I couldn’t actually find the Level E OP to embed here, but I did manage to find the full song used in that opening sequence, and it is kick ass; Cold Finger Girl as performed by Chiaki Kuriyama. If she looks familiar, it’s probably because she played killer girl Gogo Yubari in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, and real fans should also know her from Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale. The final video of the set is a very rare interview with Hiroya Oku, the creator of Gantz, and Chiaki Kuriyama wearing her Fangirl hat, talking about Anime, Manga, and (not a surprise) Gantz. As far as I know this is the only interview with Hiroya Oku, or at least the only one with English subtitles I have found so far, and until this I didn’t know that Chiaki was an Otaku, either.
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.
There are several fun movies coming out this week, starting with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which was a nicely done interpretation of the graphic novel. If you are looking for something a bit more lighthearted, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World also will be on the shelves this Tuesday.
In TV, Lost Girl: The Complete First Season finally brings the story of this confused succubus trying to find her own way to live home for US fans. For those scratching their head thinking they paid a higher price but already own this and other seasons, it was initially released as an Import from Canada, and only now is being released officially in the US market. That is due to contractual obligations with Syfy, who are a few years behind on running the show for the American market. Sanctuary: The Complete Series is also a Canadian show you may already own, in this case because each of the individual seasons had been previously released. But this is its first release in a single box set. On the other hand, Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman: Season 3 is brand new, even if it is speculative science rather than speculative fiction.
For western animation, Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season Four continues that saga.
The anime Aria the Scarlet Ammo is coming out as a limited edition release and takes place in a Tokyo reminiscent of the one in Burst Angel, in that the police are overwhelmed and certifying select individuals to take out criminals on their own. The underworld have their own group of strong arm folks to attack folks so certified, or training for it, and our protagonists life changes forever when he is saved from them by Aria. Majikoi: Oh! Samurai Girls complete collection shows what happens when small bands of Samurai form at the local high school in self defense as combat springs from chance encounters. One such band of descendents of famous warriors gains two additional girls to the group and all hell brakes loose.
Naruto Shippūden: The Will of Fire is a feature length film adding to the Naruto epic of ninja adventure, and with it the risk of a fourth Great Ninja War.
I have only seen two episodes so far, but Arrow grabbed my attention right away, pretty much from the opening sequence of the first episode. I don’t know if they are going to be able to sustain the tempo and evolve the story the way it should be, but I already care about several of the characters and can’t wait to see what happens next. Meanwhile, the revival of George R. R. Martin’s Beauty and the Beast also started nicely if at a somewhat slower pace, much as the original did. I have only seen one episode of that so far, but Kristin Kreuk has already made the Catherin roll her own. I am less impressed so far with Vincent, but Jay Ryan made a strong enough first showing in the roll that there is hope for him to grow fully into the part (or maybe, just for me to get used to him in it). Of course, it is hard to imagine anyone outdoing Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman as Vincent and Catherin, but I am going to enjoy watching this updated version.
The Firefly Reunion Special will be airing on November 11th at 10PM (except no one is willing to state in which time zone that is: EST? PST? GMT?) on the Science Channel, and I for one intend to be watching! But they recorded 3 hours of footage for this one hour special, so for the Firefly 10th Anniversary: Browncoats Unite special they are releasing another 30 second or so clip online for every 5,000 tweets they get using the hashtag #FireflyNov11. Which means we only need to send out 600,000 tweets to see all of it, as long as you also watch the special on the TV channel. I am ready!
While some folks might scratch their heads wondering why I am posting this, the answer is very simple. We need to nurture that sense of wonder at the earliest possible age if we want to see the next generation take us to the stars, and before we can do that, we need to nurture the children of that generation grow into the best possible version of themselves they can be. Nobody understood this the way Fred Rogers did, or understood all the implications of treating a child with love and respect so they would learn how to give as well as receive it. He also understood the need for producing children’s television with a desired end result of something much more important than selling the most number of boxes of sugared cereal without any regard of what that programs content would end up teaching the child. The children really are our future, and Fred was willing to go up before congress to get the funding needed to do the right thing.