January 2024 | Otaku No Culture

High Flying Adventure is in Store for Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds

The world one finds in High Flying Adventure is in Store for Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds will look somewhat familiar. I can’t help but be reminded of Studio Ghibli’s The Cat Returns.

Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds Movie Poster — **Animation First 2024**
**Playing Jan 26, 7pm**
**FIAF Florence Gould Hall, NYC**

Anyone who loves anthropomorphic cats will adore what Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds has in store for them. Although the character designs are reminiscent of Hayop Ka! thankfully the narrative here is more family friendly and nurturing.

Here, we’re introduced to a writer (voiced by Géraldine Asselin) who suddenly has to babysit Carmen (Maryne Bertieaux) and her younger sister Juliette (Loïse Charpentier). But in order to prepare for their stay, she decides to let them play by themselves whilst she naps. Pretty soon, they are whisked away into a far off adventure!

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Mars Express Ready to Debut at Animation First 2024’s Film Festival!

If you love hard boiled sci-fi detective fiction, then you’re in luck! Mars Express is playing at this NYC based film festival and hopefully continue touring in 2024.

Animation First 2024 Poster — Films are playing at various venues operated by the French Institute Alliance.

Animation First is a film festival dedicated to showcasing why Francophone animation is awesome. As a result, it’s expanded from a three-day event to six! On opening night will be Mars Express, and it’s the perfect way to get this show started! This party runs from Jan 23 to 28th in New York, playing at various venues down Lower Manhattan Island.

What’s offered has come a long way since the days of what I saw on CBC‘s French channel. In regards to the limited options I saw growing up, what’s produced these days is vastly different from those television shows and the few films I saw long ago. My early introduction came from watching what was off television with works like Inspector Hound and Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea. It wasn’t until after watching Michael Dudok de Wit’s The Red Turtle (2016) that my interest was elevated to new levels.

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When DreamWorks Fright Krewe Evokes that Feeling From Rockwell’s Somebody’s Watching Me

Everything you want to know about Vodon’s best heroes but were afraid to ask is answered in Eli Roth’s take on Seint Seiya with Fright Krewe!

Coming Soon to YTV (Canada) and available to stream on Hulu

In addition to that music video, I can’t help but be reminded of Richard A. Hamilton’s graphic novel Fearbook Club after rewatching DreamWorks Fright Krewe for the umteenth time. That’s mostly because the image of kids tackling nasty urban legends around New Orleans is a concept I really dig. And when the lore is done right, I’m returning to it often just to see what else I can pick up on when considering the Vodun religion is quite rich in its imagery and number of loas said to exist!

Creators Eli Roth and James Frey pitched a solid idea which includes explaining the legends and lore which exist around this city. But what’s more important is in how the teens, this series main protagonists, should learn to get along. When there’s loup garous, vampires, ghosts, and other sordid creatures prowling about, these kids better get their act together! While we don’t see much about their supernatural war with humanity, and that’s because peace was established long ago. But as for their pact with certain individuals from this mortal world, it’s tumultuous at best.

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Instead of A, “The Storm” is Coming From China, and this Animated Marvel Looks Ready to Amaze!

Fans of #donghua will want to check local listings to see if The Storm will be blowing through. It’s easy to miss since it’s not looking like a GKIDS release. This third work directed by Busifan (Zhigang Yang) is worth chasing down!

The Storm (2024) Chinese Movie Poster Trouble is coming in the aptly titled Chinese film, “The Storm,” (大雨) which may well be a metaphor for the chaos that’s enveloping the nation. And for everyone to know their place in it, not only must Daguzi understand what’s befallen upon him, but also somehow protect Mantou. This child looks like he can take care of himself, but honestly, he just wants his father back!

After the two visit a mysterious ship floating in Great Dragon Bay in search for treasure, a curse falls upon him and as for whether he can regain his mortality makes up part of this film’s plot. In the trailer, it’s teased that destiny cannot be changed. Whether that alludes to him or something else, it’s tough to say. Perhaps the reason why he was bitten is a form of punishment like Monkey King’s. This character also makes an appearance.

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Bahnsen Knights is Ready to Fright!

This ain’t no ordinary road trip! Just what Bahnsen Knights offers is more than your typical X-Files frightmare!

LCB Game Studio
Chorus Worldwide

Any fan of the retro style Pixel Pulps series of interactive adventure, will be thrilled to hear Bahnsen Knights is now here! It’s available to play on multiple platforms, like the Nintendo Switch, PS4|5, X Box with support for English, Spanish, German, French, and Japanese languages. That is, if you’ve played either Mothmen 1966 (review) and Varney Lake, this next novel will be on the shopping list! This third work in the series looks promising, and for any fan of pulp fiction or that 80s digital style, this game is for you!

From the Press Release:

Follow Toni, the cult’s leader and former car salesman, to figure out what happened to Boulder’s friend and missing partner, Cupra. Learn just exactly what these “route exorcisms” are that everyone’s talking about before Boulder meets an untimely demise. Here, you’ll be driving through multiple outcomes of dark conclusions and explore a choice-based detective tale that branches into different aspects of humanity’s capacity for terror.

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DreamWorks Curses! is more than Familiar with its Friday the 13th TV Series Style Horror Tropes and Vibe!

The educational content that’s offered in this series, puts Curses! above all other past DreamWorks Animated series and in par with Carmen Sandiego.

DreamWorks Curses! Promotional Poster DreamWorks Animation is still churning out the hits and one series fans may not know of is Curses! That’s because it’s exclusive to Apple TV Plus, and unlike Fright Krewe (review coming soon) which can be found on specialty cartoon networks, I suspect this company wants to keep a firm hold on where it can be seen.

This series is a lot better than the other one because it feels like an animated version of Friday the 13th the TV Series. This piece of 90s television was about cousins searching for cursed objects and if they can’t remove the hex, it gets sealed in a vault. In this cartoon, Pandora (Gabrielle Nevaeh) and Russ (Andre Robinson) have a similar task. However, instead of freeing the objects from their enchantment, if they can find where they were stolen from, the spell can be broken, and hopefully for every item returned, they can free their dad from being a statue!

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