According to Feedflix there are some great streaming Anime titles coming up on Netflix in the near future. Moribito kicks off September 15th, and Golgo 13 starts September 25th. It rips wide open when we hit October 1st, with titles including some of my favorite anime, like FullMetal Alchemist, Burst Angel, Basilisk, Black Blood Bros., and Aquarion. Other titles I have heard good things about but haven’t seen yet include Blassreiter, D.Gray-man, Darker Than Black, Claymore, and Devil May Cry. There are other titles that date as well that I don’t think are sci-fi or fantasy, so check the whole list. Thanks to the team at Anime News Biz for the heads up on that one.
Lots of good TV out this week, as we get ready to roll into the fall viewing season. Season 3 of Chuck is their strongest season yet, with more guest stars than ever before; No more Mr. Nice Spy! Season 4 hits the tube on Monday, September 20th. Smallville: The Complete Ninth Season finally is out as well this week, with the season 10 premier for that one on Friday, the 24th of September. Also from CWTV, and also with the new season kicking off on Friday the 24th is Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season.
The miniseries that may turn into a full TV series, The Phantom is another rendition of this classic comic strip into a live action format. Like many of Sci-Fi’s miniseries (and almost none of their made for TV movies) this one is surprisingly better than you are expecting.
From UK TV a couple of classic Whos: Dr. Who: The King’s Demons with Peter Davison as the Doctor, Anthony Ainley as the Master, and Janet Fielding as Tegan. The other Davison story is Doctor Who: Planet of Fire. From an earlier incarnation, Doctor Who: The Creature from the Pit with Tom Baker and Lalla Ward.
On the animation front, and also from the UK, it’s Shaun the Sheep: Party Animals. This series is from the same team that does Wallace and Gromit, and these little gems use virtually no dialog, telling the story visually. The only real new anime title is My Bride Is a Mermaid: Season 1 Part 2, bringing us the balance of the opening season episodes. Both sets of in-laws are dysfunctional to an extreme degree, besides the fact the non-human family are also Yakuza.
I just feel like watching some Anime Music Videos today, so I thought I would share a few good ones with everyone. I particularly liked the use of Code Monkey in an AMV.
There arn’t any movies of note this week, although I did at least like the title of Brainjacked. For TV shows, one solid winner in FlashForward: The Complete Series, although the title might turn out to be a lie since Starz was looking to pick up the series some time ago. Also out this week, season one of The Vampire Diaries, which had that memorable photo shoot on a highway overpass in Georgia. I bet none of that footage will be in the DVD!
For Anime, the complete Black Blood Brothers series hits the shelves Tuesday, bringing the story of the Kowloon Children Wars home. For those who need a score card, the Red Bloods are the humans, and the Black Bloods are the vampires. Also, the Uncut version of Naruto Season 3 is being released. I fail to understand why they couldn’t just release the uncut version at the get-go, but I am betting it had something to do with selling the same episodes to the same people twice. And finally there is a Remastered version of Full Metal Panic: Season 1, one of my favorite Anime series. I have no clues as to what part ws actually remastered, but I figured I should mention it.
You can now watch Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind on Google Video for free. This 1984 Hayao Miyazaki masterpiece was made under another studios name, but it is acknowledged by most to be the true start of Studio Ghibli.
Coming up on September 5th at Dragon Con is the Steampunk Exhibition, which looks like it will be a hoot with the best and the brightest of Steampunk engineers and artificers from around the world. On top of that, they are going for a Guinness world record for the largest Steampunk photograph (they better be using an authentic Steampunk photography system). And yes, Steampunk is what happens when Goths discover brown. Of course, there will be a gazillion other things going on at DragonCon, so you might want to consider attending next year (I am pretty sure this year, like most of the last decade, is completely sold out).