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Something to Watch: DVDs, 3Jun14

In Movies, the RoboCop reboot becomes available this week. This one goes all the way back to the original 1987 film for its story line, bypassing the sequels, TV shows, animations, video games, and graphics novels that have come along since. Also this Tuesday, the 10 foot tall RoboCop Statue is being unveiled in Detroit. Parts Per Billion is the story about the choices people make at the end of the world, and follows three couples through those events.

In TV, True Blood: The Complete Sixth Season keeps the South’s horniest supernatural creatures whipsawing back and forth through all the radically shifting plot twists. In addition, Falling Skies: The Complete Third Season brings the next round of Alien Invasion adventure to the shelves.

Western Animation has The Adventures of Batman: The Complete Series, which is a compilation of a bunch of shorts done in 1967 and 1968. While dated, the animation work was quite impressive for it time.

In Anime, we finally get Attack on Titan: Part 1, one of the most intense and critically received shows of 2013. Amnesia is the tale of a girl who wakes up in the hospital with no memory of how she got there, with the ghost boy who seems to know warning her not to let her visitors know she has forgotten her life. The Hentai Prince & The Stony Cat: The Complete Collection is the story of a Cat God who grants wishes, but not in the way you expected… or wanted. Finally Bleach: Season 21 brings us episodes 292 through 303.

Sailor Moon Done Right

The folks over at Viz have licensed not only the new Sailor Moon series, but all the original series as well. They are bringing the classic ones back, uncut and unedited for the first time to North America. You will be able to buy them on DVD/Blue Ray combo packages put out two box sets per series, or you can watch them streaming on Hulu and Neon Alley. with two more episodes each week. By the time they are done, they will have put out a full 200 episodes of the various original series, and without editing out any of the dialog or relationships deemed not appropriate for a Saturday morning cartoon show. Heck, they are even keeping the character’s actual names this time, rather than changing them to something American. The first handful of episodes are already on line, with more coming every Monday. Thanks to the folks at Otaku USA for the heads up on that one, who got it from Anime News Network.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 27May14

In Movies the winner is Journey to the West, an action comedy about a young inept demon hunter and the highly skilled female demon hunter he teams up with. This is another Steven Chow film, the man who created Kung Fu Hustle, and who is well on his way to taking over the Action Comedy crown in China from Jackie Chan. There is also Independence Daysaster, a made-for-Syfy movie that might be OK as a comedy, but doesn’t look like they expected anyone to take it seriously. While not quite genre, Eastern Bandits is somewhere between a western, a mafia flick, a war film, and a martial arts movie, and all of it is action.

In TV we have Universe, Season 7: Ancient Mysteries Solved, another great season of exploring what we know about what is out there. If your looking for some spy action, Covert Affairs: Season 4 is also hitting the shelves this week.

For western animation, Defenders of Berk Part 2 is actually season 2. They seem to have lost the core of the story/character development in the new season, going instead for mindless entertainment to boost their ratings. Perhaps the new feature film will return the franchise to its underlying values.

In Anime, Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! Complete Series begins with someone trying very hard to face reality as he enters High School; a Chunibyo is a student who wants to be acknowledged as valuable so desperately that they’ve literally convinced themselves that they have secret knowledge and hidden powers. Our protagonist Yuta is struggling to leave that behind, but he didn’t count on his friend and neighbor Rikka, who knows all about his past mental state, being delusional herself. Life gets truly strange as fantasy worlds collide in this comedy. Aquarion Evol: Part Two brings episodes 14 through 26 of galaxy-crossing Mecha combat and hormone fueled silliness to the shelves. I find it interesting that there is a 12,000 year gap between the stories of Aquarion and Aquarion Evol, but luckily there is only a difference of a few weeks between parts 1 and 2 of the new series.

There are also an assortment of Lupin The Third releases this week, including Lupin the 3rd: The Hemingway Papers, but most of them seem to be re-releases of earlier series and feature films. Still, Lupin is always an enjoyable show, so I figured I should mention it. And yes, I do know that the one I linked to here has been available for a while, but it is a great series and also worth mentioning again; Fujiko Mine. Finally, Servant × Service: Complete Collection is also worth mentioning for its covert government strangeness and general eccentricity. It is a comedy, as you can tell by checking it out at Crunchyroll.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 20Mar14

In movies Vampire Academy is based on the bestselling books by Richelle Mead, and tells the story of a secret school of Moroi (mortal, peaceful Vampires) and Dhampirs (half-vampire/half-human guardians), and their ongoing battle with the Strigoi (immortal, evil vampires). Yes, it is a YA oriented film and book series, and it also has a great soundtrack. The other movie out this week is the historical fantasy Pompeii, about a few folks fighting to save their loved ones and survive the death of their city.

In TV, Warehouse 13: Season Five brings the series to an end, which means you can also order Warehouse 13: The Complete Series if you don’t have any of them yet. Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World becomes available on DVD for the first time ever, and in fact was unseen from the time of its first broadcast in 1967 until it’s rediscovery when some missing episodes were found last year. Also ending with this season, Nikita: The Complete Fourth and Final Season finishes the tale of this spy and assassin.

In Anime, Fairy Tail – Part 10 brings us up to episodes 109-120, and the Fairy Tail Guild will have to work together better than ever to defeat the enemy or risk seeing the golden age of magic destroyed forever. Of course, they STILL have a lot in the way of collateral damage going on, so every time they fight they are as dangerous to those they are trying to protect as to the evil ones they defeat.

Something to Watch: DVDs 6May14

There is not much in Movies this week, other than another slew of re-released Godzilla films packaged up two movies to a box to take advantage of the forthcoming new movie version. There is also the western animated Son of Batman, an adaptation of the 2006 Batman and Son storyline which looks pretty good. Western TV series seem to be notable for their absence this time around.

In Anime, Persona 4: Complete Collection is a surreal tale of murder, mystery, odd weather patterns, a self-willed TV show, and clues from an alternate reality. Fusé: Memoirs of a Huntress is a historical fantasy about the shogun’s vendetta against a group of human/dog hybrids known as the Fuse. The huntress who joins in the search ends up befriending one of them, and begins to question everything about the persecution of the group. Finally, Aria the Origination also includes an OVA, continuing the stories of gondoliers on Mars.