October 2013 | Otaku No Culture

[Vancouver, B.C.] Young Frankenstein: Poster Boy for Transylvania Tourism

October 4-6, 10-13, 2013
Waterfront Theatre

Ed Sum: Who doesn’t love the oh so misunderstood monster? Young Frankenstein, directed by Chance Newman (Evil Dead: The Musical – Northwest edition), is a classic film by Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder; they playfully gave the original Mary Shelly tale a comedic spin that many audiences adored. And Brooks gave the story a great re-imagining that even works on the Broadway stage on a burlesque style level. Although the show began its run in 2007 and it received mixed reviews by bigger name critics, that did not deter James and I from traveling to Vancouver to see a version done by the performers of Last Chance Productions.

In what we saw was a toe tapping romance and I thought this musical was a tribute to the era when Gershwin was hugely popular. To see it played in a smaller venue, I thought people sitting in “Laboratory Row” (the first seven rows) can get intimate with the performers.

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Transformers Prime: Predacons Rising Review & Final Thoughts

The number of days between Deadlock Predacons Rising left ambiguous, and what we get here takes place a few days after.

TransformersPrime When there are many loose story threads to tie up in the Transformers Prime Beast Hunters series, not every detail is going to get covered in the epilogue, Predacons Rising.

Curiously, the question of whether or not any Cybertronian has gone deep underground (as suggested by IDW’s comic books) is never considered. In what does is an interesting biblical take in the final struggle between the Autobots and Decepticon’s quest to awaken their home planet.

There is a resurrection at hand. As the title implies, someone is going to experience a rebirth. With no surprise, and with no thanks to Hasbro’s marketing department, everyone knows Megatron will return. As for how he manages to do so, only a god is able to bring him back to life—or a devil. Unicron finally makes a proper appearance to go destroy Primus once and for all. But there is more than meets the eye for this particular aspect of the tale to take shape. More than one figure will “rise.”

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Look out Pac-Man, Here Comes Sonic! (in 2014)

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Pac-Man is going to have some competition on the small screen next year, and that’s not in the video-game front. His ghostly adventures may get outed with some cheerful fun with what may be a new interpretation of Sonic the Hedgehog.

The new show is tentatively called Sonic Boom, and it will be a co-production between SEGA of America and Genao Prods. Set to premiere on Cartoon Network in the Fall of 2014, fifty-two 11-minute shorts are going to be made. Maybe it will be a different take from previous cartoons made in the past twenty years. The first iteration, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993), was more comical in its scope, the second, Sonic the Hedgehog (also in 1993), was more dramatic, the third, Sonic Underground (1999), looked at his family and the last one Sonic X (2003) was more episodic. Other shorts were given a limited release.

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Coppelion: Scifi with School Uniforms

By James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

Production Company: GoHands

Series Directors: Hiromitsu Kanazawa and Susumu Kudo

Based on the manga written and illustrated by Tomonori Inoue, Coppelion looks 20 years into Tokyo’s future after a 2016 accident at the local Odaiba nuclear power plant causes the once great city to become uninhabitable. Fast forward to 2036 and the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force dispatches a group of three genetically modified girls called Coppelion (pronounced Kopperion) after receiving an SOS signal from the heart of Tokyo.

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Cloudy with a Chance of No More Sequels?

Cloudy_with_a_Chance_of_Meatballs_2 By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Some viewers might be gasping for air after watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. A huge part of this movie relies on sight gags and figuring out the names of the various foodimals—creatures born from food before they are identified. Deep in the torrid jungle of leeks, apple-piethons and widebeets is a plethora of puns that are only really effective to hear once. When the best parts of the movie are revealed in the early trailers, to finally see those moments on the big screen falls flat. If there is a part of the film that works, that’s with the end-credits since no one has seen an early preview of.

The story here is borrowed from a familiar concept: Chester V (Will Forte) is a wealthy and much adored scientist who runs The Live Corp Company. He rides on the work and success of other scientists’ ideas. If he has created anything new lately, the movie does not show any sign of it. He’s a mishmash of innovators—like that of Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs—who has more than a futurists’ vision of how life should be like in the next century. Even Walt Disney had a foresight to create a wonderful world; in this movie, it’s an island paradise occupied by living plants and manufactured food products.

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The Cast of Thunderbirds are Go in 2015!

Thunderbirds By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

… and I can not wait for this series to air. The style is going to be very different from the original, and I can accept that. There is a unique style charm that marionettes offer which made the classic series great. The storytelling was top-notch and there’s nothing like revisiting some fond ol’ memories.

In contrast, this new series will feature CGI animation and live-action sets. That’s a very curious mix. Who knows, maybe this style of presentation will work. No stills have been released yet as news of who will be voicing whom is the talk of the town in cyberspace.

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