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Something to Watch: DVD’s

Top movie choice for the week has to be Captain America: The First Avenger. This one actually exceeded my expectations, and it is a suitable prelude to next year’s Avengers movie. Also out this week, Shaolin stars Andy Lau, Wu Jing, Jackie Chan, and Nicholas Tse, in a epic historical drama well worth watching. If it seems like I had already said it was coming out in an earlier week, I had. Which week it is coming out depends on who’s web site you believe, so I figured if I mentioned it both times there was a 50/50 shot I would be right one of the weeks.

There is an amusing looking documentary coming out this week; The People vs. George Lucas.

The TV choice for this week is also the western animation option, in the form of Robot Chicken: Season 5. Do not think this show has become any more subtle recently, it just gets more outrageous and hysterical with each new season.

In Anime I feel a little more confident saying that Himawari! Season 1 will be made available this week. Himawari is going to Ninja school but is not well prepared for the experience, even having to get rescued by a non-ninja teacher on her first day. Another combat high school series comes along in the form of Ikki Tousen: Great Guardians Part 2. In this series, great warriors of the 12 Kingdoms era are reincarnated as modern high school students, and continue their age old conflicts.

There is also a feature length film anime this week: Naruto Shippuden The Movie: Bonds. I am not sure exactly where this fits in the story arc.

Finally a re-release of a classic in a more cost effective package. You can pick up Witchblade – Complete Collection for as little as $21 if you shop around in its new Classic Collection version.

JManga Launches Today

The new online portal JManga was launched today by the Japan’s Digital Comic Association, a coalition of 39 Japanese publishers. This site is a place for The companies to generate excitement for their products, which they predominately do by allowing fans to read many of the titles online, having creators interviews, and hosting a forum where your question about a given manga might be answered by the person who wrote or drew it. This site has been in closed Beta for a month or three now while they worked the bugs out, and tweaked they layout and features. With that many digital publishers signed on I expect this site will be the go-to place for all things Manga. Many of these groups already have their own Manga sites and apps, such as VIZ Manga, while others do not, but by banding together they will have the best chance of reaching their target market.

Marvel Superhero on Castle

According to the folks at io9, next season will see a Marvel Superhero on Castle sometime in the next season. I am having a hard time imagining who it could be, because Castle is a reality based series; it has to be someone without actual superpowers, or perhaps an actor playing an actor in a costume playing a superhero, if that isn’t too recursive. It should be fun, whatever it is.

Something to Do: Movies

Nothing good this week in new movie releases, as I am certainly not going to recommend Final Destination 5 to anyone. But if you missed any of the new releases of the past few weeks, this would be a great time to catch up. Still in theaters we have last weeks Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Cowboys and Aliens from the week before, both of which I can recommend. Also Captain America: the First Avenger from the week before that was a strong entry for the franchise which I completely enjoyed. Unfortunately Another Earth opened to very limited release that same week, and has now evaporated from most of the few theaters it did occupy.

Otakon

This weekend is Otakon, the by fans, for fans convention covering Manga, Anime, and all things Asian pop culture like. It takes place at the Baltimore Convention Center and the surrounding Baltimore Inner Harbor from July 29th through the 31st. Their schedule is huge, and for the last handful of years they have sold out the convention center, which is a lot of people. They generally try to hold back a block of tickets for same day walk up sales, but you have to be there awfully early in the morning to get them. One of the movies scheduled to be screened this year is Bunraku, currently on the film festival circuit and looking quite tasty, as you can tell from the trailer. The unscheduled Otakon event that got the most YouTube coverage last year had to be the fire drill, when 30,000 Otaku were all on the streets of Baltimore at once.

Womanthology

Are you a comics or graphics novel fan? Do you have any idea how much work, effort, and talent goes into creating even a single issue of a single title? If you comprehend that, did you notice how many of the best artists and story tellers are women in this male dominated marketplace? 140 of those women got together to work on the Womanthology Project, a massive graphics novel anthology created under the direction of Renae De Liz. I urge you to check out their new project, and contribute whatever you can through their Kickstarter Interface; since 100% of their proceeds will go to charity they need our donations to create this work in the first place. I should probably list the project participants and tell you what all else they have created, which is a big percentage of the comics you are reading today, but why should I when I can let a few of them speak for themselves in the videos below. That should give you a basic idea, and a few of these links should allow you to learn more. Thanks to The Nerdy Bird for the heads up on this one.