This weekend you can swing by the UK’s National Space Centre for an out of this world experience featuring the Science of the Time Lords exhibit. On the 28th and 29th they will be doing a presentation about the science behind the UK’s most popular TV franchise, Doctor Who. Each year they set up a fun family weekend where they look at the fact behind the fiction of this iconic program, and this time they are focusing on the core concept of the show: Time Travel and the ultimate Time Lord vehicle, the TARDIS! The schedule includes workshops, competitions, challenges, talks, exhibitions, and so much more. The exhibits I would most like to see in person include the fully realized recreation of the 1978 TARDIS Control Room from the Tom Baker era, and the Members of the UK 15th Cyber Legion showing off their costumes and detailing how you can create your own. From my perspective, the only down side to these events are the fact that they will be happening on a continent different from the one I live on. I intend to do my best to attend next year, though!
The top western choice this week is Sherlock: Season Four, an excellent series I can’t watch enough of. The only other release that keeps it from being the only genre option in its category is Guardians of Oz from animator Jorge GutiĆ©rrez who did The Book Of Life.
In Anime, Attack on Titan: The Complete First Season finally comes out in a single box set, for the same money as getting the Part 1 or Part 2 releases by themselves. Garo: Crimson Moon is Season Two, Part 1, for more golden armor vs. demons battle. Triage X: Complete Series has a team of nurses who moonlight as assassins, taking out the bad guys for 23 episodes. Finally, while Infinite Stratos 2 has already been released, they are coming out with a Premium Edition that, for a mere hundred dollars more, will give you an additional $20 worth of booklets and trinkets.
ALL OFF are a Japanese band that formed back in 2004, starting off by playing the festival circuit, becoming an overnight sensation after a decade of killer rock and hard rock. The first track is Refrain Boy, which is the ending theme song for the anime Mob Psycho 100 and was posted last August. If you have your VR headset handy, put it on for the second song, a 360 degree VR version of In Shadows posted about 4 weeks ago. The last one for this week is One More Chance!!, their 2015 major debut track that launched them internationally,
Movies has Max Steel, about a boy and an alien cyborg that combine to become a superhero, with enemies both human and galactic. And yes, it is based on the line of toys by the same name. While not genre, I had to mention Mr. Robot: Season 2 will also be coming out this week.
In anime, Beautiful Bones: Sakurako’s Investigation brings the mystery home in this complete collection. Aquarion Logos Part 2 has episodes 14 through 26 of season 3 of this Mecha driven fight for the salvation of the Earth. It takes place across time, space, and multiple dimensions. One of the places the story begins is 1966 Mt. Fuji.
With the Christmas buying season over, very little in the way of new movies or TV is coming out this week. Operation Avalanche is another retelling of the Apollo Mission to the Moon as a conspiracy rather than the actual event. Based on the trailer, I suspect that Moonwalkers starring Ron Perlman was a more amusing variation on the concept. The real winner this week is Rurouni Kenshin Part III: The Legend Ends, bringing the latest live action cinematic retelling of the Samurai legend home. Finally, in Anime, The World God Only Knows: Ultimate Collection packages up both seasons plus the OVAs into a single box set for the first time. And that is pretty much it for this time around.
Gintama is the story of an Edo era Samurai in a Japan where Aliens have invaded and taken over the Earth. Skyscrapers and traffic jams came to Kyoto centuries ahead of schedule, and the simple life was over. The manga and anime have gone on for hundreds of episodes, and now we finally get a Live Action Gintama Movie bringing this excellent series to the big screen. It looks like the release date is around July of 2017.