January 2026 | Otaku No Culture |

You Better Promise Me, Arco, Take Me Back In Time

A gentle French animated time-travel tale, Arco blends soft sci-fi adventure with heartfelt friendship. Drawing subtle inspiration from Ghibli and Moebius, the film favours wonder, warmth, and quiet environmental themes over spectacle, delivering a thoughtful story about being lost in time and finding connection.

Arco Movie Poster Elevation Pictures

As much as I sometimes use the idiom “tripping the light fantastic,” it applies doubly to a French animated film titled Arco. This is also the name of a young boy (Oscar Tresanini and Juliano Krue Valdi in the English version) who accidentally finds himself in the past after misusing a time-travel device in a post-modern future.

All he wanted was to go play with dinosaurs. Instead, things go sideways, and he lands in an unfamiliar era where he meets Iris (Margot Ringard Oldra; Romy Fay in the English version). She’s about his age, ten, and together they must avoid a group of conspiracy theorists convinced the boy is proof of alien visitation.

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Discotek Deep Dives Revives AnimEigo’s Catalogue of Classics!

Long-out-of-print #Anime titles from the 90s are returning thanks to Discotek Deep Dives, offering collectors a chance to skip inflated resale prices.

As older North American anime DVD releases from the 90s become harder to find for collectors and fans of this era, nobody really wants to pay the higher prices listed on eBay. Thankfully, DISCOTEK DEEP DIVES aims to correct that. MediaOCD has now partnered up with this company to offer their home media catalog for direct purchase. These releases are transfers rather than full remasters, and the current list shows they won’t be limited to AnimEigo titles. Additional releases will also come from defunct distributors such as Manga Corps.

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You Have To Be prettysmart To Survive The Spirit Lift In A Haunted Hotel

A retro horror deckbuilder inspired by 90s games and haunted theme park rides, The Spirit Lift blends card-based strategy with paranormal investigation inside a cursed hotel where survival is never guaranteed.

The Spirit Lift Box Welcome back to the 90s. Drawing on the aesthetics of Atari’s Haunted House and Disney’s Tower of Terror ride, The Spirit Lift aims to deliver Ghostbusters-style thrills through a retro horror deckbuilder roguelike. Set in a haunted hotel, players investigate strange goings-on by choosing action cards that come to life on PC via Steam. prettysmart games invites players to control a trio of teenage paranormal investigators, uncover the truth behind the haunting, and hopefully survive the night.

From the Press Release:

Build a starting deck by selecting a plucky team of three teen paranormal investigators from a pool of eight characters, then venture forth into a spooky, abandoned hotel. Each character alters the starting deck, affecting battle strategies and offering distinct story revelations depending on who joins the fray. Scour rooms across 13 floors for secrets, new gear and upgrades, then head to the elevator to ascend to the next ghastly level.

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Going ‘Back to the Past’ is No Stormy Ride In This Tribute

A long-awaited follow-up to a beloved TV series, Back to the Past delivers time-travel spectacle, nostalgic fan service, and lingering questions about destiny, even if some ideas feel better suited to a longer format.

Well Go USA
Mild spoiler alert

No prior knowledge of the 2001 Chinese TV series A Step into the Past is required to enjoy Back to the Past (尋秦記). Those familiar with the series will spot how the film connects to its small-screen origins, though the transition isn’t seamless. The budget behind the more ambitious stunt work doesn’t always disguise the green screening, and a bit of suspension of disbelief is definitely required. Still, it’s manageable. My lingering question is how much of Ken’s troops and equipment were conveniently waiting to be teleported along with him. There is an answer, and I won’t spoil where the technology came from.

Although the film took many years to reach screens following the series finale in 2001, fans of the historical drama about Hong Siu-lung (Louis Koo), a modern man trying not to distort the past too much for fear of altering the future he knows, will feel right at home. Over the course of the series, he becomes part of a trusted inner circle and is eventually made Grand Tutor. Much of the story revolves around avoiding temporal paradoxes, and anything essential is neatly recapped in the film’s introduction.

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What’s Next for Light Chaser Animation in 2026?

While international audiences wait, Light Chaser Animation is quietly building a Lord of the Rings-scale adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms alongside a new Water Margin film.

For those living outside of China, no, Light Chaser Animation Studio isn’t resting. Instead, they have two films slated for release this year. While international audiences are still waiting for wider access to Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (2025), local coverage suggests they are planning even more ambitious storytelling. The executives aren’t especially concerned about global reach, knowing that domestic success remains the priority.

When their next project is a large-scale animated adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms in three parts, it’s safe to say they have Lord of the Rings-scale ambitions. The first entry, often referred to in domestic coverage as Three Kingdoms Part One: Struggle for Luoyang, is currently in production and targeting a summer 2026 theatrical release in China. The film is positioned as the opening chapter in a longer narrative arc, centred on the collapse of the Eastern Han dynasty and the power struggles that followed. Visually, the style echoes Chang’an.

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A Geek’s Essential Guide to the Sundance Film Festival 2026

Sundance remains one of the few major festivals still offering a meaningful online component. Here are five geek-friendly picks to watch for, from philosophical sci-fi and midnight body horror to an AI documentary that feels uncomfortably timely.

Sundance Film Festival Marquee From one corner of the world to another, Sundance remains one of the few major festivals that still keeps a meaningful online component. For anyone who can’t travel to Salt Lake City, Utah, the at-home run is scheduled for one weekend, from January 29 to February 1, 2026.

Other festivals that have confirmed online offerings include Chattanooga and Panic Fest. Virtual access is often geo-locked due to licensing agreements. Some viewers use VPNs to get around those restrictions, but that’s a personal call, and not one I’m about to moralise for you. For geeks who must see a film, the cleanest option is often the most annoying one: wait until it’s legally available in your region.

With that in mind, here are five essentials I’m keeping my eye on, including one title that should be available online.

In the Blink of an Eye

In the Blink of an Eye Movie Poster This isn’t necessarily a time travel film, but it plays with time the way memory does. Past, present, and future overlap as three lives cross paths in ways humans can’t fully grasp.

In the distant past, a Neanderthal family struggles to survive after being displaced, doing what they can to protect their children with little more than primitive tools. In the present day, Claire (Rashida Jones), a driven post-grad anthropologist studying proto-human remains, begins a relationship with fellow student Greg (Daveed Diggs). And two centuries later, on a spaceship bound for a distant planet, Coakley (Kate McKinnon) and a sentient onboard computer confront a disease afflicting the ship’s oxygen-producing plants.

This one sounds more philosophical than anything else. Mortality, legacy, maybe reincarnation, it’s all on the table. Life can disappear in the blink of an eye. That’s true whether it’s an asteroid, an illness, or a single choice made at the wrong moment.

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