There isn’t much this week, with the non-genre Office Christmas Party about the only thing that looks interesting. This might be a good time to catch up on anything you missed that is still in the theaters, or to go re-watch a favorite. A favorite I intend to catch is the Spirited Away: 15th Anniversary presentation from Fathom Events tonight at 7PM.
We get two animated western films this week, with The Secret Life of Pets being my vote for the best choice. Mind, Lego Star Wars: Freemaker Adventures is probably also a good option, but since I haven’t seen it yet I have to go with the one I have seen and know I like. The Lego Star Wars set is the first season, totally 13 episode, 22 minutes long each.
Anime starts out with the Live Action Attack on Titan The Movie: Part 2, but I am sad to report I have seen no mention of the Live Action TV show that accompanied the movies. By all reports it wasn’t very good, but being a completest I would still like to see it. Rurouni Kenshin Part II: Kyoto Inferno is also the second Live Action film in a series that started life as a Manga, then an Anime, although this one will have a total of 3 films in the set, the third one being released in January.
Bikini Warriors: The Complete Series is actual Anime, with the emphasis on Fan Service and a premise so silly this definitely qualifies as Comedy. Speaking of Comedy, Fairy Tail: Part 22 has episodes 253 through 265 and all the magical collateral damage we have all come to expect from this series. Little Busters Ex is an OVA spin off of the Little Busters! Ecstasy variation of this anime based on a lite graphical novel that is sometimes a game. Ninja Slayer kicks reason to the curb, and includes some animation that looks like it was done by pre-teens drinking way too much coffee. I am unclear who the target audience is for that one, I only know it does not include me.
Seiyu’s Life: The Complete Series is based on the Doujinshi by voice actress Masumi Asano, and its all about (surprise!) Voice Acting! In fact Seiyu is the Japanese word for a Voice Actor, and there are a number of big-time voice actors doing cameos in this series. If you ever wanted to get an insiders eye view of what it takes to become a successful voice actor in the world of Anime, you need to watch this series.
Most of the titles for this weekend are horror variations, so I intend to binge watch some good streaming video. If you haven’t seen it yet I can recommend Time Taxi at Crunchyroll, Deadbeat over at Hulu, or Any of the Marvel TV series over at Netflix
There are a lot of family friendly choices this time, starting with the live action remake of Pete’s Dragon from Disney. Spielberg’s take on Roald Dahl’s The BFG is also by way of Disney, and also family friendly. The animated adventure comedy The Wild Life has one of the more cleverly done interactive web sites that I have seen, is a world of fun, and again, is family friendly. It is also still another excellent example of the kind of quality animation work coming out of Belgium and France this century. I do have to admit that Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is family friendly for only certain totally twisted and dysfunctional variations of the word Family (or Friendly, for that matter), which should be obvious from its R rating, but it is a total hoot as well. See this one, just don’t let your kids in the room while you are watching it.
In Anime, Death Parade: The Complete Series has a simple premise: When two people die at the same time, they have to fight. The one who wins gets to live again, the one who loses is gone for good. Decim is the arbiter:a judge who determines whether or not a soul is worthy of reincarnation. At least until he until he meets a mysterious young woman whose fate seems impossible to decide, and the real story gets underway. Knights of Sidonia: Battle for Planet Nine, Complete Collection is season 2 of this series, and includes all 12 episodes plus the movie. This is not the first anime series to explore what it means to be human, or even the first to do so while the characters DNA is being rewritten, but it does have a somewhat unique approach to the question. The first part of one of this years most edge-of-your-seat shows, God Eater 1, also becomes available this week. I will be waiting for them to put all 13 episodes into a single box set myself, but it is good to see they are making it available in however limited a form.
I am wishing I lived in Toronto, and considering spending the Xmas/New Years holidays there, just so I can attend Spirited Away: The Films of Studio Ghibli. They will be playing pretty much every Ghibli film ever made, starting on December 24th with Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki’s Delivery Service, all masterpieces by Hayao Miyazaki. I have only seen a small handful on the big screen, it would be amazing to see the entire collection presented that way. That is starting exactly one month from today, if you happen to make this event be sure to tell me all about it!
Luc Besson has made some wonderful movies over the years, with 5th Element and Angle-A being my two favorites, for totally different reasons (they are totally different films after all). Now with Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets he is about to do it again! Based on the groundbreaking graphic novel Valérian et Laureline, it is a movie he has been waiting to make since he was 10 years old! It has inspired such films as 5th Element and Star Wars (yes, Star Trek also borrowed heavily from it, as did many others), but even after its 43 year run it is virtually unknown in the US. That will all change come July of 2017, when it hits the big screen world wide. I haven’t found any references so far, but the original 1960s French comic has such a resemblance to the Guardians of the Galaxy comic and film I can’t help but think there is a link there as well.