Tag: Steampunk

When Steampunk Rules Applies No More, Can Sparks of Tomorrow Be The Next Coming Thing?

Netflix promises to bring some of that Full Metal Alchemy with the release of Sparks of Tomorrow. It may well be one of 2026’s most fascinating anime projects.

Sparks of Tomorrow AnimeSparks of Tomorrow (aka 20 Seiki Denki Mokuroku, 二十世紀電氣目録) looks like a promising animated series where steampunk rules the skies, and thankfully, the setting isn’t another Victorian London retread. Instead, this alternate-history version of Kyoto brims with strange machinery, airships, and the lure of adventure.

Based on the light novel 20 Seiki Denki Mokuroku by Hiro Yūki and illustrated by Kazumi Ikeda, the adaptation already carries a sense of wonder. July isn’t far off for viewers eager to see where Kihachi Sakamoto’s search for his missing brother will lead. With Netflix handling international distribution, audiences both local and abroad will be able to follow the mystery beginning July 5, 2026.

At the centre of the story is a young inventor determined to obtain the mysterious “20th Century Electrical Catalog,” a book said to contain knowledge to deliver a future beyond this world’s steam-powered age. The title alone hints at upheaval.

Continue reading “When Steampunk Rules Applies No More, Can Sparks of Tomorrow Be The Next Coming Thing?”

From Wild Arms to Armed Fantasia, This Video Game is Worth Waiting For!

The best part of why Wild Arms is so beloved is because of the music first, and world building second. It lives again under a new name: Armed Fantasia!

Armed Fantasia- To the End of the Wilderness Prromo PosterWhen I last wrote a retrospective that included the latest status of the Wild Arms franchise, not much has changed. Although the original is available on the PlayStation5, sadly no one is interested in continuing. There was a Wild Arms Mobile and Million Memories for smartphones, but sadly when it didn’t get translated and offered to an international market, the game died. Thankfully, executive producer Akifumi Kaneko is not letting the world he helped create fade. In its place is a spiritual successor titled Armed Fantasia, which is still in development.

Continue reading “From Wild Arms to Armed Fantasia, This Video Game is Worth Waiting For!”

How The Wild Mech West Was Won

Technically, money helps because this series needs the support of fans backing this ongoing crowdfunded project. However, Mech West deserves to get a Hollywood producer behind it as well!

Mech West PosterAnimSchool Studios

Who needs the Wild Wild West when David Gallagherr’s Mech West can reimagine steam-powered machines properly? I’m not talking about the celebrated television show which delivered cowboy diplomacy in the best way possible. Instead, the film, despite its flaws, had a cool moment with that huge mecha spider as the ultimate threat which had to be brought down. Although the series rarely featured steampunk at that extreme level, I don’t think many other takes featured robots powered by coal.

In this YouTube animated series, smaller sized machines need to be fed to keep on going. They’re like little bitumen powered bunnies, and I suspect most of these machines are pack mules or utilitarian for a lot of settlers. When they can’t provide milk, some bots have autonomy and others not. Some are mules and others replace the pony express. It’s a different world other weird west tales have not always explored.

Continue reading “How The Wild Mech West Was Won”

Song or Code of Assassins is Sure to Please Fans of John Wick, Wuxia-Style!

Ultimately, Code of Assassins fulfils my dream of what if Bruce Wayne became a member of any League of Assassins in any universe.

Code of the Assassins Blu-Ray and DVD Pack Shot
Available to Order on Amazon USA

Well GO USA
Available to stream on Hi-Yah Network

Adapted from a popular novel by Yuan Taiji instead of Batman, Daniel Lee‘s movie Code of Assassins (aka Song of Assassins, 青面修罗) has the feel of the latter because a young assassin is out for more than just vengeance. Blue Asura Qi Jun Yuan (William Feng) offers quite the fitting introduction to this world, and as for his role–it’s more than to be a masked avenger!

I wouldn’t know that he’s a tortured soul until his backstory unfolds. To watch how he got indoctrinated into a multigenerational clan of assassins at a young age is one element I enjoyed following. Another concerns how he lost an arm in a fight, and later, feeling loss as his entire clan gets wiped out. They were his family. They were the heroes and protectors of Ghost Valley. However, now that they’re gone, he’s turned renegade. The only way he can find peace is to eliminate everyone involved and if that story beat sounds familiar, I’m sure Lee is a John Wick fan too!

But to enact swift revenge won’t be easy in this multi-genre work which is still a wuxia film at its core.

Continue reading “Song or Code of Assassins is Sure to Please Fans of John Wick, Wuxia-Style!”

New Gods Yang Jian Ushers In Chinese New Year

New Gods Yang Jian not only ups the ante in what Light Chaser Animation can do with the animation medium but also update a traditional tale to the science fiction medium.

New Gods Yang JianGKIDS
Playing at Select Theatres Beginning Jan 20
Coming to Digital on April 11 and Home Video April 25th, 2023.

Light Chaser Animation‘s New Gods cinematic universe has another hero, and his name is Yang Jian (voiced by Wang Kai). He’s also known as Erlang Shen, a god with a truth-seeing eye, but in this film it has even greater power which can’t be defined.

Thankfully, no prior knowledge of who he is or the prior film are needed (Nezha Reborn) is on Netflix and my review can be read here), but it’ll help explain the surprise bits found in this tale. In this second film to this franchise, titled New Gods Yang Jian, he gave up his godhood to become a mortal, a bounty hunter, and for much of the tale, he has no regrets over this decision.

Despite everything we know about how the Divine World fell apart, nobody in this new utopia is truly at peace. The introduction talks about an averted civil war, but all is not well. In Penglai, a futuristic neo-feudal tech city located upon a mountaintop, the people live in relative peace. But this home of the gods may well become a target should a boy assemble the pieces of a destructive lamp. The beauty this location represents is just one of many places this film visits. The look of Ancient China juxtaposed with the industrial age looks wonderful. When the adventure moves to the countryside, the landscapes look like they’re straight from a bamboo tapestry. The softer use of colours is not always pronounced, and that helps with giving this movie a better richness than those highly saturated works other CGI films, like Kung Fu Panda, prefer to emphasise.

Continue reading “New Gods Yang Jian Ushers In Chinese New Year”

On Stacey Tenenbaum’s Scrap, Tricks for Reuse and Where to Watch It.

Stacey Tenenbaum believes losing a lot of our history and cultural memory when things in our lives are simply scrapped rather than being preserved in her documentary.

Stacey TenenbaumRio Theatre
Vancouver, BC
Saturday Oct. 22 3:15pm

Stacey Tenenbaum has been touring Canada during Waste Reduction Week, and attending special screenings of her documentary, Scrap, to answer those questions about what it means to not only recycle, but also explain humanity’s relationship with the objects made long ago. It’s not about reusing what’s found in a scrapyard for a movie, like Mad Max: Fury Road, or finding new uses of smaller industrial objects, like steampunk cosplay. I’m sure people scour the junkyards for those antiques needed when a film or tv show requires something from a bygone age when it can’t be found in an antique store.

But there’s more to this movie than meets the eye in terms of how old junk is reused. They have longetivity to them, and that’s one key thing to remember. Also, some of these items do more than bring out feelings of nostalgia. Also, there’s an intrinsic beauty not everyone can recognise. Whether it’s to be used in installation art or for residing in, I adored every careful possibility that’s been put into this work.

I feel what this filmmaker offers is very meditative, and I had an opportunity to correspond with her about this work:

Continue reading “On Stacey Tenenbaum’s Scrap, Tricks for Reuse and Where to Watch It.”