Science Fiction Archives | Otaku No Culture

Never Say Yes to Being Encased In An Iron Lung. You’ll Regret It.

A one-man descent into a planet-wide ocean of human blood turns Iron Lung into a tight, suffocating psychodrama that lets its best mysteries stay sealed. It’s slow in places, but the dread builds, and the third act lands like a vise.

Iron Lung Movie Poster Iron Lung doesn’t require viewers to know the video game it has been adapted from. Everything you need to understand is either clearly explained or made horrifyingly tangible from the outset. The premise is simple: Simon (Mark Fischbach, who also wrote and directed) awakens to find himself sealed inside what is essentially a prison, one disguised as a space-age submarine.

This vessel is deployed into an oceanic world composed entirely of human blood. Sensors can barely penetrate the density of this viscous plasma. When tests confirm it is human in origin, the descent into terror truly begins. The only voices this lone pilot hears are the taunts echoing from this alien world and the transmissions from his prison handler. Ava (Caroline Rose Kaplan) serves as his sole human contact, promising a pardon for his crimes. He was implicated in the destruction of a space station, the lone captured conspirator. The absence of his fellow accomplices lingers as a narrative gap the film never fully addresses.

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Titan Manga and Five Star Stories. The Anxious Wait Won’t Be Long.

Let’s hope Titan Manga and Five Star Stories remain committed to deliver this lucious saga to the English-speaking masses instead of stalling.

Titan Manga
Volume One releasing July 7, 2026
and Two on Oct 6, 2026

Thankfully, the Five Star Stories manga is still going strong in Japan. Even though it has effectively reinvented itself after Volume 12 of the tankōbon release, most people have rolled with the changes. While purists may take issue with the work being referred to as Gothicmade, the shift at least establishes a foundation for where future stories are headed. The scope feels less like a simple continuation and more like a reframing, one where the saga leans into legacy rather than immediate battlefield drama.

Instead of diving into a massive editorial on the changes, I’ll simply say this, as long as sales remain strong, I’m hopeful Titan Books’ new label stays committed to republishing the full Toypress run up to that volume, where it never saw a translation for the English-speaking market, and continues onward into the expanded era of the story. With a possible release of three volumes per year similar to the previous run, it won’t take long to catch up! To note, the English edition was further separated into smaller chapter releases. There are 26 books which cover Japanese Volumes 1 through 10. Volume 11 and onward have yet to be translated.

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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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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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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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A Nerd’s Guide to the 2026 Victoria Film Festival

The 2026 Victoria Film Festival leans into ghosts, grief, food, memory, and absurdity. From haunted vacuum cleaners to intimate documentaries, this year’s lineup proves smaller festivals still take the biggest creative risks.

No new introduction is necessary for 2026 Victoria Film Festival as it continues to treat locals to a curated selection of films from around the world. Although the genre plate is not often full, there’s usually something curious worth checking out. This year, the focus is on tales of terror.

And padding out this list are other works of interest that should satisfy even a foodie. For those unable to make it to this corner of the world, keep an eye on your local arts theatres, many of these films are likely to travel. If I had to select only one must-see, it’s A Useful Ghost. Not for the romantic comedy angle or its Valentine’s Day slot, but because it sounds so absurd it demands to be witnessed.

The links below lead to additional information, spoilers possible, and ticket pages for those attending.

A Magnificent Life

The Vic / 12-Feb / 3:00 PM

Sylvain Chomet is a filmmaker who loves paying tribute, not just to people, but to entire creative worlds. From his affectionate portrait of Jacques Tati in The Illusionist to his fascination with artistic spaces, his films often feel like handwritten letters set in motion.

Here, Chomet turns his attention to Marcel Pagnol. Outside France, Pagnol may not be a household name, but his influence across literature and cinema is immense. There’s a question hovering over the film, does this echo It’s a Wonderful Life in spirit? Whether that lands will depend on how modern audiences connect with a figure so deeply rooted in French cultural memory.

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