Fantasy Archives | Otaku No Culture

When Fern Flowers Bloom Only One Day of the Year, It’s Not Just at the Victoria Fringe Festival!

In order to appreciate The Lighter Touch Art Collective’s play, When Fern Flowers Bloom, this primer will serve as a guide and be a review on what’s beautiful about this tragic tale of love, loss and life.

The Lighter Touch Art Collective

Audiences wanting to see When Fern Flowers Bloom is best advised to know some aspects of Latvia folklore to fully appreciate every element this play offers. Otherwise, the symbolic elements may seem foreign. After seeing this show at the Victoria Fringe Festival, I want to dive even deeper into the lore because I suspect this tale also explores why the seasons change.

Just how this story begins had me vibing with “Here Comes The Sun,” by The Beatles but by the finale, I was thinking “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” by CCR. When the knowledge that Death is one of the characters, what’s presented addresses the traditions and rituals leading to Summer Solstice. Every culture celebrates it differently. Here, Jāņis (Erik Karklins) is a living incarnation of this season, and when this lady of the night can deliver more than a smile to his face every day, I fear for him!

Although Nāve’s (Sarah Ivanco) innocent side is that of a beautiful young woman in search of the rare Fern flower, there is more to her than meets the eye.

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50 years of Dungeons and Dragons with the Royal Mail Stamp Collection in Review

Fans of Dungeons and Dragons can find something to appreciate with this release of commerative stamps celebrating a milestone of this game’s history!

Dungeons and Dragons Royal Mail Stamps — **Orders can be made by ordering from the Royal Mail’s online shop.**

The Royal Mail (UK) Postal Service have fourteen stamps celebrating 50 years of Dungeons and Dragons! Although this release is for the die-hard collector, what’s offered looks beautiful to behold, and not even this strange alchemic beast can say no to it!

Although I was hard pressed to decide on first day covers or the other offerings, I stuck to the basics. Although some of the art is old (from 4th edition), that’s why I was hesitant at first to order, but now that I have a set in my hands, there’s no regrets. There’s framed art, full sheets and a lot more. The art is from Wayne Reynolds, and anyone who’ve played various games long enough will recognise what is old and what is new from this set!

Here, the monsters featured are the Red Dragon, Owlbear, Vecna, Gelatinous Cube, Mind Flayer, Mimic, Displacer Beast and Beholder. Also, exposing these creatures with a ultraviolet beam of light will reveal a surprise!

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Three More Chinese Animated Films Hopefully Coming in Late 2024

Fans of Chinese animated films will want know if these works will gain international distribution or not.

Nezha from the Fengshen Cinematic Universe - Chinese Animated Film — Nezha from the Fengshen Cinematic Universe

There are not a lot of months left in 2024 for China to churn out more animated wonders for its citizens. Not everything is expected to get an international release, ‌but I’m hoping. That’s because of the works said to be coming out this year according to the website Xrender, one is more internationally known over others, and White Snake 3 has made its debut to only one part of the world fully aware and fans worldwide eager to see it!

But there’s more, and I offer my top three choices of films which has not been released yet, but deserve recognition. Not every work has their promotional material ready yet, but if that work is supposed to be coming out this year, the publicity team better start hyping these films up next month!

Ne Zha 2

At long last, a sequel to the 2019 film is coming! In the first instalment, this spunky demigod child had a lot to learn about whom to trust. It was an adventure I really loved (movie review) and wished a sequel would come sooner than later. After six long years, this continuation is finally getting made, but as for the plans of continuing the Fengshen Cinematic Universe, it may have been dropped when the pandemic changed the rules. Certain industries got hit hard, and Horgos Caitiaowu Picture, who helped produced this series of films, may have decided to change direction.

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White Snake 3: Afloat Needs To Surface in North America! Every Explosive Trailer Released.

The movie, White Snake 3, has made its debut in China, and hopefully the plan to bring this latest Light Chaser Animation to North America will be soon!

Release Date in China:
August 10th, 2024

Light Chaser Animation Studios continues to delight fans of the White Snake series with their latest entry, White Snake 3: Afloat (白蛇：浮生). While the literal translation of the title is “Floating Life,” “Afloat” or even “Rebirth” better captures the intended themes of renewal and emotional drift.

Whatever name you prefer, I can’t wait to see this next chapter! For those unfamiliar with the series, the first film is available online and on Amazon USA, while the second is streaming on Netflix. You can also check out my reviews of Part One and Part Two.

As for why these films feel disconnected, I suspect the North American distributor wasn’t aware this story was always intended as a trilogy.

This fantasy romance raises two big questions: Will the sisters reunite? And will Bianca (Xiao Bai, voiced by Zhe Zhang) see Xian (Tianxiang Yang) again? There’s a third thread too—according to the source material, the couple has a child! The ending of the first film teases this possibility, but in the sequel, Xian is sidelined when time travel complicates everything. During a climactic battle, Verta (Xiao Qing, played by Xiaoxi Tang) is hurled into a future that’s anything but welcoming.

In that timeline, the Baoqing Fox takes on a larger role in the chaos. While the trailers don’t reveal much about her involvement, what little we see is intriguing—and I’m eager to learn more.

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[Fantasia 2024] With The Umbrella Fairy, Can Anyone Truly Keep The Faith?

There’s lots to take in with the international release of The Umbrella Fairy. One view is not enough to take in everything that happens here. From kawaii to romance to sisterhood, everything has weight.

The Umbrella Fairy Movie Poster — **International Premiere at Fantasia Film Festival 2024**

The belief that every object has a spirit is quite common in many Indigenous and Asiatic cultures, and to see them parley in The Umbrella Fairy (伞少女), this English transliteration of the literal Umbrella Girl is much more poetic and attention grabbing. Even though I think of them as pixies more so than as children of Xiwangmu, that’s because I have a love for all things faerie in the Celtic sense of the word.

It’s possible that this idea is alluded to, though I would want to read the original source material to find out. Although this film begins with a humorous set piece about how cute these entities are, there’s also a more heartfelt existential piece to explain why some of them are what they are, especially if they’re attached to an instrument of war.

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Taking A Quick Look at Fantasia’s Short Film Selection, 2024 Edition

What’s offered here is a brief taste of Fantasia’s Short Film programs. There’s 17 different collections that’s still continuing to play. They may well appear at your local film festival next!

Fantasia Film Festival 2024 - Fantasia's Short Film As Montreal’s most beloved genre film festival enters its last week of celebrating an eclectic range of genre cinema, Fantasia’s short film celebration will have me keeping an eye out on these up-and-coming talents! Although I didn’t view everything in this category, what I saw so far is a great way to see what may get dreamed up to become feature length works in the future!

These filmmakers have come up with some fairly cool concepts. The following reviews do not make up a top five list, but are a sampler of what is there. I’m thankful to those who provided me with a screener, and I wish them all the best.

The True Shape of a Daisy

George MacDonald‘s narrative, “The Day Boy and the Night Girl,” provides the foundation for the cinematic The True Shape of a Daisy, and I’m fairly sure no one has ever compiled this tale into a book. This short story is available online.

What’s presented is a faithful adaptation, where we meet a witch named Watho, who would shape Photogen and Nycteris’ environments. True to their namesakes, one would live in perpetual daylight and the other at night. They don’t get to meet until later, and in this anime, they don’t live in enormous rooms. Instead, they are from a world of contrasts. The girl is from a beautiful forest, and the boy lived most of his life in a dark dungeon.

As an anime by Naoki Arata, I hope what she produced is more than just a tease, but an examination of how opposites can get along.