OLDCODEX is one of the bands playing the Anisong World Matsuri in just two weeks, so this seemed like a good time to share some of their music. The first track is Walk, the ending theme from the Anime Kuroko’s Basketball, the second is Aching Horns from the Anime Feature Film High Speed! -Free! Starting Days-, and the third track Feed A isn’t in an Anime, I just like it…
There are three completely different films to select from this weekend, each pointed at a different audience. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows continues with that franchise’s silly fun action/adventure served up Michael Bay style. Approaching the Unknown is a near-future story about a solo mission to colonize Mars which doesn’t seem to have its own web page. Andron has a small group of people trapped inside a maze who have to solve puzzles and win fights to survive, while the rest of the world watches.
My favorite movie title this time is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, because I loved it as a book title when Seth Grahame-Smith released it in 2009. I am not normally a fan of Zombie movies, this one made my tiny handful of exceptions, which also includes Shaun Of The Dead and Warm Bodies. Gods of Egypt is the other fantasy movie this week; I missed it in the theaters, and I will be waiting to see it until it comes to a service I already have. If there was any SF/F TV this week I didn’t manage to find it.
Anime has When They Cry: Kai, the second season finding the survivors of the 1983 Great Hinamizawa Disaster continuing to fight for their survival as the time loops keep bringing the disaster back. Log Horizon: Season 2 Part 1 begins six months after thousands of players were trapped in the game, and there is still no escape in sight. With winter coming on they have some hard decisions to make if they want to live into the spring. Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend: Set 2 brings the second season of that story, and the creative team gathered has most of the skills needed to finally build the game. The only aspect they are missing is the music, but the only person they know who creates there own music has no interest in gaming, and urges them to give up their otaku project. The only anime this time around which is not the second season is One Piece – Season 8 Voyage 1, bringing episodes 457 through 468 home; to put that in perspective, they are currently streaming episode 783.
The retro TV commercial 20th Century Fox posted for Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters was a hoot, so I had to share it here. And yes, I will be seeing Apocalypse on the big screen in 3D; the X-Men franchise has been getting better with each new outing, so I am seriously looking forward to what happens next.
There are two good choices this week, with X-Men: Apocalypse set to roll out the next chapter for that franchise, and Alice Through the Looking Glass bringing another Tim Burton interpretation of the classic story. I am looking forward to both, but if I can only make time for one, the X-Men will get my box office money.
Stan Lee is one of the instructors at the Smithsonian class The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture, along with several others. The basic course takes 6 weeks and is free, but if you want a verified certificate that will cost $50; if you pass the class, besides the certificate itself you will get digital artwork created by comic book artist Dennis Calero (X-Factor, X-Men Noir). It was created just for this course, and is digitally signed by Stan Lee and Michael Uslan. This is the 4th time they are holding the course, and the first class took place/was posted this week, on the 17th. Since it is an online course, you can take it at any time, but it is fun having the forums to interact with your classmates and instructors as each week’s materials are posted. EdX is a massively open online educational system with some very interesting classes started by a collaboration between MIT and Harvard that quickly expanded to some of the best schools on the planet.