Plot Concept: 

After a violent shipwreck, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen was missing and presumed dead for five years before being discovered alive on a remote island in the Pacific.  When he returns home to Starling City, his devoted mother Moira, much-beloved sister Thea, and best friend Tommy welcome him home, but they sense Oliver has been changed by his ordeal on the island.  While Oliver hides the truth about the man he’s become, he desperately wants to make amends for the actions he took as the boy he was.  Most particularly, he seeks reconciliation with his former girlfriend, Laurel Lance.  As Oliver reconnects with those closest to him, he secretly creates the persona of Arrow – a vigilante – to right the wrongs of his family, fight the ills of society, and restore Starling City to its former glory.  By day, Oliver plays the role of a wealthy, carefree and careless philanderer he used to be – flanked by his devoted chauffeur/bodyguard, John Diggle – while carefully concealing the secret identity he turns to under cover of darkness.  However, Laurel’s father, Detective Quentin Lance, is determined to arrest the vigilante operating in his city.  Meanwhile, Oliver’s own mother, Moira, knows much more about the deadly shipwreck than she has let on – and is more ruthless than he could ever imagine.  The series stars Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen, Colin Donnell as Tommy, Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance, David Ramsey as John Diggle, Willa Holland as Thea Queen, with Susanna Thompson as Moira Queen and Paul Blackthorne as Detective Quentin Lance.  Based on characters appearing in comic books and graphic novels published by DC Comics, ARROW is from Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television, with executive producers Greg Berlanti (“Green Lantern,” “Brothers & Sisters”), Marc Guggenheim (“FlashForward,” “Eli Stone”), Andrew Kreisberg (“Warehouse 13,” “The Vampire Diaries”) and David Nutter (“Smallville,” “Supernatural,” “Game of Thrones”).  Melissa Kellner Berman (“Eli Stone,” “Dirty Sexy Money”) is co-executive producer. The pilot was directed by David Nutter from a teleplay by Andrew Kreisberg & Marc Guggenheim, story by Greg Berlanti & Marc Guggenheim.

MONDAY
8:00-9:00 PM 90210 (New Night)
9:00-10:00 PM GOSSIP GIRL (New Time)
(THE CARRIE DIARIES premieres January 2013)

TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM HART OF DIXIE (New Night)
9:00-10:00 PM EMILY OWENS, M.D. (New Series)

WEDNESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM ARROW (New Series)
9:00-10:00 PM SUPERNATURAL (New Night)

THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
9:00-10:00 PM BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (New Series)

FRIDAY
8:00-9:00 PM AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL (New Night)
9:00-10:00 PM NIKITA (New Time)

Nozomi has announced that the release of the Martian Successor Nadesico Complete Collection Limited Edition DVD set will be available on September 4, 2012.

This new DVD box set will feature the entire 26-episode television series and its sequel motion picture (Prince of Darkness), as well as its Gekigangar 3 OVA spin-off. This will be the first time Gekigangar 3 will be available to North American audiences.

It will also include remastered video from the Japanese DVD release for the Nadesico TV series and Gekigangar 3 OVA and the previously released English-language dub (TV series and film), plus Japanese audio, English-language subtitles and on-screen translations, and on-disc extras. The limited-edition set’s seven discs will be housed in a Thinpak-style, full-color chipboard art box.

Martian Successor Nadesico is a science-fiction comedy directed by Tatsuo Sato (Bodacious Space Pirates, Shingu: Secret of the Stellar Wars, Stellvia), with character designs by Keiji Gotoh (Sengoku Collection, Uta~Kata) and animation production by XEBEC (The Third: The Girl With the Blue Eye, Fafner, Lagrange – The Flower of Rin-ne). Martian Successor Nadesico: Prince of Darkness won the fan-voted Animage Grand Prix award in 1998.

Visit nadesico.rightstuf.com to find out more about Martian Successor Nadesico and to pre-order the Complete Collection Limited Edition DVD box set.

About MARTIAN SUCCESSOR NADESICO

The Earth, its moon and its Martian colonies are under alien attack, but the war against the “Jovian lizards” has, so far, been nothing short of a series of disasters.

Disgusted by the incompetence of Earth’s military, the independent arms manufacturer Nergal builds its own space battleship and plans to launch a desperate offensive to save humanity. But due to a shortage of trained soldiers, they’ve assembled the most unorthodox crew to ever launch into orbit! With a pacifist cook-turned-unwilling mecha pilot and a ditsy admiral’s daughter in command, can this unprecedented gathering of geeks, misfits and anime fans prevail against the Jovian menace?

Includes the complete, 26-episode TV series and Gekigangar 3 OVA (with remastered video), plus the Prince of Darkness motion picture!

San Francisco, CA, May 16, 2012 – VIZ Media’s Haikasoru imprint announces the release of THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE, a new fiction anthology featuring science fiction and fantasy stories from some of today’s greatest writers from both Japan and the English-speaking world. The book is now available from the company’s Haikasoru imprint and has a MSRP of $14.99 U.S. / $17.99 CAN. An eBook edition will also be available for the Amazon Kindle, Apple’s iBooks Store, the Barnes & Noble’s Nook Books Store, and the Sony Reader™ Store.

Haikasoru publishes some of the most compelling contemporary Japanese science fiction and fantasy stories for English-speaking audiences, and is the first imprint based in the U.S. dedicated to Japanese science fiction and fantasy in translation.

THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE offers a selection of original and classic science fiction about Japan from some of the greatest writers in the world. Stories include a web browser that threatens to conquer the world, the longest, loneliest railroad on Earth, a North Korean nuke hitting Tokyo, a hollow asteroid full of automated rice paddies, and a specialist in breaking up “virtual” marriages. And yes, giant robots. These thirteen stories from and about the Land of the Rising Sun run the gamut from fantasy to cyberpunk, and will leave readers knowing that the future is Japanese!

“THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE is a stirring new anthology and the first release of original prose fiction by Haikasoru,” says Nick Mamatas, Haikasoru Editor. “Japan is a nation long renowned for its futuristic worldview, and THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE will engross readers with short stories by authors such as cyberpunk legends Pat Cadigan and Bruce Sterling, New York Times bestselling author Catherynne Valente, the enormously popular and prolific Japanese writer Hideyuki Kikuchi, and hot new writers Rachel Swirsky, David Moles, and Ken Liu, who have all already won or been nominated for the Nebula and Hugo awards. We look forward to readers discovering and enjoying this new collection!”

For more information on THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE and the Haikasoru imprint, please visit the dedicated website at www.haikasoru.com.

It’s been an eventful month for the geeky among us, since Star Wars Day coincided with the US release of the Avengers, which was followed by Free Comic Book Day. Last week was dedicated to the frivolity of May the Fourth, so this week I’m dedicating my energy to unearthing and displaying Avengers and Star Wars mashups.

My twitter feed was greatly entertaining on Avengers’ opening day, with Chris Eliopoulus contributing some prime mashed up quotes.

The header image for the post is from Mike Verta. He offers the adorable R2 Iron Man image for download on his Facebook page. (can you link the URL here so people can grab the image?)

Do you think Tony Stark would object to being combined with a puny (but amazing) little droid? Check out this image, which has him wielding lightsabers instead. Pride and aggression may lead him to the dark side, but perhaps the Captain can keep him from crossing the line. This one is from the Deviantart user MrMohiuddin.

We wouldn’t want to leave Thor out of the loop, since his flowing hair and muscled biceps make me swoon. Check out this video which plays off of the popular Darth Vader commercial from the Super Bowl.

Come back next week to find out what bizarre new bits of Star Wars fandom I’ve managed to uncover. Until then – May the Force be with you… and Assemble!

What They Say:
Mirim is becoming well known as a powerful warrior, but that hasn’t deterred Yuit and Annelotte from trying to save her. During combat against Mirim, Annelotte transforms into a form capable of withstanding the hyper-vibration armor and a new player enters the battle.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I have to admit that while the series hasn’t made me hugely into any particular character, I’ve come to enjoy Mirim more than most simply because of the cuteness factor and the way the armor ends up really messing with her. Giving us another episode where she’s mostly the focus of things again certainly works well for me. Even more so since Ymir is still utilizing her to her own advantage and then getting others to help clean her up and play with her a bit, which makes the very shy and awkward young woman even more cute to watch. With the kind of armor that she has, it’s certainly something unlike what the other warriors are wearing, though both Annelotte and Yuit try on a version of it themselves, which is akin to quite an erotic good time for the viewer.

Both Annelotte and Yui are intent on doing everything they can to save Mirim, but Mirim doesn’t think she needs saving, even with what Ymir does to her. It’s because beyond that, Ymir really does take care of Mirim in a lot of ways, enough so to sway her opinion to make her a willing victim and pawn of the pint sized whackadoodle. Even knowing all of this, Annelotte and Yuit aren’t going to back down and do their best to save her. By attacking her, of course. Well, they don’t really intend to fight her but to try and save her, but the armor Mirim wears forces her into btatle easily enough and it’s definitely a huge challenge for Annelotte to go against her, which is useful as she needs all the additional training and growth she can get if she intends to go on.

The whole thing turns into a huge brawl though as all those that are with Annelotte end up getting involved, which with the power behind Mirim’s armor just sends everyone over the top when the power fluctuations hit. Where it takes an interesting direction though is when Annelotte thinks she’s figured out what it is that will help, but it ends up practically possessing her and she really takes some serious whacks at Mirim to try and free her. It’s a piece that darkens up Annelotte a good deal and makes you wonder about her more, but it also makes you really enjoy the way she takes down Mirim. And makes you wonder just how much fun Mirim’s voice actress had with the whole segment. There are dark tidings to be had with all of this though and seeing it unfold adds something new to the series while also changing how you view Annelotte.

In Summary:
If there’s a character you want to smack around in this series, it still strikes me as Ymir as being the most likely to receive it. She’s minimal in this episode but every time she shows up, things just go south fast for all involved. This episode focuses largely on Mirim though as Yuit and her friends do their best to save her while not really understanding that in a lot of ways she doesn’t want to be saved. She doesn’t like the armor but will do almost anything she can for Ymir. The fight goes about as expected in that there’s a lot of action and a lot of fanservice in a way that most shows would blush at even thinking about doing, yet this one does it with abandon. And that continues to be a whole heck of a lot of over the top fun that just makes you grin the whole way through.

Grade: B-

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

What They Say:
After walking in on Kikajima changing in the student council room, the mood has become awkward. With Medaka and Akune out, what will these two talk about? Yabaru the artist has called upon Medaka to model for competition piece, but things are never that simple.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the series has progressed, the cast has grown in general as we’ve seen more of the school, but we’re also getting more members for the student council which become regulars. There was some amusement at the start with Zenkichi being the only one working for Medaka, but it’s grown nicely and not too fast with only the second real addition hitting in the previous episode with their new treasurer, Kikajima. She looks to bring something interesting to the mix but her arrival also brings some challenges for Zenkichi as he’s wondering why they’re all in a higher position than him even though he started first and does so much for Medaka. But it’s the kind of comical wondering more than anything else because he’s not really actively looking to gain more position and power.

Kikajima’s definitely different from the two guys on the council and very much fits what you’d expect from the treasurer as she’s financially focused. So much so that when Zenkichi walks in on her changing, she not only beats the crap out of him but demands payment for what he saw. She’s not exactly a harsh personality, but there are walls there with new people and she’s also quite focused on her job. But she’s also human so she worries about everything in general. There’s some very good fun when we see the two of them trying to get along some later on, but there’s nothing but tension there as each doesn’t know how to soften things. Of course, Shiranui has to walk in and be a burst of humor and levity, which of course means she goes too far and just gets Kikajima all riled up. While she has her intense personality, seeing Kikahima going big is a lot of fun and Shiranui knows exactly how to draw her out. Unfortunately for Kikajima.

While that provides for a lot of fun in the first half, the second half kicks up the naughty factor a bit as Medaka is approached to be a model for an artist in the school, which means its skimpy outfit time. This part doesn’t work as well as the first half since the whole art angle and the girls in skimpy outfits just don’t come together well here. The artist is going for a goddess n the beach motif but everyone that’s drawn in for it just don’t seem to work for the artist, which makes them all pretty despondent. Even Medaka is hit hard by the criticism, but as always she finds a way to make things work and to help out the student, even if it doesn’t exactly work out like she originally intended. It’s not bad but the whole thing just feels weak after the fun of the first half.

In Summary:
Medaka Box hasn’t won me over at this stage but this episode actually works well for at least half of it since Kikajima is a really fun characters and her interactions with Zenkichi are spot on. The two spend a lot of time alone together and that leads to some very fun moments as we get to know more about both of them and see how well they play off of each other. Kikajima really steals the show here at this point. Which isn’t too hard to do in all honesty. The second half goes more for an ensemble feeling, which is good since we have to see how they all operate together, but it feels weaker by comparison and doesn’t really do much. It tries to spice things up a little but even that falls rather flat in some ways. There are cute moments but not enough to salvage that part of the episode.

Grade: B-

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

What They Say:
The Allied Shinobi Forces’ commando unit engages with the Akatsuki in the first wave of battle.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While the main forces for the war were just starting to move out at the end of the previous episode, there are those already out there on the front lines that are engaging the Akatsuki. It’s been interesting to watch so far sinc ethere are so many connections that some of these characters have from past battles that come to the surface which throws off the plans just a little bit, or at least ramps up the emotional side of it. With the number of times some of the characters have gone up against each other since the Akatsuki were formally introduced, it’s no surprise that there are grudges and issues that come up that certainly spans quite a lot of time.

And because of this, what we’ll likely get at various stages of this war are episodes like thi sone that does a heavy dose of back story expansion. As we see the fight getting ready to shift into the next gear between the two sides that are meeting, we get a look back in time to Shin and Sai when Shin was doing things to help out Sai and make sure that he was on the right path. With the two having spent so much time together in the Foundation, they bonded very well with each other and became closer than they might have thought possible. But that closeness is something that Danzo doesn’t like to see in his members and he set the two on the path to kill each other in a match where only one could survive. It goes with the obvious angle of one willing to do it and the other not, which is where the rift really became something more between them.

This does help in the end because it makes their encounter later in life in the present more powerful, but it’s the kind of piece that does slow down the story overall when you wanted something to really just get into the action and intensity. That said, what we do get something suitably emotional here that helps to bring some closure to part of Sai’s life and it’s very well done. This dominates the episode, but there are other aspects as well as the puppet masters are working their jutsu against each other, though it’s more psychological because of what’s gone on with the changes that have been made to become less human. It has a decent and thankfully short flashback to when Sasori went up against Sakura and Granny way back in this series, newly animated, which helps to bring all of this full circle as well. They make it clear that this is going to be a big part of this arc as events go on and as the bodies fall, but it’s hard to complain about it because it does bring more closure.

In Summary:
With the war essentially underway, the first couple of fights that go on certainly don’t play out like you’d expect, especially when it comes to how Shin deals with his fight against Sai. That’s more dealing with the past that one would expect so quickly as you’d figure we’d have a lot of action for a bit first, but what it does is to show that there are definite emotional issues to be had here with the way so many of these characters have long and deep connections with each other. There’s a lot to like with this episode across the board, but it’s one where once again it feels like we’re not getting what we were expecting or really wanting. We get good stories out of it, but with all the buildup towards the war, well, we want that war.

Grade: B

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

What They Say:
No episode summary provided.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Life at the Cafe continues on in this utterly adorable series as we see the way the show has fun with its cast of characters and how they can be tweaked. Wordplay is always a big part of a lot of anime series and this one is no exception, which is made even more amusing with the way Panda can be so mellow and clueless at the same time for good effect. Everyone is mellow to some degree, even Penguin when you get down to it, but it’s the way Panda carries himself that’s just taking it to a whole other area. His nature makes it easier for him to bring people to his side for the most part as well, though he can amusingly push away other people as well.

The first half of the episode deals with some very fun Panda material, eclipsing the news that Penguin has his temporary driver’s license which is just scary. Panda has decided that Handa needs a makeover and he’s enlisted the help of Polar Bear to do it, which is like putting three people together with absolutely no fashion sense. Panda’s efforts to help out his friend for a future romantic entanglement works very well here as it goes from clothes to make-up possibilities to learning about gourmet food. It tends to be more that Panda is taking advantage of Handa without realizing it, especially as it plays out like a trial date with Handa and the two animals and their quirks are just all over the place here. Still, seeing Panda riding a panda at the amusement park and seeing Polar Bear on a penguin is just too amusing.

The second half of the show turns its focus on Penguin, which is always good for laughs, as he’s excited about driving and is getting ready to put things together for his date. That’s been his goal for getting his license so he wants to put it to good effect. Unfortunately for him, or fortunately when you get down to it, Polar Bear decides to give him a dating license test to make sure he’s ready to take her out. It’s straightforward stuff that Penguin is asked about, but he repeatedly fails it and that just leads to a lot of silliness. Going through the trial date with these two definitely is hard for Penguin to deal with since he does so many things seemingly wrong, which isn’t a surprise since he doesn’t think things out, but it is more amusing watching how Polar Bear gets very much into it and does his grading for Penguin. Especially when he starts wearing the pigtails.

In Summary:
Polar Bear Cafe doesn’t spend too much time in the cafe here but it works well since we get so much time with Panda and Polar Bear showing off their social skills by helping both Handa and Penguin separately with what’s going on in their lives. You have to feel bad for both Penguin and Handa though because of what they go through and the way it unfolds. Handa may pay out literally for it while being out with those too, but it’s even worse for Penguin since it’s such a psychological toll that’s taken. But for the viewer, it’s all very good fun to see how Penguin would try and do his date, though you hope he wouldn’t be quite so confrontational. But with a date like Panda and Polar Bear, you can’t blame him. Good luck, miss Penko!

Grade: B

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

What They Say:
It’s Mad Scientist Week as another faux-cola potion turns Bossun invisible and then later, Bossun puts on an artificially intelligent “power suit” created by Switch… But the suit soon develops a will of its own…

The Review:
After spending the previous episode working through some absolutely adorable moments between Bossun and Himeko that dealt with them texting each other unknowingly with passion, Sket Dance wants to “switch” things up again this week by going for the wacky science angle. Which isn’t bad since they have a mad scientist on hand to play with and that can lead to awkward situations which, while forced and over the top, allows the show to go completely silly for awhile. I do like when they play things mostly straight and real world, but being able to tweak things out in another direction once in awhile is definitely fun. And this episode is no exception as it does a double does of silly science that lets the group have some real fun.

The opening half of the episode has Bossun getting his hands on some invisibility soda that works fantastically well, though of course it has the caveat of only making the drinker themselves become invisible and not their clothes or anything else they carry. Bossun completely gets into it, strips down after it works and proceeds to stalk Himeko and scare the crap out of her. While he does get to scare her for a bit, the real scare comes after that as the portion starts to wear off and going from the top to bottom, he starts to turn visible again. And with no clothes, it just freaks out Himeko and they come up with hysterical costume choices to try and cover things up with. It makes zero sense when you get down to it but it’s the kind of panicked response you’d expect.

The second half goes in a completely different direction as it follows up the subplot that’s tying the two stories together about picking up something heavy. Switch gets a sumo style flesh colored power suit that Bossun gets to put on that allows him to pick up a ton of things. But it’s not a suit that operates normally, or looks normal at that, and makes for some good fun as events unfold. There’s some really wacky stuff that goes on here as Bossun gets a feel for the suit and understands how to work it better since there is a synergy kind of quirk to it. When he gets to show off its skills in a variety of ways, it is pretty fun to watch, but disturbing as well just because of the look of the suit and the way Bossun simply just connects with it so well.

In Summary:
Of the two stories, the invisibility story has more fun to it just because it covers a few different areas of humor and deals with the naked/invisibility angle which is always fun. Pairing him with Himeko for it after getting Chuu’s drink works well since he has fun with her but the bigger scares are yet to come. The power suit story is less amusing overall since it comes across as a little more unfocused, but there’s some good laughs to be had here as Bossun adapts to the suit and discovers just what kind of abilities it has. Of course, there’s a danger to a suit that understands its wearer like this which turns things a little darker along the way, but you know things will resolve in a humorous way which does deflate it a bit.

Grade: B

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

What They Say:
Sera and the other vampire ninjas are called back to their village, leaving Haruna in charge of the house. Eucliwood comes down with a fever, and Ayumu goes to great lengths to look after her, but ends up having to call in outside, underworlder help.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the season ambles on, things get shaken up just a little bit here as the cast gets moved out and about a bit. Which in a way isn’t too different from past episodes because it’s largely just focused on a couple of characters rather than everyone as a group for the whole thing. They have had some cute moments where they all spend time together which has been very welcome, but it’s mostly been pairing them off with Ayumu and then bringing in the rest for the full cast feeling. Here, Sera is heading off for awhile to go back to her village and amusingly that means that Haruna is in charge. Which is just plain, plain dangerous considering her temperament.

While there could be some fun in a slightly slimmed down cast setting, things take a little bit of a turn for the worse because Eucliwood ends up coming down sick and just spends most of her time laid out flat while her body works through it. The fun for this part comes in what Ayumu has to do, which is to check her temperature and other things to help her, though he ends up being less of a help than one would think. But because of what she has, there is really only so much he can do and he wants to at least make sure she’s getting some help. Which has him going to Anderson of the underworld like Eu in order to get some advice and assistance. Naturally, he just gets mocked more than anything else, even if it is an absolutely hilarious dance number.

The show does go for some sweet moments as well as Haruna and Ayumu actually do manage to take care of her a fair bit and there’s even some time where it feels like they really do connect well when they do all of this. Of course, it hits up a few more naughty areas, especially with the two girls sleeping together which works well for the fans and just drives Ayumu up a wall. There’s a mellow vibe to this episode overall that works pretty well, even as Ayumu is in a panic over Eu, and the minor mystery of what’s going on is explored. It does a decent job of bringing Eu back to the forefront, even if she is passed out for most of it. More importantly, we get a bit of info about the underworlders like her that I suspect may have more impact down the line.

In Summary:
After being kind of put off by the previous episode with its over pandering to an audience here that is already being heavily pandered to, things turn around a bit here. The shows focus on Ayumu trying to take care of Eu as she suffers from something is pretty well done since we get to see how intent he is on not only helping her but comforting her. It also does some good work in getting Ayumu and Haruna to ease off a bit, after some appropriate bashing that has to happen, and working together in a positive way to help Eu. It doesn’t really change their dynamic overall as it’s nearly a reset by the end of the episode, but it was more fun than I expected after the previous episode.

Grade: B-

Streamed By: FUNimation

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

NOZOMI ENTERTAINMENT Announces
MARTIAN SUCCESSOR NADESICO Complete Collection L.E.
DVD set available on Sept. 4, 2012 to include 26-episode TV series &
first-ever release of GEKIGANGAR 3, both with remastered video;
plus PRINCE OF DARKNESS motion picture.

GRIMES, Iowa, May 16, 2012 – Anime producer and distributor Right Stuf, Inc. and its Nozomi Entertainment division are pleased to announce the MARTIAN SUCCESSOR NADESICO Complete Collection Limited Edition DVD set will be available on September 4, 2012.

This new DVD box set will feature the entire 26-episode television series and its sequel motion picture (Prince of Darkness), as well as its Gekigangar 3 OVA spin-off. This will be the first time Gekigangar 3 will be available to North American audiences.

It will also include remastered video from the Japanese DVD release for the Nadesico TV series and Gekigangar 3 OVA and the previously released English-language dub (TV series and film), plus Japanese audio, English-language subtitles and on-screen translations, and on-disc extras. The limited-edition set’s seven discs will be housed in a Thinpak-style, full-color chipboard art box.

Martian Successor Nadesico is a science-fiction comedy directed by Tatsuo Sato (Bodacious Space Pirates, Shingu: Secret of the Stellar Wars, Stellvia), with character designs by Keiji Gotoh (Sengoku Collection, Uta~Kata) and animation production by XEBEC (The Third: The Girl With the Blue Eye, Fafner, Lagrange – The Flower of Rin-ne). Martian Successor Nadesico: Prince of Darkness won the fan-voted Animage Grand Prix award in 1998.

Visit nadesico.rightstuf.com to find out more about Martian Successor Nadesico and to pre-order the Complete Collection Limited Edition DVD box set.

About MARTIAN SUCCESSOR NADESICO

The Earth, its moon and its Martian colonies are under alien attack, but the war against the “Jovian lizards” has, so far, been nothing short of a series of disasters.

Disgusted by the incompetence of Earth’s military, the independent arms manufacturer Nergal builds its own space battleship and plans to launch a desperate offensive to save humanity. But due to a shortage of trained soldiers, they’ve assembled the most unorthodox crew to ever launch into orbit! With a pacifist cook-turned-unwilling mecha pilot and a ditsy admiral’s daughter in command, can this unprecedented gathering of geeks, misfits and anime fans prevail against the Jovian menace?

Includes the complete, 26-episode TV series and Gekigangar 3 OVA (with remastered video), plus the Prince of Darkness motion picture!

MARTIAN SUCCESSOR NADESICO Complete Collection L.E. (TV+OVA+Movie)
Format: DVD (Thinpak-Style Art Box)
Pre-Book: 8/7/2012
Street Date: 9/4/2012
Runtime: 740 minutes
Genre: Sci-Fi / Comedy
Suggested Rating: 13+

Audio:
- TV Series: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), Japanese (Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo);
- OVA: Japanese (Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo);
- Movie: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Japanese (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Subtitles: English subtitles and English on-screen translations
Video: TV Series + OVA: 4:3, Color, Remastered; Movie: 16:9 Letterboxed, Color
Catalog #: RSDVD1268
ISBN: 1-57032-713-0
UPC: 7-42617-1268-2-6
SRP: $59.99

Discs/Set: 7
Case Quantity: 9

Features:
Interviews with actors and staff; “Welcome to Belle Equipe” featurette (45-minute documentary on the TV series, its music, and its staff); “Nadesico Sorekara” special (25-minute special with footage from the Nadesico Roadshow, as well as voice actor interviews and promo clips for the film); clean opening and ending for the TV series; TV spots; movie spots; movie trailers; music video for the movie, featuring Yumi Matsuzawa; and Nozomi Entertainment trailers.

NOZOMI ENTERTAINMENT Announces
MARIA WATCHES OVER US, Season 1
Complete first season available as a Litebox-style DVD set on Sept. 4, 2012

GRIMES, Iowa, May 16, 2012 – Anime producer and distributor Right Stuf, Inc. and its Nozomi Entertainment division are pleased to announce the MARIA WATCHES OVER US, Season 1 DVD set will be available on September 4, 2012.

This new DVD set repackages the entire 13-episode first television season of Maria Watches Over Us, plus the Season 1 specials, in a single DVD keepcase. It features Japanese audio, along with English on-screen translations, and two English-language subtitle tracks: one with regular dialogue subtitles and a second, special subtitle track that retains the Japanese honorifics.

“funny, touching and engrossing” – Anime News Network
“this series is awesome” – Otaku USA
“Very recommended.” – The Fandom Post
“Shelf Worthy” – Anime News Network’s Shelf Life
“a truly beautiful anime” – Future Anime

The Maria Watches Over Us anime is based upon a series of novels – written by Oyuki Konno and illustrated by Reine Hibiki – that began in 1998 and spans 38 volumes. Short stories related to the series have been published in the shoujo (girls’) magazine Cobalt, and a manga adaptation was serialized in the anthology magazine Margaret. The series’ publisher, Shueisha, produced 14 drama CDs (featuring radio-style plays), and there are also several Internet radio plays, a live-action film adaptation and a spin-off novel series.

The anime adaptation of Maria-sama ga Miteru – also referred to by fans as “MariMite” – encompasses two, 13-episode TV seasons, a 5-episode OVA (original video animation) as its third season, and a 13-episode fourth season, which aired on Japanese television during 2009. All four seasons are licensed for English-speaking audiences by and available on DVD from Right Stuf’s Nozomi Entertainment.

Maria Watches Over Us features animation by Studio DEEN (Fruits Basket, Gravitation, Rurouni Kenshin), scripting by Reiko Yoshida (ARIA, Boys Over Flowers, Story of Saiunkoku), and direction by Yukihiro Matsushita (Seasons 1-3; Blue Dragon, Sugar Sugar Rune) and Toshiyuki Kato (Season 4; Full Moon O Sagashite, CODE-E).

Visit maria-sama.rightstuf.com for more information about Maria Watches Over Us (Maria-sama ga Miteru), including detailed character profiles, trailers, downloads and more.

About MARIA WATCHES OVER US, Season 1

When Yumi Fukuzawa entered the Lillian Girls’ Academy, a prestigious all-girls Catholic school in Tokyo, she never imagined that she would catch the eye of beautiful and demure Sachiko Ogasawara, one of the school’s most popular students. Now Sachiko has offered to be Yumi’s sœur – her “sister” and guide for all her years at the academy. The whole idea has Yumi completely flustered – after all, they hardly know each other! The entire school is abuzz with rumors about the two of them, but Yumi is conflicted over accepting Sachiko’s offer. While she admires Sachiko, being her sœur would also mean constantly being at the center of the entire school’s attention!

Contains the complete 13-episode first season, plus the Season 1 specials.

MARIA WATCHES OVER US, Season 1
Format: DVD (Litebox)
Pre-Book: 8/7/2012
Street Date: 9/4/2012
Runtime: 325 minutes
Genre: Drama
Suggested Rating: 13+

Audio: Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
Subtitles: 2 English subtitle tracks, plus English on-screen translations
Video: 4:3, Color
Catalog #: RSDVD1280
ISBN: 1-57032-719-X
UPC: 7-42617-1280-2-8
SRP: $39.99

Discs/Set: 4
Case Quantity: 30

Features:
Two English subtitle tracks (standard dialogue subtitles, plus a special subtitle track that includes Japanese honorifics) and English on-screen translations. PLUS: Season 1 specials 1-7, character bios, liner notes, and Nozomi Entertainment trailers.

What They Say:
Thinking he is doing him a favor, Orito invites Ayumu out to a restaurant run by the vampire ninjas, which offers a full course of unsociable service. Afterward, the two of them engage the ninjas in a mood-changing contest, to win the cost of their meal.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With some fun had recently about Ayumu’s problem in being seen and his attempts to get away from it all, the show definitely had some fun with events but also felt kind of listless overall. I liked the idea of everyone finding this out about him, even if they don’t understand it, because it played up the technological realities of the day and made for a more challenging environment. Ayumu’s reaction was pretty normal so seeing him retreat into things a bit and just now having fun with his model kits and the like as he tries to put more distance between him and the event is rather fun. Especially since the others alternate between mocking him and being totally into it, especially since he’s building a massive Full Metal Panic layout.

In an effort to get him out of the house a bit and do something a little different, Orito is suggesting something quite intriguing when you get down to it by taking him to a specialty restaurant. The place turns Ayumu off at first since it’s a cosplay restaurant and he’s still smarting from all the pictures that were taken, but there’s much more to the place. While it seems like a normal cosplay place at first, once you get beyond a certain curtain, it’s instead a darker and more ominous cosplay place as the maids there are pretty dismissive, rude and unsociable as they put it. And it’s run by the vampire ninjas which just has Ayumu rolling his eyes at first but then starting to fear the whole thing even more.

There’s a lot of time spent with some of the silliness of all the vampire ninjas in there and those that aren’t able to deal with it well, including Haruna stepping in to play for awhile and completely having the right attitude. It is cute since Haruna in particular uses it as part time work and just has fun with it, but you also have to really feel for Ayumu who just comes across as more and more worn down with everything that’s going on. Which in turn is how I find myself feeling about this season so far. There’s always the kind of violent harem aspect going on here, made even more intense with this particular location, but it’s just going through a series of seemingly pointless motions for the majority of it.

In Summary:
While I had a lot of fun with the first half of the first season with the characters and their quirks, it was the second half that lost mere. This season, the first half is coming across as pretty pointless so far and it’s just reducing the enjoyment episode by episode. I do like the characters, but it’s essentially spinning its wheels at the moment. It may be fun for an off chapter here and there in the manga, but in this incarnation of it we’re just going for sometimes silly gags and little more than that. It has moments where I am smiling and enjoying it, but the more it seems like it’s not going to try and go anywhere – either with a story or real character development – the less I become interested in it.

Grade: C

Streamed By: FUNimation

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

What They Say:
In the year 2012, the world is a wasteland invaded by aliens. Time travelers like Fumiaki are sent back to the year 1999 in order to destroy the “Nostradamus Key” to prevent the apocalypse. In 1999, Maya, the daughter of the former principal of Waldstein Academy (a.k.a. Occult Academy), returns to the academy to replace her father. Despising her father’s obsession with the occult, Maya is hell-bent on running the school into the ground out of spite. Her plan is interrupted when she meets Fumiaki and learns of the forthcoming destruction of the world. They form a pact to look for the key.

Contains episodes 1-13 plus a 36-page artbook with exclusive artwork, draft designs, and occult encyclopedia!

The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release is fairly straightforward for an NIS America release in that it contains the original Japanese stereo mix done in lossless PCM format. The show has a pretty solid mix to it overall with the way it deals with the action and even the dialogue at times with placement and depth. The action has a good sense of space to it where things are moving around the forward soundstage and a welcome amount of bass that doesn’t go too far or deep. The music is a standout piece for it as well with how it unfolds, both in the opening and closing sequences as well as the incidental bits throughout it. The series doesn’t really go above and beyond in any way, but it’s very well conveyed here and serves the show well with the mix. Dialogue is clean and clear throughout and we had no problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.

Video:
Originally airing in the summer of 2010, the transfer for this series is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in 1080p using the AVC codec. The thirteen episode series is spread across two discs with nine on the first and four on the second where the extras are also all placed. Occult Academy has a very good design to it with its colors and animation, something that looked striking during its simulcast run but far more so here. The transfer captures the look of the show very well and really made it even more engaging for me. Colors are striking where appropriate but the rest of it just has a sense of depth and warmth to it that really made me connect with it. The CG animation stands out when it hits, particularly with the aliens, but it’s something that’s quite intentional and the overall effect is strong. I love the look of this show and the transfer captures it about as good as I could imagine.

Packaging:
The NIS America release of this show is done in their “standard” premium packaging which is why I’m always glad when they get a new show but especially one that I really like. The packaging for this release has the oversized heavy chipboard box that utilizes some great colors and character artwork to it. One panel is done in green and the other with red as it shows various bits of iconography related to the show in the background while the foreground gives us different incarnations of the lead characters with what they’re wearing and the positions. It’s bright, bold and colorful in a way that really is quite appealing. Inside the box we get to clear DVD sized thinpak cases where it does similar to the artbox, just in orange and blue, using some of the same artwork for the front covers. The back covers use some additional artwork and shots from the show along with a breakdown of the episode numbers and titles. Add in the clean technical grid that lists everything clearly. No show related inserts are included nor is there a reversible cover.

The artbook included in this is fantastic and really hits home with everything that I wanted. It’s designed as a “confidential” book on the people that go to the Waldstein Academy so that we get a series of character pages with various designs and notes as well as full page breakdowns of each episode with shots and details about it. There are some very good pages of visual artwork as well of the landscapes, the technical designs for some of the locations and an encyclopedia of various occult terms as well. It’s a rich and detailed book that’s definitely a big positive for fans of the show.

Menu:
The menu design for the release is pretty good as it fits the show well without being too in-theme or too bland. The two main menus use different colors and character artwork, but the premise is to use the occult symbolism in the background while the foreground has four different pieces of character artwork “phasing in” one by one before it loops over again. There’s a good touch of movement to it all that along with the sounds that are used gives it a slightly unnerving feel, especially as it loops around. The menu design along the bottom is kept simple with a black strip with some nicely done text with a font that fits and the symbol as the cursor. It keeps it in theme without going too far again. Submenus load quickly and the layout is standard but well done with no problems in moving around.

Extras:
The extras are all on the second disc here and we get a few good things in addition to the stanrd opening and closing sequences. The final episode gets its own separate clean ending since it went differently as well. The first thing we get is a four part mini bit of fun with shorts that run a few minutes each and do silly stuff with the characters, such as working with them when they were kids. It also includes a short extra that runs for 90 seconds called Love Machine which is bsically a music video that sexes up the show, or at least highlights its sexuality, violence and fun. It’s cute and definitely a very fun inclusion.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
An original series from the Anime-no-Chikara block that was produced by Aniplex and TV Tokyo using the A-1 Pictures animation studio of Aniplex’s, Occult Academy is a thirteen episode series directed by Tomohiko Ito who has done some single episode directing in the last couple of years with shows like Stitch!, Kobato and Monster. While Ito doesn’t have a ton under his belt, the series is being put together script-wise from Seishi Minakami who has done some interesting titles, such as some of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brortherhood, Shigurui: Death Frenzy, Sugar: A Little Snow Fairy and parts of Boogiepop Phantom. It’s a pretty diverse mix just scratching the surface of what’s familiar in the US and it gives indication that this seemingly serious series is in pretty good hands.

The series is one that has a structure to it that I like with what it wants to tell, reminiscent of the film Twelve Monkeys for me. The main bookends of the series to some degree is that we see the year 2012 and learn that in 1999, aliens invaded the world and threw mankind into a special kind of hell. In the years since, there’s been efforts to fight back against it, but the main focus after acquiring a particular piece of alien technology, a race that we never truly see, is to travel back in time to 1999 to find something called the Nostradamus Key. This is what was considered the item that changed everything and allowed the inter dimensional aliens through. So this one group of survivors ends up throwing various people back in time that seem to have some sort of power, such as psychokinesis or telekinesis, and supplies them with a special phone that can show them that item in the future, or that part of the world so they can see whether it’s what would be the Key.

It’s through this lens that we see a young man named Fumiaki sent back in time to take on the role of Minoru Abe, a teacher at the “Occult Academy,” a place where all the things related to the occult, aliens and mythology is studied among other classes. Minoru’s arrival in 1999 comes at the same time that a young woman named Maya has come back to the academy as her father, the principal and founder of the academy, has died and she’s there to take over while also being a student. The pair end up in an odd relationship for a number of reasons, but the balance between the two is what works. Minoru’s story is told in a couple of pieces and we get a big chunk of it when we get to see his life flash before his eyes on a mission that he has to deal with. Because of that, his story is pretty simple when you get down to it, but Maya’s is what spans the series as a whole.

Maya’s a disbeliever when it comes to the occult which makes her the one that kind of wants to take down the academy overall, though it’s not a full on stated goal. She just wants to show up her father since she has issues with him that are unresolved since he’s dead. Over the course of it, she gets thrown into a fair number of situations with the supporting cast that grows around her, especially since one of the students there is a childhood friend, and the exposure to the occult that does happen helps to edge her along. It runs the gamut like a series of X-Files episodes with the mysteries and what it covers, but it doesn’t get so deep into it that you feel put out by it. When she finally does come over to the fact that Minoru is from the future and that there are some bad things in the offing her, her seriousness goes just right over the top and it has fun with it.

The hard part of the series is the middle arc where it does more to tell the story of the characters, primarily Maya, but also the supporting cast and those that have a greater role as it goes on. There is a good supporting cast here, from the vice principal who has her own agenda to a young woman named Mikaze that has a strong affection for Minoru. Even Minoru’s younger self has a key role in the series that gets explored throughout in small ways. But there are a couple of two part stories that just don’t click too well. One deals with the group helping a man who lost his daughter to try and come to terms with it and help her on her way spiritually. The other involves when some of Maya’s friends try to fake a UFO appearance to try and help their overall position.

The show may seem a little like it wanders at times, but it’s all in service to get us to know the characters better so that it all comes together when things go all wonky in a wonderful way as truths are revealed. The show actually goes for two endings which makes it pretty exciting to watch since it resolves two different storylines that are pretty tightly connected. With the first ending, it deals with all the magic and unusual things that have happened over the course of the series, making it all clear what was going on yet leaving enough open to interpretation. When it shifts to the larger storyline involving the future and events there, it has a couple of twists it has to run through in order to bring it all together, but I loved the way it kind of topped itself at times and then hit all the right marks. And with a perfect epilogue closing that just made me smile, it’s a series that certainly had more places it could go but also gave me real closure.

Occult Academy has a really great sense of design, both in the architecture and the characters. A-1 Pictures has quickly become one of my favorite animation studios in the last year with some of the things they’ve worked on as I love the flow of the designs they use with the characters and much more so when it comes to the backgrounds and building structures. There’s a certain kind of detail and love in how they design things even in simple things such as a school hallway that gives it more of a life. I also like how they can take a good serious series and slide in a little bit of humor here and there, such as Maya tumbling after her possessed father surprises here, or the little bits of background to Maya’s younger days. They’ve found a really nice balance here with the way they’re telling the story but also in animating it by having both adults and kids dealing with what’s going on.

In Summary:
Occult Academy was a series that I enjoyed during its simulcast run even with some weaker aspects in the middle with the two part story lines. Watching it in this marathon form here definitely smoothed out some of the problems I had with it and the show as a whole really came together well. It has a fun storyline that I like, a good sense of humor about it when appropriate and it knows when to be quite serious as well. The mixture of magic, aliens, time travel and more is spot on with how it wraps it all together even while adding in a high school context. NIS America has put together a great looking high-definition only release, the first one out there I believe where no DVD release accompanies it, and for fans of the show that wanted it in a high quality fashion, it’s definitely a strong release.

Features:
Japanese PCM 2.0 Language, English Subtitles, Four Short Story Episodes, Clean Opening, Clean Closings, Music Video

Content Grade: A-
Audio Grade: A-
Video Grade: A
Packaging Grade: A
Menu Grade: B+
Extras Grade: B

Released By: NIS America
Release Date: May 8th, 2012
MSRP: $64.99
Running Time: 334 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

What They Say:
Tamaki tries to console the befallen Shugogo house members but they reject her, demanding, what does she know about them? Tamaki senses a divide in the Shugogo house, who bear the fate of becoming human.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With events playing out as they have recently, Tamaki is now finding herself in even more of a bind than before. What’s been interesting about her from the start is still strong here as she’s generally proactive on things and willing to compromise at times in order to hopefully achieve a bigger victory later. Her dealings with Logos has not been easy, especially as she hasn’t been given all the background information she needs to make good decisions, and there’s a lot going on as the seals weaken in general. But she’s also a pretty caring person and the way that her Guardians were roughed up as much as they were in the previous battle has left them coping in a pretty bad way.

While she has some good methods, and she’s glad that they’re healing, they don’t have the same view of events. They see the loss as painful, the events playing out in a way that left them utterly destroyed. The loss of the Artifact only makes them feel truly weakened and humiliated over it, both for what Tamaki did and their own inability to make it so that she didn’t have to do that. The shouting match they have together when they return to the school is really well done because these young men have their emotions and aren’t afraid to show them, and she’s not wilting before them in the slightest. Her pushback to try and get them to understand is honest and sincere, but both are coming from very different places which makes it hard to understand each other.

The show is pretty mild throughout because of this as it becomes more a matter of Tamaki and the others talking at different stages to try and reconcile to some degree. She has a definite idea of what to do, primarily in working information gathering on Logos and figuring out what the best approach is, which is what she wanted to do before. This dominates the episode as some of the guys come over to her side slowly but surely and that just drags the rest of them along the way since it just gets to be too much. The story isn’t exactly shifting here, but it’s now moving to the point where they’re really going to be more proactive, at least in getting more information.

In Summary:
Hiiro no Kakera is the show that feels like I really should be dropping it but it has just enough mood and quality to make sure that I stick with it. Episodes like this, which haven’t been common in the first half, makes it harder to stick with it because it’s just a lot of slow dialogue that turns things around in a way that you could see coming. It does what it needs to but unlike the rest of the show so far, it’s not done in a compelling way. The initial argument between Tamaki and her Guardians is spot on though and that does salvage a lot of it, but it feels like it’s on a slow slog after that with what it wants to do, feeling like it’s unsure of its direction.

Grade: C+

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

Creative Staff
Story: Norikazu Akira
Art: Norikazu Akira
Translation/Adaptation: Christine Dashiell

What They Say
Chihiro drifts through life with no purpose, going from girl to girl, until one day he finds an abandoned kitten in a box. He quickly falls in love with little Shiro and couldn’t imagine his life without her. One evening, Chihiro finds Shiro has fallen ill. While searching aimlessly for an animal hospital, he runs into Kumazawa, a local vet who takes Shiro into his care.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
It’s been forever and a day since I picked up a boys-love manga and I hadn’t had a chance to check out something from SuBLime Manga yet, so I decided to take a stab at this one shot to see where the company is going with some of its releases. While I’ve never been against BL titles, there have been only a few that have really worked for me. I’ve ended up with a bunch of anime adaptations that have worked well but there’s something about the shows and the manga, especially the very short form ones, that tends to ring hollow for me since it’s so forced with a top and bottom angle rather than really just looking at a relationship. But it’s what the audience wants it appears, so that’s what we get. With Honey Darling, we do get a little bit of that, but it feels reduced compared to what I’ve read and seen before.

This single collection story as a whole is good, though it is amusing that it took about three years for it all to come together. The author did it as a short story at first, which is the opening two chapters, and then it took two years for it to come back and get going with the remainder of the book. The story is a fun one as it introduces us to Chihiro, a young man in his very early twenties that makes it clear he’s the epitome of a second son that was tossed aside and is just eking out an existence. It’s actually really interesting to hear his inner monologue about it as he goes on about the way life has pushed him around and now he’s just existing and feels that it’s the best that he can do. And with people saying just being alive is a feat, even that feels like it’s reaching high for him.

His life changes though when he sees a kitten in a box while walking home and he ends up taking her in, calling her Shiro. Unfortunately, it only takes a few days before the cat gets sick and he’s running around looking for a vet. The one he finds, Kumazawa, is a pretty good one but the man who runs it has the kind of big nature around him that’s very serious, earning him a lot of “bear” gags for obvious reasons. What Kuwazawa does however is view Chihiro as something just like Shiro, i.e. a cat, and he decides to offer him a job as a live-in jack of all trades that he amusing calls his wife. It’s not that they take on that kind of relationship between each other, it’s definitely boss and employee that has added friendship along the way, but there are plenty of gags related to it since Kuwazawa is single and Chihiro hasn’t had any luck with the ladies for the most part himself.

Because of the structure of the book with the gap in chapters, when it gets back into the swing of things after the break it’s moved it forward a few months and there’s a good comfort between the two men as they go about their jobs and you have Chihiro trying to learn to be a veterinary nurse and to try and find some sort of future since Kuwazawa inspires him. With a few additional people in the mix that work in the clinic and some good emotional stuff that works right in showing that there is more to Chihiro overall and why it’s making an impact on Kuwazawa. The only thing that kind of throws things off at first here is the whole arranged marriage aspect that gets drawn in, but it’s handled well when the details start to come out, especially in how Kuwazwa handles it.

What does always interest me with a boys-love title is just how far they go with it. Many just keep it to some over the clothes groping and some other things, but others can go all the way. Honey Darling definitely goes all the way, showing their first encounter together and the way that Chihiro deals with these feelings that surprise the heck out of him yet he wants more and more. It’s not a pushy, blush filled or annoying experience and in its own way it has its sweet moments but also makes it clear there’s some raw passion to be had as well. It’s definitely presented as the payoff to the story and it does work well here, both in design and how they make it work as and an actual couple at this point, but a lot of that comes because of the way the book spent so much time not focusing on the usual top/bottom aspect.

In Summary
Honey Darling is a book that, as the mangaka says at times during it, seems to be more about the cat than anything else. It’s not really true, but it’s a book that has a good hear to it and avoids some of the traps that I usually find boys-love books to fall in, or perhaps just the ones that are continually brought over that I’ve seen. I came away from this book enjoying the characters, the banter and the whole animal aspect as well. Nothing is really overplayed and the characters have a very honest feel about them. I liked the way the relationship built up slowly, had some forced but playful aspects and just enjoyed itself. That made it even easier to enjoy and makes it an even easier recommendation if you’re looking for a good standalone volume title.

Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: A-

Age Rating: 18+
Released By: SuBLime Manga
Release Date: June 12th, 2012
MSRP: $12.99

Creative Staff
Story: Pink Aomata
Art: Pink Aomata
Translation/Adaptation: Unavailable

What They Say
It’s her high school debut, yet Tora Takei can’t seem to fit in. Then somehow, she ends up time-slipping into the Warring States period! In order to return to the present, she has no choice but to change history. Disguising herself as a man, Tora gets caught up with Mori Ranmaru, the handsomely beautiful, yet deadly guard of Oda Nobunaga. Slowly, she discovers the kind and honest nature of this strongest and most beautiful of warriors. Falling in love with Ranmaru, the story of Tora’s time-slip into the Warring States period begins!

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Tora Takei is a first year high school student whose family dojo, teaching ancient Budo, and very conservative father (no cell phone!) have made her considered odd by her fellow students. All she wants is the life of a regular teen-ager. Downhearted at the prospect of making no friends in high school, Tora goes off to have lunch on a bench in a park adjacent to a hirayama style castle that is a local tourist attraction. While she eats her lunch in a desultory fashion, a figure behind her begins to chat about the castle and its history and Tora, wishing to escape from the lecture, turns around to find a man dressed in 16th century garb wearing a very large rabbit head. Assuming this to be a cosplay pervert, and who wouldn’t, she escapes into the bowels of the castle only to find herself in the midst of a hectic crowd of screaming people. She is immediately attacked and those Budo lessons, which she had to do instead of the ballet lessons she wanted, now stand her in good stead. For even though she is captured by the slavers, she is assumed to be male and assumed to be some noble’s boy-toy. While in the slaver’s prison, Mister Rabbit appears and chides Tora for not heeding his warning. She had taken the wrong path at the castle and has time-slipped into the Sengoku Warring States Era. A tearful Tora begs the rabbit to take her back but he says that he cannot. He will, however, tell her how she can get herself back. He gives her a Japanese history book and a “talisman” (looks like a stick-on tattoo) that she cannot lose lest she be lost in this alternative forever. In order to escape the time-slip and return to her correct era, she must make it that Oda Nobunaga doesn’t die at Honno-ji!!!

Pink Aomata is nothing if not audacious.

Tora is sold as a slave and, to her good fortune, it is to an anti-Nobunaga faction of the Saika Clan (yes, they have guns, cannons even), who plan to use Tora’s remarkable resemblance to Manmi Senchiyo, deceased page and former favorite of Nobunaga, to get close to Nobunaga to spy on him. She is given over to a married couple, Muni and Kisa, for training, but it soon becomes clear, even after her gender is exposed and she chooses to continue as male, that she will not be able to be placed as a page. She cannot read or write the language of the time, she cannot ride well and she cannot use a sword. There is no way she can pass as a member of the samurai class. Muni has managed to train Tora to be a decent shot with the arcquebus (primitive rifle) and to get Nobunaga to notice Tora he devises a strategy that plays on Nobunaga’s interest in the foreign and occult, something Nobunaga picked up from the Jesuits (the love and firepower guys). Muni makes Tora a fortune teller.

Pink Aomata approaches genius with this.

In Azuchi, Tora is a fantastic success as Miracle Tora, the fortune teller. Decked out in her school clothes and veiled, Tora provides fortunes that once told are put in a donation pouch. If the pouch is purchased, the fortune “will be as predicted”. And here’s where the close-to-genius genius comes in. The source of her fortunes is any number of those personality quizzes that are run in teen magazines, the Japanese versions of Tiger Beat. It cannot be stressed too much how funny this is. Of course, this scam does get the attention of the castle and a meeting with Nobunaga. More Tiger Beat quizzes and fifth grade history and science get Tora into the castle – as a page! She is placed in the care of Nobunaga’s current favorite, Mori Ranmaru, for training.

The sober and serious Ranmaru is none too pleased with this new charge, sensing that failure with this illiterate and vulgar young man could mean disaster for his family. He is even less pleased when Tora reveals her gender to get his help in avoiding meeting Nobunaga’s “needs”. She says this out of the desire to retain her virginity, but really she should be concerned with having her head on a pike if Nobunaga finds out she’s not male. Ranmaru helps her only because a problem for her is a problem for him. Not much of a romance yet, I’m afraid.

Tora manages to get out of the transitive-meaning-of-service-as-a-verb with respect to Nobunaga and it’s Nobunaga who manages to provide the reason (clever and unintentionally funny) for Tora’s reluctance. So, Tora still remains a page and an intact one at that. She now has the duty of protecting Nobunaga with her arcquebus skill and the job of training the other pages with the weapon. The volume closes with the arrival of man who shows those young ones the way around a gun – Akechi Mitsuhide, whose betrayal will force the deaths of Nobunaga and Ranmaru or should anyway. The major players are assembled. It’s now time for Tora to change history and get home!

There aren’t really any negatives here, just some silliness that I could have done without. I can’t quite figure out where the mangaka was going with all the menstrual references in the beginning of the book. When Tora is first taken as a captive, she is visited by the Mister Rabbit and, in the course of the conversation, wants to ask him to bring her back some things from a convenience store (underwear and sanitary items). She is too embarrassed to ask, but the rabbit reads minds, laughs and says he will. He doesn’t, at least not in this volume. But Tora is given piece of mind when Kisa, Muni’s wife, asks her if she has had her “moon cycle” (a bit more lyrical than “riding the cotton pony”, eh?) and offers to show Tora a way to hide it even when among men. Part of me wanted to know this, part of me didn’t, so I guess I’m not too disappointed that it wasn’t revealed. However, once this occurs, the subject is never brought up again. I guess Pink Aomata felt her teen readers could not involve themselves in this story if this impediment to successful male masquerade was not resolved.

Tenniel’s design for the White Rabbit in Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland is a global icon, familiar world-wide. The White Rabbit what came to mind when first coming upon Mister Rabbit and very much reinforced when the rabbit scares Tora into the castle. I think the reference is intentional on the mangaka’s part and the question is how far she wants to go with the allusion. She has given her heroine the task of changing history, one which cannot succeed or be allowed to succeed. Are we just to follow along only to find that for Tora, as for Alice, this has all been a dream? I will be very disappointed if this is just a nightmare as the result of some bad takoyaki for lunch. But I will reserve judgment for the times that the reader meets the rabbit are inciting and insightful. (Tora: “Are you telling me to change the course of history? Is it ok to do that?” MR: “Why not? You can’t go home otherwise.”). Why not?! This is one bad bun and I want to know who is under that rabbit head.

As a heroine, Tora is not helpless. The mangaka has given her a background that makes her survival plausible and for what Tora lacks in knowledge and sense, she makes up for in chutzpah and luck. Pink Aomata knows enough about the period to have fun with it and the anachronisms that she introduces are some of the funniest moments in the volume. The art is attractive and clean which serves the depiction with very handsome young men well. Although this is not action title, both page layout and pacing support the number and variety of events well. A lot goes on in this volume.

In Summary
This is a manga where the journey is more important that the destination. One knows how it has to end and has to wonder how the mangaka intends to resolve the issue into which she has plunged her heroine – that of changing the course of a very well-known piece of history. What rabbit will Pink Aomata pull out of the hat to resolve that? And on the subject of rabbits, who is under that rabbit head? What about Manmi Senchiyo, the beautiful page whom Tora resembles and everybody talks about? Talks about a lot. We have to wait. Tora is a worthy heroine and her predicament makes for an amusing and intriguing read.

Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade:B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+

Age Rating: Teen Plus
Released By: JManga/SHINSHOKAN Publishing Co., Ltd./Wings
Release Date: 2012/2009
MSRP: 599 points (Subscription)

What They Say:
Akira and his ragtag group of teenage friends enter a world of danger and action when they land on the shores of Higanjima, an uncharted island that’s overrun by vampires. After learning that his missing brother might be somewhere on the island, Akira leads his friends on a chilling adventure that takes them from Higanjima’s highest volcanic peaks to the subterranean chambers of the island’s ancient ruins. They’ll face entire villages of sword-wielding vampires while racing to stay a step ahead of winged she-beasts and giant gargoyles. Worst of all, the gang will encounter the deadly master of the island’s monsters: the pale, blood-sucking freakshow known as Miyabi. If the devilishly cruel Miyabi gets his way, none of the young heroes will live to see Akira’s brother – or the mainland – ever again.

The Review:
*Note-for the purpose of this review the Blu Ray Disc was used.

Audio:
The release comes with a pair of audio tracks, English and Japanese, and in keeping with the space the Blu Ray format allows both are present in Dolby TrueHD. For the purpose of this review the Japanese track was used and it is a fair one that conveys action and depth though at times it does have too great of a reach for my tastes as some of the quiet parts forced me to turn up my receiverers’ volume higher than I like which then caused the louder parts to be too loud for my tastes. Playing off this there are also points where the track doesn’t feel quite right in the mix, as one scene in particular really showcases where a simple slight turn in direction causes a much greater change in the volume level of the conversation then feels natural. Finally there is an odd glitch in the subtitles that I have never seen before where a white subtitle circle seems to form around a piece of grit that looks like it was caught on the camera lens and stays they for a few seconds until the angle changes and the grit vanishes.

Video:
Originally hitting Japanese theaters in the early weeks of 2010, Higanjima: Escape From Vampire Island is presented here in 1080p High Definition 16×9 HD Native and is encoded with AVC. Oddly the feature seems to have a good number of minuses that may make on question if the Native HD part is a bit of a stretch or if something went horribly wrong somewhere in the transfer from film stock to disc- or possibly just something was wrong with the chosen film stock. Present on the release are the film pops that have been with the movie industry since the earliest reel of film was created but that is kind of expected at this point. What also could count as expected is the presence of grain, but the version here has a number of issues as it sometimes varies in terms of how heavy the grain appears from scene to scene. Add to this a fine level of noise, minor ghosting, some whiteness at times on the edge of the screen, and some rather obnoxious instances of blocking and one might wonder if the Blu Ray is necessarily the way to watch this film.

And then there are the elements of the film that may come from the creation itself as the film includes the use of some very obvious digitally created blood, the type of shaky cam filming to throw viewers off that has become practically a horror movie staple in the post Blair Witch era and a weird shot of the moon that has some heavy white lines over it that make one wonder just how the shot came out that seemingly botched. Beyond that though some of the other effects work out well enough and the locals give an appropriate sense of desolation, foreboding and isolation to help underscore the theme of the feature so the visuals aren’t a total loss.

Packaging:
The release comes packaged in an eco DVD sized case that includes a middle flipper page to hold one disc while the other is held on the back side of the case. The front cover features images of Miyabi as the top half has a snarling image of him with an image of the island along with one of the creature effects with the movie title present below that and just above an image of a gore drenched and naked Miyabi who is surrounded by some villagers. The spine meanwhile uses a small grab of the image from the bottom of the front cover and places it against a black background with blood splatter effect. The back meanwhile shows Atsushi in his cameo garb with sword pointed toward the viewer on the right as the left side holds the copy. Below the copy are four stills that highlight some of the action and horror found within as the technical information and credits and copyright info is present on the bottom.

The discs themselves look almost the same as they both use the same shot of the island complete with lightning effect for the majority of the top of the image space with the logo written below the disc hub and over the water surrounding the island. A bit annoyingly the two discs look almost the same with the Blu Ray discs image being a slightly deeper and richer in color as opposed to the DVDs closer to bland colored image, though the only real way to know which is which on first glance is to look at the fine print around the disc edge.

Menu:
The menu for the release uses scenes from the movie that play over some sort of a distorted background that makes the images a bit hard to make out. Adding to that difficultly is that the menu is in the bottom left corner in the midst of a blood splatter graphic, the smears of which then spread across the screen with the additional presence of the title in rather large font in the upper right corner. The options themselves are stacked horizontally in the left corner and when one is selected they appear from that corner with an additional blood splatter effect behind them. It is an annoying enough graphic but the menu itself is clear as to what is highlighted as the item is shown in red and with a diagonal cut through it with the two halves now being slightly askew. The menu is quick to respond to changes in selection and to load the desired selection so it easily passes the functionality test, though aesthetically it leaves more than a little to be desired.

Extras:
The extras for the disc may seem a bit small in number as it is just a Making of Documentary and Original Trailer but the documentary is 45 minute long and hosted by the actor who plays Atsushi and as such the quality trumps quantity of some other releases.

Akira is a normal high school student just trying to deal with the pressures of his life when the audience is introduced to him. He has found that he has angered a girl In the school through an accident and that her brother- and his gang of friends- have decided to collect their pound of flesh for it. It is during the chase that then ensues that he is rescued by the beautiful Rei Aoyama who takes him to a love hotel and rocks his world- though not in the way that usually happens at such an establishment or that his friends suspect when he tries to relate the story later.

Rei shared with Akira the ID card for his missing brother Atsushi and as he tries to fill his friends in on the details of his encounter he faces a good deal of skepticism as well as heckling from his friends but when he and his friends investigate further they discover the impossible- Rei is connected to vampires, one of whom she fights and seemingly kills in front of them. Even having seen the impossible and having an idea of the dangers that exist, Akira feels the need to follow her to the mysterious island that she claims to be from and he discovers that his friends aren’t going to let him go it alone.

The group find themselves landing on a mysterious island that isn’t on any of the official maps of Japan and which has some odd properties that throw off compasses and on top of all that none of their electronic gear can get a signal either. Upon arriving their guide vanishes when the group is set upon by a village full of vampires, but these aren’t mindless undead as they have plans for these non vampires- cruel plans which will force the group to pick the vampires next target out of their midst themselves.

Their later escape attempt is turned inward as the group now faces deep divisions of trust inside their ranks and the even discovery of the person they came to find may not be able to bring solace as he has a story of woe that binds him to the island and the vampire’s master, Miyabi which prevent him from leaving the island. As events start to spin further into darkness for the group and their morale is shaken to the core it will become apparent that each have to face the darkest parts of themselves and have to decide if they will escape the island like frightened prey or if they will rise up to more than they think possible and strive to rise and become the equal of the ultimate predator on the island.

The feature is a rather innovative idea in a number of ways as it takes some unusual twists in not just the vampire’s themselves but also in delving into the psyche of this group who is suddenly face to face with what once was merely something they regarded as legends. In this way the film really clicks as many other vampire pictures don’t deal as much with some of the kind of moral decisions this group is forced to make in terms of who they are going to sacrifice or the complete feeling of abandonment that comes from knowing when push comes to shove the people you thought of as your best friends would sacrifice you in an instant for their own safety, no matter how temporary.

Adding a physical presence to the psychological subtext is the atmosphere created by the location that the filmmakers found for the picture as they actually went to a very secluded island with an old Japanese military stronghold built that has not been up kept over the years which helps really sell the desolation the feature strives to build. In addition to the locale, another strength is found in the strong character performances of the cast including the actor playing the lead vampire Miyabi. In many ways the feature walks a thin line as vampire features can go either into scary territory or almost camp and it is his performance of a well dressed, turn of the century nobleman in dress but whose eyes promise violence and madness that helps solidify the challenge the protagonists will face.

If the feature has a flaw it comes in relation to some of the characters who don’t have a lot of screen time to develop and who seem to be used almost as window dressing in the same way the former Japanese military instillation is. This is probably not unexpected though as the two hour feature is adapted from a manga series that ran for 33 volumes (according to the info I could find anyway) and as such the film just doesn’t have the space to develop all of the character traits and sub stories that the feature hints are present among the characters. This limitation isn’t helped at all by a later appearance of a group of resistance fighters who signal a major change in the focus and tone of the film as Akira attempts to go on the offensive but most of the other characters are then lost from the active storyline. Still, what is present makes for an above average feature in which a group of youth find themselves put to the ultimate test and from which they will have to decide who and what they wish to be as opposed to just giving in to their innate natures.

In Summary:
In Higanjima: Escape From Vampire Island the vampires don’t sparkle, they prey upon human psyches as well as their flesh. The feature is a dark one set in a remote and desolate area that combines both examples of love and sacrifice as well as cowardice and treachery born from fear. The feature presents a somewhat unusual mix as friends find themselves turning on each other and yet still needing each other in the hopes they can survive and one among them will need to rise beyond what he ever dreamed he could be if there is any chance of any of them leaving the island alive.

Features:
Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 Language, English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Language, English Subtitles, Making Of Featurette

Content Grade: B-
Audio Grade: B-
Video Grade: B-
Packaging Grade: B-
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: B+

Released By: FUNimation
Release Date: October 4th, 2011
MSRP: $29.98
Running Time: 122 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen

Review Equipment:
Samsung 50″ Plasma HDTV, Denon AVR-790 Receiver with 5.1 Sony Surround Sound Speakers, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080.

Plot Concept: Furuya’s not interested in the living, he’s got zombies on the brain! When Furuya’s cat dies, he decides he’s going to try and bring it back to life. In the process, he stumbles across a girl whose failed attempted suicide has turned her into a real zombie! What’s Furuya going to do now that the thing he loves the most is right in front of his eyes? Watch what happens in this campy romantic comedy about the undead.

TNT Scripted Series in Development

King and Maxwell – Bestselling author David Baldacci’s popular characters Sean King and Michelle Maxwell aren’t your typical pair of private investigators. Both are former secret service agents, and their unique skill set (not to mention their razor-sharp chemistry) often gives them a leg up on both suspects and conventional law enforcement. Baldacci serves as a consultant on the project. Executive Producer: Shane Brennan. Producer: Karen Spiegel and Grant Anderson. Studio: CBS Television Studios.

The Last Ship – In this exciting action/adventure project based on the popular novel by William Brinkley, the crew of a naval destroyer is forced to confront the reality of a new existence when a pandemic decimates most of the earth’s population. Michael Bay (Transformers) intends to direct the pilot if it is green lit. Executive Producers: Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, Hank Steinberg (showrunner and writer) and Steve Kane (writer). Production Company: Platinum Dunes.

Legends – This suspenseful, action-packed drama is being developed by Howard Gordon, Jeffrey Nachmanoff and Mark Bomback from the novel Legends by Robert Littell. The story follows a deep-cover operative named Martin Odum, who has an uncanny ability to transform himself into a different person for each job. But his own identity comes into question when a mysterious stranger suggests that Martin isn’t who he thinks he is. Executive Producers: Howard Gordon, Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Alexander Cary and Jonathan Levin. Studio: Fox Television Studios.

Lew Archer – Based on the title character from Ross McDonald’s popular novels, this project from The Closer creator James Duff and Close to Home creator Jim Leonard follows the sleuth many consider to be “the original P.I.” Executive Producers: James Duff, Jim Leonard (writer) and Steve N. White. Studio: Warner Horizon Television.

Tom Clancy’s Homeland Security – This event-based procedural written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach and set in Tom Clancy’s world of espionage pits a select team of domestic intelligence operatives against enemies within and without, from narco-traffickers and nuclear terrorists to cyber-criminals and human smugglers. Executive Producers: Tom Clancy, Michael Ovitz, Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Chris George.

Untitled Steven Bochco Murder Mystery project – This suspenseful and intriguing crime drama will intimately dissect a single murder case over an entire season, from the commitment of the crime through the investigation, arrest and trial. Executive Producer: Steven Bochco (writer). Co-Executive Producer: Eric Lodal (writer).

Untitled Ron Shelton family drama – A disgraced football coach loses his high-profile job in Los Angeles and winds up moving his three kids and 70-year-old father to Louisiana. But this might just be the fresh start they need in this insightful drama from the writer/director of Bull Durham. Executive Producers: Ron Shelton (writer), Michele Weisler and Andrea Buchanan.

What They Say:
The Pictonians have arrived from deep in space. They also have dangly glow-balls on their heads, which is kinda cool, but still. The freaky aliens are using use their crazy rainbow-beam-thingy to paint everything on Earth the same color: white! See, now the title of the movie makes more sense, right? Anyway, if the Pictorians are to be stopped, the Allied guys and the Axis boys – plus some new characters, too – must set aside their differences, unite against their common foe, and hopefully get together for a sweaty workout to make sure they’re super-ready to save the world..!

The Review:
Audio:
Audio comes in Japanese stereo and English 5.1 surround versions – I listened to the Japanese track for this review. It’s a fairly standard, serviceable stereo mix, with decent placement on dialogue and effects, but equally there’s nothing about it that really merits getting too excited about. Gets the job down, with no obvious encoding problems.

Video:
Video is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect. While this is a theatrical release, you’d have a hard time telling it, as it looks pretty much identical to the TV series – not particularly rich on color or detail – but then Hetalia has a fairly distinctive look, and not messing with it makes sense. There were no apparent encoding problems.

Packaging:
No packaging was provided with our review copy.

Menu:
The main menu is a simple static screen, with the hordes of Pictonians providing a backdrop to the movie logo and options for Play, Scenes, Setup and Extras. A suitably military-sounding theme plays in the background. There are no transition animations, so it’s all quick and easy to use.

Extras:
There’s a good load of extras here. First up is the redundantly-named “The Hidden History Hidden Within Hetalia”, a set of text liner notes that explain the real-world history behind many of the scenes in the movie. You would need to be a true history enthusiast to spot most of these, so it’s well worth reading. Next up is “The CAPSLOCK Commentary”, a full commentary track for the movie with the English dub production staff. There are also version of the theatrical closing sequence (with and without Japanese credits), “Opening Day Stage Greetings” (a 12-minute video of the movie’s cast meeting fans at the Japanese premiere, FUNimation’s English-language trailer, and finally a set of dub outtake scenes.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The world is becoming over-run with faceless beings, beings with bright green lights dangling from their heads. They’re the evil Pictonians, here from another world to take over ours. Such an invasion places Allies and Axis in an unusual position – being forced to work together to defeat the alien menace. Which you just know isn’t going to work too well – sure enough, when Hero America tries to take charge, the other nations stand up and walk out, determined the save the world their own way. But sooner or later, they’re going to have to swallow their pride…

Paint It, White! is a strange beast. It’s a theatrical version of Hetalia – and if you’re thinking that converting a series of web shorts to a movie is a tricky thing, you’d probably be right. So the producers of this one haven’t really tried, with the “movie” instead being presented as a running montage of typically-Hetalia shorts – every few minutes the Hetalia logo will pop up on screen, and the movie moves on to the next segment. It’s a bit like watching one of the series DVDs in one sitting – which didn’t work so well for me.

This way of presenting things means that, while there’s ostensibly a running story for the movie to deal with, it doesn’t stick to just that – there are as many little segments that play to the usual Hetalia have-fun-with-national-stereotypes, and have little or nothing to do with the Pictonians storyline, as there are segments that do, so it all feels very disjointed as you work through it. There are a number of new nations introduced to the mix along the way as well, giving you additional things to “get” along with the main story & what the main characters are doing there. It’s too much to jam together, and doesn’t really work.

The Pictonians don’t really work for me, either. Coming from a monochrome world and determined that the rest of the universe will see things their way, they’re quite literally painting the world white (hence the title), and turning humans into what for all the world look like walking sperm with little green lights on their heads. With the boys having to infiltrate the Pictonian flagship to release the humans captured there, they naturally dress up in similar outfits – by which point I was openly wondering what the hell I was watching, and what the movie was trying to do. In the end, it runs into more poking of fun at national stereotypes, as the boys try to convince the alien invaders that the Earth, with its myriad of difference experiences and peoples, is far more interesting than any monochrome world. A noble message, to be sure, but it would’ve been nice to have had some fun while getting to it. In case you hadn’t guessed, I didn’t.

In Summary:
Now, I’ll admit that even with the original series, I never “got” Hetalia – I can’t deny that it seems to tickle the funny bone of plenty of people, judging by its online fanbase, but it has never tickled mine. In that respect, then, Paint It, White! entirely lived up to (or down to) my expectations of it, failing to get even a giggle out of me at any point and thereby failing the 5-laugh comedy test. If previous outings did tickle your funnybone, then fire away – this is more of the same style of humour, and should work for you. But overall, I can’t find it in me to recommend this.

Features:
Japanese Langauge 2.0, English Language 5.1, English Subtitles, The Hidden History Hidden Within Hetalia, Hetalia: The CAPSLOCK Commentary, Original Theatrical Ending, Textless Theatrical Ending, Opening Day Stage Greetings, “Paint It, White!” Trailer, Outtakes.

Content Grade: C+
Audio Grade: B
Video Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: N/A
Menu Grade: B+
Extras Grade: A

Released By: Manga Entertainment UK
Release Date: 18 June 2012
Running Time: 78 minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen

Review Equipment:
Toshiba 37X3030DB 37” widescreen HDTV; Sony PS3 Blu-ray player (via HDMI, upscaled to 1080p); Acoustic Solutions DS-22 5.1 speaker system.

What They Say
A ruthless arms dealer on a quixotic quest for world peace. A child soldier born into chaotic conflict. Their lives will intertwine as they journey together through the seedy underbelly of the world’s arms market.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
We skip ahead an unspecified length of time, and join Koko, Jonah, and their crew on a freighter off the coasts of Africa. Jonah watches some of Koko’s mercenaries play with a new gun, and laments how Koko has bewitched him. Koko’s running around deck taking care of business in a sun hat and sunglasses when she receives a call. It’s some kind of minor emergency, and Jonah is to be taken immediately to a private room for language lessons.

His instructor this time is Wilee, another amiable cutthroat who sympathizes with Jonah’s hatred of math. Language is better, he says, because there’s more than one right answer. Jonah brings up Koko’s colorful use of language and her saying that “weapons dealers are allowed to speak in contradictions.” Wilee picks up on the joke, as in Chinese characters, the word for contradiction is made from a combination of the symbols for pike and shield. It comes from a Chinese myth, Wilee explains, about an ancient weapons dealer who sold both a pike he claimed could pierce any armor, and a shield he claimed could deflect any attack. But then what happens if you use the pike against the shield? The strange moral standards of weapons dealers appears to have a long history.

Jonah is not amused by the tale and asks for permission to go to the bathroom. Wilee escorts him to the toilet just in time to see why Koko ordered Jonah secluded: Koko’s brother, Kasper Hekmatyar was on a nearby ship, and asked Koko for permission to board. Kasper warns Koko about the CIA agent Scarecrow, whose attention she attracted, and he also warns her about an overseas Chinese dealer from the Da Xinghai company. She remarks that these must be grave warnings indeed to come from her brother.

Kasper, too, requests to use the restroom, and Jonah and Kasper meet up under awkward circumstances. As soon as Jonah realizes who Kasper is, he attempts to kill Kasper, until he is captured and disarmed by Kasper’s lady bodyguard, Chequita. We learn that the two have a history. Jonah was taking care of some orphans at a military base in his home country when a weapons dealer affiliated with Kasper arrived. This dealer, Yasuf Gadud had an important package to pick up, and one of Jonah’s war orphan friends was decided to be the one to walk through a minefield in order to clear a path. Enraged by his young friend’s death, Jonah goes berserk, and somewhat-too-easily manages to neutralize the entire military base, and kills Gadud.

Kasper soon arrives at the military base, and is somewhat amused by what he sees. Both Koko and Kasper seem to share the same kind of smiling sociopathy, which Kasper chalks up to being born and raised on a container ship at sea, without any hometown or feelings of patriotism. Kasper enjoys talking down to Jonah, and explains that what Jonah did was stupid, because he was merely using the allure of weapons to get the military of his country to work on economic development. Since Jonah is unable to see the glorious bigger picture, he throws him in a container with only water, and returns to him in three days. Jonah has grown weak and desperate with fear, and when Kasper realizes he has broken the boy, he confesses that he was the one who sold the weapons that killed Jonah’s parents. He considers himself a fair man, though, and offers to see the other orphans safely adopted in Japan if Jonah will agree to work as a bodyguard for his sister. Jonah really has no choice but to agree.

With this episode, the writing improves a great deal. While Jormungand still appears to be introducing characters at twice the rate those characters are developed, there’s a great implied here by the relationships. Koko and Kasper seem to share a similar philosophy of using weapons dealing as a path to prosperity, although Kasper seems to lack even the basic empathy that Koko has. It’s clear that Koko pulled some strings with his brother to help save Jonah, in whom she has a personal interest. There are a lot of great character touches as well, especially in how Valmet silently greets Chequita, and how the mercenaries share Koko’s interest in improving Jonah’s lot in life.

That said, with the key plot elements involving sacrificing war orphans, the dark humor that made the first two episodes so much fun is almost entirely missing. Things don’t look to get any brighter anytime soon, as the end of this episode strongly hints that Valmet’s backstory, the story of how she was betrayed and lost an eye, will be coming up next. I’m definitely disappointed in having the humor replaced by straight, gritty drama, but there’s always hope it will return once the characters are more established.

In Summary
While the action sequences are still ridiculously unbelievable, the character motivations remain truthful, keeping me interested in where Jormungand will go with Koko and her crew. The show has introduced a great deal of characters, and it’s good to see we’re finally going to get more development on that front. Jonah is further established here as the conscience of the show, aware of the right thing to do, but seemingly unable to change anything without the use of violence. As lords of violence, Jonah realizes Koko and Kasper are extremely powerful people to know and to use. We’ll have to see if Jonah can resist being bewitched by Koko, however, as the other mercenaries seem completely under her spell.

Grade: B

Streamed By: Funimation.com

Review Equipment: Sony VAIO 17″ HD screen

At the presentation, Lee said that he’d like  ”see some Marvel projects come to television.”

“Hulk is in development,” he confirmed. “It wasn’t going to be ready this season but we hope it’s going to be ready for next season.”

The property is a natural as Disney is looking to extend its Avengers brand into a year long property across multiple venues and owns ABC. Oscar nominee Guillermo del Toro is associated with developing the project and has been for the past year. Discussion about how it would be a natural fit came up with Lee talking about how they do want to bring in some superhero properties, things which have typically not fared well on TV due to the often poor adaptations that eject most of what people like about the comics.

“We’re immensely proud to be a company with The Avengers,” he said. “We’re going to continue to develop aggressively.”

Story details for the planned series have been minimal to non-existent, but what has been heard but not full confirmed is that the series would focus on a twenty-something Bruce Banner early on after becoming the Hulk as he tries to avoid getting caught. With the growing acceptance of the Marvel Universe as a whole in the film world, it’s expected that this will tie into it (being all owned by the same conglomerate) and they’d be able to use certain elements, such as SHIELD, to provide context.

What They Say:
She’s as frisky as she is curvy – and kitty wants to play! The flirty fun begins when nice guy Kio has a close encounter with a sexy, alien cat-girl named Eris. She’s every nerd’s fantasy come true, and she and her fellow intergalactic felines are setting up base in Kio’s house. Unfortunately, Kio doesn’t have a lot of time for heavy petting. Secret agencies and enemy dog-aliens are sniffing around, hoping to get their paws on his pussycat pal’s tail! The guy’s definitely got his hands full – but with Eris jumping in his lap to purr in his ear, it’s likely Kio will land on his feet!

The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this series is rather straightforward as we get the original Japanese in stereo while the English is in 5.1, both of which use the Dolby TrueHD lossless codec. It’s not a huge or really outgoing mix, it could even be a bit weak when you get down to it as a lot of it doesn’t have a lot of presence to it in either language, but it’s serviceable and conveys the characters well. The majority of it is center channel based outside of the music with dialogue not getting much in the way of placement outside of a few areas. There are a few scenes with some depth but it’s not a show that really commands much for it since it is largely a slice of life kind of comedy. Dialogue is clean and clear throughout and we had no problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.

Video:
Originally airing in 2010, the transfer for this TV series is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in 1080p using the AVC codec. It’s spread across two discs in an 9/12 format where the second disc has the OVA as well. The series has a very clean look to it where it uses bold and vibrant colors for the characters and the alien side of things while going for a decent if not overly detailed real world kind of background. Colors are what stand out the most here since it has a bright and bouncy feel that mirrors the fanservice and it changes things up often, especially with the diversity of the cast that does show up throughout it. The transfer captures the detail that’s here, which isn’t huge in some ways, but the look of the show definitely looks good and it’s pretty easy on the eyes. Line noise is minimal to only a couple of mild panning sequences while cross coloration is pretty much non-existent.

Packaging:
The first pressing of this release has a limited edition box set in which we get a heavy chipboard box that holds two Blu-ray cases inside, each of which has the DVD and Blu-ray discs. The box looks really good where it practically feels like a seaside show from the colors that frames it on all sides. The front cover features Eris in her usual uniform where she’s laughing, bright and cute, making for an inviting design. The back cover brings in a couple of the other girls where we get some fanservice both for cute girls and weapons that will catch an eye and cause you to look at it twice. The overall look marks it as a bright, fun and outgoing title with what’s presented here. Inside the case, the show is one that really benefits from the blue cases as it adds to the whole sun and surf angle. The first volume has a big busty image of Eris in a swimsuit while the second goes for the lead trio in their various swimsuits. The back covers share a similar layout to the box itself but each features more of the supporting cast from Catia in their uniforms. Each volume has artwork on the reverse side for one panel that features more of the cast in sexy situations while the other breaks down the episode by format. No show related inserts are included with the release.

Menu:
The menu design for this release is fairly simple and straightforward but it works well for it as it uses the bright, oversized and cute logo dead center with lots of swirling colors in the background along with some slow moving clouds while a bit of upbeat instrumental music plays along. It doesn’t leap out at you, but they don’t throw the characters fanservice in your face either which I consider to be an important point. The layout is easy to use with the navigation along the bottom, though the font is a touch hard to read sometimes with its stylized design, but it also doubles as the pop-up menu and works effectively and fits in them decently. Submenus load quickly and we had no problems moving around or with language selection.

Extras:
The extras for this release are pretty nicely done where there’s the clean opening and all the closing songs as well. Also included are the mult-part bonus features which are the short form gags that are done as the sort of next episode previews that were done at the end of each week. They’re very brief and really made me wish for a play all feature on it rather than going one by one. The last one is an extended collection version with a bit of a different commentary called the “Ichika Special!!!” which is pretty cute.

The story focuses on Kio, a young man living in Okinawa who has something very unexpected fall into his lap when a young woman named Eris arrives. It turns out that Eris is actually an alien from the planet Catia and they’ve come to Earth in the hopes of establishing relations. The opening piece is kind of amusing in that a group of people want to abduct and eliminate her because they can’t imagine humanity’s first contact would be with catgirls. What throws the whole thing kind of wonky with Eris and Kio together is the arrival of Manami, a young woman in training to join the CIA, and Aoi, a mercenary of similar age to Kio as well who find themselves drawn to him, but initially it’s all about the alien thing.

The start of the series has something of an uneven flow, but what events come down to is that Eris is there to find out if they can establish relations and she soon sends off her report. That causes the main ship up in orbit to get quite excited about the whole thing and appears over the sky in Japan. The forcing of the opening of relations happens rather quickly and in comical fashion as the girls on the ship, all girls of course, follow Eris’ advice and dress according to the magazines they find under Kio’s bed. Which means school style swimsuits. That actually helps them since it throws off the politicians and the agree that Kio’s house can now become the Catia embassy for the moment. This also helps Manami and Aoi since they can use it for diplomatic immunity because of their actions in rescuing Aoi. Not that she really needed to be rescued.

What the show becomes from this point is a straightforward comedy but one with certain things missing to really make it work very well. For Kio, he ends up with a trio of girls living in his place which is now an embassy, and he has to help Eris acclimate. She has some help in that there are Assitaroids, little droids that do all sorts of chores and the like, but they’re voiceless and tend to actually be helpful while holding up signs with their dialogue. They avoid being a huge distraction and end up being cute simply because they try to localize themselves over the course of it with costumes. Thankfully, Eris avoids the trap of enrolling in school and spending all her time there dealing with rival schoolgirls and so forth. Instead, she goes through the fun of learning about Earth with Kio.

There’s a lot to like with how it plays out because it does avoid some of the usual bigger problems we get here. There’s the obvious romantic triangle issue with Eris, Manami and Aoi as they all have feelings for him in different ways. What I liked was that it took time for it to reveal itself and the girls don’t truly compete for Kio’s attentions with silly games. Aoi has strong feelings for him that she develops but can’t figure out how to follow through on because of what her life has been like. For Manami, she takes even longer to realize she has feelings for him and she does her best in a way to sabotage herself with it by encouraging Aoi in her feelings. Even more interesting is that for Eris, she’s not exactly going out of her way to seduce and cling onto Kio, but she does find herself in her first mating season and decides that she wants to share that with Kio. Which her captain finds to be a good thing since most Catians experience their first mating through machine help apparently.

They do have a subplot that snakes in throughout it that becomes the main focus at the end of the series where a rival race, the Dogisians, manipulates things and creates a situation that threatens all of the Catians on Earth as well as a sizable chunk of the Earth as well. Normally I dislike it when straight comedy shows introduce a series storyline towards the end, but it works well here because it’s not a straight out comedy so it manages to work. There’s a serious air to a lot of it that lets this segment work right. What’s really amusing about it is that while there’s a humanoid helping to move things along with this storyline for the Dogisians, there’s also an actual dog-like creature named Muttley who is a spot on perfect homage to the character of the same name from the 60′s Wacky Races series. It was disconcerting at first to see and hear him, but once you get into it, it works perfectly.

What makes the series kind of hard to get into at times is the fact that they have made the women so enormously breasted when it comes to the Catians. Eris is the primary offender simply because she’s there all the time and her chest is just too hard to not stare at, especially with her skin tight outfit. Other Catians are the same way, though there are some exceptions, and with similarly tight uniforms it can be rather distracting from the scene. I did appreciate that the human characters didn’t go this route and that they actually find it to be a problem themselves as they realize their feelings for Kio and understand that it may be a problem in their attempts to sway his views towards them.

The series also includes an OVA in this release, something that we didn’t get during the simulcast run for obvious reasons, and it’s a good bit of fun here at the end that involves everyone simply playing a variety of games. Some of it is really cute such as strip mahjong that some of the Catians play in order to learn Earthling behavior while others are more traditional. As an epilogue, it does fall into the realm of one that plays it more for fanservice than story, but it’s not a constant throwing it in your face kind of fanservice for the most part. It does have its otugoing moments though since it can do a bit more nudity being a direct to video release, but not so much that it feels like a whole other show. It is a fun way to quietly close things out with a smile and a grin.

In Summary:
When I first watched the series, I had fairly low expectations just based on the name. The FUNimation naming is one that a lot of people rail against but I have to say that it works and I have no issue with it. After seeing it awhile ago and now for the first time on video, I definitely had fun with the show, especially since I watched it with a group that had never seen it before and got caught up in their fun with it. What I found the first time with this series and still with the second viewing here is that it has an awkward start but turns into a fairly fun show along the way if you overlook a lot of things. Seeing the Catian’s going about town and not being accosted by people interested in them, worldwide reaction to aliens among us and so forth are gaping plot holes that really needed to be addressed in at least some token way.

Outside of that, it turned out to be good harmless fun that knows what it wants to do and does it with a grin and a sense of enjoyment. I love the Assistaroids and the Catian’s in general as well as the fun of how Kio’s house becomes an embassy. What’s best to do with this show is to really check the details at the door since so many things don’t click well if you really think about it. If you can do that, you can enjoy something simple and disposable that may make you smile, laugh and wonder what will happen next. It’s almost worth it just for the Muttley material alone.

Features:
Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 Language, English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Language, English Subtitles, Special Episode Previews 1-12, “The End,” “Ichika Special!!!!,” Episode 1 Commentary, Episode 9 Commentary, Textkess Opening Song, Textless Closing Songs

Content Grade: B+
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A-
Menu Grade: B-
Extras Grade: B

Released By: FUNimation
Release Date: May 15th, 2012
MSRP: $69.98
Running Time: 325 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.