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Home Adult animation from Japan had a week-long showcase on the Sci-Fi Channel.
Each film screened at 9 PM Eastern Time:
May 15 - "Demon City Shinjuku" (This title is currently available for $29.95)
May 16 - "Lily C.A.T" (Now on video for $19.98)
May 17 - "Casshan: Robot Hunter" (This title is news to us!)
May 18 - "8-Man After" ($14.95 for each of four volumes)
May 19 - "Project A-ko vs. Battles 1 and 2" ($29.95 apiece)
Unlike a lot of dorky commercial sites, the Sci-Fi Channel doesn't just toot its own horn on the web page "Dominion." Go to their "Pulp" area, scroll to the bottom and look for the Sandscript hyper-narrative. It's interactive!
Botchan, Parts 1 & 2
Stories by Natsume Soseki portray a wily math teacher and the sneaky ways by which he confounds his students and superiors alike.
A Roadside Stone, Parts 1 & 2
Yamamoto Yuzo's Dickensian tale of poor Goichi and his triumph over adversity is told in two parts.
The Tale of Shunkin/Friendship
Tanizaki Junichiro's Shunkin is a beautiful, but scarred harpist. The friendship in Mushanokoji Saneatsu's story is made into a rivalry with the introduction of an alluring woman.
The Incident in the Bedroom Suburb/Voice from Heaven
Two stories by Akagawa Jiro are inspired by the pressures of apartment living. In the first, a family wonders if their daughter has been trapped in an elevator on purpose. Another concerns a ghostly midnight visitation to an empty set of rooms.
The Martyr/The Priest of Mt. Kouya
Akutagawa Ryunosuke sets his tale of martyrdom and fiery rescue in the transitional period of the 16th century in Nagasaki. In Izumi Kyoka's story, a despairing priest stumbles across a hideaway in the woods, occupied only by a voluptuous female...hmmm...
Each 52-minute tape contains two stories, available subtitled for $29.95 apiece. The first two collections are still out. Please request a list of titles, if you are interested.
Star Blazers
The Star Blazers/Space Battleship Yamato volumes deserve a whole page to themselves!
Astro Boy
A rare Astro Boy episode called "The Beast from 20 Fathoms" was salvaged from NBC studios by The Right Stuf. This segment, #34, was ordered destroyed in Japan by its creator, Osamu Tezuka, for some mysterious reason. On the same tape is an episode called "The Snow Lion," which was a forerunner of another favorite character by Tezuka, Kimba the White Lion.
50 min., B/W, English dialogue, $14.95.
Tezuka
Another favorite from Tezuka is the wordless, environmental fable Legend of the Forest, 29 min., $12.95.
3X3 Eyes
The feature-length compilation of the series 3X3 Eyes is a bargain and worth the wait. Over a year ago, episode one stood out for its intensely detailed animation and jaunty storyline. Pai is a lonely immortal, on a quest for a McGuffin known as the Statue of Humanity. She commandeers a human as her servant zombie, to aid her. They both get mixed up with a bogus ghostbuster and anime's version of "Monster Mash" begins!
110 min., Color, English dubbed, Closed Captioned, $19.98.
I got yer tank girl right here...
The all-time favorites Dominion Tank Police Acts I-IV have been marked down to $19.95 per tape. The Cat Sisters Annapuna and Unipuma are an even match for tank-loving Leona. These dubbed episodes are 40 minutes apiece and subtitled in English. In the words of The Philadelphia Inquirer, "Where do nude women conceal machine guns? Remember, it's only a cartoon." Especially since those nude women are cartoon *androids*!
Explorer Woman Ray
Ray Kizuki is a new kind of raider, a lady explorer with inner strength and a chipper sense of humor. Her 60-minute, English subtitled adventure saddles her with two gamines who may or may not be trustworthy, and also throws her up against a handsome rival. This is a fast-moving action picture, but suitable for older children, with discretion. It has also been repriced to $19.95.
The groundbreaking series Crying Freeman also dropped to $19.98 per volume on May 30th. See our Streamline page for details.
Nuku!
All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku will be irresistible, if only for names like that and Mishima Heavy Industries. Nuku is a housecat version of Robo-Cop, which is why she just can't keep herself still whenever a mousie comes sniffing by! She already has a fierce group of fans on the Net, and writing by the inventor of 3X3 Eyes should be a howl. Volume One, a subtitled,
60-minute compilation of episodes 1 and 2 for $29.95, came out on May 9th from AD Vision. These are the folks who brought you titles like F3, which stands for frustrated, female and some other "F" - I'm sure you can come up with your own candidate for the third...
Subaru!
Anyway, April 4th brought a new kind of series, Tokyo Babylon. Subaru Sumeragi and his sister are a hip as modern pop stars, but they possess ancient Shinto wisdom. They will need it to fight off powerful curses, a voraciously greedy bad guy and his nasty pet dog spirits! The mystical violence is not as gut-wrenching as you might see in the average Japanimation story, and the characters are generally breezy and upbeat.
Volume One, 52 min., Color, Stereo, English subtitles, $29.95 or dubbed for $19.95.
Deedlit!
Record of Lodoss War opens with a featurette-length volume consisting of the first three episodes of the series, subtitled at $29.95 or dubbed at $19.95 apiece, but also contains an interesting footnote. A documentary about the sword & sorcerers role-playing game, its players and inventors in Japan ends tape 1, with comments from the animation team and coverage of the theatrical premiere of the series. The opening animation is stately, and you have to admit Deedlit is a cutie. Volume Two contains only the next two
installments in a 55-minute tape. All six volumes are now out and available in a boxed set for $129.95.
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