Arthur Darvill played the part of Rory Williams in Doctor Who, but these days he is starring in a musical in London called Once. Because he wants everyone to know this, he went on BBC1 and sang this rather silly song, using Let It Go for the musical inspiration.
In movies, the 2010 live action version of Space Battleship Yamato is finally coming to the US. The original Anime series, begun in 1973, changed Japanese science fiction profoundly, bringing a more complex and serious storyline than had yet been seen. It influenced and inspired many anime series to come after it, including Neon Genesis Evangelion. There have been many sequels and some animated feature films over the years, but this is the first live action version they have ever done, and I can’t wait to finally see it. Probably the strangest selection this week, Escape from Tomorrow is a comedy/horror film that takes place in a famous theme park owned by a media conglomerate. The most recent interpretation of The Legend of Hercules will also be on the shelves this time around. It is noticeably closer to the original story than the TV show was, but I really enjoyed the Keven Sarbo version. I also have to mention the Gamera Legacy Collection 1965-1999, with 11 films compiled into a single 4 disc set. I know these have all been released before, but I don’t believe you could get the majority of them in a single box. They only seem to be missing the 2006 reboot, Gamera: The Brave, which is a shame, because that would be the completest collection. The same group, Mill Creek, is also releasing them remastered in Blue Ray, breaking the set apart into a couple of boxes for that version.
In TV, Star Trek Enterprise: The Complete Series is finally being released in a Blue Ray version. It has been available since 2005 in SD, and you could get the individual seasons on Blue Ray, except for season 4, which is also coming out this week. The other show is Godzilla: The Complete Animated Series, the 1998 show meant to continue the story from the Mathew Broderick movie version. Like Enterprise and Gamera, it was previously released, just not all in one box set.
In Anime, Amazing Nuts! is a 4 tale anthology, each done in a different animation style, and each featuring a different contemporary musical artist setting up the audio track. Yes, that does mean it is essentially a collection of animated music videos. This one has been available as an import for years, but this is the first North American release I am aware of. The pieces average 15 minutes each, so it isn’t very long, but this project is a great sampler of what Studio 4C is capable of. If the name sounds familiar, perhaps you have seen some of their other projects, like the Animatrix, Tekkonkinkreet, Steamboy, or Memories, to name a few. Cuticle Detective Inaba is an artificially created half-wolf private investigator (a former werewolf police dog) out to stop the criminal segment of the half-human portion of the population of his city. Expect to laugh your ass off and enjoy the adventure, but don’t be surprised if you are groaning a bit as well, since this show is a high-density pun environment.
There are two shows being released in a S.A.V.E. edition this time around, allowing you to add them to your collection for about $20 each or less. Cat Planet Cuties has a bevy of alien Cat Girls descend on Kio’s house to use it as an embassy, quickly followed by a large assortment of female secret agents and cultists of various types. I particularly liked the tip-of-the-hat of the dog planet bad guy’s laugh, being an exact duplicate of another famous bad-guy animated dog; see if you can name the dog it came from, or at least the show he was on. Shangri-la is a story of poverty and desperation vs. wealth and technology (medical and otherwise), made even worse by the destruction of the environment. Kuniko isn’t going to stop fighting until she gets all of her people to safety in whatever way she can, and the orbital city looks like her best option.
Let’s face it, no one can ever have enough One OK Rock, and here are a few of their tunes to prove it to you!
Considering how often she has turned up on the hit Japanese TV show Music Station, I can’t be very surprised about Avril Lavigne’s latest music video Hello Kitty. I was not sure if it was filmed in Japan; that part has now been confirmed. It is kind of refreshing to hear Japanese lyrics in an English language song, rather than the other way around. Unfortunately, I can not embed the video into my page for you, it is only available from her web page, linked here.
NOTE: Since that last comment, it has been released in embeddable form. Enjoy. Watch the third video here carefully, and you will see her being given the Hello Kitty guitar she uses in the Hello Kitty music video, when she appeared on a Japanese talk/variety TV show.
They call themselves the Wagakki Band, which means Traditional Japanese Instrument Band, and while the name is not imaginative, the music they create certainly is. It is a mix of traditional, pop, rock, and a bit of metal, played on a combination of traditional and modern instruments. The musicians are masters of their instruments, and Yuko Suzuhana does an amazing job on the vocals. The first track is called Roku Chounen to Ichiya Monogatari, The second is a live version of their song Ephemera Days, and the 3rd is Senbonzakura. Since I still only have a vocabulary of around 100 words of Nihongo yet (meaning I understand the language as well as a smarter than average dog), I am depending on Google Translate for those titles. The final track is the band version of Tsuki Kage Mai Ka (The Shadow of the Moon, perhaps?) which they posted online back in November of 2012. Bottom line, I am very impressed with this group, and would love to see them come to North America on a tour, preferably as the warm up band for The Yoshida Brothers their first time. Even though they have been around for years, their first full album is being released on April 23rd, at least in Japan. With luck it will be available here through iTunes.
If you are an Ubuntu fan, rejoice! Ubuntu has just unleashed the full range of their various builds in version 14.04, which is a Long Term Support release. Of course this includes Ubuntu Studio, their Live Disc multimedia powerhouse designed to allow media creation. The tool sets are grouped by workflow in Audio, Graphics, Video, Photography, and Publishing, and each set has a variety of programs useful to the task that you might not expect. As an example, the Video set includes the usual import, edit, A/V effects, and produce/burn software, but it also includes a full range of 3D modeling and animation programs so you can work in both live action and animation mediums. Plus, while I like to run it from the Live Disc, you can install it to hard drive if you prefer. Pretty much all the other Ubuntu variations also released new builds in the last day or so, including Xubuntu, a lightweight desktop optimized for older computers, Kubuntu, which runs the KDE desktop, and Edubuntu, a build designed to allow a teacher with limited technical knowledge to be able to set up a computer lab or build a web site learning environment in an hour or less. It takes a similar approach to administering, making it easy to maintain without becoming a Linux geek in the process.