Someone did a Tokyo/London Comparison probably as an exercise in scale, but the image they ended up with was certainly not something I was expecting. Is this what you thought the two would look like when plopped down on the same terrain?
I missed Safety Not Guaranteed in the theaters, a quirky little might-be time travel film based on a real add published in a major magazine a few decades ago, so I am quite happy it is making it to DVD this week. I really don’t care if it turns out not to be Sci-Fi, the trailer is strange and enjoyable and I want to see this film. And then there is Ruby Sparks, a romantic fantasy about an author who writes the woman of his dreams into a novel, only to have her come to life a week later, where he finds her sitting on his couch. The first is from the producers of Little Miss Sunshine, the second from the directors, and it is nice to see Indi films continue to flourish outside of film fests.
Copper: Season One also comes out, a very interesting series which is the first one produced by BBC America. It takes place in 1864 New York City, complete with a lot of historical social and political details that I never expected to see. I am expecting this series to pick up some awards, and even though it is not genre it is quite an amazing show which I recommend wholeheartedly.
For western animation, Fractured Fairy Tales: The Complete Collection brings all of those wonderful twisted stories from Rocky and Bullwinkle together in a single box set. You should share these with your kids or grand-kids, they are just as funny for any age group now as they were when first made. Also out, The Penguins of Madagascar, Operation: Antarctica continues that series for the younger crowd.
In Anime, Durarara!! is coming out with a Blue Ray Complete Set with a Lunch Box, but even with the collectable packaging I don’t understand why they would charge $190 list price for a 24 episode series (OK, 26 episodes when you add in the two bonus episodes). It is an amazing story with great animation, but pretty much every incarnation of it available is way overpriced, it seems, with the lunchbox set setting a new record. I will be keeping my eye out for sale prices as we rumble through the holiday buying season, but mostly I am glad I caught it streaming over at Crunchyroll, because it would have been a shame to miss so fine a program.
Also this week, A Certain Magical Index season 1 part 1, takes place in a universe where science was used to create magic, and a student with a strange negating power (he nullifies the magic of others) teams up with a nun named Index who has an entire huge library of magical knowledge stored in her head. This dozen episodes see the two of them meet and team up to survive the teams of scientists and sorcerers who want to capture and use them. The second half of the season will be coming out in December, and yes, this is from Kamachi Kazuma, who also wrote A Certain Scientific Railgun.
Fafner: Heaven and Earth is a feature film presentation which returns us to Tatsumiya Island for what may well be the final battle between the aliens and humans. If you missed the series leading up to the feature film, now would be a great time to go back and catch up on it; you can watch the first chunk of the series streaming for free at its official Funimation site. That should let you know if this program is for you, and if you enjoy watching streaming anime on your various devices (including Roku and most tablets or smartphones), just like Crunchyroll you can get a premium subscription and watch the entire series and a lot of others.
C-Control: The Money and Soul of Possibility takes place in a future where the government was rescued from poverty by a mysterious organization, but the population was not, and we follow a scholarship student who is suddenly offered a large sum of money only to have his life change in ways he didn’t foresee. Think Paprika meets Tron. Un-Go, the complete collection is about detective Shinjurou Yuuki, who always solves the crime but never gets the credit in this rather dark near-future Tokyo. We also get another block of One Piece with season 4 part 2, with the next 11 episodes bringing us up to #229.
Bet you didn’t know Psy’s world wide surprise hit Gangnam Style had a parallel recording, called Oppa Is Just My Style. It features the actress/singer Hyuna, who was also in his video, just like he is in hers of this same song. If you are a fan of energetic dancing, you should check out the rest of Psy’s videos; the man is an absolute maniac on the dance floor, at least in the majority of his music videos. My favorite parody is still Klingon Style, of course. The second video was one he put together to honor the Korean competitors for this years Olympics, and it is both kick ass and shows you a completely different side of his musical talents. I wanted to add a third MV of his here, We Are The One, but could not find the original studio video version on line to embed. They are running it several times this week as part of the Psy Music Block on M-Net, so you still have a chance to see it. BTW, Psy is the primary judge on Superstar K4 so expect lots of aspiring artists there to do versions of Gangnam Style. Another more serious song you can watch online but which I could not embed is Urbanite, it is quite nicely done.
Another wonderful music-based animation from the folks at Esme Movies. I don’t know where these folks get their inspiration from, but the music is always quality and the animations are always quite well done. If you have the time, you might want to sample their entire collection.
Steampunk Japan style comes to US screens this Friday when Tai Chi Zero finally gets released here. The basic plot is Kung Fu vs. the evil railroad barons, and as you can see from the trailer it should be quite entertaining. Of course, it may be a bit of a challenge to find a place showing it if you do not live in or near a major city this being a foreign film and all, but I suspect it will be worth it.
The Korean original of this song has been running on channels like M-Net for months now, and just recently came to the attention of everybody in the world, in fact becoming the first Korean song ever to take the number one position on iTunes. But out of all the parodies, Klingon Style has to be my favorite; and for the seven people left on the planet who have not yet seen the original, I am posting that one as well.