If Miyazaki Films Were Like Other Anime is the name of this hysterical video, made by the folks over at College Humor, a site I tend to visit pretty much every week to see what new silliness they are up to this time. Of course, Hayao Miyazaki never made an ordinary anime in his life. Each work he crafted was amazing, and are some of the best animations in the world.
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.
Based on this trailer, I suspect Michael Bay’s The Last Ship is going to be a serious contender for this summer’s TV viewing champion. This post-apocalyptic action/drama starts with a virus that wipes out a major percentage of the people on the Earth… but the people on the Sea are uninfected, as long as they don’t land. Some of them are working desperately to find a cure, while others are just looking to survive any way they can. And it has Jayne, or Casey, or whatever name Adam Baldwin is using this time, which is always a good thing. It hits the small screen on June 22nd on TNT.
I can’t imagine anyone who doesn’t appreciate Ghost In The Shell when they meet this unique cyberpunk universe, so instead of ranting about how excellent the series is this time I thought I should just share a few of the recent shorts from GITS: Arise. The first one from The Borderless Project is called Foreseeing 2027, the second is Memory, and the third is Color. There are a few more in this set, all encouraged by Katsuyuki Motohiro, the main director of Psycho-Pass, which owes its existence to the influence of this show.
In Movies, I have to name The Secret Life of Walter Mitty first, because they truly did an amazing job on the remake of this film. It is one of the few instances where I liked the re-imaged version better than the original, it is just that good. Switch with Andy Lau is a twisty little Secret Agent vs. Smuggler tale tied together with the artistic history of their nation’s culture. This action film is a Chinese equivalent to the Mission Impossible series of movies. Led Zeppelin: Good Times, Bad Times may be the definitive documentary, possibly even surpassing It Might Get Loud for sheer fun; if you are a Zeppelin fan, do not miss it.
Ripper Street: Season 2 and Bletchley Circle: Season 2 are both worthy follow-ups to their original series. They are both period pieces set in interesting UK history slices. I am sure everyone is aware of the near-fantasy Ripper legend, but Bletchley Park was one of the birthplaces of modern cryptography as well as advances in computer science like the world had never seen before. It was there that Alan Turing himself (yes, the inventor of the Turing Test ) made the first attacks on Enigma, the Nazi cipher machine, which shortened WWII by 2 to 4 years, or made it possible for the allies to win at all, depending on who’s analysis you prefer.
In Anime, Nyaruko: Crawling with Love! isn’t exactly the rom-com the title might suggest… or is it? Nyaruko, also known as the Crawling Chaos, has been sent by the Planetary Defense Agency to protect Mahiro from the rampaging demons trying to destroy him. It turns out all of the creatures from H.P.Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos are aliens, and cute girls, and they all seem to like him. Mahiro and his friends fight to survive, learn about love, play intergalactic video games, and might just save the world if everything goes right! Like most of the best anime, you can watch it streaming online before you decide to commit your money to owning it yourself. You would think I would stop mentioning that, since it is true of so many shows of all types these days. But what the heck, including a direct link is never a bad thing.
From the New World is another tale which starts innocently enough but rapidly goes off the rails. This time, it is a thousand years in the future, and Saki and her friends seem to live in a place where you can materialize anything by an act of psychic will, no technology required. But then a long-lost artifact gives the lie to the facade of their world, and they learn about the bloody secret history of how their world came into existence. Now the question is, will they live long enough to save it, for humanity and everyone else?
Berserk: The Golden Age 3: The Advent has Griffith still imprisoned by the Kingdom of Midland and the Band of the Hawk running for their lives when Guts returns to lead them to the rescue. OK, that’s a bit abrupt, but then One Piece Collection 9 continues the tale of Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates as they gather together friends on the quest to make Luffy King of the Pirates. This set runs from episode 206 to 229, but the currently streaming episode is 640 or so, expect a disconnect between them if you watch both media delivery styles. Also be aware Spice and Wolf is being released in a single box set, and Heaven’s Lost Property is as well. If you don’t already have them, they just became a bit more cost effective to acquire.
One of my favorite fantasy series is Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files, where Harry Dresden is the only person listed in the Chicago Yellow Pages under the profession Wizard, and is a special consultant to the Chicago PD. This is an amazingly good blend of gritty noir detective story and combat sorcery, with an entire cast of characters you would want to have with you in a tight spot… or as far from you as inhumanly possible. There are 16 books in the series so far, 15 novels and a collection of short stories, and a TV series that ran for one season on Sci-Fi (it wasn’t Syfy yet). Oh, yeah, two of the Graphics Novels were original Harry Dresden stories not published in Novel form, kicking us up a few books, and James Marsters reads all the audiobook versions but one. Start yourself off with Storm Front; bet you can’t read just one!