Category: Home Entertainment

Coppelion: Scifi with School Uniforms

By James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

coppelionProduction 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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The Cast of Thunderbirds are Go in 2015!

ThunderbirdsBy 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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Akihabara: Playground and Home to Geeks

By James Shaw and Ed Sum

Cover

J: The documentary Akihabara Geeks follow the lives of a few of the inhabitants of Akihabara or as it’s been nicknamed “Electric Town.”

And as I like to call the inhabitants “damn lucky,” oh what I would not do to live there, where many geeks congregate. It would be like a large convention every day. The documentary is not hard-hitting by any means. In fact it could almost act as a holiday advertisement for Akihabara. We get to know some of the occupants and they seem to be like anyone else with their own dreams and their own little quirks, except for one resident who is painted as downright odd.

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Mainframe Entertainment Gets Reboot

Proof of this devotion was recorded by Michael Benyaer at Mainframe Entertainment’s Reboot panel during the recent Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo.

RebootCastIt is glorious news and perhaps news that dedicated fans have long been waiting for. Mainframe Entertainment, who were responsible for such hit TV series as Beast Wars: Transformers (Beasties in Canada), Weird-Oh’s and Shadow Raiders (War Planets in the USA) is being rebooted.

Now known as Rainmaker Entertainment, the company will use the Mainframe Entertainment name as their television arm. Said Michael Hefferon, President and Executive Producer of Rainmaker, “We are excited to focus our television production activities under the Mainframe brand. We believe this announcement emphasizes Rainmaker’s commitment to the production of animated programming for television.”

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A Dragon Fan’s Commentary: Breaking down the “Iron Gronckle”

The question of whether this Gronckle Iron, as its called, is the Berk equivalent to Mithril, will never get answered. But the idea that this How to Train Your Dragon series is starting to make references to familiar pop culture products is becoming very evident.

Fishlegs and two RocksThe age of scientific discovery is very evident in the second episode, “The Iron Gronckle,” of Dragons: Defenders of Berk. What that means for the astute is in how perfectly other products developed for this series is starting to tie in. The School of Dragons is an online educational game product that focuses on teaching its players scientific method, and if this episode is any indication, maybe it will pave way for more marvels to come.

But so far, nobody has noticed that Alvin and Mildew left a few dragon eggs in the caves underneath the town of Berk. When one of them happens to be a Whispering Death, what that means may not get revealed perhaps till mid-season.

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Finding Plenty of Character with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

AgentsEd Sum: Is it my imagination or is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. a re-imagining of Torchwood? I love the set up of this series and the characters that are introduced.

Agent Phil Coulson has this nice wry humour that Clark Gregg knows how to finesse, and it gives this series some light-hearted moments that I would not consider to be overly hilarious. Many fans of this series may well be wondering how the heck did he come back to life? Or, did he even die in the first place? That answer may well never be answered, but as I continue to watch this show, hopefully more clues will be given.

My theory is that he’s a clone, with all the memories of the original Coulson transplanted into him.

James Shaw: Before I watched the first episode, I thought that since Gregg was in this series, that it would take place in a timeline before the Avengers movie. It’s obvious to me that this is not true and I am left with the feeling of a cop-out. On one hand I can understand why they need Clark Gregg for this series, because how many were truly going to watch a series without Gregg attached to the cast.

But I just can’t help getting that sinking feeling. I think it was the same feeling when I saw the ending to the Last Samurai with Tom Cruise. Having him not commit seppuku like the rest of the samurai in the end left it with a true Hollywood ending where the star had to survive beyond all costs even if his character’s dignity was left with questions.

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