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Something to Watch: Discs

In Movies, Dracula Untold is a rather interesting variation of the Vampire legend, with Vlad Tepes portrayed as a good man doing whatever it takes to save his people and family from destruction. The twisted comedy Hector and the Search for Happiness stars Simon Pegg as a psychologist who needs to find out if happiness even exists any more. If it does, he will bring it to his patients, family, and friends. In western animation Big Hero 6 is out in Streaming format, the Blu-Ray and SD versions will not be coming out until the 24th; it would have been my favorite movie of 2014 if it hadn’t shared the year with Guardians of the Galaxy. In Documentaries we get Video Games: The Movie, with some of the most famous gamers, geeks, and nerds on the planet talking about how the industry got to this point and where it goes from here. No genre TV series to speak of this week.

In Anime, Genshiken: Second Generation is being released as a complete collection; The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture has new otaku recruits, while the graduated old guard is adjusting to life as productive members of society. While this is listed as the second season, to me it counts as the third and a half. During the first season, there was an ongoing discussion of their favorite Anime show, Kujibiki Unbalance, and they included several bonus episodes of that series on the discs. Then they released the series Kujibiki Unbalance itself, and those discs had bonus episodes of Genshiken, enough of them to make up their own OVA release. So with two full seasons and an OVA under their belts, this should really be called season 3.5.

In Golden Time: Collection 2 Banri Tada lost all his memories, and is haunted by the spirit of his former self. The two of him are fighting it out to see who gets to decide how his life will go. Leviathan: The Last Defense pits three girls and a fairy against alien monsters attacking Earth by riding in on meteors. It is not as doomed as it sounds, because the girls are half dragons.

You’re Being Summoned, Azazel is about a detective who summons demons to do his dirty work. The demons in question are lazy and depraved, and take a lot of oversight to keep them on task. Finally, One Piece – Collection Box 2 is out, compiling episodes 104 through 205 into a single package.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 10Jun14

In movies, Kill Zombie! is a Dutch horror/comedy. After a night in jail, four hung-over friends and one female officer emerge to discover their city ravaged by a zombie outbreak cause by a meteor shower. The other film choice isn’t genre as such, but an esoteric and visually stunning production called Visitors, a non-verbal film by Godfrey Reggio, Philip Glass, and Jon Kane.

In TV, Resurrection: The Complete First Season is based on the book The Returned by Jason Mott. I was certain it was the American remake of the 2012 French TV show Les Revenants, which won an International Emmy for Best Drama Series, but I was wrong. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is on the list this time as well, and I think this show proves Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson is a fitting inheritor of Carl Sagan’s cosmic mantle. This is a rather nice release schedule, since the season finale episode airs tonight at 9PM in my time zone, and I am a big believer in instant gratification.

In Anime, Maoyu is the story of the war between humankind and the Demon King. Except, as the hero named Hero discovers, the King is a Queen, and she has a plan to bring lasting peace to both realms with his help. So is this a deal with the devil or the best options for both species? Warning, for those looking for a serious combat-centric war show, this series is a Romantic Comedy/Fantasy. Date A Live: Complete Series is about the spacequakes that killed 150 million people when they first happened 30 years ago, and our protagonist has just learned that the spacequakes are caused by the Spirits, mystical creatures found at ground zero. Now he has been recruited to help save the world by sealing the Spirits powers. The complication is that Shido is an ordinary high school boy, the Spirits are all cute girls, and the only way to seal one is to make her fall in love with you. Surprise, this one is also a Romantic Comedy/Fantasy.

Deltora Quest Megaset, the epic magical quest series, is a bit confusing. It is an excellent series of children’s books from Australian author Emily Rodda that was made into either 52 or 65 episodes of Anime, depending on which Anime web site you read, but everyone agrees the box set has 52 episodes. It was supposed to have been released on May 13th, but most of the web sites say release was delayed until June 10th. When I check the Barnes and Noble web site it says you can pre-order it for the 10th, but when I go to Amazon it says there are only 12 left in stock and has May 13th as the release date, while Wallmart says it came out on June 3rd and they have lots of copies. So I don’t have a clue if it is coming out this week, last week, or last month, but probably one of those times.

Something to Watch: DVDs

There are a couple of live action movies coming out this week that look interesting, and I think Bunraku will beat out the competition by a noticeable amount. It had a very limited theatrical run, so for most of us this will be our first shot to see it. Stars include Josh Hartnett, Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore, Gatck, and Ron Perlman, while the premise includes cowboys without guns and samurai without swords. The other live action selection is Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a story that crosses centuries and cultural evolution to talk about friendship.

There is another film of note this week, and it is a documentary: the Magic Trip, staring Ken Keasey, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, the Warlocks (they later changed their name to the Greatful Dead), and the Merry Band of Pranksters. This is the epic journey the bus Furthur and its humans took in 1964. If you knew what it meant to be On The Bus in the sixties, you can finally see the movie they filmed during that journey a mere 48 years later. I am planning to watch it as part two of a double header, with Howl starting the lineup, therefore watching the core events that caused post WWII America to evolve into the counterculture of the 1960s in one sitting. There is also a western animated feature film, Cars 2, with an all star vocal cast from Disney.

Only one TV series that ran nationally in North America found this week, Transformers Beast Wars: The Complete Series. This show was rather well done, with some good quality 3D animation for its time and a story line that evolved out of the original Transformers series. Personally I thought it was much better done than Transformers themselves, at least until the live action feature films came along.

In anime the primary selection is Amagami SS – Collection 2, continuing the story where all the potential futures for our protagonist are explored, each in their own parallel timeline and universe. There is no indication in what I have read if they continued the previous collection practice of having each shows primary voice actress sing the closing song, but I certainly hope so; it was a very nice touch. Also this week, Gakuen Alice – Complete Collection has schoolgirl friends transferring to a school where explosions, superpowers, and axe-wielding teddy bears are all part of the daily events.

Somthing to Watch: DVD’s

What If… stars Kevin Sorbo as the man who gets a glimpse of what his life would have become had he made different choices. Yes, we have seen this before in many different movies, but I think the actors this time around bring a unique perspective. Surviving the experience with these kind of glucose levels may be a bit of a challenge, of course.

Originally a PBS series episode, Pioneers of Television: Science Fiction is a documentary which explores how Star Trek, Lost in Space, and The Twilight Zone changed the way the future was viewed, while delivering modern morality plays able to explore topics normally untouchable on the small screen.

For western animation this time around there is really only one choice: ReBoot: The Definitive Mainframe Edition. I have been waiting entirely too long for this direct descendant of the original TRON to become available. This was the first fully computer generated TV animation in western countries, telling the stories of the Guardians and their battle with the Viruses they defended Mainframe from. Besides having animation of a quality that had not been seen before in a TV series, it had a unique story line filled to overflowing with concepts previously only available in a collage level computer course, but told in a way to make them understandable even to children. Out of this weeks choice, this one is the Must Have selection for me. NOTE: while the Shout Factory web site page talks about the complete series in a single box on 9 DVDs, the Amazon page lists Season 1 and 2 on 4 DVDs, and I don’t know if they are releasing two versions or had to scale back the scope of the release.

There is one new and one repackaged Anime entry this week. Shin Koihime Muso: Complete Collection involves a girl with a disease that will turn her into a cat if an antidote is not found, and a guy trying to forge a peace between the kingdoms.

Samurai Champloo – The Complete Series also becomes available this week. This re-release (the original was in 2009) is the story of friendship through combat skills, as a waitress, a Ronin, and a Samurai wander Edo-era Japan looking for a warrior who smells like sunflowers. This program completely changed the way everyone viewed Samurai movies or TV, with a hip-hop music line, a unique animation style, and some amazing fight sequences.