SPEED RACER COLLECTORS EDITION (DVD) 11 EPISODES

the dvd case is specially made with real rubber with the speed racer logo.
full screen version. digitally mastered. dolby monaural audio. the speed racer files featuring production notes theme song sing along. villians gallery. interactive mach-5 control demonstrations. merchandise and more.
the worlds favorite high octane animated hero is back! roaring into action aboard his trust mach-5 it is the intrepid young race car driver who sparked an international cult phenomenon: the one and only speed racer! now for the first time ever the first eleven episodes of this classic hugely popular japanimation series are brought together in this special limited edition dvd. turbo charged with all of speed racers trademark animated thrills; offbeat humor; unforgettable characters and cliff hanger racing action; these collectible specially remastered episode are the stuff of every fans dreams. so fasten your seatbelts and join speed; girlfriend trixie; speeds 2 brothers; one mischievous monkey and an outrageous assortment of villains for one fast lane; no brakes; nonstop adventure after another! ready set go. speed racer. go!
episode 1: the great plan (part 1)
episode 2: the great plan (part 2)
episode 3: challenge of the masked racer (part 1)
episode 4: challenge of the masked racer (part 2)
episode 5: the secret engine (part 1)
episode 6: the secret engine (part 2)
episode 7: the race against the mammoth car (part 1)
episode 8: the race against the mammoth car (part 2)
episode 9: the most dangerous race (part 1)
episode 10: the most dangerous race (part 2)
episode 11: the most dangerous race (part 3)

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FIRE AND ICE (DVD)

Cult animation legend Ralph Bakshi (Lord of the Rings) has created another amazing fantasy world in Fire and Ice a classic sword and sorcery tale of good vs evil. Set in Earths distant future the world is undergoing vast changes as another ice age threatens to engulf the planet. Mankind has been pushed into a range of volcanoes to make their last stand against the approaching merciless cold. But the encroaching flaciers are not a natural phenomenon - they are both a weapon and the home of the evil Ice Lord Nekron and his horde of sub humans. Now volcano and glacier Fire and Ice are on a deadly collision course as the two armies engage in a mighty desperate battle for survival.

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Shrek The Third DVD

Street Date: November 13, 2007
Actors: Julie Andrews, Antonio Banderas, John Cleese, Cameron Diaz, Rupert Everett, Ian McShane, Michael Meyers, Eddie Murphy, Amy Poehler, Justin Timberlake
Synopsis: When Shrek married Fiona the last thing he had in mind was becoming the next King of Far Far Away. But when Shrek’s father-in-law, King Harold, suddenly croaks, that is exactly what he faces. Recruiting Donkey and Puss In Boots for a new quest, Shrek sets out to bring back the rightful heir to the throne. Meanwhile back in the kingdom, Fiona's jilted Prince Charming storms the city with an army of fairy tale villains to seize the throne. Fiona and a band of princesses must stop him to ensure there will be a kingdom left to rule

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Casshern dvd

Loosely based on TATSUNOKO Pro.'s 1973 anime (it's 1993 OVA was released in the US under the name Casshan the Robot Hunter), Kazuaki Kiriya's 2004 live-action re-envisioning is a clanking behemoth of a movie, made with big ambitions and little skill.
In the future, after a fierce war in which an alliance of eastern nations laid waste to Europe's robot armies, Tetsuya, the hot-blooded son of an influential scientist, disobeys his father and joins the army to fight a (different) war. Left dead after making a mistake that any number of Vietnam War movies could have told him was stupid, his soul returns to where his father is experimenting with "neo cells," artificial human cells that can be used to grow entirely new limbs and organs. There he witnesses the arrival of his own corpse, and when a serendipitous extraterrestrial metal lightning-bolt-thing lands smack in a pool of neo-cell ooze, his father dips him into it, bringing him back from the dead. This is no happy reunion, however. Tetsuya isn't pleased to be resurrected, and the accident has left him with a superhuman strength that could tear his body apart if not kept in check. It also fused the spare human parts (which apparently included spare heads) into similarly superhuman "Neo Sapiens," who soon take to wearing cutting-edge fashions and trying to destroy humanity. And quite naturally, it is up to Tetsuya, now called Casshern, and his nifty exo-skeleton-suit to save the world.

Kiriya obviously soaked up the visual influences of dystopian science-fiction films like Bladerunner and Metropolis (Fritz Lang, not Rintaro) without the qualities that made them great ever making the least impression on him. His desire to remake the original Casshern for a new generation is explicit in the angst and grit he packs into the movie, but his ambitions simply cannot withstand the sloppiness with which they are executed. Political wrangling, racism and ethnic cleansing are casually tossed in, as if their mere presence would be enough to make the film thoughtful or relevant. His convoluted script has holes big enough to park robot armies in (why did the Europeans leave their robot armies lying around for the Neo Sapiens to commandeer?). The dialogue is painfully cheesy, the plot lurches unpredictably from one occurrence to the next, barely bothering to collect itself into a coherent whole, and all the while inexplicable occurrences proliferate like viagrafied rabbits. Long before the film stumbles to its preposterous climax and dippy, trippy pseudo-spiritual conclusion, viewers will have already exhausted themselves trying to keep up with its illogical plot twists.

That is, if Kiriya's epileptic visuals don't do them in first.

Whether he's aware of what thoroughgoing garbage his script is or not, Kiriya directs the film as if compensating for it. He's not entirely mistaken in thinking that wild stylistic innovation can prevent audiences from poking Titanic-sized holes in a plot, but once again his skills simply aren't up to the task. He digitally manipulates the film to within an inch of its life, washes it in random changes in film stock, and crowds the mise-en-scene with Byzantine masses of baroque futuristic machinery for no better reason than because he can. As often as not the visuals alone are enough to render a scene incomprehensible. Action scenes are collections of admittedly memorable images pared down to split-second cuts and edited together with the alacrity of a lobotomized test monkey on speed. It's an orgy of directorial self-satisfaction—as grandiose an example of stylistic masturbation as you're ever likely to see.

As if the one-two punch of a sprawling, sloppy script and confusing visuals weren't enough, Dreamworks' subtitle translation does some obvious monkeying with the timing and content of the dialogue, making some scenes even sillier than they were originally. Other decisions on their part—non-selectable English subtitles, a complete absence of extras—give one a new appreciation for the oft-overlooked consideration of anime companies.

Big, loud, sloppy and dumb, Casshern rates among the worst attempts ever to re-invent a classic comic character. When an entire movie can be stolen by the cameo appearance of a helmet (the original Casshern's, retro-cool headpiece), you know something is horribly awry

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Akira Vol. 2

The saga of AKIRA keeps marching on in this, the second volume of the series.

After the battle between the unified motorcycle gangs and the Clown gang led by the super powered Tetsuo, the military shows up to find Tetsuo being overwhelmed by his growing powers. In exchange for drugs that will help control his powers, Tetsuo agrees to go with the military so that they can study him. Also taken by the military back to their headquarters as prisoners are gang leader (and Tetsuo's ex-best friend) Kaneda, as well as Kei, a member of an underground resistance force and the love interest of Kaneda.

Once Tetsuo is at the military headquarters, there are fears that even though he is complying with orders given to him now, he is actually quite mentally unstable and won't be so compliant for long. To complicate matters further, the three children who were already part of the governments project to study the development of psychic abilities fear that Tetsuo's power is so great that he will eventually replace them so they decide that they have to kill Tetsuo. To do this, they help Kei escape her guards then they take over her mind and use her as a vessel through which they can project their powers when they battle Tetsuo.

After an initial battle between Kei and Tetsuo, Tetsuo figures out that he is actually being attacked by the three children and he sets off with the doctor in charge of research to confront them. Meanwhile, as Kaneda is being escorted by armed guards to the office of the Colonel, who is in charge of the military and the project to study psychic abilities, Kaneda runs into Kei battling security guards. The two of them somehow get teleported to the building's armory where they find the only weapon that can harm Tetsuo, a laser rifle.

All this leads to a battle between Tetsuo, Kaneda and the three children in the nursery where the children live. During this confrontation, Tetsuo learns from the doctor the location of Akira (whose mere name is an obsession for him). After the battle, Tetsuo teleports out of the building and heads off to confront Akira, who is frozen and buried underneath a waste treatment plant near the site for the upcoming Olympic games. As the military rushes to the site of Akira's burial, they find out that Tetsuo has already beaten them there and Tetsuo's mere presence is enough to awaken Akira from his hibernation.

I have to say that so far I haven't been terribly impressed by AKIRA. It's not that it's bad, it's actually quite good, but it's not great. From all the awards it has won and rave endorsements it has received from around the world, I was expecting something a little bit better.

This volume of AKIRA is essentially a transition volume as well as a prelude to the eventual awakening of Akira. We are already finished with the first third of this saga and the two major questions I have about this series, which is why Akira caused the big explosion in Tokyo in the year 1992 and how did it lead to World War Three, haven't been answered yet. I'm assuming they will answered in a future volume... actually I'm hoping that they will be answered because that information wasn't in the movie and these are fairly big questions.

So, ultimately not much happened in this volume except for a fair amount of action and Tetsuo making contact with Akira. Also, there was one sub-plot that was concluded in this volume and the reason I bring it up is because it was a fairly insignificant one. In Volume 1 there was this brief fight between an agent working for the military and one of the members of the resistance force that ended in a draw, and in this volume they conclude their rivalry. What I found pointless about this was that even though the military agent helped Kaneda and Kei escape from the military headquarters, both the agent and the resistance member end up dying. It was just really odd to see actual page space devoted to this sub-plot between two characters that can't even be considered secondary characters because only one of them actually had a name and neither one had much character depth.

The only other real flaw I saw was that Kaneda, who can probably be called the hero of this series, has had almost no character development. Even characters that go by title of Doctor and the Colonel have more character depth. It was established pretty clearly in the first volume that Kaneda is a jerk, but with all that has happened to him and the people around him, you would think that his character would have grown a little bit. Kaneda has only two things on his mind: killing Tetsuo and getting into Kei's pants.

With all the problems I have with AKIRA is there anything I like about it? Well, it certainly isn't boring. This volume devotes most of its time to action and certainly keeps the series moving on. Also, it isn't bad to look at.

As I stated in my review of Volume 1 it's too early to judge how the whole series is going to be just from reading the beginning volumes. But as things are going, it looks like it's going to be a good series and only time will tell if it will be a true masterpiece. Also if you can't find Volume 1 and you still want to read AKIRA, at the beginning of this second volume there is a fairly lengthy and detailed rundown of the first volume

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Akira Vol. 1

Almost every anime fan has seen or heard of AKIRA the animated movie—it was one of the first anime movies to get wide-scale recognition in the U.S. But before AKIRA the movie, there was AKIRA the manga. This massive two-thousand-plus-page epic has gone on to win every possible award, and it is considered by some the best graphic novel series ever created, anywhere. Now it is available for the first time in the States... well, not really. AKIRA was first released in the states back in 1988 by Marvel Comics, but this is the first time that it is being offered in the "phone book"-sized graphic novel format in which it originally appeared when it came out in Japan.

Written and drawn by Otomo Katsuhiro, who also directed the movie, AKIRA takes place in Neo-Tokyo in the year 2030, thirty-eight years after World War Three began when a new type of bomb exploded over Japan. While riding at night through Old Tokyo where the bomb exploded, a group of bikers suddenly come upon a small boy standing in the middle of the road. Before Tetsuo, who is riding at the head of the pack, can swerve out of the way, his motorcycle explodes—causing him to become gravely injured. Kaneda, the leader of the group, goes up to confront the small boy, but before he can do anything, the boy vanishes into thin air.

Things start to become weirder when the military then shows up, asks some questions and then leaves without offering any aid to the injured Tetsuo. Not too long after that night, Kaneda's life takes a turn as he becomes involved with a head-strong woman named Kei who belongs to an underground revolutionary movement that is fighting against a covert government agency that is raising and studying humans with paranormal abilities. One of these superhumans turns out to be the little boy that Kaneda's gang ran across that night in Old Tokyo. Worst yet is that Tetsuo is also one of these superhumans, but he is far more dangerous than the others because his powers are just developing and he doesn't know how to control them. And at the heart of this maelstrom of commotion is the shadow of an enigmatic and extremely powerful force known only as Akira.

For the most part, I liked this manga. Otomo is a very good storyteller. His artwork is very clean but also detailed and the action sequences were easy to follow. He has also done a good job in developing a cast of characters who all seem to have some reason to be involved in the story by weaving them all together in a plot which revolves around the mysterious Akira force. (And no, Akira is not the name of the book's main character.)

One of the things that I like about AKIRA the manga is the epic story that it is trying to tell. Just reading the first volume alone gives me the impression that this version of AKIRA is going to be an even bigger epic than the one that was portrayed in the movie. In fact, I feel that the synopsis I provided in this review isn't adequate enough to describe just how much is going on in this story.

Overall, AKIRA is one good read. It's usually hard to tell how a series as a whole will be by just reading the first volume, but since all the reviews on the back cover and in the Otomo biography at the end of the book proclaim that AKIRA is the best thing since sliced bread, I think that it's safe to say that the AKIRA will be at least decent throughout its run. That last sentence may sound a little cynical, but I'm just wary by nature of anything that "everybody" likes. However, despite my paranoia, I did enjoy the manga and, even though I have seen the movie and thus have some inkling of where the story is going and how it is going to end, I still want to check out future volumes. So if you haven't picked up your copy of AKIRA volume 1 yet, go do it now.

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House of Demons Vol. 1

As Rob Zombie eloquently states in his introduction, this volume of 3x3 EYES "does not contain muscle-bound steroid freaks! This book does not contain silicone-packing mutant bimbos sporting day-glo pantyhose! This book does contain a nutty three-eyed girl named Pai and Yakumo a pseudo-transvestite wildman. Together they join forces for some koo-koo adventures, Jack!"

As much as I respect and revere the works and words of Rob Zombie, here is a more detailed synopsis of 3x3 EYES: It all starts when Yakumo, a fairly ordinary Japanese man except for the fact that he works in a transvestite bar and never opens his eyes, comes across a young girl in rags and wearing a sing around her neck that says "Please take me to Junin-Machi in Shinjuku," which is Yakumo's home address. He initially dismisses her, but he comes to her rescue when she gets mugged. Yakumo manages to chase the mugger away, but the girl's staff gets stolen.

Yakumo takes the girl to the bar he works at, where he finds out that her name is Pai and that she has a letter for him from his father. According to the letter, Yakumo's dad was traveling in the mountains of Tibet looking for a fabled race of three-eyed monsters called the Sanji-yanunkara and Pai is one of these triclops. Yakumo's father also writes that he nearly died in the mountains of Tibet but was saved by Pai and, in exchange for saving his life, Yakumo's father agreed to help Pai become human. Alas, Yakumo's father dies before he can fulfill his promise to Pai, but not before he charges Yakumo with taking up where he left off to help Pai become human.

As you can probably guess, Yakumo takes all of this with a grain of salt. But before he can tell Pai that it's not a good time for him to drop everything and go globe-hopping in search of a way to turn a mythical three-eyed monster human, a giant bird monster with the face of a man appears in the sky above Shinjuku. It turns out that this monster is actually Pai's friend Takuhi who was released from her staff by the mugger who stole it. In the process of trying to bringing Takuhi under control, Yakumo is mortally wounded, but before he dies, Pai's Sanjiyan powers awaken (i.e. her third eye appears on her forehead) and she sucks up Yakumo's soul, turning him into a indestructible zombie.

As you might imagine, all of this convinces Yakumo that his father's story wasn't a nonsensical rambling from a dying man. So Yakumo agrees to help Pai out and, according to Yakumo's father's letter, they look for a man named Aguri who works for the Yogekisha company in Hong Kong. After some difficulty Pai and Yakumo find the Yogekisha company, which turns out to be a publishing company for an occult magazine, but Aguri isn't there—only his assistant Li Ling-Ling and she is able to explain to Pai and Yakumo how they might be able to turn Pai into a human. Not too long after Pai and Yakumo arrive at Yogekisha, a wealthy Hong Kong socialite named Huang Song Li hires the company to investigate the infestation of her mansion by demons. But all is not as it seems, as Huang Song Li is not as she seems, and she may actually have some connection to the disappearance of Aguri and the demons that are terrorizing her mansion.

Despite the sometimes goofy moments (like a mugging on a busy Japanese street and the occasional cheesecake fan service, which I actually didn't mind that much), 3x3 EYES was an enjoyable read. And at the risk of sounding like an annoying sound bite, this was a fun read as well. Rob Zombie was right, this is some "koo-koo" crazy stuff.

Yuzo Takada manages to tell a story that has a good mix of action and comedy without becoming boring and cliched. And many of Takada's characters have some pretty funny quirks. Yakumo does some very brave things, even though he is just an ordinary Japanese student who works at a transvestite bar and never opens his eyes and can't do something simple like calculus. Li Ling-Ling, who has a Chinese name that I don't think Yuzo Takada had to think too hard to come up with, doesn't believe in monsters despite working for a magazine that chronicles the occult. In fact, she believes that Yakumo and Pai are actually ninjas instead of supernatural beings. And Huang Song Li's butler looks like a malevolent, grown-up version of Eddie Munster.

Dark Horse originally released 3x3 EYES several years ago, but they canceled it after a short run because of poor sales. Now the manga has made its comeback in the pages of Dark Horse's manga anthology magazine Super Manga Blast. Hopefully, Dark Horse will keep 3x3 EYES around for a good while longer because from reading this volume 3x3 EYES has a good start and a lot of possibility for future stories. In fact, in Japan the 3x3 EYES manga has been running for over ten years and been collected in over thirty volumes.

All in all, 3x3 EYES is a good read and one that I can recommend. About the only thing that I found that was really weird, besides the goofy character quirks and convenient coincidences, was that all the Chinese people had pointy ears

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The Anime Encyclopedia

The Internet has made it possible for fans of any phenomena to quickly search and find information about many topics of interest. But most sites tend to focus on specific subjects or favorites, and comprehensive resources that encompass everything on a given subject are generally hard to come by. In the case of anime, the tried-and-true Anime Web Turnpike provides a starting point to the plethora of anime sites out on the Web, but since fans generally tend to focus on their favorite titles, it is often difficult to find information about older and sometimes obscure titles that aren't fan-favorites, or haven't been heard of by most fans.

The ANIME ENCYCLOPEDIA, written by Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy, takes on the daunting task of providing a comprehensive all-in-one resource. In the interest of keeping the book accessible in both size and cost—the book already weighs in at close to 600 pages—the publication gives priority to titles that are available in English-language form and/or on Japanese video. Overall, the ANIME ENCYCLOPEDIA provides a much broader perspective on the anime phenomena compared to other mainstream publications, whose views and criticisms seem to be based on their limited exposure to high-profile titles such as POKÉMON.

The description on the back cover labels the book as "for both anime newcomers and battle-hardened otaku" alike, and even those who have followed anime since the early 70s and claim to have "seen it all" will most likely find themselves astonished, even humbled, by the sheer number of titles covered, some of which date all the way back to 1917. As an English-language publication, the titles are listed by their English titles, but each entry also gives the original Japanese title and alternate names under which the entry may be known, along with other pertinent info such as release date, format and a list of production credits. The information supplied is equally comprehensive as the number of anime titles—each title is given at least a one-paragraph summary of what the show is about, while some of the more well-known titles delves into further detail such as its production, broadcast and English adaptations where applicable. And if you're a concerned parent, you'll be glad to know that the ANIME ENCYCLOPEDIA also supplies ratings for most titles as well. The amount of work and detail that went into this publication is quite admirable, to say the least.

That said, I do have a few quibbles about some of the information supplied. For instance, the information given for GUNDAM WING states a "sudden cancellation" and that this cancellation forced the release of the OVA ENDLESS WALTZ. While it is true that ENDLESS WALTZ addresses some unresolved plot points, GUNDAM WING actually ran its full length of 49 episodes as originally planned rather than being cancelled. In fact it was its success with fans that prompted the release of the OVA series to meet popular demand, and to date GUNDAM WING remains the only alternate-universe GUNDAM series successful enough to see a sequel. It is also a little-known fact that it was the original GUNDAM TV series (not GUNDAM WING) that was cut short ahead of schedule due to lackluster ratings during its original broadcast, and that the producers had to request a one-month extension so they could wrap up the story. Regrettably, this information is noticeably absent from the description given for the original GUNDAM series in the publication.

While I've learned a great deal about GUNDAM from other GUNDAM experts, I'm far less qualified to give information about other titles, and thus am not in a position to gauge the accuracy of the information supplied for the numerous other entries in the book, many of which I've admittedly never even heard of. But I do have another quibble with the ANIME ENCYCLOPEDIA, and that is the numerous instances where the facts and info supplied are also accompanied with the writers' thoughts and opinions about a given show. While the ENCYCLOPEDIA does a good job with sticking to the facts for the most part, the occasional word of sentiment such as "lackluster" or "boring" is brought up in quite a few of the descriptions.

In the case of ESCAFLOWNE, for example, the description states that the series was "bowdlerized for the American TV market". Now don't get me wrong—I will heartily agree that the U.S. broadcast was "heavily and extensively modified" (to put it in more objective terms), and I'll also agree that this move didn't sit well at all with ESCAFLOWNE fans in America. At least in this sense, the publication accurately reflects the sentiments of the fans about the U.S. TV broadcast. But that's the precise problem: sentiments.

The dictionary definition of an "encyclopedia" is a publication that sticks with the pure facts, and lets the reader form his/her own opinion about any given subject. If the intent of a publication is to supply interpretations and opinions about a given subject, that's perfectly valid, even desirable, for a magazine or a guide book, but an encyclopedia by nature should strive to be as objective as possible in its presentation of information.

When I discussed my thoughts with Stonebridge press, they fully expressed their willingness to listen to their readers. Indeed, Stonebridge has even set up an email address, animeinfo@stonebridge.com, printed in the publisher's note at the beginning of the book to which readers can submit their feedback. And Stonebridge ensures its readers that any valid corrections, omissions, constructive criticism and suggestions can be incorporated into the next edition of the ANIME ENCYCLOPEDIA.

My observations may sound harsher than I actually intend them to be, and in particular I find Stonebridge's willingness to listen to the anime community a very welcome gesture. And my quibbles about the semantic definition of an "encyclopedia" aside, I'm sure that readers may actually agree with the sentiments expressed, while newcomers may find the thoughts and opinions helpful in deciding which titles they want to purchase and learn more about.

In fact, my only real gripe is that this resource isn't available as a CD-ROM with a search engine. (I almost said "website", but Stonebridge deserves to be compensated for their effort, after all.) All said and done, I applaud the amount of time and effort that went into creating an all-encompassing publication about anime. The ANIME ENCYCLOPEDIA is about as comprehensive a source of information about numerous anime titles that you'll find anywhere.

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