Movies this week include a ton of things released previously on DVD and now coming out on Blue Ray, like Hitchcock, but they have been available in some format for a while, so not new as such. The best of the new releases looks to be The Assassin’s Blade, the Jingle Ma 2008 film out of China. There is also Shifter about a kid who gains the power to shift into the body of a wolf and goes to save his parents, but I couldn’t find a proper link to it.
We do better in TV, with Fringe releasing both season 5 and the entire series as two different box sets. May I just mention how shocked and surprised I was that Fox actually let a high quality TV show run all the way to the end, without canceling it 6 episodes in after playing it in the wrong order and changing what time/day it airs each week? We also have K-9: The Complete Series, an Australian Doctor Who spin off that they made appear to take place in London by use of some London production input. Some of that London production input is from Bob Baker, who took a break from co-creating all those wonderful Wallace & Gromit projects to help out with the series. There is a rumor that they have a second series in the works, but I will remind everyone that when you look at the quality you need to keep in mind it is a children’s program, just like the Sarah Jane Smith series.
In western animation we have Superman: Unbound, where Superman goes up against Brainiac to try to save his home town of Kandor, miniaturized along with all of its inhabitants and held captive by the arch villein.
In Anime, Natsuyuki Rendezvous: Complete Collection is about a still grieving widow, the man who wants to woo her, and the ghost who comes between them, making for one of the stranger romantic triangle stories I have ever followed. Since they only have 2 bodies between the three of them, it can occasionally get a bit confusing as to who is doing what to whom. As you might suspect from the subject matter, this one is a bit melancholy. Toriko: Part 4 continues the combat gourmet saga through episodes 39 to 50, which are every bit as funny as the food fights that went before.
While not quite genre, both Sound Of The Sky and Kids on the Slope are music based series with a positive attitude, and look like a lot of fun. Finally this week, Sekirei: Complete Series puts both seasons into a single box set for the first time, making it a more cost effective buy.