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Something to Watch: DVDs, 11Mar13

The only genre movie this week is a parody, The Hungover Games, making fun of The Hunger Games, The Hangover, and Ted, to name just a few. I also have to mention Lost in Thailand, which came out on DVD a week or two back, and is pretty much the Chinese version of The Hangover.

In TV, while there is no genre releases, the BBC series Vikings is a look at what was really driving the repeated Viking raids on the British Isles over the course of several centuries (800 to 1150, give or take 30 years at each end).

In Anime Accel World: Set 2, the combat continues as the Brain Burst Linker’s vie to see who gets to rule the Accelerated World. If Arita can not defeat the new menace he could lose everything and everyone that he cares about.This ox set includes the 12 episodes of the second set, plus 8 mini-episodes of associated silliness. Ikki Tousen: Xtreme Xecutor is the 4th round of battle-induced clothing malfunctions as the Dragon’s Powers determines who wins and who loses. This series gives a whole new meaning to school rivalries, as the street brawlers meet for some reincarnated mayhem.

Justice in Psycho Pass is based on the Dominator, a futuristic weapon that can read minds and assess the probability that a citizen will turn criminal. This tool is wielded by the Enforcers and Inspectors who have replaced police, judges, and jury with heavy caliber instant justice of the extreme prejudice kind. At the other end of the social spectrum, The Pet Girl of Sakurasou: Collection 2 is all about the care and feeding of the terminally unworldly.

Something to Do: Movies, 28Feb14

Topping the list this week is the long awaited Odd Thomas, the Dean Koontz masterwork series now in Movie format (at least the first volume). There are also Webisodes of Odd Thomas you might enjoy. While it opened last week at an extremely limited number of theaters, The Wind Rises goes into wide release this week. The latest creation of Hayao Miyazaki is a biography for once, the story of a real person who designed some of the most innovative airplanes in the world for his time. It is up for an Academy Award for best animated feature film, you have this brief opportunity to see it on the big screen. Even though it is a Japanese production, this is animation, not anime; like all Studio Ghibli works it is very much in the style of Walt Disney. Even though it isn’t genre, Stalingrad looks like a very unusual WWII movie you might want to take note of, and catch if you are in one of the towns it is playing in.

Something to Do: Movies, 21Feb14

The Studio Ghibli film nominated for an Academy Award, The Wind Rises, is finally on the big screen for American audiences to enjoy. This is a bit different as Anime goes, because it is a look at the real life of a man who designed fighter planes for Japan during WWII. While Anime does not shy away from hard story lines, it does not often tell you about actual people, other than historical figures long dead in completely different eras. It has some stiff competition in the Awards, it is up against both Despicable Me 2 and Frozen; I am looking forward to seeing it in the theater. After I do, I will have finally seen everything nominated and can make my decision as to which one I would vote for. Also out this week, Pompeii is about a gladiator making a mad dash to save his true love from being married to a corrupt Roman Senator (is there any other kind?) while the Volcano trashes the town. That one sounds like it should be a lot of fun. There is a chance that Angels in Stardust might be an interesting fantasy as well, or at least an indie quirky kind of film.

Something to Watch: DVDs

In Movies About Time is a romantic fantasy involving the Groundhog Day premise; you do each important event over until you get it right. It was in the theaters just a month or two back, I feel certain they are going after the Valentine crowd with this one. It is a very nicely done movie with a lot of heart, so not a bad choice. The animated comedy Free Birds also comes to disc, but although I am an animation fan I can’t say this one really caught my attention. A better bet for animated entertainment this week is Justice League: War, a direct to DVD feature film.

In TV, while not a fantasy, the historical epic The White Queen deserves a mention, about some power mad women who stopped at nothing to get on the British throne.

We do much better in Anime this week, leading off with Fairy Tail – Part 8. This magical guild continues to do as much damage to their fellow guilds and the surrounding buildings and terrain as they do to the demons they are called upon to defeat. AKB0048 Next Stage Complete Collection is a bit silly but a lot of fun, as season two rolls out the 77th generation of the ultimate IDOL group going across the galaxy singing and shooting. Why shooting? A number of planetary governments have outlawed “things that disturb the heart”, including music. So the girls swoop down on a planet, set up a live concert which is also spread on the planetary net, and sing and dance until the police and soldiers show up. At that point, they have to fight their way back off the planet and head for the next one. If nothing else, this series is a great way to collect a bunch of AKB48 music. BTW, the English version of their home page is broken at the moment, dumping you back to the Japanese version if you try to go to it, but all of their other English pages appear to be working.

Blessing of the Campanella: Complete Collection is a mash up of medieval quests and robotic harems, with supernatural meteor showers and automaton artisans. Plus a lot of time spent hanging out at the beach in between quests and mysteries. This package includes all 12 episodes of the series plus the OVA. I found the provenance of this a bit confusing at first, since the home page with streaming video in the US is over at Funimation, but the DVD release is coming from Nozomi/Lucky Penny/Right Stuf. It turns out that the original simulcast run was at Funimation in 2010, with a DVD release from that distributor in 2011. Normally I do not post re-releases here unless they are important in some way, but I completely missed the series the first time around. Since it is new to me, I am claiming that as justification and posting it anyways.

Live Action Attack On Titan movie, commercial

Attack On Titan is very popular around the world, and has been signed up for a live action movie. The manga and Anime series is so popular in Japan that everyone wants to use it in their marketing campaigns and commercials. So the director of the upcoming live action production was given a chance to put together a Subaru commercial to try out his first Titans on. They haven’t decided yet if these are the way the Titans will be portrayed in the film, but it looks pretty good for a first attempt. Thanks to the folks at Anime News Network for the heads up on this one; they have more information about the movie at their site.

Live Action Ghost In The Shell director chosen

It looks like Dreamworks is going ahead with their live action production of Ghost In The Shell, since they have now brought in Rupert Sanders to direct it. This classic Masamune Shirow cyberpunk story is an examination of what it means to be human in this increasingly technological age, where the line between man and machine gets ever more blurry day by day. The format was originally a Manga he wrote and drew from 1989 to 1997. In 1995 he turned it into the Anime feature film that redefined cyberpunk around the world, inspiring such later works as The Matrix. A second Anime movie, Innocence, came out in 2004, both films based on story lines from the Manga. The TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex on the other hand had new stories that were spun off of situations and characters in the Manga, but independent from it. It has gone through 2 seasons and a number of compilations of story lines from the series were re-cut into feature length stand alone presentations, between them ranging from 2002 through 2007. The TV series had some of its stories converted into Manga format, and three novels based on the series were also released. Just last year a new series of prequels began to be created as OVAs with Ghost In The Shell: Arise, and that too has manga versions. This universe is rich and complex, and I can’t wait to see what they do with the live action portions of it.