Superfly

The new Superfly track is called White Light, released as a single last month. It is the title track of their new digital album, which will be coming out on May 27th.This song is the opening theme for Tales of Zestiria, an RPG for PS3. This short advertising version is the only one I found that can be legally posted, or I would have put the full 4 minutes on the page.

Something to Do: Movies

Somehow Monday slipped right by me without my noticing, so a bit late this week with the movie entries. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 might be as much fun as the original, this time they end up in the future while trying to get to the past… much like a certain 80s time travel trilogy. The Last: Naruto the Movie will only be available in a limited number of theaters in the US, but if you are near one of them it should be worth seeing on the big screen. Big in Japan is a musical comedy that has been making the festival circuit, it also has a limited run but looks kind of fun.

Something to Watch: Discs

In Movies Birdman deserved its Oscar nominations, a sort-of superhero movie that spoke about the art and the actor, rather than the character. Then there is The Theory of Everything, where one of my real life heroes, Steven Hawking, was the character at the core of the story; and yes, this one too took home its share of Academy Award nominations. It won a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild, and another dozen awards, so I look forward to seeing what it wins in the next round. We also get the latest Studio Ghibli feature film, The Tale of Princess Kaguya. It is based on one of the oldest and best known folktales from Japan, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, which would have fit right in with anything from the Brothers Grimm.

In TV we have Doctor Who: Last Christmas, where Nick Frost gets to be a companion while playing Saint Nick… or something very much like him. For a completely different flavor of sci-fantasy there is Game of Thrones: The Complete Fourth Season, continuing George R.R. Martin’s epic mad battle to rule the world. Fortunately, not our world.

Anime gives us Hozuki’s Coolheadedness: Complete Collection, a story about the chief bureaucrat in Hell, and how he deals with the day to day running of the place. Space Dandy: Season 1 also comes out this week, quite the twisted reality!