What They Say:
Life and Death at the roll of a die. By bringing her voice to West Doroa, East Doroan singer Queen Malta hoped that she could heal the rift between the two countries. Already a country known for its incredibly low crime rate, East Doroa increases security in preparation for war – but security is nothing for the likes of super-genius thief Lupin The Third! Still when he and partner Jigen Daisuke swipe the Little Comet gemstone from an embassy in East Doroa, it’s a little convenient that the police know their every move. And worse, before they can even make their getaway, the pair find themselves under the crosshairs of a certain hitman – the same one that killed Queen Malta!

Something’s fishy and in order to confirm his suspicions, Jigen visits the cemetery. There he finds himself staring at his own gravestone. It’s a calling card of the sniper, Yael Okuzaki… and no one targeted by him has ever escaped the grave! But why is he only after Jigen and not Lupin? And things only get more complicated with Fujiko around.

The Review:
Audio:
The options allow for English 5.1 and Japanese 2.0. Both sounded fine and had no distortions during playback. The English dub does present an interesting mystery though which we’ll discuss more in the ‘content’ section.

Video:
This is a Blu-ray release of a 2-part OAV from 2015 and the results are quite nice and clear. Overall colors are bright but there’s a smoky overcast to the general pic at times to give it a crime noir feel. More will be discussed in the ‘content’ section.

Packaging:
There’s a slipcase with the principal characters and their ghostly main villain over a graveyard with a bright red background. The inner cover of the actual Blu-ray case has a reversible cover sheet. The outside front has Lupin and Jigen in color over a grayish background with the title masthead at the bottom in yellow text (as opposed to white on the slipcase). The back has Jigen in the top third with his gun drawn. There is text from the ‘what they said’ section in the middle thirds alongside some screenshots, with technical information taking up the lower thirds, all on top of the black and gray background. The inner side of the cover sheet is a reproduction of the outside slipcase.

Menu: The menu has various scenes from the video, some of which included intermixed computer graphics and shapes from the closing sequence, similar to the opening of a James Bond movie. This takes up the top two-thirds of the picture. The bottom has playback options listed horizontally which can be navigated easily. Music from the ending credits plays continuously in the background.

Extras:
There’s a recap of the first volume present here, as well as two Japanese trailers and a direct link to the English credits. It’s kind of interesting that the trailer treats this as a theatrical film instead of a 2-part OAV.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
For a couple decades now, the animated stories of the Lupin Gang have been somewhat lighter fare, with master thief Arsene Lupin III leading his friends, former mafia gunman Jigen Daisuke and Goemon the Samurai on crazy adventures to either steal something profitable or right some wrong in a generally PG-oriented story with lovely rival thief Fujiko Mine messing with Lupin’s head and relentless Inspector Zeningata giving chase in in Coyote / Road Runner fashion.

In this particular two-part video, however, the fun aspect is more or less out the window in favor or some deadly serious stuff. Lupin and Jigen do go after jewel in the country of … but soon after that, they have to deal with Yael Okuzaki, a deadly hitman with two interesting tendencies: his creation of a tombstone for his intended targets and his using a six-sided die to decide how many shots he will need for a given sanction. Meanwhile, Fujiko infiltrates the same castle to grab something but is promptly caught by some weird men in menacing masks, and place her in a … sexually awkward gladiator contest against a robot with several *ahem* strategically placed drills. Lupin works hard to save both of his friends (while Goemon is absent for this outing) but can he actually pull things off and find out who authorized this contract, especially since Okuzaki has excellent reflexes and incredible firepower at his disposal?

The overall themes of comedy mixed with drama, action, and sexual perversion are all traits of the Lupin stories created by Monkey Punch. All these elements are very present here along with sometimes smokey atmosphere and strategic jazz music. Like I sad earlier, the majority of movies and TV specials veer away from the more adult aspects in lieu of fun times. Things return to their roots for this special, though, much like Daniel Craig’s James Bond films going back to basics for their reboot.

A relatively recent TV series entitled Lupin The Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine embraced the Monkey Punch style (while giving folks an interesting rendition of Fujiko herself). That show’s animation director and character designer Takeshi Koike brought similar production values to Jigen’s Gravestone as overall director, and it works quite well. There are a lot of exaggerated movements and in-your-face visuals throughout when the action sequences kick in, similar to the anime movie Redline, which Koike also worked on. Scriptwriter Yuuya Takahashi provides a good balance of Monkey Punch’s style here and truly provides a couple shockers in the video’s final couple scenes.

The American release is provided by Discotek Media, who are going for their first original dub production, working directly with TMS Entertainment and Bang Zoom Entertainment. This aspect is a bit odd, however. In going through the extensive English credits, I can read about much of the Japanese production staff as well as the English team; so I can see Keith Silverstein and Christina Vee provided good chemistry as Lupin III and Fujiko Mine respectively, and Jamieson K Price is sufficiently snide and menacing as Okuzaki, but nowhere on here is this particular vid’s title character. After a quick search on IMDB, I saw that Dan Woren, the lead voice in the Space Adventure Cobra movie dub, competently provided Jigen’s gruff yet laid back English voice here, but it was strange to not see him mentioned on the credits or anywhere at all on this release. In any case, all the actors here did a pretty good job with their material.

In Summary:
This particular Lupin vid was a great experience to take in as a long-time fan of the franchise, better than many of the recent previous works .It’s tight, lean, and action packed. I’m honestly hoping for some excellent follow-up in future installments because the final moments portend some great things to come. Definitely grab Jigen’s Gravestone if you get the chance.

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

Released By: .Discotek Media / Eastern Star
Release Date: April 5th, 2016
MSRP: $19.95
Running Time: 50 minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen

Review Equipment:
Panasonic 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation 3

Hey, folks. So yeah, we’re deep into what would be the Golden age of comic based films. Eight years back, Marvel, Disney (and Paramount for a time) partnered up to create their cinematic universe and many good films have fleshed out this world through various Phases. One film that resonated with the filmgoers was Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which saw co-directors Anthony and Joe Russo follow-up Captain America: The First Avenger as well as The Avengers by placing the Star-Spangled Hero in an action-filled political suspense thriller. Many threads were left dangling by that movie’s end, and only touched on to a small degree in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

We come now to the newest Captain America movie, Civil War, in which The Russo Brothers have Cap (Chris Evans) leading the Avengers into Nigeria after a group of mercenaries led by newly costumed villain Crossbones (Frank Grillo), a former SHIELD / Hydra agent last seen fighting The Falcon (Anthony Mackie) at the end of the Winter Soldier movie. Cap’s current roster includes The Falcon, The Vision (Paul Bettany), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), War Machine (Don Cheadle) and the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). However, the mission doesn’t go as smoothly as planned.

This leads to a meeting with Secretary of State Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt, last seen in “The Incredible Hulk”), who brings with him Avengers co-founder Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) to announce that over 170 nations are looking to ratify a resolution called The Sokovia Accords, for which the team will have to accept U.S. government oversight & mission directives, and only go into countries with permission. Recent incidents in New York, Washington DC, Sokovia, and other places have a guilt-ridden Tony agreeing with this course, feeling that his role as Iron Man hasn’t been enough to save everyone. The others mull it over, with Steve Rogers feeling that as world citizen Captain America, he should have more of a choice in when to intervene in matters.

I’m going to stop priming the plot right here because typing any more really would be spoiler-ish and kill the suspense of what takes place. A lot of craziness ensues after the scenes I just typed here and the amazing story that unfolds really should be experienced instead of read. Many things that were touched upon in the previous Cap and Avengers films are woven excellently into this screenplay. If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ll likely already know that we get to see the Marvel cinematic universe debuts for Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and The Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) as well as prominent appearances by The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). You’re also likely to know they mix in with the other characters to form teams on opposite sides led by Cap and Iron Man. The ways they figure into the story though are part of the fun of this movie.

Chadwick Bozeman is an excellent projection of force, focus, and wisdom as the Black Panther’s alter ego T’Challa the prince of Wakanda. His inner strength exudes all the elements perfectly as we come to understand his character and what potential effect he’ll have on the events to come. Tom Holland though gives one portrayal long-time fans of Spider-Man have been wanting to see. The (first two) Sam Raimi movies were pretty good and had Tobey McGuire show Peter Parker as a dorky kid effectively but not Spidey’s humor while fighting. Andrew Garfield showed Spider-man’s heroics but depicted Peter as a cool guy skater with a James Dean vibe trying to be dorky and somewhat vulnerable in… well, not-so-great stories. So when we get to Holland’s depiction…. it is in a word, perfect. He’s a nerdy kid who does wisecracks as the web-slinger with incredible athleticism and expressive eyeshields to match. I’m really wanting to see both these characters in their stand-alone films and expect great results when they come out.

Back to the overall film in question, Civil War takes great pains to explore the strength of character and what really should happen when people disagree on things and they may or may not necessarily have the correct reaction. Some of the best team-focused comics liked Justice League and X-Men and the like develop those themes effectively. Throughout all the MCU films’ events, the Avengers have become close as both friends and teammates to varying degrees… a dynamic this film seeks to change. Throughout the well-paced screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely during which we get some excellent fight sequences, it’s particularly compelling to see what happens to Tony and Steve’s relationship as the film progresses in the quieter moments and we remember everything that has happened in other movies to this point. Civil War reminds us these people are complex folks trying to do good the best way they know how and it can take an emotional toll on them. The script allows the whole cast to do well in bringing their ranges on screen.

This is why Captain America: Civil War is now my favorite MCU movie to date. I truly can’t imagine how these characters will function from this film forward with forces seen and hidden still to impact their lives. If I were to rank favorite films to this point, I think my top 5 would break down in this order – Captain America: Civil War, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Iron Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy. With all due respects to the works of Jon Favreau, James Gunn and Joss Whedon, I have to say Marvel overseer Kevin Feige really struck gold when he recruited The Russo brothers and cannot wait to see how other directors will pan out as well as what these guys will bring on the road to The Infinity War.

Bottom line: This movie is good…. and it will hurt.

Grade: A+

Hey, folks. I know right about now you’re looking at this page and can’t understand why anyone would have an opinion different than the many internet critics who took in the new movie last week. Maybe I just walked into the screening with a different mentality that day than most.

Up to this point, I’d been generally neutral on this version of Marvel’s mutant universe, established by Bryan Singer’s X-Men movie back in ’98. That flick was ok, and the second Marvel-based movie that was any good after Blade. There were changes from the comic to incorporate Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine being tall instead of short, and we had excellent actors Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen play off each other as Professor X and Magneto respectively. Unfortunately, the rest of the characters such as Cyclops and Storm weren’t portrayed super well, and just about everything seemed to take a back seat to Wolverine’s quest.

Still, it was a decent flick to jump start this universe, and X2: X-Men United stabilized things with a stronger screenplay utilizing all the characters in a much more balanced story while using some influences of the comics effectively. Its ending portended great things, which is why the third film, The Last stand disappointed people massively. This was not the fault of director Brett Rattner (the second backup who was given less time and budget than the previous two) as he still managed to give us a movie with Storm being an effective fighter and Kelsey Grammer giving a perfect performance as Hank “The Beast” McCoy. We also got a fun battle between Iceman and Pyro and even a “Fastball Special” from Wolverine and Colossus. Still, The Juggernaut was terribly realized, tons of characters were killed as one-offs (including Cyclops it seemed) and the promise of a decent Dark Phoenix adaptation from X2 was thrown away.

So folks suffered through two bad stand-alone Wolverine movies and Fox tried an interesting tack in having Matthew Vaughn direct X-Men: First Class. Although it contradicted the comics in having mostly other mutants (outside of the Beast) be the initial team members, it was still well executed with nice touches of Earth during the 60s, anchored by the excellent performances of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, who took on the roles of Professor X and Magneto for their early years. Also included was Jennifer Lawrence, whose portrayal of Raven / Mystique became essential and was decent. Nicholas Hoult was brought in to play a coming –of-age version of Hank McCoy. Alex Summers was re-written as being the older brother of Cyclops / Scott Summers, the reversal of what’s in the comics.

Then the story moved to the 70s and the future simultaneously in the very effective Days of Future Past. We saw many of the characters & actors of the initial trilogy facing extinction in the future and deciding the only way to change things was to psychically send Wolverine back to his past self to gather the First Class characters and stop Raven from a horrible mistake. I was very aware the original comic story sent Kitty Pride physically into the past for similar reasons, but once they announced Wolverine would do so instead I went with it and it was still a pretty good flick. Bryan singer returned to helm this story and it was a great continuation. We got to see two different iterations of the giant Sentinel robots, as well as bellbottoms and other 70s fashions. All in all, it was a pretty good film, as the ending left the possibility for a big villain to come.

So now we come to the new flick, X-Men: Apocalypse, in which the teased villain comes to the forefront. The story starts initially in ancient Egypt, where mutant En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac) has built his temple with four other mutants serving him alongside a human army keeping folks in line. En attempts to carry out a ritual that will make him stronger, but the humans decide they’ve had enough of this false god ruling them and seemingly end his reign.

Cut to America in the 1980s and we meet high school student Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) who experiences a burning sensation in his eyes while in class. It’s such an intense and powerful experience that his older brother Alex comes to see about him and decides the best person to help Scott would be his old friend Charles Xavier. In the period since Days of Future Past, Charles has converted his mansion into a School For Gifted Youngsters, which has many students, including young Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) whom Scott makes a terrible impression on. Hank McCoy is also residing there doing all kinds of mechanical research and refinements.

Meanwhile, in Europe, Erik Lehnserr has retired his Magneto persona and lives as a steel worker and family man. Elsewhere, Mystique has become a bit of a folk hero over the last 10 years, saving mutants and giving them a chance at new lives. Ever since she rescued President Nixon from a mutant attack, the world has taken various views regarding them, positive and negative. One group is making mutants fight in cage matches, such as the one which the winged Angel and teleporter Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) are involved in until Mystique shows up. In Egypt though the mutant problem goes largely unmentioned until CIA agent Moira MacTaggart (Rose Byrne) who has totally forgotten her First Class adventure, comes to track down a cult doing an archaeological dig in search of a powerful ancient being foretold to bring about the end of the world….

As you may have surmised, a lot of elements come into play for this movie. Singer’s story draws out over time, helping the audience to re-acquaint with the previously seen characters and actors. They are the ones best served by the screenplay here. The new ones are just being introduced as we see them start off as kids who are forced to grow up rather quickly with everything going on. As they are thrust so quickly into events, we see the new X-Men deal with various situations (from different viewpoints) but we don’t get to know them enough just yet. They wind up coming together to take on the threat that En (eventually known as Apocalypse) represents. So the story itself is more of a focus than the new characters participating in it.

Still, though, the story and overall direction are solid. Many of the previous films incorporate some elements of the comics but only so much. This movie feels a good step closer to giving long time X-Men fans more of what they might be familiar with as comic readers and or watchers of the various cartoons. It cherry picks from some of the better aspects of X-Men lore actually makes a reasonable story. Some things are different due to how previous films have depicted history but it’s coming full circle with this movie. I know many were unhappy for example about how Mystique is a leader here, but why wouldn’t someone with 20 years of experience be looked up to by a group of teenagers who barely know how to control their powers? Also, there’s one scene in particular you’ll likely hear folks talk about that’s ripped right out of the comics, and made me a very happy fanboy for a time.

There’s so much in Marvel’s mutantverse so I don’t mind amalgamation for the big screen. I could take it in stride much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe that’s exploded since the 2000s, so long as the characters themselves were respectfully treated as their comic counterparts. There have been both good and bad films at Fox (to say nothing of the Generation X flick. *shudder*) and we’ve gotten an insanely awesome Deadpool flick, besides. Comparatively, this is one of the better entries of the narrative as a whole.

Acting wise, McAvoy, Fassbender and Lawrence were still decent as they’ve settled into their roles over the years. The kids, though, need a bit of tweaking, maybe replacing in the next flick. It’s jumping ahead 10 years to the 90s, so I’m hoping we’ll have an effective Cyclops being team leader with Jean and Nightcrawler and Storm (with a good accent like she has here) and the like. They’re just starting out here so I’ll forgive them on that this time. Isaac makes a good Apocalypse, manipulative and calculating and quite evil. He wants only the strong with him ruling the Earth and looks like he’ll get his way, alongside his Four Horsemen. Also, please don’t worry about his voice from the first trailer. What’s presented in this movie sounds like it was taken straight from the 90s X-Men cartoons, modulation and all.

Al in all, X-Men Apocalypse, is a small step down from the recent 2 other films in terms of execution and screen time. There are some scenes which would’ve been more effective had they been shorter, instead of omitted; maybe about 10-15 minutes total for better flow. Other than this, there’s a lot to enjoy here. Singer takes full advantage of placing this story in the 80s which make for a fun setting. Also, out of all the X-movies to date, this one has the best ending fight against a major villain and like before a new evil is teased at the end. So I have to say it’s very much worth your time to check out the flick.

Grade: B/ B+

This year is looking to be a good one for Anime Expo. Anisong World Matsuri will feature multiple anime-related vocalists such as Eir Aoi, Yoko Isida, JAM Project, T.M. Revolution and several others. Anime guests will include Final Fantasy and Vampire Hunter D character designer Yoshitaka Amano, Monster Musune creator OKAYADO, Your Lie In April author Naoshi Arakawa, and director Shingo Natsume of One Punch Man and Space Dandy most recently. Also, as this is the 30th anniversary of Viz Media, we might be seeing some new events and celebrations from them as well.

Last year’s Anime Expo was quite a big to do. In addition to reaching over 95,000 attendees, the con gave folks a chance to see a red carpet premiere screening of Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection of F alongside the cast, as shown briefly here:

They were also given a chance to meet more of the cast of Viz Media’s efforts to re-dub Sailor Moon more faithfully to the original Japanese storyline than the previous American dub by Nelvana. You can see the panel here.

Robotech fans got to celebrate the show’s 30th anniversary at a panel announcing newer initiatives for the franchise, including Mark Canton and Giani Nunnari as producers, 300 screenwriter Michael Gordon, and director James Wan of Furious 7 fame. Harmony Gold producer Tommy Yune spoke about the team’s fondness for the original show’s designs taken from Macross, Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada, but indicated that it’s been a long time since those designs had been created and that like real-life fighter craft, weaponry has evolved since then, and so would the designs for the live action film. As to other video projects, Lionsgate had tried to distribute ADV’s English dub of Macross as part of “Robotech: The Classic Collection” in a niche release but it didn’t do well, so the project was canceled.

Several prominent anime creators and producers were in attendance. Notably among them was Eiko Tanaka, founder, CEO and president of Studio 4°C which celebrates its 30th Anniversary this year. The animator turned businesswoman is also the chief executive officer of another production company called Beyond C. She’s served as animation producer on works such as Tekkonkinkreet, Mind Game and the Berserk movie trilogy, among others. Appearing alongside director Yuta Sano, we had the opportunity to speak to her about her career and her most recent projects.

Tanaka reminisced a bit about her time as a line producer for Studio Ghibli on My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service, which were released around the same time as Katsuhro Otomo’s Akira. “I worked with the same creators I had been same at the time of Akira. I’m not missing Studio Ghibli because I worked with those same folks (on other projects) after leaving.”

She also spoke about working on Otomo’s follow-up project Memories. “At the time there were many creators who looked up to him, and he wanted to introduce new creators to the world. For Memories, he initiated a new structure to present them and I produced it. He believed in me.”

Tanaka then elaborated on how she came to work on American projects such as Thundercats and Batman: Gotham Knight. “When Memories was completed, we sent it to many movie festivals with great response. When The Wachowskis and Joel Silver saw it, they were big fans and visited Studio 4c. When The Matrix was coming to Japan’s theaters, they offered the The Animatrix and it was successful. So they kept offering more projects to do.”

She also spoke about the company’s collaboration with Comcept to bring the Red Ash experience to different mediums. “This project is about working and putting together two different worlds: anime and games. There are different creative talents for each stage.” She also emphasized that the animation extention, Red Ash: The Animation – Magicada, which was successfully crowdfunded for $150,000 by kickstarter, was entirely done by Studio 4C, not Comcept.

The confident CEO stated why anime fans around the world look forward to works from her production company. “The reason why Studio 4c is trusted is because of our very stable, high quality output. We have strong passion for the work. We’re not going to give up until we put out something good.”

Having been disappointed by the most recent film for the Heroes in a Half Shell, I wasn’t certain what to expect from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. But hey, it was free and so was I. What’s the verdict? Well….

The movie starts with Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo and Rafael doing their usual high-rise hijinks en route to a Knicks game , where Vernon Fenwick (Will Arnett) is proclaimed as the hero of NY for having captured Shredder (Brian Tee). Speaking of whom, he’s being transported to another facility alongside a couple rough prisoners named Beebop (Gary Anthony Williams) and Rocksteady (Sheamus of WWE fame), under the watchful eye of corrections officer Casey Jones (Stephen Amell). Meanwhile, investigative reporter April O’Neill (Megan Fox) is investigating scientist Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry) because she has reason to believe he may be working with Shredder’s organization. Stockman’s efforts go way beyond this however as he winds up bringing the slimy alien Krang into the mix of things.

Seriously, it’d be a waste of time to do a full analysis of this film other than to tell you it really is a lot of fun. If you were a kid in the 80s, you’ll recognize a lot of callbacks to the cartoon, games and the old live films. The original comic… not so much as the turtles don’t curse or kill everything in sight. But hey, that’s ok as I really enjoyed seeing what plays out here.

I have to say the CG and 3D look rather nice and accentuate the fact we’ve got a modern movie with very solid visuals done by a team who embraces the fact they’re adapting an 80s cartoon for old and new audiences alike. While watching, I wasn’t certain the little kids who weren’t around when this franchise started were into this flick as they were all very still and quiet. Turns out they were entirely into the flick and a couple of ‘em were saying how this was the greatest movie ever. Adults, of course, caught on to all the homages and such but it really was fun seeing children have as much fun as they did.

I only had a couple gripes with the movie In that we don’t really see Shredder or Master splinter fight enough. Also, Casey Jones isn’t in his mask enough while practicing his hockey-fu. On the other hand, though, the Turtles still act as you’d expect. Leo is still the brooding leader, Don is the nerdy Brainiac, Raphael is surly and ready for a fight while Mike is the hard partying pizza addict with a sensitive side. All the fighting styles and tech devices you likely enjoyed as kids playing the games or watching the shows are here. Also, I have to say I really enjoyed Tyler Perry here. He comes across as a not-so-cool Neil DeGrasse Tyson wannabe with an annoying laugh and he was genuinely funny.

Bottom line: if you see this movie, you’re seeing a technically excellent modern movie produced by folks who genuinely enjoyed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as kids, and as such they’ve embraced the absurd and emulated it excellently for a new era. Between the Turtle van and Techno Dromes, I promise, this one is waaaaaaaay better than the first film and is designed for fans in a way that the modern Transformers, G.I. Joe and Jem movies have never been. By the time the closing credits hit, I believe you’ll see that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s greatest creations are in good hands if you keep an open mind and check your brain at the door.

Grade: A-

What They Say:
In a universe swarming with inhabited planets and bizarre aliens, corrupt governments in the pay of star-spanning criminal syndicates and the Justice Federation of United Galaxies places a price on the heads of hardened criminals. The highest bounty of all rests without he infamous space pirate Cobra, an unstoppable rogue whose left arm conceals a devastating psycho-gun. Presumed dead for two years, Cobra comes out of retirement after an encounter with the beautiful bounty-hunter Jane – a decision which leads him into direct conflict with the sinister Galaxy Pirates, a vast criminal organization led by Crystal Boy; the personification of death itself. Together with his female android companion Lady, Cobra sets out with Jane to rescue the bounty hunter’s two lost sisters, and save the wandering planet Miras. But Crystal Boy is never far behind, and deception and betrayal wait around every corner. A fast-moving, stylish and furiously inventive film from the pen of classic Manga writer Buichi Terasawa, Space Adventure Cobra mixes humor and drama in a pulse-pounding hymn to the ,power of love, death and heavy weaponry!

The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release comes with the Japanese mix in 5.1 which sounded decent from what I could tell. There are also Japanese 2.0 and English 2.0 Dolby tracks present and both sounded fine on my system. English performance feels weird though

Video:
The quality here is unbelievably gorgeous here. This movie was released originally to Japanese theaters in 1982. There’s tremendous saturation and resolution here, more so than its DVD counterpart. All color hues are enhanced. Yes, I know that should be a given with the format comparison, but this video quality really is remarkable, better than I’ve ever seen this film presented. Some of the sketch line details seems to vanish as a result of the work here.

Packaging:
The front cover is taken directly from the theatrical poster for the movie. It depicts the main characters up front with their ship above them and title masthead taking up the lower thirds. The rear has a couple screenshots in the top left quarter and descriptive test taking up the middle, all written over a painted piece of Cobra and Crystal Boy. The bottom third is taken up by product information on white background.

Menu:
The artwork from the front packaging& movie poster takes up the left 2/3 of the menu screen. The title masthead takes up a ¼ in the upper right corner. Playback options (Play movie, Chapters, Languages, English Credits) are listed vertically on a stone-looking backdrop with black text in the last 1/3 of the screen, highlighted by purple and red on selected choices. Chapter selection pulls up a small box of numbered screen shots. The film’s closing theme plays continuously in the background.

Extras:
None

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The world of Space Adventure Cobra is full of everything one could want to see in a science fantasy flick. Much like Star Wars, you get to see galactic battles, beautiful planets and constellations, exotic locations, and all kinds of aliens doing whatever they damn well want to. Here we meet manga-ka Buichi Terasawa’s most famous character, created to emulate “James Bond in space” as he puts it. Cobra likes to have crazy encounters, bed the beauties and have fun alongside his robotic feminine partner Armoroid Lady.

Tokyo Movie Shinsha recruited Osamu Dezaki to direct this film adaptation alongside animator and character designer Akio Sugino after they’d done work on sports dramas Aim For the Ace and Tomorrows Joe, among many other projects. The story here is adapted from the introductory arc but with several major changes. The same crew later adapted the Cobra manga as a TV show but much more faithfully than this theatrical film which took a few liberties from the source material.

The movie initially shows a beautiful bounty hunter named Jane Flower (patterned in homage to Jane Fonda’s Barbarella) as she captures an orthodox alien… well, at least in part. Jane’s actions attract a goofy guy in red from the local bar. Jane eventually leaves but the man pursues her and says he knows someone whose bounty is $7 million credits…. which immediately piques her interest. He says the bounty is on him, Cobra, but Jane doesn’t believe this goofball could be the famous space pirate. Still she gives him a lift to the next town where she collects the reward for her charge and leaves the goofy guy behind.

Jane enjoys some alone time until she notes the persistent guy in red outside her window. She tries to invite him in but instead they’re interrupted by the alien she just had put in jail, along with squads of robotic soldiers. The pair escape but a massive ship pursues them, until the goofy guy’s left arm changes into a famous weapon only the space pirate Cobra is known to have: The Psychogun. Having revealed his true identity and dispatched the aggressors, Cobra becomes the object of Jane’s affections, saying she really needs him to help fight off the Pirate Guild who is trying to take her and her two sisters Catherine and Dominique in order to acquire a fearsome weapon. Meanwhile, Guild leader Crystal Boy learns that his old quarry Cobra has come out of hiding, and the chase to capture him as well as Jane’s weapon begins in earnest.

Dezaki was doing experimental work for this stage of his career. He had become famous for his postcard method, in which all action would stop on a painted piece for dramatic effect. For this movie, however, he decided to not use the technique at all, instead opting to employ slickened animation and detailed, nearly interactive galactic backgrounds, planetary landscapes and horizons for an almost 3D effect (as the trailer often advertised). Dezaki di retain his penchant for periodic upper corner flares for the characters to react to and for creating defining shadows sometimes for Sugino to shape his characters through for realistic contrast.

If you’ve seen the pair’s other collaborations such as Black Jack OAV / movie series or (The Professional) Golgo 13, you may be familiar with some of the style they employ. There isn’t as much use of sketch lines for implied motion here as those other works. On the other hand, there are sequences which have many detailed objects moving around at a given time. In addition, there are split screens and rotating continuous dolly shots while zooming much like 60s/70s movies and the 24 TV series. In this respect, the movie is similar to their work on the ’84 cartoon Mighty Orbots. .

The general tone of this film is more somber and dramatic than the TV adaptation or the manga itself. Cobra is a bit playful here but so much of the overall theme of love and drama really hits home the essence of space opera for this film. Cobra and Crystal Boy are designed differently than their TV / manga counterparts, which actually works more to Crystal boy’s advantage, giving him deadly projectile weaponry. This makes it a bit more satisfying when he and Cobra have their final battle.

The American dub from Harmony Gold (not to be confused with the British dub) is serviceable, with Dan Woren of Lupin III: Jigen’s Gravestone voicing the lead here. Barbara Goodson is all right as Jane and Jeff Winkles give decent menace as Crystal Boy. The cadence from the direction and dialogue comes across as cheesy some times but then again as this is a movie emulating 60s style sci fi, this is to be expected a bit.

In Summary:
Space Adventure Cobra the movie is great if you wish to learn about the best animation techniques of years past and aren’t just into the flash technology of modern anime. If you go in with in open mind, you may find yourself enjoying this Blu Ray and wanting to learn about other work from Dezaki and Sugino. As it stands, it’s great science fantasy and worth watching to get a sample of what the world of Cobra is truly like.

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

Released By: Discotek Media / Eastern Star
Release Date: December 15th, 2015
MSRP: $29.95
Running Time: 99 minutes
Video Encoding: H.264/AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1, 16 x 9 HD
Review Equipment: Panasonic 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation 3

Hey, folks.

I’m just going to start right off the bat and say Star Trek Beyond is the best summer offering this year so far. This year has been rather stale since X-Men: Apocalypse (a most divisive movie, I know) in that it hasn’t had much that could be enjoyed by action fans (especially if you took in Independence Day: Resurgence. Ugh!) So I ventured to the recent in-theater Star Trek marathon to re-visit the new offerings from director/producer J.J. Abrams. His first was a nice re-vamp splintered off the original timeline. The sequel Into Darkness was ¾ a decent film brought down by terrible rehashes of previous stories in the final quarter.

Due to tepid fan response to the second film and the fact that Abrams himself had moved on to the Star Wars franchise, director Justin Lin was recruited after his work on Furious 7 to bring serious activity and fast-paced style to the screenplay written by Doug Jung and actor Simon Pegg, who was a long-time fan of the Star Trek franchise and had been putting in a nice rendition of engineer Montgomery Scott in these reboots.

There had been some interesting trailers leading up to the release of this film with unusual cadences and music choices for a movie in this franchise. Also, there had been relatively little promotion of this new movie being released in the 50th anniversary year of Star Trek, which got people worried a bit. So when it came down to it, would this movie deliver the goods?

Very much so I have to say as we start the film off with Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) attempting to handle peace negotiations with a new race using an artifact given to him by a prior race. It… doesn’t quite go as planned so Kirk beams back for some interesting consultations with Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) before ordering the Enterprise to a new and very large starbase the Federation has built on the edge of known space. While there, we see indications of the personal lives of other crew members such as Sulu (John Cho) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana). Kirk and Spock however, each have personal news which may affect their future on the Enterprise.

All this gets put on hold when an alien female comes from a nearby asteroid-filled nebula in uncharted space, requesting help to get back home. Kirk and his crew are volunteered to take her back to her planet and almost immediately, the Enterprise is assaulted by a previously unknown race led by the merciless Krall (Idris Elba). With their ship destroyed and their people scattered, the crew must find a way to get back to Federation space and learn some interesting stuff during their ordeal.

I have to say, after the Into Darkness movie I was one of the naysayers regarding this franchise and was afraid more uninspiring works were going to be coming. With Lin and Pegg taking over, this was thankfully not the case. There’s a tremendous sense of adventure going into the unknown, which The Original Series and its sequels were regarded for. That’s been brought back big time with this film. Unfamiliar races and an actual enjoyment for showing these characters abilities in unfamiliar situations…. Those are the biggest strengths of Beyond. The movie does feel very much in the spirit of previous Trek lore, especially as the finally battle begins.

There are some amusing aspects though such as the movie’s use of music. I’m glad to see someone decided to acknowledge other genres besides classical and rock in Earth’s history (which I guess would all be considered classical at this point. Hmm…) Still, the anime fan in me wishes they would’ve used some Lynn Minmay songs at one point, but I digress… Also, we get the inclusion of a new character named Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) whom I hope we get to see more of in the future.

The last element I must address regarding this movie is the respect it gives to recently departed Trek figures, Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin. Nimoy’s depiction of Spock is memorialized at several key moments throughout the film, especially in a perfect one near the conclusion. As to Yelchin, it really is both a treat to see him shine with boyish enthusiasm as Pavel Chekov and a painful reminder of how much his presence with the current team will be missed due to his death.

All in all, if I were to rank every Star Trek film produced to this point, I think I would place it in a tie for third next to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and just below The Wrath of Khan and the first JJ Abrams reboot. This is a very solid piece or work that’s a tremendous amount of on-screen fun, showing just how well-suited these actors and producers are to bringing us new, faithful adventures of Captain Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise to new viewers on the franchise’s 50th Anniversary. Highly recommended.

Grade: B+ / A-

I’ve honestly never been into Doctor Strange.

I’m a long-time comics fan and even though I kept seeing really cool art pieces of the Sorcerer Supreme, for some reason I never could bring myself to collect stories about this character. I’ve been more into sci-fi / science based heroes than I was magic or fantasy, hence my being into Iron Man more as a kid than anything. My limited knowledge of Doctor Strange comes from reading his origin story once as a kid, seeing him make cameos in other hero comics and an episode of Spider-Man and his Amazing friends, and his animated movie, one of the few from Marvel that was actually good. So going into this film, I guess I’m both a veteran collector and a bit of a newcomer at the same time. Such is the nature of a casual comics fan, I guess. Anyway, I went in with a largely open mind and came out… pleasantly surprised (to a degree).

When the film opened, I was treated to a rather brutal scene at a library where a group of folks led by the mysterious Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) decides they want certain pages from a book at any cost. The scene switches to New York seemingly (as evidenced by the Avengers Tower in the cityscape)where surgeon Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) seeks the most difficult cases to apply his skills to. He likes to do this to broaden his ego and arrogantly considers himself the best, almost too good to even commiserate with patients’ families afterward.

However, a horrific incident changes his life and deprives him of those incredible surgical skills. So the doctor goes on a desperate search which leads him to Nepal, from which a supposedly broken man once got himself healed. There, Strange encounters Mr. Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who introduces him to someone known only as The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). Strange remains the skeptical scientist until Ancient shows him the wonders of the universe and beyond while making him see the depth of his true potential to which Strange can only utter “Teach me.”

It’s here we begin to learn about the mystical realms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how the true goals of Kecilius eventually fit into the larger scheme of things. But it’s more fun to see Stephen Strange evolve from broken doctor to Sorcerer Supreme, both in magical skill and strength of character. In the comics, he’s a bit stiff even after gaining his powers and interacting with folks and he’s even more self-absorbed than you see in this film initially. Under the direction of Scott Derrickson, Cumberbatch gets to depict the character with more dimensions in his personality, delivering some well-timed humor to the craziness of the story.

It’s nice to see Cumberbatch not be as rigid as he could be much of the time in Sherlock or Star Trek Into Darkness. Derrickson’s direction here is a bit uneven at times, with the pacing needing to find it’s groove for about the first third of the film. Eventually, though, a lot of elements come together and play out well here, with the special effects amping things up stead of being the star of the movie. However, I do have to say that outside of Doctor Strange himself, there’s one other character of sorts I found vastly entertaining without speaking a single word. You’ll likely figure out who (or rather what) this is when you see the film.

As to the rest of the cast, they were pretty decent in their roles. I’m quite aware of the controversies regarding Tilda Swinton’s role but she’s pretty decent here as she was in Constantine and Chronicles of Narnia. Mikkelsen always makes a great villain and he’s no slouch here. (Somebody let him play more Hannibal Lecter, dang it!) The effects are wonderful as well bringing many of the better comic inspirations to celluloid life and it’s fun to see magical battles this side of Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix (my admitted favorite of those flicks). When Strange enacts his final solution to the problem at hand, it’s a lot of fun to watch, especially in 3-D.

All in all, Scott Derrickson has succeeded in adapting this character competently for the film audience, enough to place the movie in the upper tier of Marvel Studios adaptations. As always, you will want to stay through the credits to understand how this story fits into a certain overall narrative that’s been building, but Doctor Strange is a fun and entertaining flick in its own right. Benedict Cumberbatch proved to be a very good choice for Marvel’s magical character and I’ll be looking forward to his depiction of the Sorcerer Supreme in future films.

Grade: A- / B+

Well… many years after the magic-filled Harry Potter adaptations left the movie theaters, Warner Brothers have teamed with JK Rowling to tell another story from this mystical world which interacts with the regular human world. We are introduced to this world with the animated newspapers telling us of various happenings in the wizarding world and a brief depiction of the president (Carmen Ejogo) who remains committed to keeping the magical world a secret. Many of the headlines concern a mysterious yet menacing wizard named Grindelwald as well as active anti-witchcraft sentiment. There is also mention of an odd menace running around New York in the mid-1920s.

We switch to the remains of buildings in NY where wizarding investigator Mr. Graves (Colin Farrell) makes his way through the police and others reporting darkness and intense winds, with a pair of glowing eyes at the center. Even more destruction happens, leading Graves to speculate the nature of just what is loose in the city.

As this happens, a seemingly shy Brit named Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) disembarks his passenger liner and heads into NYC with his already interesting suitcase. Through a series of mishaps, he wanders into a nearby bank crosses paths with a normal guy named Jacob (Dan Folger) who has come to get a loan for his bakery. More misadventures place the pair into crosshairs of investigator Porpetina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) who herself has fallen out of favor with the President due to a prior case.

Even more characters and crazy factors result in Scamander, Jacob, Goldstein and her roommate Queenie (Alison Sudol) doing various things to rescue NYC from the many magical issues the city faces, from retrieving several mystical creatures running amok to dealing with a harrowing monster terrorizing the citizens. There’s a lot to take in here, and that’s the movie’s greatest strength and failing.

We are being re-introduced to a familiar world here based on J.K. Rowling’s writings. It is quite vast and complex. The rich history we get to witness can be entertaining, but there’s so much that’s been crammed into a single feature that’s over 2 hours that it can be a chore to process. As a result, the pacing feels a bit off and scenes that should have better impact tend not to at times. There’re periods when we’re rushing from one event to the next when a bit less would’ve been more beneficial to the screenplay. Some scenes could’ve been best to let the viewer breathe and savor for effect. I’m not certain whether director David Yates (who directed other Harry Potter movies) or Rowling herself is the cause but it’s an issue here.

As to these new characters, it’s fun to watch Scamander and Jacob’s friendship develop through their exploits while we learn about who they are. Scamander seems like an ersatz rendition of the 11th Doctor Who portrayed by Matt Smith (complete with his own TARDIS of sorts come to think it. He cares about things around him, but most for animals especially, showing himself as a mystical zoologist of sorts with maybe a bit of Pokemon’s Ash Ketchum thrown in. Something clearly happened to him in the past, but he fights through it to do what’s right. Jacob is the average joe of the pair and gets to have some fun moments while helping out Scamander and developing his own good traits in the process. Portina and Queenie prove to be very capable investigators and magic users in their own right and should prove interesting in future films.

Like I said the screenplay is a bit much to take in. I’d enjoyed all the previous Harry Potter films to date (except the second one. Still can’t sit through it for some reason.), but haven’t read any of the books yet (for which, several of my female friends will likely smack me on the head.) So as a casual fan in some respects (or would that be half muggle? Hmm.) I was able to follow the events of the movie ok. I did have a lovely Potter fan to explain the subtleties of everything going on (Thank you, Rachel.) and it helped me to enjoy the movie a little more and be interested in future installments. I did like the art direction and effects, which have often been highlights of these films. But these helped to make the movie good instead of great, for which less would’ve been more. The movie is still enjoyable enough though leading to the holiday season, though it will get dark and harrowing in the later half. Parents may want to consider this a bit with respect to the youngest viewers.

Grade: B / B-

I’m sitting here processing my own feelings after watching this film recently. I’m pretty much a lifelong Star Wars fan and sci-fi fan in general. Sometimes I go for just the spectacle of space battles, others I go in for character development while folks on the big screen face fantastic concepts. Occasionally, though… there’s a really good balance between these elements, which is why The Empire Strikes Back has remained in critics’ and fans’ favorite lists for so many years. In the times to come, I suspect this shall be the case for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Rogue One jumps right into its story with very little fanfare. Like you may have heard before elsewhere, there’s no grand scroll recapping recent events similar to prior Star Wars films. We just see a small farming colony where Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) is playing with his wife and daughter. However, this respite is short-lived as a group of Imperial Stormtroopers, led by Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) comes to retrieve Galen. Work on the Empire’s armored space station has crawled to a standstill and Galen’s expertise is needed to jumpstart production again. Krennic is successful in his quest, but misses the presence of Galen’s daughter Jyn.

Cut to 15 years later and we find the now adult Jyn (Felicity Jones) in an Imperial prison after an apparently rough life. Meanwhile, elsewhere, Rebel Intelligence agent Cassian Candor (Diego Luna) is learning the Empire has a new superweapon that has been completed by someone named Erso. After some research, he breaks Jyn out of prison and takes her to Rebel Headquarters, where the leaders including Mon Mothma and Senator Bail Organa (reprised by Jimmy Smits) all attempt to convince her to get to her father via information in the possession of enigmatic extremist Saw Gererra (Forest Whitaker). Weighing her options of the mission or a return to prison, Jyn agrees.

By now, many Star Wars fans know this film leads in the events of Episode IV. However, the thrill is not the destination but the journey there. The characters who comprise the Rogue One group make this film a joy to watch. As Jyn and Cassian proceed on their perilous mission we get to meet some rather interesting people along the way. Cassian’s droid E2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk) is a former Imperial War droid who is a total smartass and steals just about every scene he’s in. We are also introduced to a pair of guys who may have interesting pasts of their own. Donnie Yen (of Ip Man fame) portrays Chirrut Îmwe, a blind swordsman and former Jedi temple worker who takes down groups of stormtroopers with a large stick and a hell of a lot of skill. His friend Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang) carries a ton of firepower and looks out for those he cares about. He struck me as someone with clone trooper experience but I’m not entirely certain on this. We only get so much time to spend with these people so it gets to be fun speculating about their prior exploits.

Fun, though… hmmm… that would be a relative term here. Most of the Star Wars films are far for kids and adults alike. Rogue One…. Is definitely not. This is a dark-minded film about survival, heroism, and the horrors of war. There was a proof of concept teaser at one of the Star Wars Celebrations that gave an idea what this movie would be like when they announced Gareth Edwards as the director (who thankfully took over for perennial screw-up Josh Trank of Fantastic Four infamy).

In a couple of articles on-line, it was said that Lucasfilm wanted to create the “Black Hawk Down of the Star Wars Universe.” For my money they’ve succeeded as the script by writers Chris Weitz, Tony Gilroy, John Knoll, and Gary Whitta combines elements of that film with ones from The Dirty Dozen, or maybe The Magnificent Seven or similar fare. In depicting the tyranny and tactics of the Galactic Empire as well as the ambition of officers such as the ambitious and uncompromising Krannic, the writers give us a hard-hitting tale that manages to capture the best elements of Star Wars lore for the kind of prequel I honestly hadn’t realized I’d wanted until this film was actually realized.

I want to give special props to the visual effects team here for reasons that will become clear when you see the film. Much like last year’s The Force Awakens, there’s a delicate balance between practical and CG styled special effects, though it’s tipped a bit toward computers this go around. Still with these are edited together effectively under Director Edwards. Also, this movie has the best space battle out of all the Star Wars films, or at the very lest rivals the climactic one from the first film. The only issue is some of the pacing moves a bit fast at times when a little time to let the moment breathe would help things, but this is a small matter as the film is effective overall. The score by Michael Giacchino is very much its own animal combining (spare) use of the familiar John Williams cues with entirely new orchestral pieces which dominate the film.

In the end I have to say this is a perfect Star Wars film for the adult fan who saw the original as a kid and truly wanted to return to that universe with an adult mindset to learn about legends of what came before and possibly guide their own children on what makes this franchise an endless world of expanded potential. Gareth Edwards may just be forgiven by folks who weren’t into his 2014 Godzilla movie (which I personally enjoyed but maybe that’s just me) and I’m hoping he’ll be given a chance to direct another in these new series of Star Wars side stories that Disney and Lucasfilm have planned. As far as I’m concerned this is the best movie since The Empire Strikes Back and you should definitely see the story of Jyn Erso and the crew of Rogue One at your earliest opportunity.

Grade: A

What They Say:
Black Jack is a master surgeon who possesses impeccable skills, enabling him to perform operations that are impossible for even the finest surgeons. He is a man alone and full of mystery, appearing in operating rooms to fulfill his tasks, while charging millions for his secret operations.

He now is faced with his most difficult task to date and must challenge the limits of medical science… before it’s too late! An extraordinary number of intellectual and athletic “Superhumans” have the world caught in awe, wonder, and excitement. These “Superhumans” far exceed the framework of common sense and possess the ability to outperform all of their rivals… but how did they get this way?

Black Jack discovers the truth behind this unusual occurrence… a hideous conspiracy lurking behind this strange genetic phenomenon…. and a dark secret that is about to endanger the existence of all mankind.

This new edition contains both the Japanese language with English subtitles, and the English dub.

The Review:
Audio:
Both the Japanese and English audio played out clearly in 2.0 and presented no distortions during playback.

Video:
The picture is rather nice and bright compared to the previous Manga Entertainment DVD. There is the definite expected improvement in video quality here. Saturation is heightened and lines have more definition in both the foreground and backdrops. Very nice results here.

Packaging:
We get a slipcase package with the original theatrical poster on the front adorned by English text., including the large masthead in the lower thirds. The back has screen shots in the top and lower thirds on a black background. Info from the “What they say” section is found in the middle thirds with technical and credit information taking up the lower area. The inside case is a standard blue blu-ray case. The insert is reversible. One side has the pictures and info from the slipcase. The reverse has an entirely different promo picture of Black Jack on the front, while still retaining the previous back side images and info.

Menu:
The film’s theme song “Invisible Love” by Mai Yamane repeats in the background. There are white text playback options horizontally across the bottom of the screen which has a dark themed background, making everything easy to read. There is a single image of Black Jack himself dominating much of the screen with a couple smaller images displayed vertically on the left side showing the cast as a whole.

Extras:
This was rather cool. We get the trailer from Manga Entertainment’s release of the film. We also get a few of the Japanese theatrical trailers as well, which are fun to compare to the American one since they’ve never been brought over before. Also, the film here utilizes the original Japanese character graphics for the opening and closing sequences. As an extra, we get the English versions which are nice to have except for one thing (which I’ll get to below.)

Content:(please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Recently, I had the pleasure of viewing a really cool Blu-Ray called Blackjack The Movie. The film focuses on the adventures of an unlicensed doctor who travels the world solving rare and unusual ailments. Black Jack is known throughout the medical world for his incredible expertise and surgical prowess, but due to his licensing situation cannot be publicly acknowledged for any problems he might solve. Many aspiring doctors want to learn from him, while others are disgusted by the fact he charges exorbitant fees for his work.

At first glance, he might be mistaken for anime icon Captain Harlock due to his long forelocks, scarred visage and ebon garb. That’s about where the similarities end however since Black Jack’s personality is not one you’d normally see in a doctor. He can be cold and condescending to his patients both before and after treating them. This demeanor seems to work quite well for him since he’s so methodical when researching as often as he can to save a patient’s life. Basically picture Gregory House without the British background or drug use. Between cases, he spends time reading books and caring for Pinoco, a little girl whose life he saved in a most bizarre medical operation. Suffice it to say she’s an 18 year old girl trapped in a 5 year old’s body, who often refers to herself as his ‘wife’ while taking on the roles of caretaker and business manager at times. If the client doesn’t get past her, Black Jack is less likely to take the case.

This particular story starts with a focus on the 1996 “Atlantis” Olympics, during which single athletes break records in various competitions at an incredible rate. Press outlets call this the emergence of the “Super-Humans.” Soon, others begin to show exceptional abilities in sports, music and other areas. Around the same time, Black Jack operates successfully on teenage art prodigy Lisa Seagill to remove a complicated tumor. Two years later however, Black Jack is called to help Lisa who is in critical condition… and does not survive. Her resulting autopsy reveals startling information that Black Jack can’t understand or explain. Also however, a mysterious woman calls him repeatedly offering little information but a blank check for his services. Since she doesn’t say her name or the exact medical problem, Black Jack refuses to call her back. However, the woman eventually reveals her name as Jo Carroll, and she takes drastic measures to secure his help for what turns out to be a massive problem.

The Black Jack movie was produced in the mid-1990s and was preceded by several OAVs based on the comics created by “the God of Manga” Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy, Metropolis, Phoenix). Black Jack was one of several characters Tezuka tended to use in a troupe of sorts as one would characterize a group of actors doing various plays. Tezuka was a medical student before he became manga artist, so when the time came to do stories strictly about Black Jack himself, Tezuka already had a strong medical foundation and poured much of his knowledge into those comics. The science in these videos seems pretty sound, but then I’m not a med student so take that for what it’s worth. Still I could handle it about as well as I could deal with watching hospital shows such as ER and Grey’s Anatomy. There’s enough science to complement the stories’ movement while the drama unfolds.

The dramatic element is why I think the team of director Osamu Dezaki and character designer Akio Sugino were perfect for bringing the Black Jack stories to anime life in this period. As evidenced in previous works such as Brother Dear Brother, Rose Of Versailles and (The Professional) Golgo 13, they had this penchant for creating realistic looking people in heavy contrast artwork along implied motion lines, the animation of which stops on painted pieces for dramatic effect, which Dezaki was known to do quite often and referred to as “The Postcard Method.” The pair also loved doing close-up shots of reflective eyes for emotion responses and shiny glares in the upper corners of the frame. Highly detailed backgrounds, split-screens, and perspective pan & zooms were also elements found in their works. I’ve been addicted to this duo’s animation style for many years now and feel its uniqueness is one of the most underrated treasures of the anime industry.

Dezaki collaborated with Eto Mori for the screenplay, which played out in typical fashion for a Black Jack story where he takes on crazy conspiracies with dramatic flair and gets into dangerous situations in the process. It can be a bit too fantastic some times but then again this is the same character who operated on himself once while fending off wild dingos in the manga. As long as you accept this, anything is possible. The voice acting is decent in both Japanese and English.

However, this did lead to one thing I wasn’t happy with. The dub was produced by a group called ZRO Limit. In the credit scroll, various actors are listed, but there is no corresponding listing of who did which role. It took a search of imdb.com to determine that Kevin Thorton did a pretty competent job as Dr. Black Jack with a commanding and determined presence. Also, it was good to hear Mary Elizabeth McGlynn of Cowboy Bebop fame as the determined and manipulative Jo Carroll, while Julie Maddalena was able to portray Pinnoko with a combination of innocence and stubbornness that doesn’t sound too cheesy for a 5 year-old child. I remember when Central Park Media would release the OAVs with little direct recognition of the voice talents but that was in the 90s and 2000s. I don’t understand why this was necessary now.

In Summary:
The voice cast bit is actually a minor annoyance. As a whole, I was very happy for yet another solid release of classic material from Discotek Media and better presentations my inspire newer fans to check out what came before while giving older fans a chance to reminisce about old school fandoms talents and the like. I’m happy to recommend buying Black Jack The Movie as it’s one of the best old school releases of 2016.

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

Released By: Discotek Media / Eastern Star
Release Date: December 6, 2016
MSRP: $24.95
Running Time: 107 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen

Review Equipment:
Samsung 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation 3

Wow… I have to say writing this article makes me severely nostalgic. When I saw Megazone 23 Part II in the listing for potential entries to the Thirty Years Later section, it made me realize just how long I’ve been an anime fan. I saw a version of this video a couple years after the initial release which I’ll elaborate on a bit later. As you’ve no doubt noticed, here, this article is about a sequel movie. So I’ll give folks reading who may be unfamiliar with Part 1 a crash course on things.

About a couple years prior to this release, under the auspices of studios AIC, Artland and Tatsunoko, character designer Toshihiro Hirano (many years before his successful works Fight! Iczer-1 and Magic Knights Rayearth) got together with director Noboru Ishiguro and character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto (who had recently pooled together their talents on Superdimension Fortress Macross) and mecha designer Shinji Aramaki (of Bubble Gum Crisis and Genesis Climber Mospeda fame) to work on a single film in the OAV, or direct-to-video, format. This format was starting to become popular with animators since the release of Mamoru Ohii’s 1983 series Dallos in that it gave creators a way to work (hopefully profitable) ideas into actuality without worrying about factors such as toy sales or censors’ ratings. Even though Dallos proved to be a financial failure, it did pave the way for newer ideas to be tried in this evolving industry.

The 80s were at the height of the “real robot” or war mecha phenomenon where robots were used as transports or for warfare like Gundam and Votoms, as opposed to the heroics of super robots such as Voltron or Mazinger Z. Equally popular was the use of idol singers to sell music related to the story. Then again, music was often popular when used in anime but for the purpose of this story, it was very integral to Megazone 23’s initial success.

The first OAV focused on teenager Shogo Yahagi, who was enjoying a carefree life riding motorcycles, listening to 80s pop music sung by the captivating Eve Tokimatsuri, and pursuing an aspiring actress he’d just met named Yui. Through some crazy events, Shogo winds up with a transforming motorcycle called the Garland. Government forces led by the merciless and ambitious B.D. pursue Shogo to retrieve it (and enact a coup d’état the process). Shogo learns about the true nature of his world from both B.D. and Eve (who turns out to be a living computer program) in that 500 years have actually passed since the 1980s and the remnants of humanity were placed aboard huge spacecraft called Megazones. (The name in this case is a reference to Tokyo having 23 municipalities that make up its core and are referred to as Zone Two-Three.) B.D.’s goal is to get the people ready for an approaching enemy force while dispensing with the peaceful aspects of Eve’s program.

Megazone 23 Part II takes up six months after the first video. Shogo is now a heavily hunted fugitive (wanted for the murder of a friend from Part 1) who has fallen in with a teenage motorcycle gang called Trash. Their leader Lightning has become a mentor and best friend to Shogo, along with some colorful crew members. Yui has also joined the gang as Shogo finally called on her after disappearing, and she begins to change somewhat while hanging with the gang’s female members. B.D. has assigned his right hand man Lt. Shiratori the task of hunting Shogo, as he himself works on breaking Eve and fighting the alien enemy known as the Dezalg.

This enemy is never actually seen but apparently has better technical advancements including a metal pod with tentacles to tear apart human mecha and the pilots inside. (The pods look somewhat similar to the mechanized sentinel units from The Matrix trilogy… Much like other elements of the Megazone story, but that’s just a coincidence, really.) Throughout all this, Eve herself is transmitting intermittent messages in various places saying she needs to meet with Shogo as soon as possible, even with the government listening in. Shogo realizes the importance of Eve’s message and so Lightning and Trash agree to help out with the meeting.

For this video, director Ishiguro was replaced by Iichiro Itano, who was animation director on the first film. In this respect there was some continuity. Aramaki was retained for his mech designs of the Garland and introduced some new yet similar ones here. Also, Mikimoto’s initial design for Eve was retained as was the character’s original singer Kumi Miyasato who contributed two songs in the style of the Eve character, “Please Tell Me The Secret” (the surname of this movie) and “Lonely Sunset.”

Hirano however was replaced with character designer Yasuomi Umetsu of Kite and Mezzo Forte. Umetsu was named both chief animation director and character designer. The overall looks of the characters were drastically changed from Hirano’s generally more exaggerated, cartoonish style and replaced with features more defined and less rounded for a realistic shape. The biggest change was made for the three principal characters since everyone else wasn’t present in the previous video. Shogo and Yui were made to still look like normal teenagers but nothing like their previous incarnations. The most radical change was to B.D. who’d been turned into a blue-haired Dolph Lundgren clone who apparently doesn’t feel punches.

Also there’s a lot more shading throughout this sequel. Mecha and backgrounds all leaned toward a heightened realism not present in the first Megazone. Cityscapes looked right out of the streets of Tokyo based on real buildings. Radios, VCRs and pinball machines were highly detailed as were many other items. There was also an interesting predilection to showing cans of Heineken as the premiere beer, with folks turning down Budweiser to get some (though Bud’s represented here too.) Combined with the intensity of the screenplay by Hiroyuki Hoshiyama (SPT Layzner, Round Vernian Vifam), the film as a whole feels a bit darker in tone than its predecessor. There’s a notably violent space battle that illustrates this point greatly.

That’s not to say there isn’t some brightness and fun here as well. As we get to know the Trash gang, it’s fun to see the various punk-rock styled people Shogo and Yui hang with now. It’s clear they’re accepted as family from the get-go as they’re taught the ins-and-outs of motorcycle life. One of the characters is a heavy-set woman named Dump and said to be modeled after female wrestler Dump Maxima who was rather popular at the time. Another named Cyndi may be modeled after red-haired rocker Cindy Lauper.

In terms of releases, Megazone 23 Part 2 has had a rather storied history in both Japan and the United States. It was released on VHS and Beta tape formats, as well as laserdisc (a format where heavy discs similar to records played movies rather nicely for the time) and given the full promotion of film comics, art books, toys and soundtracks. There was one curious aspect in that the eventual love scene between Shogo and Yui was shortened on all LD releases but shown to have more footage in the film comics.

However an even more curious fate happened to both films when they were licensed by Harmony Gold with Carl Macek who had brought Robotech to American TV in 1985. A couple years afterward, with Robotech having found apparent success in syndication, there were advertisements for a Robotech: The Movie, appearing most notably in Robotech comic adaptations by Comico. This movie is more commonly referred to now as The Untold Story, and used footage from Megazone 23 Part 1 and excerpts from Superdimension Cavalry Southern Cross (know to Americans as the Robotech Masters segment of the TV series.) To make this work, more footage in the style of Megazone 23 was commissioned for a new ending to the film (as Megazone 23 originally had an open ending in Japan.) However, the movie had a test market screening in Dallas, distributed by Cannon Films, and did not do well (partially because Megazone 23 and Southern Cross had visibly different aspect ratios.) So the project was shelved.

At about the same time, Part II was to be used as a special project for English dubbing. Tommy Yune of Harmony Gold recently spoke a little about what the late Mr. Macek had planned. “This was a project Carl Macek had arranged in some capacity while at Streamline Pictures after Harmony Gold. They had picked up the home video distribution rights to Megazone 1+2, and Carl consistently drew from a familiar pool of voice actors for his projects. I vaguely recall him mentioning the international release had been intended as an English-learning exercise for the overseas market.” So this version of Megazone 23 Part II was released on laserdisc overseas and it included a couple things: Japanese subtitles to indeed help teach English to Japanese students, and an opening segment showing the commissioned footage for the Robotech movie conclusion, during which a narrator tells the events of the first Megazone OAV before a musical montage concludes things and Part II starts up.

This dub (now known as The International Dub) is actually pretty well-acted with a vocal cast that was generally recognizable from the Robotech TV series. The dialogue was generally faithful to the original story even if not entirely accurate. Some characters’ names were changed though. Shogo became Johnny Winters (portrayed by an appropriately teen-sounding Kerry Mahan). Yui was now known as Suzy Sue, voiced competently by Barbara Goodson, and Lt. Shiratori became Armstrong, hoping to fend off the attacks of The Gorig. B.D.’s powerful presence was commanded by Michael McConnohie while Muriel Fargo infused Eve with an innocent yet haunting and wise quality best suited to an Oracle-like figure.

During the 80s, the Internet didn’t exist so people often copied Japanese animation from VHS tape to VHS tape, often sourced by someone having a laserdisc to copy from since it was the most clear. This was before many companies were present to distribute anime on a grand scale in the U.S. and so these tapes would make their way to sci-fi conventions or anime cubs where more tapes were traded and copied. This is how I wound up seeing Megazone 23 Part 2 myself at a St. Louis anime convention called ArchCon in 1988, one of the first times I got to see anime outside of Robotech being broadcast. At the same time, there were a couple publications speaking about the Megazone franchise as a whole such as Anime-Zine and Animag, but this International dub didn’t get distributed on any grand scale in the U.S.

In 1989, a third Megazone OAV was released in two parts, in Japan only. During the 90s there was very little done with the franchise outside of Streamline Pictures releasing the first Megazone video with a straight translation on VHS and later on DVD as this was the newest emerging home video format and most dominant. Streamline themselves went out of business in this decade and the franchise license lapsed. In 2004, ADV Films turned up with the license and released all three parts onto DVD individually with brand new English dub tracks to keep the vocal quality congruent. The first OAV included a commentary track by producers Matt Greenfield, David Williams and Janice Williams who spoke extensively about the making of the first and second films as well as 80s anime fandom. All three entries looked better than ever before to this point and Part II even had its love scene restored fully (likely a holdover from the R2 DVD Japanese release.) ADV’s dub had some high quality talent taking over such as Vic Mignona portraying Shogo, Allison Keith as Yui and Monica Rial performing as Eve, among other talents. While this group did a good job overall, it was unfortunate the International dub was not also brought over in this release.

ADV Films closed its doors in 2009 and so there have been no further American plans made for any of the OAVs. In Japan, there was a game made for the Sony Playstation 3 entitled Megazone 23: Blue Garland. The International Dub of Part II was included as an extra on this game, but strangely almost all of the violence and sex scenes were removed. In November 2015, a Blu-ray set of all Megazone 23 OAVs was released in Japan with many extras included, among them the fully restored International Dub of Part II. Unfortunately, none of the other dubs or subtitles are part of this set.

In the years following Part II’s initial release, its creators went on to have successful careers. Umetsu went from character designer to direct the powerful short Presence as part of the anthology anime Robot Carnival. Subsequently he did the remake OVA’s of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman as well as the (disturbingly) controversial short Kite, Gallilei Donna and Wizard Barristers. Aramaki moved on from mech designing to eventually become a feature director on CG films such as Appleseed Ex Machina and Space Pirate Captain Harlock. He attended Dragon Con 2016 to talk about his extensive career in both regards as well as his fondness for motorcycles.

In conclusion, I have to say Megazone 23 Part II was an epitome of what sci-fi storytelling could achieve via incredible art skills in the animation medium, as well as a testament to the rebellious spirit of 80s pop culture in both Japan and America. It’s a video I enjoy pointing to when talking about the best works of that decade. Here’s hoping that someday there’s a new distributor for the franchise as a whole through which the U.S. might see these videos on Blu-ray someday.

Greetings, and welcome to academia hell, anime style. Now you may be used to such a concept to a degree after watching one of the many high school teen dramas that have dominated the anime industry in recent years, but I guarantee it’s never been played out the way it is in the OAV film They Were 11. Based on the manga by Moto Hagio, They Were 11 focuses on young Tada, a teenage boy in the distant future who joins 10 other people from various races aboard a derelict spaceship. Their objective is to get the ship’s systems working and survive the duration of the testing session, thus securing their entrance into the galactic academy and a chance to have a better life. If the hardship becomes too strenuous, they have a scramble button which calls for assistance. However, pushing it means they can’t apply to the academy. To make matters worse, everyone figures out there are only supposed to be 10 participants total, which means the 11th one aboard the ship is an impostor who may be there for sabotage, espionage, or whatever else he (or she) has in mind.

Everyone instantly becomes suspicious of each other, so one of the entrants, Maya Baceska who is King of his planet, assumes de facto leadership of the group. They find out Tada has a telepathic ability which is limited, but it’s strong enough to at least determine who is telling the truth. The problem is that according to his probe, everyone is telling the truth. Even more problems arise when Tada keeps demonstrating knowledge of the ship’s systems and design, even though none of the applicants are to have prior knowledge about them, leading everyone to suspect him as the impostor. Tada doesn’t understand this knowledge himself since he doesn’t remember ever being on the ship before…

Other hardships pop up for the group to handle, but much of the time they take less priority to the building intrigue and suspicion within the group. The importance of this test in the film’s script seems to reflect the life decisions and consequences of Japanese youth who’re just beginning with their lives. For example, the young man who would be king will lose incredible amounts of face in front of his people if he doesn’t pass. He would still be a leader, but without much respect from his subjects. Then there’s Frol, an applicant who’s seen her sisters married off into harem styled lives on her world. If she can pass, she can choose her gender to be a man, and gain strength and the ability to choose her own destiny instead of life as a servant and baby machine, which sounds a bit like the way Japanese women might want to have a chance to be equal to men in their society.

I first saw They Were 11 many years back when a friend who knew I liked Osamu Dezaki’s work said I should watch it. I did and noticed a Tetsu Dezaki had co-directed it along with Tsuneo Tominaga. I tried researching Tetsu and Osamu, and learned they are siblings. Tetsu is the elder sibling and has worked under the name Satoshi at times. If this is true though, the style is somewhat different than what I’ve seen him do in other anime like Space Adventure Cobra and Tomorrows Joe. The art style is a bit more conventional of mid-80’s anime with vibrant cel colors and semi-detailed backgrounds. The animation is more reminiscent of Crusher Joe, Gall Force and other works of that era. This is probably due to animation director Keizo Shimizu’s influence.

The screenplay by Katsumi Koide and Toshiaki Imaizumi keeps the pace at a nice balance between sci-fi elements, the fear of like failure and the horror of being trapped in a closed, progressively inhospitable environment surrounded by airless death. We get tons of tension and paranoia mixed in with moments of genuine character development as we learn what it means for these characters to have to admit defeat and the need for help. Space operas / sci-fi features aren’t really made much these days but they were rather prevalent in 80s and 70s anime.

The prospect of not having the freedom to determine your own life without passing the biggest of tests though is something that many students past and present relate to (which is probably just one of the reasons so much high school anime is so popular these days). This brings us to one of the most interesting aspects of the story: the examination of gender issues for one of the characters that’s quite ahead of its time, at least when it comes to anime. I don’t know if the creators of Revolutionary Girl Utena or of some of the more recent progressive minded anime shows had They Were 11 or perhaps even Rose of Versailles in mind when doing their works, but it’s definitely a possibility.

In 1987, a company called Gaga Communications attempted to package several OAVs and movies and bring them to the U.S. in their original form to see if such videos could be profitable. Up to this point, there was very little Japanese animation that came here unedited outside of several tapes from Celebrity Home Film, and the anime industry you see today didn’t exist back then. Gaga planned to bring titles with altered names including Project A-ko, M.D. Geist, Bubblegum Crisis and Madox-01 among others. For whatever reason the project didn’t work out and the titles were eventually imported by other American distributors. In the case of They Were 11, it was brought here by Central Park Media in the mid-90s via VHS tape, and then later on DVD when that became the dominant home video format.

The DVD had both Japanese and English language tracks on it. The video quality was decent for the time. As for the English dub, it’s decent, nothing too great, though a couple things stood out. I did enjoy Curtis Jones’s portrayal of Tada. He wasn’t as annoying as most teenage anime voices. David Lucas is also decent as King Bresca, though some of the lines written for him such as “I’m sorry for acting like a butthead jerk” sound a bit coarse for a person of royal stature. My most mixed reaction came from listening to Wendee Lee’s performance as Frol. The character is said to have a strange sounding accent, so Lee gives her a southern drawl, which sounds as out of place as Billy Bob Thornton did in Princess Mononoke. I could understand the rationale most likely thought up by voice director Quint Lancaster, but it’s still odd to listen to. Maybe I was expecting a heavy European accent or something, I don’t know…

In the years since this OAV was released in Japan, some of its creators had rather distinguished careers. Satoshi Dezaki also released another video entitled Grey: Digital Target that same year, and went to work on Mad Bull 34, Riki-Oh, Cobra The Animation and the 5th (and final) Urusei Yatsura movie among other titles. Akio Sugino already had a distinguished career as a character designer and animation director on Aim For The Ace, Tomorrows Joe and Cat’s Eye before this. He continued to bring his talents to Black Jack, Phoenix and the Jungle Emperor Leo movie. He also entertained American audiences with the cartoons Galaxy High School and Mighty Orbots.

Personally, I found They Were 11 to be an intelligent and entertaining anime film, the likes of which I haven’t seen in quite some time. I understand why so many college students I’ve met rave about it considering the high amounts of tension there is to relate to. It’s a well-written mystery with commentary on life decisions and gender roles in society. Central Park Media went out of business in the 2000s so the license to this movie has since lapsed. In our current era of companies claiming classics for remastering and re-release, here’s hoping They Were 11 gets a new path to American shelves.

What They Say:
It’s not unusual for lady-killer Renzaburo Taki to share a night with a woman. When that woman can turn into a demonic spider, however, it’s just a little worrying. The demons are on the move, and as a member of the Black Guard, Taki’s job–his “real” job–is to protect the human world from the demon world. And his work is just beginning! A fragile peace exists between the two worlds, brokered by a treaty. In order for the renewal of that treaty to go smoothly, Taki has to protect Giuseppi Mayart, a two hundred-year-old man with immense spiritual power, from an extremist faction of demons seeking to bring chaos to the two worlds.

Worst of all, Taki’s assigned a partner for the mission: the unnaturally beautiful Makie, a fellow Black Guard member… and herself a demon! The two will have to go all out to protect the old man, as not only are the demons going to extreme lengths to kill him, but Mayart seems oddly unconcerned for his own safety. Is there more going on than Taki and Makie realize?

The Review:
Audio:
This release has five separate audio tracks and all of them play out pretty clearly. There’s the original Japanese audio in Dolby Digital 2.0. Also, we have the American dub by Streamline pictures in Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1. We also get two new tracks note released previously in the U.S. There’s a British dub produced by Manga UK in DD 2.0., and finally, we get a commentary track from anime expert Mike Toole telling us about the history of the film. All of these came through perfectly fine with no distortion during playback.

Video:
The picture looks nicer and more enhanced than previous releases. Reds and similar hues have benefited the most seemingly. The movie as a whole takes place mostly at night so those colors stand out a bit more, though blues and similar hues have a bit more saturation to them as well. This is probably the nicest looking picture we’ll have without getting a Blu-ray release.

Packaging:
There’s a paper slipcase depicting the film’s original theatrical poster artwork but with a masthead of stylish white text in the top thirds. The rear shows the text of the “what they say” section in rather small white print in the upper left corner. There’s a simulated broken gunshot window with Makie’s face taking up the full center. Other characters are displayed in the broken surrounding pieces. Special feature, technical data and more screenshots take up the lower half ot eh picture. The DVD case itself is a clear plastic one. There’s a reversible insert as well. One side emulates the slipcase imagery. The reverse shows Taki in an action pose in black-&-white.

Menu:
The left 2/3 of the screen are dominated by the film’s original theatrical poster in which Taki shoots at the camera perspective pointed at him as well as a creature coming at him. Makie’s eyes are shown just above a red slicing motion. One-third of the right of the screen shows disc options listed vertically in white text. The film’s closing theme – “Hold Me In The Shadow” by Hitomi Tooyama- repeats in the background.

Extras:
The extras are rather extensive here. Some are ones you might expect. The main movie uses the original Japanese footage throughout. So as an extra we see how the U.S. and UK each handle opening and closing sequences. The UK one is a bit nostalgic as it appears to be taken from a VHS copy. We also get various trailers including the original Japanese trailer, the English one from Streamline as well as Discotek Media’s own trailer for this remastered edition. The others that are pretty interesting though such as the aforementioned commentary track by Mike Toole. This was pretty educational in learning about Wicked City’s history as well as that of director Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Speaking of whom, we also get an interview with him on here. Finally, there’s a section of animated storyboards combined with audio from five of the film’s key moments. It’s rather fun to see these scenes this way.

Content:(please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The first time I saw this movie, it was about 1989. My friend brought it to my house and we stuck in the tape to watch it. I was immediately struck by how smooth the artwork was and how much the jazzy music dark colors, and high contrasts captured the atmosphere of a crime noir movie, similar in some ways to the film Golgo 13. There was no translation of any sort, so we were just guessing that a well-to-do man was picking up a lovely lady at the bar and becoming friendly with the bartender. No big deal. So he takes her back to his apartment for a good time. I see my friend grinning slightly because he apparently knows what’s coming after the characters have their session….. in which the woman reveals herself to have an agenda with this gentleman…. and an extra something that makes her the inspiration for the 2007 indie movie known as “Teeth”. It’s… quite an image, so much so that I take the tape out and give it back to my friend yelling “What the hell?”

The thing is, I couldn’t stop thinking about the animation style I’d just seen and so after my friend kept prodding, I finally made it through the crazy imagery and action sequences, still not entirely certain of the storyline (which was par for the course in those days.) So I became fascinated with this film entitled Supernatural Beast City and even used the bedroom scene for a class project on safe sex. (Got an A, naturally.) A few years later I saw the poster for this movie now re-titled Wicked City that was playing at a local college’s movie theater and wondered if the students had any idea what they were in for. At least I could see that Streamline Pictures had taken an interest in getting this anime into art house theaters like they had Fist of the North Star and Vampire Hunter D at the time. Also, I could finally find out the story behind this movie.

Released in Japan in 1987, Wicked City was an OAV released by a director named Yoshiaki Kawajiri and was his first solo project. It was an adaptation of a horror novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi about life in Japan in the shadow of a tenuous treaty with a dimension of monsters. This would become the first of a few collaborations between novelist and director.

The film opens with our lead character Taki Renzaburu giving a summary of Earth’s treaty with a horrific parallel dimension called The Black World. The treaty has remained intact for hundreds of years and must be renewed periodically, which radical members of the Black World don’t want. To maintain the peace against the radicals on either side, there are the agents of The Black Guard, which Taki belongs to. As the movie goes on, Taki finds he is to be assigned guard duty for Giuseppe Maiyart, a small (and rather lecherous) wizard who is to help complete the treaty. Taki is also given a partner from the black world, a beautiful woman named Makie who has a few special abilities to help fight the various monsters. Being human, Taki instead has to rely on regular fighting skills and a gun that’s seemingly the equivalent of an .88 Magnum (goes through schools), but he gets the job done.

There’s little doubt as to the mentality of the scriptwriters since the male creatures sometimes turn into powerful beasts while the females… can become too much woman for just about any man to handle. For example, the woman in the opening scene was a creation of the director not the initial author. Also, there are points where it seems the writers stayed up nights thinking of ways to abuse Makie, but she does get to account for herself eventually. In watching this translated version (and subsequent tapes and DVDs of later years), I came to see that beyond the near-hental level sexual overtones , Wicked City has a solid horror-fantasy story and is a pretty entertaining film about people fighting monstrous evils in dark times, which ends at a rather interesting point for future potential stories.

Wicked City became a very influential work in due to Kawajiri establishing his style for high-quality dark animation after having assisted on the feature film SF New Century Lensman. Subsequently he would use this on other works such as Demon City Shinjuku, Goku Midnight Eye, Cyber City Oedo 808 and X the TV series among others. Most modern American anime fans will recognize his trademark style on Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, or perhaps the short piece entitled The Running Man, originally a segment of the anthology film Neo Tokyo (AKA Manie-Manie Labyrinth Tales) which was broadcast on MTV’s Liquid Television. This style became a trademark for both Kawajiri and the Madhouse anime studio. Other companies would attempt to emulate it by doing dark-themed OAVs but without the insane amount of key animation that made the character movements so smooth and fluid, the derivatives looked cheap in comparison.

There are two English speaking dubs on here and it’s quite fun to compare the quality on these. The Streamline Pictures one supervised by Carl Macek of Harmony Gold fame utilized many of the actors you might hear on the American audio for Akira, Golgo 13 or Robotech. Credit-wise, there seems to be the usual 90’s pattern of listing casts without attributing individual roles, even on the amalgamated credits sequence designed to compile all such information on this DVD. After looking through Anime News Network’s encyclopedia and imdb.com, I was able to see Gregory Snegoff had solid presence as Taki while playing off against Gaye Kruger’s competent and capable Makie. Actually, the entire crew as a whole did a good job and had mostly decent dialogue, except for times when Mayart’s lines were written to be over-cheesy and could take the viewer out of the seriousness of a given moment. As to the British dub, it gets to be a bit hammy and cheesy in terms of vocal cadences, often reminiscent of mid-90s stuff.

In Summary:
In the end, I had a lot of fun going through this disc with all the extras it has and the history it represents. Wicked City will turn thirty next year and this disc is a good way to reflect on everything this movie’s animation style brought to the industry forefront over the decades. I know it’s likely some of you reading this already have Urban Vision’s release of the Special Edition (which was a good disc in itself). But the remastered video and extras present here make me recommend a double-dip so to speak for previous owners and a definite first buy for those who have not seen this OAV before. Just make sure the kids aren’t present. This is definitely NOT for them.

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

Released By: Discotek Media / Eastern Star
Release Date: January 26th, 2016
MSRP: $24.95
Running Time: 80 minutes
Video Encoding: 480p Standard Definition
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

Review Equipment:
Panasonic 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation 3

Screenvision Media, a national cinema advertising leader, in association with KAOS Connect, renowned event cinema creators, on Tuesday, January 31 announced an exclusive alliance with Crunchyroll, the world’s leader in anime, to deliver quarterly anime event cinema programs in 2017. “Anime Movie Night,” presented by Crunchyroll, will feature some of the most popular anime titles, both new and classic.

Each theatrical event will feature select anime episodes or full-length theatrical releases, giving fans the opportunity to watch anime that is larger than life. “Anime Movie Night” will also include behind-the-scenes content about featured titles and the production of them. The first event will premiere April 2017, to be followed by at least three additional events, one per quarter, for the remainder of the year.

Although no titles have been formally announced as of yet, the following promo features clips from Nanbaka, Bungo Stray Dogs, Bloodivores, and Soul Buster.

“As demand for anime continues to grow in the U.S. and around the world, it’s a thrill to have the opportunity to bring the latest hits, as well as the anime that fans know and love, into theaters – often for the very first time. We want to create new ways for fans to come together and share the experience of the content they love, and cinema is the perfect medium,” said Kun Gao, General Manager of Crunchyroll. “Screenvision Media and KAOS Connect have been the perfect partners for the debut of ‘Anime Movie Night’ based on their respective strongholds in the impactful arena of cinema.”

Crunchyroll currently delivers over 25,000 episodes and 15,000 hours of officially-licensed content from leading Japanese media producers directly to viewers. Translated professionally in multiple languages, content is available within minutes of Japan TV broadcast through Crunchyroll’s apps, which live on every major mobile, connected TV, and gaming device, as well as the web.

“Anime fans continue to be among the most passionate supporters of Event Cinema,” said Dan Diamond and Shelly Maxwell, KAOS Connect’s managing partners. “Through our powerful alliance with Crunchyroll, these loyal fans will now be able to experience an ongoing series of the world’s best and most sought-after anime content, all in the comfort of their local movie theaters.”

“We’re so excited to extend the power of Event Cinema into the dynamic world of anime,” said Bernadette McCabe, Senior Vice President, Business Strategy, Screenvision Media. “The exclusive anime content Crunchyroll and KAOS Connect have created for ‘Anime Movie Night’ is truly incredible, and we can’t wait to see the impact it has on the national anime fan base through the 40-foot-screen.”

Seventeen years and several films after Fox helped jump-start decent movies adapted from Marvel Comics with the sometimes (but not always) successful X-Men franchise, we now come to the seemingly last chapter in which Hugh Jackman will portray the complicated and animalistic Wolverine. The film opens without preamble or grand sequences in the year 2029 with Wolverine now just known as Logan mostly, making ends meet by being a Lyft-styled limo driver. We do get a brutal reminder that he used to be the best at what he used to do and that what he used to do wasn’t very nice. He roams much of the southwest getting resources for a compound owned by Caliban (Stephen Merchant) where he takes care of former professor turned Alzheimer’s patient Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). Logan himself isn’t doing so hot either as his healing factor is working more slowly than ever and after 200+ years seemingly, his lifestyle has taken a dreadful physical toll.

Logan’s life is complicated though with the arrival of a bionic-armed merc named Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) who is looking for a woman named Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez) possibly trying to contact him soon. Sure enough, Gabrielle does show up eventually, hoping to hire Logan to take her and her daughter Laura (Dafne Keen) out of the country and up north. He initially turns down the job and wants no more of anything resembling an adventurer’s life until Gabrielle offers a crazy amount of money for the job that could help out his friends.

This leads to a turbulent road trip for Logan, Charles, and Laura as they face many dangers along the way. Writer-director James Mangold took the challenge of adapting the initial comic story Old Man Logan by Mark Millar, Steve McNiven, and Dexter Vines into an entirely enjoyable work by adding in crucial dramatic elements of a warrior’s journey without the distraction of many tropes that have worked into comic adaptations of late. Many of the characters of that graphic novel were unavailable for use here due to Fox / Marvel licensing issues, so Mangold and co-writer David James Kelly took the story a different direction.

Along the way, though, he infused the directing philosophy of showing instead of telling which worked very well for John Wick, Mad Max Fury Road and similar fare. A lot of information is conveyed about the world around these characters and how it has affected them. Long-time comic fans are likely more apt to recognize some of these aspects but newcomers can follow what’s taking place rather well. What results is less a standard superhero story and more an intelligently-written drama with western, superhuman and horror elements to it.

Yes, I said horror, both in terms of story and action. What the group runs across are some pretty nasty revelations and dangers. Action wise, though, we get to see fast and furious fight sequences with blood and body parts galore. Comic fans who’ve been clamoring to see Wolverine’s unbridled berserker rage will not be disappointed here as we see him and others help this movie earn that R-rating (thanks likely to the Deadpool filmgoers.) While the cinematography of John Mathieson captures the fights pretty well, what makes them most effective is the excellent development and interaction between these characters in the quiet moments as things progress, particularly with little Laura. Mangold has Dafne Keen portray her with some tenderness and quiet rage that naturally comes to a child who has had as rough life like she has obviously had. At various times it becomes clear only Logan and Charles can help her prepare for any semblance of a normal life in the world. She’s been through a lot of pain but is also very bright and doesn’t always want to be the monster she feels inside herself. Watching this emerging balance makes Laura a very compelling figure to this story instead of just a sidekick of any sort.

Jackman and Stewart, on the other hand, are compelling for entirely different reasons. Both have settled into their roles very well over the years but for this outing, it’s nice to see them bring something a bit extra. It’s akin to seeing Sylvester Stallone invest more into his last couple outings as Rocky Balboa because he wanted to give fans the best of his work to a character he so clearly loved portraying. Stewart gets to channel his boisterous Blunt Talk persona into the role of Charles Xavier and it makes the buddy-movie banter between him and Logan more fun to watch this go around. Jackman is more confident yet sadder here than any previous Wolverine works, knowing this may be his last outing as the hero with the uncertain future. Logan has been thrust into a life aspect he neither asked for nor thought possible after a lifetime of battles, and Jackman conveys the appropriate ranges necessary to make him believable.

Director Mangold proves to be two things necessary to make this film work so well: a good cinematic storyteller and a fan of the Wolverine character both as a person and his mythos. These aspects help lift the Logan movie above being just another comic based film into being a good tale alongside its likely inspirations Lone Wolf & Cub and Road To Perdition. Mangold’s prior film The Wolverine was a decent outing but wasn’t as focused or flowing as Logan is. As a result, he and Hugh Jackman have learned much from that collaboration to give fans the perfect finale for this iteration of the character and intriguing prospects for future installments should Fox choose to proceed with the franchise. Highly recommended.

Grade: A

I still remember my first time encountering the Ghost in the Shell franchise, when Manga Entertainment sent promo tapes out to various fan clubs and organizations. We got one at Anime-X and Dragon Con and played it to the fullest. We were impressed by the animation that director Mamoru Oshii (Jin-Roh, Patlabor) had put together while adapting the manga by Masamune Shirow (Appleseed). So a bunch of us went to see the movie when it finally hit the art-house circuit, locally at the Lefont Theater. The thing was, at least for me, the movie was very pretty but the screenplay tended to get too bogged down by tech talk and story momentum came to a halt, and so the resulting film was… just ok to me.

Eventually, the franchise continued, and we got the Stand Alone Complex (one of the best science fiction series I’ve ever watched), as well as the Arise OAVs (decent) and sequel anime movie GITS 2: Innocence (terrible). There have been different iterations of Ghost In the Shell that have gone up and down the quality scale. Now we come to the American adaptation which unlike prior works is done as a live action film. How does it fare? Well…

This new movie begins in the distant future, where many people have gotten into replacing human parts with machine ones for cyber-enhancement. We a shown an injured woman being brought into a hospital. She apparently dies and her brain is transplanted into an artificial body resembling actress Scarlett Johannson (The Avengers, Lucy). Eventually she wakes up and takes her first breaths with new artificial lungs. All this happens under the watchful eyes of Dr. Ouelette (Juliet Binoche) and Mr. Cutter (Peter Ferdinando), who decides this artificial woman, the first successful one of her kind, would be a perfect weapon for the Section 9 unit of cyber-crime operations.

One year later, the artificial woman is called The Major and awaits orders from her boss Aramaki (“Beat” Takeshi Kitano) as she monitors an international business deal. When things begin to go wrong at the deal, The Major leaps into action… off a rather tall building. She runs into some very strange machinery, as do her partners Batou (Pilou Asbaek), Togusa (Chin Han) and several other members of the unit. As things progress, a shadowy figure known only as Kuze (Michael Putt) begins to manipulate events through some brutal murders that will come to affect The Major greatly.

What follows is an interesting variation of the Puppet Master storyline depicted in Oshii’s anime movie. Director Rupert Sanders clearly loved that film as did screenwriters Jamie Moss and William Wheeler. Even though the origins of the Major are different, they very much enjoyed putting her in situations similar to the original. In a macabre way, the story actually gives a plausible account for Johansson’s casting as the lead and conveys theme of corporate domination of the less powerful as well as what it means to be truly human in a computer-dominated world.

Performance wise, Johannson seems a bit off but so does The Major herself as she’s written here. Some aspects capture the anime nuances decently but at others… she’s a bit strange. I can’t quite put my finger on this one here. But sometimes I felt her and sometimes I didn’t. Batou and Aramaki are perfectly presented here and we get an awesome Beat Kitano moment before everything is through.

In retrospect, I keep thinking of different anime and manga that have been adapted for live action. Some efforts have been strong such as Speed Racer, Space Battleship Yamato, Tomorrows Joe, Ruroni Kenshin and Golgo 13 (because Sonny Chiba. F**k yeah!). Others like Attack on Titan, Gatchaman and Dragonball Evolution…. Yeah, the less said the better on those. Ghost in the Shell falls in the middle for me. Some aspects were more effective than others. If this were a flick aimed at the art huose circuit, this movie would fit right in. As a mainstream blockbuster, though, it’s not that great. I would recommend both anime veterans and casual moviegoers go and give the movie a fair viewing with an open mind, as there were elements I didn’t expect to enjoy. So yeah, it’s not the best and not the worst but a decent enough film to check out. If future live adaptations of anime are to come, a bit less of the Hollywood flavor would work well. As far as being part of the Ghost In The Shell franchise, I just think of it as another iteration different from the others and just move on.

Grade: B- / C+

This week we got to attend the red-carpet screening of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. Since, like many other recent Marvel Studios projects, much of this movie was shot in and around Pinewood Studios in Fayetteville, GA, it made sense to have dignitaries of the local government and film communities catch a first glimpse of the final product alongside film crew and background extras. You can hear remarks and insights on upcoming projects from some of these people in the video below.

After some opening remarks from the dignitaries as well as a recorded message from director James Gunn thanking the state of Georgia for being good to the production teams, we get a bit of exposition and then jump into the film’s opening big scene showing the Guardians on their latest job. Peter Quill / AKA Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldanna), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) are defending an energy platform from a giant space monster that likes to attack it. After an amusing sequence, they collect their payment from Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), high priestess of The Sovereign, and head off.

Thing are never easy for the Guardians though as they wind up crashing on a distant planet after a series of mishaps. There they meet the mysterious Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and her master, Ego (Kurt Russell) who claims to be Peter’s long-lost father. Meanwhile, on another outpost world, Yondu (Michael Rooker) finds himself thinking about his last encounter with the Guardians and learns from Ravager leader Stakar Ogord (Sylvester Stallone) that Yondu’s group is still on the outs because he ‘broke the code’ in some way.

I found Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 to be a great rollercoaster ride of emotion. There is so much information thrown at you in this screenplay in terms of story and character. It’s so much fun seeing these people on screen, developing in their crazy situations and relating to each other. Yes, they still have their same personality quirks as from the previous film, but they’re still growing into their own little family. Rocket is still mischievous even as he mostly looks after Groot now. Drax demonstrates… interesting viewpoints in trying to relate to the crew. Gamora tends to be the voice of reason here mostly, even as her sister Nebula (Karen Gillan) returns to come after her.

The story is most personal for Peter Quill though as you might imagine. Seeing him talk with Ego is a nice highlight, continuing James Gunn’s underlying theme of family growth throughout both films. Equally prevalent from Gunn is his interest in 80s pop culture which you get in the most unexpected ways here. Both themes are well-balanced and well-timed and the results are a lot of fun. When you add in the adventure element (as this is a cosmic Marvel movie after all) with the stakes becoming higher than anyone could have ever guessed, the result is also thrilling and very heartbreaking.

I ran through a lot of emotions while watching this film and after thinking it over, I liked it better than the first film. It’s a nice progression for these characters. The conclusion(s) in the entertaining closing credits give a good idea of where their story will go next. Since Thanos isn’t present here I don’t know how they’ll become involved with the Infinity War arc which has been developing in the other Marvel films, but there’s a strangely planted clue that may give an idea on this.

In closing, I have to say James Gunn has done wonders in crafting the cosmic reaches of the Marvel Universe with these films so far, both with the storytelling and excellent use of the ensemble’s talents. Everyone is a delight to watch, though my personal favorite is the unfiltered Drax this go around, and Baby Groot is the scene-stealer you’d expect him to be. Also, I have to say this is Stan Lee’s most perfect cameo yet, hopefully one that will be revisited, along with the other worlds we catch glimpses of. In any case, I enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and look forward to seeing Vol. 3 big time.

Grade: A

What They Say:
At the end of the journey, all men think their youth was Arcadia. From the mind of the legendary Leiji Matsumoto, as directed by Tomoharu Katsumata.

Returning to Earth from the front lines of an interstellar war, Captain Harlock finds that his home is no longer what he once knew. The Illumidus Empire, aliens from another world, have occupied the planet and oppressed its people. The sole hope that remains for the downtrodden Earthmen is a lone voice known to most only as “The Rose,” yet is known much more intimately to Harlock as his former lover, Maya.

While Maya urges her fellow humans to hold onto their belief in a better tomorrow, Harlock cannot wait for such a day to come. By chance he meets a man named Tochiro Oyama, whom despite having never met before, Harlock feels a sense of brotherhood with. Together with Maya’s voice and others who share their beliefs, Harlock and Tochiro seek to cast off the shackles of the Illumidus.

The Review:
Audio:
We get Japanese Dolby 5.1 HD with nicely separated tracks as well as Japanese 2.0 Dolby. Both played back well with no distortions. The true gem here though was hearing the English track from the 80s English release back when it was entitled My Youth In Arcadia / Vengeance of the Space Pirate. I’ll elaborate more on this track in the content section but it’s nice to hear its return, though the sound mixing makes the Japanese performances resonate better than the American ones to a degree. There’s also another commentary track narrated by expert Mike Toole of Anime News Network fame. As always, he brings the goods when throwing out tons of knowledge on a given film.

Video:
This is honestly the best aspect of the release. The picture is brighter and more defined than any previous releases. The red and green hues are served best here overall. The ships in the final space battle can actually be seen against the dark backgrounds, better than ever. It’s truly like night and day compared to prior ones. Great job here.

Packaging:
There’s a slip sleeve with artwork from the original Japanese movie poster on the front. The back of it has text from the ‘what they say’ section in the middle, with artwork across the top and vertically depicted on the left side. Technical information takes up the lower section. Inside is a standard blu ray plastic case. The insert is reversible. One side has the same imagery as the slip sleeve. The reverse has a different poster on its front side while the rear remains the same as the slip sleeve. There’s also a small pamphlet designed similarly to the Arcadia book from the movie containing a list of disc chapters and some art.

Menu:
There are various clips from the film set in a loop with the instrumental version of the closing theme playing in the background. A small black pirate’s crest section is in the lower right with white text options highlighted by yellow selections. The movie chapters are listed vertically over two pages. Pretty easy to navigate.

Extras:
Well, we get the Japanese trailer and teaser for the film, which are fun to watch considering that neither has any actual footage from the movie itself. There’s also a production art gallery set to background music, and it contains a lot of still shots. There’s also an alternate standard definition version of the movie presented in the 4:3 ratio as opposed to the enhanced 16:9 HD edition in the main feature.

Content:(please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This film is a long time favorite. For those of you unfamiliar with me, I’m a product of the Robotech era, from the mid-late 80s. I got to learning about Japanese animation when I picked up the book Robotech Art 1, which talked about that TV show but also had a section in the back showing the highlights of anime up to that point. That’s where I learned about the iconic Captain Harlock, depicted on the cover of Fanfare Magazine. This section spoke of Leiji Matsumoto’s work in the space opera genre, specifically Space Cruiser Yamato, Galaxy Express 999 and My Youth In Arcadia. I started attending local anime meetings, a couple people pulled me aside and told me how Arcadia was actually on VHS tapes (hey, it’s what we had back then) at local Blockbuster Video stores, in kids sections, but edited down with the title Vengeance of the Space Pirate.

There were several anime films which had been edited down and released by Celebrity Home Films at that point, including The Dagger of Kamui, Locke The Superman, Dallos and Macross Do You Remember Love. All had footage taken to make the movies more accessible for kids (regardless of how the screenplays resulted afterwards) and usually were given English dubs of …. questionable quality, which was the norm for imported anime back then. However, the Vengeance one, still largely made sense and the performances weren’t too bad, relatively speaking. Celebrity also did releases of the films unedited but still only containing English language tracks. For Vengeance, this meant seeing the unedited tape as My Youth In Arcadia, with a couple songs sung in English that were originally in Japanese. The result wasn’t too bad, considering the norms of the time.

In the late 90s, AnimEigo got hold of the license and did pretty decent releases of the film on VHS and the emerging DVD format, re-doing the Romanization as Arcadia of My Youth. The DVD had extensive liner notes and an interesting filmography section. The Japanese audio was finally released for America, but gone was the English dub. The resulting release was still very enjoyable though.
So now we have this blu-ray released by Discotek Media, and it combines the best of all worlds. No liner notes or filmography are present, but the info from Mike Toole’s commentary does make up for this…. Oh, you’re probably waiting to read what this movie is about. I apologize for taking a bit to get to that, but as you can see, there’s a bit of history getting this film to American shores with varying results.

Prior to this movie hitting theaters in Japan, Captain Harlock had become an iconic anime figure, first by having his own TV series in the late 70s, and then by appearing in the Galaxy Express 999 TV show and movies afterward. Arcadia of My youth serves as an origin story for the character, though it changes up some things from his previous appearances, and, well… requires a good bit of suspension of disbelief to be enjoyable.

Released in 1982 the movie starts with early 20th Century aerial explorer Phantom F. Harlock in his single-engine plane over a mountain range in New Guinea. Suddenly he encounters the ghostly Owen Stanley Witch of the mountains (who look awfully similar to those twins in Matrix Reloaded). The ghost laughs at Harlock’s inability to fly over a very high peak so he dumps all but 10 minutes of his fuel to fly off toward the mountain and into (his own) history book.

We flash forward to the future, in which Captain Harlock is losing a battle against The Illumidus, an alien race who has conquered the Earth. At a local base, Harlock meets with alien Supreme Commander Zeda and Zoll, a mercenary from Tokarga (a race the Illumidus have previously conquered.) Zeda shows respect for Harlock’s military record and has his second-in-command Murgison offer him a job, which Harlock promptly rejects. He’s given some food coupons and brusquely told he’ll never fly again.

At dinner, Harlock meets a bespectacled man who he winds up helping in a bar room brawl against some Illumidus officers. The man introduces himself Tochiro, as Harlock notes he’s wearing an Earth military uniform similar to his own. Soon, they’re captured by Zoll and put under a mind scanner to see if they’ve been working on any resistance activities. Instead, the scanner detects something very odd about the pair. It turns out their ancestors shared an experience centuries back during World War II, and Zoll’s machine plays out the incident for them (and the audience) to see.

Later, Harlock and Tochiro are discussing their ancestors when Zeda and Prime Minister Triter, a human liaison with the Illumidas, approach and ask to speak to Harlock. They want him to transport a volunteer army to the conquered planet Tokarga and destroy it since it’s no longer of any value to the Illumidus. Eventually, Harlock meets up with the Voice of Free Arcadia, a female speaker who gives messages of hope to the hapless humans on Earth. This encounter becomes one of the most painful moments of his life, but it leads to him gaining a new sense of purpose, new friends, and even a new battleship from the unlikeliest of places.

Like I said, scenes such as the World War II sequence require a bit of a leap to believe, but they still can be entertaining to the story overall. The space opera genre was very prevalent in the 70s and 80s and tended to taper off in the early 90s a bit. As a sci-fi nerd growing up in this period, I was into Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5 and similar fare, and so this was the genre that attracted me to anime the most, with serious storytelling and sometimes fantastic elements in the various screenplays. Some like Macross and Votoms had mecha for their weapons, but it was the characters’ situations I wanted to see play out. Like I said there were tons of such titles back in those decades, as opposed to the current scene where we get occasionally stuff like Knights of Sidonia, Space Battleship Yamato 2199 and the eternally present Mobile Suit Gundam franchise.

In the midst of the genre’s heyday, Arcadia of My Youth stood out as a major work. We get space battles, tragedy, heroism, emerging characters and many other elements from this storytelling style. It has a slow pace to let events unfold, but this was the norm as story and character development took as much precedence as action did in these films. Screenwriter Yooichi Onaka drew on some of the more interesting elements of manga creator Leiji Matsumoto’s script concepts and changed much of the characterizations which were last seen in the ’77 Harlock TV show for a fresh interpretation of events. This kind of became a norm for later Matsumoto related works with re-designs and origin stories always changing. An example of this is a character we’re introduced here known as The Pirate Queen Emeraldas, a red-headed warrior who gets a facial injury during this film, yet gets it in a completely different way during a later OAV series. Another example is Harlock’s battleship the Arcadia, which got a totally different re-design in the GE999 films and this movie than courtesy of Studio Nue, as opposed to the Harlock TV show.

Director Katsumata Tomoharu weaves a lot together here in the era of the cel paints and pencil sketches. His use of art director Iwamitsu Itoo is good on many scenes where characters and ships needed extra detail and shading. He wasn’t into a lot of movement the way his contemporary Rin Taro was back then, but he could arrange a good battle scene and compose some excellent battle scene when it really counted. If you ever see his later work on Final Yamato, you will see some of the best of both elements from the 80s decade. On Arcadia, though, he kept a good balance of all the elements and his use of classical music by the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra added a certain literary spirit of sorts to the overall feature. The scene where the Arcadia launches for the first times is one of the most awesome examples of rising music moods outside of the baptism scene in The Godfather. Also, it’s perfect for the ambiance as Harlock and Tochiro and company experience their highs and lows throughout the film, as planned by Leiji Matsumoto and his subordinates here.
In Summary:

I had a wonderful time re-visiting the classic piece with the enhancements Discotek Media has provided. I cracked it open during Anime Boston (thanks to Mike Lee) and have been giddy to find time to write this review ever since. There have been cool Captain Harlock projects in the years since such as the 2013 CG movie and the Captain Herlock: Endless Odyssey limited series, but I always come back to this movie. The visual improvement is truly stellar and it was fun to take a trip on nostalgia lane with the English dub. Though it’s not had as many features as other Discotek remasters, this is very much a purchase I’d recommend to avid collectors looking to understand which people track and revere classic anime movies to this day.

Features
Vintage “Vengeance of the Space Pirate” English dub, 4:3 Full Screen Aspect Ratio Version in Standard Definition, Feature Commentary with Anime News Network’s Mike Toole, Production Art Gallery, Theatrical Teaser and Trailer.

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

Released By: Eastern Star / Discotek Media
Release Date: May 30th, 2017
MSRP: $29.95
Running Time: 130 minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen

Review Equipment: Panasonic 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation 3

A few years back, Ridley Scott returned to the franchise that made him a director to look forward to with the prequel to Alien entitled Prometheus. It was thought he would be reclaiming a crown seemingly ceded to other sci-fi filmmakers over the years. Unfortunately, though everyone agreed it was shot beautifully, the script got mixed reviews and so the return to the throne was only partially successful. Nevertheless, he has decided to continue this journey with a new prequel, Alien Covenant which takes up where Prometheus left off. Does this screenplay undermine him too? Well… let’s see.

Onboard the pioneer ship Covenant, we meet a cargo crew responsible for transporting 2000 colonists and their resources to a verified hospitable planet several years journey away. This crew is in cryosleep maintained by the ship’s sole android Walter (Michael Fassbender). When a catastrophe hits the ship, most of the crew is awakened, except the all too briefly seen captain (James Franco) who burns to death in his tube in front of his wife Dani (Katherine Waterston). As a result, she becomes second in command to the other XO now captain Oram (Billy Crudup), who works on a faith-based method that rubs the crew the wrong way and makes him look a bit insecure in his command. Only his wife Karine (Carmen Ejogo) keeps him focused.

Meanwhile, another crewman named Tennessee (Danny McBride) goes outside to fix the ship and intercepts a strange transmission from an apparent human source broadcasting a variation of Country Road (yes, the John Denver song). The source seems to be an Earth-like planet that has strangely escaped notice until now. So the crew, who have no desire to go back to sleep for 7 years, decides to drag their cargo and investigate.

As you might imagine, soon after this is when the ish hits the fan. The crew lands and finds not only a crashed alien spaceship, but some of the worst nightmares anyone could’ve imagined. The threats are not always easy to sidestep this go around so the danger is more palpable. The fact that the crew is full of married spouses shows us that each death is going to be mourned by at least someone in the film. This is one of the better aspects of the screenplay by John Logan and Dante Harper in that it gives us a reason to try and care about these characters.

Equally effective are the slimy monster effects which are terrifying as hell. Scott’s shooting along with the VFX and art direction are well-realized on the screen here. A lot of horrific creatures (some familiar, some new) whittles down this group and it’s quite convincing. What’s really convincing though is Fassbender’s performance(s) as Walter and his predecessor David, from the Prometheus movie. Watching him on screen is truly masterful work as the horror and evil unfold around everyone, right up to the effed up ending.

The ending is decent but a lot of the events leading up to it range from good storytelling to ‘lord these people are morons and I want them to die.’ Logan and Dante’s screenplay doesn’t get quite as bad and Prometheus or Starship Troopers, but it definitely has its moments. These make the movie not as solid as the first two Alien films but overall, it’s better than any of the sequels/prequels that have come before. Granted, these are low bars to overcome but the movie is strong enough to hurdle them. Still, I do wish things had gone in a different direction after Prometheus than what’s presented here. Anyway, I do hope Ridley Scott’s return to glory will come with the next planned Alien movie and it can be lauded beside say George Miller’s return to the Mad Max franchise someday.

Thanks to Brittney for helping me catch a couple plot points I missed.

Grade: B