Hi everybody, and Happy New Year!  I hope the holidays treated you all well, and that your new years are off to a good start. I don't have any new art to upload this week, but I figured I could mention some of the cool entertainment I've been enjoying lately, and maybe some other interesting news!  Yeah, that's the ticket!

Two interesting trailers I saw recently are for a new anime releasing this Spring called "Attack on Titan" [link] and a new video game coming out in maybe 2015 called "Cyberpunk 2077" [link].  Attack on Titan has a character design style that reminds me of Battle Angel, and I've heard that the original manga is very brutal to all of the characters (no one is safe!), which sounds pretty intriguing.  Cyberpunk 2077, on the other hand, is based on an old line of pen-and-paper RPG books inspired by the cyberpunk genre (which is kind of like 80's glam-punk future-retro style, which is pretty cool).  It reminds me of Bubblegum Crisis and A.D. Police especially, which is interesting in that the original creators of the original Cyberpunk 2013 also created a pen-and-paper RPG for Bubblegum Crisis in the late 90's.  Of course they're all probably mostly influenced by Blade Runner, I just think it's interesting to see a classic 80's style/genre brought back to life.

I had some coupons to use at RightStuf, so I recently bought a ton of DVDs from the Discotek [link] catalogue of classic anime releases, along with a couple of other series. I picked up Galaxy Express 999, Adieu Galaxy Express 999, Galaxy Express 999 Eternal Fantasy, Demon City Shinjuku, Animal Treasure Island, Hakkenden, Heat Guy J, Panda! Go Panda!, Sea Prince and Fire Child, Space Adventure Cobra, Taro The Dragon Boy, Puss N' Boots and finally the Unico films, The Fantastic Adventures and Island of Magic.

I haven't gotten the DVDs in the mail yet, but here are some interesting notes and thoughts on them anyways. Animal Treasure Island and Puss N' Boots are early Toei Animation children's movies that are surprisingly well-animated for the late 60's/early 70's, and Animal Treasure Island was actually drawn from an idea by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli fame (who also wrote Panda! Go Panda!, which was directed by Isao Takahata, also of Studio Ghibli fame).  I watched Galaxy Express when I was just a kid, back when they used to air anime late at night on the Sci-Fi channel, so I'm really interested to rewatch the films again.  I hope they're as good as I remember them!  I should also mention that the trailers for Demon City Shinjuku [link] and Hakkenden [link] are wonderfully awesome/memorable, which is why I decided to pick them up too.  As an extra note, Discotek Media is releasing the subtitled version of Samura Pizza Cats this coming April [link], and I can't wait to buy a copy of it!

I recently watched Tekkonkinkreet (trailer: [link]), and it was a surprisingly good movie, much better than I expected.  It's visually stunning, and although there's a bit of un-evenness to the story (and the character "White" is a bit grating at first), I enjoyed watching it, and really recommend it, especially for the atmosphere and amazing art.  But warranting even more so of a recommendation on my part is an awesome Go-Nagai OVA that came out in 2001 that I recently watched --- MAZINKAISER!!! (another trailer: [link] ) I was really surprised at how awesome and fun this series was --- it was like the perfect embodiment of what I'd hope a modern take on a classic robot series would be like, with classic and lovable characters, amazing fight sequences, and a campy, tongue-in-cheek bravado to it.  Not to mention, the production values are really awesome, the scale and atmosphere is impressive, and I love how it stays true to the original look of the Mazinger series, while increasing the visual quality ten-fold and managing to keep the same bright, light-hearted spirit (something I didn't think the more recent "Ghastly Prince Enma: Burning Up" OVA was able to accomplish).  Everything you need to know about the Mazinger universe is tidily summarized in a surprisingly well-animated introductory sequence, so you don't need to already be a fan of the Mazinger universe to get into these OVAs (though Discotek recently announced they're going to be releasing the original Mazinger Z TV series on DVD before the end of the year [link], so you can always wait! ).  To anyone that's a fan of giant robots beating up giant mechanical monsters, I highly recommend this OVA!  It's awesome!

Oh and one last mention: one of the best (?!) anime releases this season is the senselessly crazy, amazingly animated, awesomely awesome, uhh.... web-streaming series, INFERNO COP!! (here's the YT playlist: [link])  LOL, a word of warning, this is more for fans of crass 3-minute flash animations, but it's pretty off-the-wall and hilariously entertaining (and before I forget, it has English subtitles if you press the close-caption button on the video player). Check it out if you get the chance!  

Well, that's all for now dudes and dudettes!  Keep on truckin' and see you next!