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Unison Square Garden

The band Unison Square Garden is from Japan, and they have been cranking out the rock for a while. The first track here is from their 5th Album “Catcher In The Spy”, called Heaven and Hell, released in 2014.

The second track came out about 5 weeks ago, and is the short version of Sugar Song and Bitter Step, Short Version in Japan apparently meaning they will give you one verse, and if they are feeling generous half a chorus. This isn’t the first time I have posted an official short version Japanese song on this site, for Anime OP or ED tracks are usually 90 seconds long, and worth every moment of it. And since it turns out this song IS an Anime ED track, specifically for the Anime Blood Blockade Battlefront, track 2.5 is the Anime version of it. Which also could explain why such a kick ass Rock band recorded such a Pop tune; they needed to land that Anime contract to get the word out about the majority of their body of work. At least, I hope that was their justification, and they didn’t just go belly-up into full-tilt Pop on us.

For the third track we jumped all the way back to the live version of their 2012 song Out Of Place Hummingbird. As always, the actual song titles are the best guesses of a guy with a very limited vocabulary in that language, but the music needs no translation, it is just that good.

Something to Watch: Discs

I couldn’t find any genre movies or TV shows this week other than re-releases, but there is a TV show that comes close. Ripper Street: Season 3 is close to being a Steampunk police procedural, and so becomes worth mentioning. An actual Steampunk police procedural, and my favorite of the type, is Murdoch Mysteries, complete with guest stars Nikola Tesla, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Edison, Mark Twain, and many more. Sadly, that show is not having a new release this week. Another non-genre release worth mentioning is the Rolling Stones From the Vault: The Marquee Club Live in 1971 if you are looking for a taste of classic rock.

In Anime we do noticeably better, starting with Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!: Season 1 in a limited release. By limited I mean only one US store seems to be stocking it for its initial release, in this case RightStuf. The story of the Soul Reapers continues this week with the Bleach: Season 25 Uncut Box Set, bringing episodes 343 through 354 to the shelves. The currently streaming episode is 366, so this release finally puts us right up to date on the disc production.

Hayate the Combat Butler: Season 4 AKA Cuties is also out this week. This fantasy series (how can a Combat Butler be anything but a fantasy?) has a goodly balance of action and comedy, and if you haven’t been following it you can start from the beginning at Crunchyroll and stream your way up to the current season. Finally Origin: Spirits of the Past is coming out in a S.A.V.E. edition, allowing you to pick it up for around $12.

Good On The Reel

This time around we are going to check out a few tunes from the band Good On The Reel, who released their 7th mini album just a few weeks ago. The first track is The King that was not accustomed to Shichiyo, posted this past May, the second is from last November and their 6th mini album, while the third is from their 2013 4th mini album Marivuron of Four Seasons. Then just one more, older still, from their previous record company and released in 2011. I think this band shows a lot of promise, so I wanted to make you aware of them so you could make up your own mind.

Harlequin

The short film Harlequin is quite nicely done, and worth the time it takes to watch it. Pretty much a Batman variation, so it fits right in with the Comic Book Movies theme I enjoy sharing so often. It was created by Tara Alexis, who has some other interesting shorts to her credit, including some music videos (see the second one listed here, Haunted).

Somnium

The award winning short film Somnium was created by Team Somium of The Animation School in South Africa, the team being Gerard Seymour, Riann Sholtz, Pieter Louw, Eben De Waal, Jasmine Morvan, and Greta Pepler. The award it won was the World Silver Award from the New York Festival’s International Television & Film Awards of 2014, and it only takes about 5 minutes to watch. I find it interesting but appropriate that they named it after the 1608 science fiction story Somnium by astronomer Johannes Kepler. Enjoy!

Ore Ska Band

One of the two best Ska bands in Japan, Ore Ska Band got together when they were in the same high school, and have been making good music ever since. The first song is the title track of 2014s Carry On mini-album, while the second is 2009s What a Wonderful World.