Take a deep breath and focus as Helen McCarthy presents the history of Manga from its beginnings in 1860’s Japan to the current crises it faces from pirates powered by broadband in a mere 8 minutes and 22 seconds. This is one of a series of 12 presentations on Japanese Creativity put together by the British Design and Art Direction educational charity, also known as B&AD. If you don’t know who the non-profit educational charity B&AD is, the next video put together by BBC4 will give you a glimpse into the organization. Finally, just for balance, a video of Helen as part of an Anime Filk group at a Con in Iowa in 2010. Thanks to Crunchyroll for the heads up on this one.
We have three interesting movies this week, two of them silly. The serious one is Wrath of the Titans, which I didn’t see in theaters because the first one took itself too seriously, and I didn’t need any more of that. I still don’t. I also didn’t see Mirror, Mirror, not so much because it looked too silly (you can never have too much silly in my book) but because I had to work that weekend. Before I decide whether to add it to the permanent collection I will catch it on streamy or HBO or somewhere equivalent. The third one isn’t genre: David Tennant’s The Decoy Bride was made for two and a half million pounds and earned $524 its opening weekend in the US. In part this was because it only showed up on a single screen that weekend, but even later on it wasn’t in that many theaters. Let’s face it, the only reason I will be watching it is because David is in it, and he made a wonderful Doctor. OK, and the trailer looked like silly fun, too.
Notice how I didn’t even mention Sector 7? Even the Korean audiences didn’t go to that one, a bit of a surprise as his earlier work The Host won such critical acclaim around the world.
No genre TV shows this week, but I will mention Casablanca: The Complete Series if only because it has Scatman Crothers as Sam, and one of the tracks he sings is the theme for the show. And yes, the original 1942 movie is where the phrase Play It Again, Sam came from.
Anime has a brand new release this week. Towanoquon: the Complete Collection tells the story of gifted mutant children born with special powers. Government cyborgs are hunting them down to kill them, while a rebel group with their own powers are saving them to train them to use their gifts to defend themselves. Don’t let the fact that the complete series is only 6 episodes fool you, because each episode is 50 minutes long, giving them a full 300 minutes to tell the story.
Sadly there are no memorable movie selections this time. We do have Witchslayer Gretl is another one of those Syfy TV Movies that you wish they had meant to be that silly. Exit Humanity is a Civil War Zombie film hoping to cash in on Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. Alien Origin is Blair Witch meets Predator ripoff. And Awakened is a lot like Alien origin except I recognized a few of the actors, and felt sorry they were stuck in such a movie. All in all, not a very good week for live action feature length films; there will not be a single one of these coming home with me. Let’s face it, the only feature film at all interesting this week is Radio Rebel, which is a Disney flic that is not even a little bit genre.
In TV we also crash and burn, with pretty much nothing to report.
We do a bit better in Anime, with Golgo 13: Collection 4 bringing us the fourth installment of the assassins story, with more dangerous assignments than ever before. Also out is K-ON! Season 2, Collection 1, and it may not be genre, but any band club with a faculty adviser who is also a secret former Death Metal singer/guitarist has to be having fun and taking us along for the ride. Finally Dragonaut: The Resonance is coming out with the complete series in a S.A.V.E. edition, which means you can now pick it up for around $18.
We have a few good movies this week, starting with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, second in the film series. This is a required addition for my permanent collection, and extends into two of my favorite new media distribution trends. First, it includes an Ultraviolet copy, which means you can stream it from the cloud to any of your compatible devices, and download it to your computer if you want to back up the digital copy for when you do not have INet access. Second, you can download one or more apps (more, in this case) so you can slave your tablet/smartphone to your internet aware Blue Ray device, and run all kinds of additional information about the programing. Warner Brothers (who made the Sherlock Robert Downey movies) added this functionality to their Maximum Movie Mode, while Disney (who had the same combination of Cloud presentation with Apps extras slaved to the point the Blue Ray player is currently showing you built into John Carter last week) refer to it as the Disney Second Screen. They have been building towards this integrated combined presentation for quite a while now, slowly creating and debugging each process required to make it happen. Welcome to the future!
Another movie worth a look this week is Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, which is definitely worth your time to check out. While it may not be on a par with the first film mentioned today, it has a serious story to tell of its own. And let’s face it, it is always fun to watch Nick Cage go over the top with some silly or serious action. If you are in the market for something different, The Sultry Assassin: The Aphrodisiac Kill is the first in a series of eroninja novels turned into movies that will be making its way to the US.
For TV, the top spot has to go to The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Fifth Season, which unfortunately will be the final round of these. Doctor Who was a children’s show when it began (and still is, though it is hard for some geeks to recognize), and when they spun off Elisabeth Sladen’s character for the new series they definitely kept that in mind. She kept the original promise to the audience; this would always be a show that promoted a way for children to recognize positive problem solving influences and incorporate them into their own lives, so they could be the ones solving the worlds problems when it became their turn.
In new Anime, Zakuro, the Complete Series tells of the Ministry of Spirit Affairs, and the human/spirit teams they put together to solve the mysteries of the world.
For returning Anime, Bleach: Season 13 brings us episodes 194 through 205, in which Karakura town is threatened with destruction. One Piece: Collection 6 brings us episodes 131 through 156, and for the first time they actually try to get their pirate ship to fly.
We also have a couple of returning favorites coming out in more cost effective packaging. Mongolian Chop Squad: The Complete Series is coming out in a S.A.V.E. version, so you should be able to pick it up for around $20 if you shop around. If you are not already familiar with it, it is basically an animated version of the band BECK’s origin story, somewhat fictionalized. Also the Simoun – Endless Melody Collection is a re-release of that entire series for under $20, and you can find it for $15 if you shop around, so now is a good time to add both of these to your collection.
For movies, The Woman in Black is a bit of a ghost story, and the made for TV version of Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island is from the Syfy Channel. I am not terribly impressed by either, but I will at least watch the Verne story when it comes out on the streaming services.
We fare much better in TV, with True Blood: The Complete Fourth Season finally coming out on DVD. This is one of the few series that I think does much better in the TV incarnation than as a book series, with more believable characters and better stories and subplots all around. I have a friend who believes the books are far superior, and we generally argue with each other about for about an hour at a time, each of us bringing overwhelming examples of why our viewpoint is the correct one. We always seem to end up underwhelmed with the others debate points somehow, but it does lead to some pretty lively discussions which we both quite enjoy.
In western animation we have Wing Commander Academy: The Complete Series from 1996. It only lasted one season at 13 episodes, but the voice talent included Mark Hamill as Maverick and Malcolm McDowell as the commander.
Anime starts off this time with Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker, which is a feature length film set in the world of Dragon Age. If you are a fan of the franchise, you will not want to miss this one. There is another feature film called Gintama: The Movie, taking place in a historic Japan where aliens have taken over and Samuria have to run odd jobs to feed themselves. This whole series is quite funny, I am looking forward to seeing what kind of trouble they put the protagonists through this time.
In series, Shiki: Part 1 and Part 2 are being released as two box sets, but on the same day. This one is a bit of a thriller/horror story, and also a commentary on the genre and the folks that like to watch that kind of thing. People in the village are dieing at a rapid rate, but when the dead rise from their graves to drink the blood of the living the desire to survive can turn the living into some real monsters.
The other recent series is KenIchi the Mightiest Disciple – The Complete Second Season, previously released in 2 parts for the season, so this is more cost effective. Some folks have referred to this series as Anime’s answer to The Karate Kid, but it has a bit more fan service than that. Finally, Black Cat – The Complete Collection has been released in a S.A.V.E. edition, so if you shop around you can pick it up for around $20.
Until midnight Sunday night central time there are some great anime titles streaming for free over at The Anime Network. Some of them give you a choice between Subbed and Dubbed, myself I prefer subbed, so I can hear the original actors emotional inflections. I have had some problems viewing some of these, where an hour and a half film ends 30 minutes into it, but I am not sure that isn’t a problem with my browser, rather than at the server end.
Some of these are recent productions, like Loups=Garous, where the members of J-Rock sweethearts Scandal are both the protagonists and laying down the killer soundtrack, while trying to break free of their imprisoning environment and track down the killer before they all die. Another recent choice is Five Numbers, a rather twisty locked room mystery that they need to solve to escape their fate. Asylum Session, ICE, Coicent, and Coffee Samurai round out the more recent productions, and every one of them is worth watching.
Some of these are classics, such as Appleseed, where the surviving members of humanity are equally divided between cyborgs and meatbags, or RahXephon The Motion Picture, a Giant Mecha Defends Against Alien Invasion story where music is the weapon set. The remaining classics go straight to the heart: Grave of the Fireflies and The Place Promised in Our Early Days are true masterpieces that would have won every award on the planet if they had been live action, and won awards enough for their anime versions.
If there is a single one of these you have missed, this is your limited opportunity to see it for free. If you haven’t seen any of them, you are in for a serious treat, and I recommend nuking the popcorn and settling in for a marathon. I would start with The Place Promised, and then alternate between the new and the classics until you have watched them all. It will be time well spent.