Studio Ghibli’sThe Tale of Princess Kaguya, or Kaguya-hime no Monogatari, directed by the critically acclaimed Isao Takahata, will be available tomorrow on DVD and Blu-ray in Japan. This is Isao Takahata’s first film in 14 years since My Neighbours The Yamadas.
The DVD release, available for 5076 yen (tax inclusive) in Japan and 4700 yen outside Japan (roughly $40 USD / $47 AUD), will feature the film with both 2ch and 5.1ch Japanese audio and 2ch English audio, as well as English subtitles. The DVD will be in the NTSC format and encoded for region 2. The DVD set will come with two discs, with on-disc extras including the press conference, storyboards and trailer.
The Blu-ray release, available for 7344 yen (tax inclusive) in Japan and 6800 yen outside Japan (roughly $57 USD / $68 AUD), will feature the film with 5.1ch English, Cantonese, Mandarin and French audio tracks, Japanese Linear PCM 2ch audio and Japanese DTS HD 5.1ch audio. It will also feature English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, French and Korean subtitles. The Blu-ray release will be region free, come with one disc and feature on-disc extras including the storyboard, trailer, press conference and script for dubbing.
Anyone considering purchasing one of these high quality releases should be aware that the extras are not listed as being subtitled or containing any language options other than Japanese.
The film, along with five other Studio Ghibli films and two recent documentaries, is still screening in Adelaide at Palace Nova East End courtesy of Madman.
If you happen to be following the Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches (Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo) manga, which is simulpublished in English through Crunchyroll, then you will be happy to hear that an anime adaptation for the series has just been announced. The anime will debut in Spring 2015 and will be animated by LIDEN FILMS.
It is currently unknown exactly how many cours the anime will be receiving, though given the nature of the series as well as the length of the storyline that I am hoping that the anime will conclude on, here is hoping that it is a two-cour series.
For those unfamiliar with Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, the manga tells the story of Yamada, a bit of a trouble maker at his high school, who accidentally kisses the honor student Shiraishi after they fall down the stairs together. When they both recover from the fall, they realize that they have swapped bodies and the only way to switch back is to kiss one another again. Little do the two realize that this strange switching power is only the beginning of the strange things that happen at the school.
Family Guy returns for its fourteenth season. Containing a total of 21 episodes, the Griffins are back ruder, cruder and funnier than ever. After a few seasons in decline, does Season 14 return Family Guy to its once lofty standards? Read on to find out.
Story
Family Guy Season 14 continues the adventures of the Griffins in the town of Quahog. After being cancelled and brought back, the show’s over-reliance on cutaway gags, especially real-life situations and one-note side characters contributed to an overall decline. It is a pleasant surprise that this issue is not present in Season 14 and while the season is not immune to cringe-worthy moments, it is a definite improvement on the past few seasons.
The opening episodes get the season off to a solid start. Episodes such as “Quagmire’s Quagmire”, “Boopa-Dee Bappa-Dee” and “Harmony’s Way” are good examples of when Family Guy used to push the boundaries whilst maintaining a solid level of humour. “Quagmire’s Quagmire” gave us a really good look into the character of Quagmire as he interacts with a woman who turns out to be even crazier than he is. This episode could have easily stepped over the line of bad taste but turned out to be a solid episode that played to the darker humour that is one of Family Guy’s strengths.
This trend continues with episodes such as “3 Acts of God”, “Secondhand Spoke” and “The Most Interesting Man in the World”. In “3 Acts of God”, Peter and his friend attempt to find God to ask him to stop interfering with the New England Patriots. Following on from the quality of the episode “Patriot Games”, any episode that features the New England Patriots is typically well received. The challenge from God telling the guys to make Patriots Coach Bill Belichick smile was quite humorous based on prior knowledge of Belichick’s personality, however those who aren’t familiar with the NFL coach will still appreciate the humour in the episode.
Unfortunately, for every quality episode, there was one that just fell completely flat. “A Fistful of Meg”, “Peter Problems”, “Fresh Heir” and “Baby Got Black” overstepped the mark in one way or another and at times were borderline unwatchable. “Peter Problems” commits one of the major sins of Family Guy and that is the overly long drawn out joke. Peter uses a forklift to save a beached whale but only succeeds in vulgarly tearing it to shreds. It isn’t very funny for the first 30 seconds and definitely not funny for the next 30 seconds that follow. It raises the question of whether or not some writers actually care about their episodes or it is simply a matter of filling up time. Fortunately, these issues are fairly rare throughout.
To further iterate about some of the worst episodes on offer here, it does beg the question as to how some of these episodes are put together and at no point in the development process does someone stand up and say how terrible the idea sounds. Two big ones that baffle me as to how they made it past the writers rooms include the father-son incest and Meg getting constantly beaten up. I would much prefer shorter seasons with more quality episodes as opposed to having a regular length season that is padded with horrible ideas just to inflate episode count.
Although the quality episodes outweighed the bad overall, two stood above the rest. These episodes were “Life of Brian” and “Christmas Guy”. “Life of Brian” was the much publicized episode where Brian Griffin is killed off. This was not only the major highlight episode of the season but also showed that Family Guy could convey a serious tone in what is arguably one of the best episodes since “Road to the Multiverse” more than five years ago. “Christmas Guy” sees Stewie figuring out a way to save Brian and restore order to the Griffin Family in another funny but touching episode. Season 14 also sees the return of Cleveland Brown to Quahog after the cancellation of fellow Fox show The Cleveland Show and it’s good to have him back in the gang.
Visual and Audio
Since the introduction of High Definition Family Guy has never looked better. Presented in Wide Screen the viewer gets a full picture and this season is a vast improvement over the show’s original run. The classic Family Guy art style is present here, with simple art, bold lines and bright colours with some CGI thrown in randomly normally for comedic effect.
Each episode gives the option of Dolby Digital 5.1 in either English or Spanish, with the audio quality remaining high throughout. The voice acting continues its high standard, with each character being instantly recognizable and portraying their personality through their own unique sound. Celebrity voices used throughout the season include Bryan Cranston, Adam Levine, the late Lauren Bacall, with special mention going to Tony Sirico for his three-episode cameo as Brian’s replacement Vinny. All do a fantastic job here especially Tony Sirico as the shady, Italian Vinny which helped eased the pain of Brian dying just a little.
Extras
The extras present on the DVD really add to the package here. Special features available include deleted scenes and commentary for each episode, a full episode storyboard animatic on “Christmas Guy”. Brian Griffin: In Memoriam… sort of and a Consuela Mash- up which fans of the Spanish house cleaner will definitely appreciate. These special features are a great addition to an already quality package. Each episode also has subtitles including English, Spanish and Danish among others.
Overall
After seeing Family Guy go through both highs and the lows, it is hard to believe the show has been able to last this long. The series may no longer be reaching the hilarious heights of its earlier seasons, but Season 14 is definitely an improvement over the past few. The most pleasing aspect of this entire season is that the majority of long winded jokes seem to have gone and been replaced with some well thought out material which leads to a fairly successful season overall despite some poorly made episodes spliced in between. Stand out episodes such as “Life of Brian” and “Christmas Guy” deserve praise as does Seth MacFarlane for taking such a risk that paid off big time and episodes like these give hope that the show can return to the level of funny that once made it famous. Great visuals, voice acting and a good amount of extras make Family Guy Season 14 a good buy.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
It seems like it has been forever since a third season for Dog Days was announced but the time when it will air is slowly approaching. This third season from Masaki Tsuzuki, called Dog Days”, will debut in January and not only have some new details about the anime been revealed but a commercial for the third season has also been released.
The most recent issue of Nyantype magazine has revealed that a new character named Sharu, shown above, who wields a bow and will be voiced by Sumire Uesaka will be introduced in this third season alongside all of the returning cast members, though exactly what role she will play in the story is currently unknown. As for the commercial, it happens to be a character introduction and it happens to focus on introducing Rebeca and Kubera, both of whom were added to the main cast in the second season.
From what we do know, the story will take place two to three months after the second season and for those who aren’t familiar with the series, likely due to the fact that no one has picked up the series for localization in the West (something of a problem with Masaki Tsuzuki’s works) the story takes place in an alternate world where a princess named Millhiore summons a hero in order to help her kingdom, the Biscotti Republic, compete against other nations in wargames resulting in what is generally an extremely light-hearted series.
Additional artwork and information can be found on the official websitefor Dog Days”.
As we know, Guilty Gear Xrd: Sign is going to be released for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 in North America on December 16th and today Aksys Games has revealed that they will be releasing Elphelt as a free downloadable character for the game between December 16th and January 5th.
It is worth noting that after this time period passes, Elphelt will cost $7.99 to download so even if you might be on the fence about picking up the game, adding her to your download list may be in your best interests. Currently PlayStation Plus subscribers can play a demo of Guilty Gear Xrd: Sign for the PlayStation 4.
Last week we learned that Atlus was going to be teaming up with Spike Chunsoft to create Etrian Odyssey and the Mystery Dungeon and a preview from Famitsu has recently gone live revealing some details about the game. As was revealed in the trailer, the title will be a combination of the character customization and setting found in the Etrian Odyssey series while using the rougelike gameplay found in the Mystery Dungeon games.
Etrian Odyssey and the Mystery Dungeon will allow players to create their own custom parties and customize them at will before exploring an area which will be randomly generated. In combat only the leader will be controlled by the player while other party members will attack and support as needed in the game’s turn based combat system.
The Simpsons return with Season 17 on DVD containing 22 new episodes and a number of special features including episode commentary and deleted scenes. Despite being considered one of the greatest shows of the modern era, even the most long-time fans would agree that the previous six seasons have seen the show’s quality drop dramatically. Is Season 17 a return to form for the once great show? Read on to find out.
Story
The Simpsons uses self-contained episodes to tell a variety of stories concentrating on the family that everybody loves, with assistance from a variety of other characters around Springfield. Despite many years of quality story lines, it seems the town of Springfield has run out of exciting moments. The season begins slowly, and this sets the trend for what’s to follow. Nothing early on screamed instant classic, and it seemed that a lot of these episodes were just going through the motions to reach the end. The Treehouse of Horror special was especially disappointing, with all three segments falling flat and also failing to scare in the slightest.
Unfortunately, episodes only get worse as the season continues. For every episode that was tolerable, such as “Marge’s Son Poisoning”, “The last of The Red Hat Mamas” and “We’re on the Road to D’Ohwhere”, there are episodes that were a complete disappointment, such as “The Bonfire of the Manatees”, “Million-Dollar Abie” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore”. “Homer’s Paternity Coot” was another big disappointment and wins the award for the most pointless episode of the season. If Mason Fairbanks was truly Homer’s father, more than 15 years of Simpson’s history goes out the window. If he wasn’t, 20 minutes has just been wasted going around in circles.
The celebrity guests were somewhat of a highlight, but were only able to do their best with the material available. Richard Dean Anderson leads the best subplot of the season as himself in Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore and Kelsey Grammar once again returns to voice Bart’s arch nemesis Sideshow Bob in the “Italian Bob”. For an episode with a lot of hype and history this was one of the biggest let downs of the season and is by far the worst Sideshow Bob episodes so far, not even coming close to classics such as “Cape Feare” and “Black Widower”. Other celebrities that lend their voice talents to this season include Alec Baldwin, William H. Macy and Susan Sarandon, with Ricky Gervais providing his voice and writing talents for the episode “Homer Simpson, This is Your Wife”.
The best overall viewing experience would go to “The Seemingly Neverending Story”. Although still not reaching the heights of past seasons, the intertwining stories are told well and it’s always good to see some sort of extended back story for side characters. In this episode, Moe, Edna, Snake and Mr Burns take center stage and it has been these kinds of stories where the series has been at its strongest in its later years.
Special mention needs to go to the opening act of “See Homer Run” as a season highlight. After receiving a book drawn by Lisa for Father’s Day that can’t possibly live up to the Swiss Army Knife he just received from Bart, Homer is clearly unimpressed and to appease Lisa places her present on the fridge. However, the book slides down and is subsequently destroyed by the fridge’s water dispenser. The joke ends on the back of a hilarious criticism of the magnet from Homer, who had no idea Lisa had originally gotten it for him for his birthday. These kind of jokes showcase the great heights The Simpsons can reach when characters play off their key personality traits (Homer’s self-indulgence and ignorance in this case) and when a joke is given some sort of setup.
As a whole, people hoping for a renaissance of sorts will be very disappointed. Season 17 does nothing to disprove the theory that The Simpsons should have ended after Season 12. It could well be considered the worst season so far and the point where the show had arguably hit rock bottom. Throughout the entire season, only a few episodes manage to be anything more than mediocre with the vast majority falling into the category of boring or just plain bad.
Visual and Audio
The DVD is presented in Full Screen 4:3 format. Whilst the series was yet to employ the use of HD, these episodes are clearly much better looking than the original seasons. Despite the appearance of black bars on the side of the picture, the overall visuals are quite good. They are clean, bright and stick to that classic Simpsons style people are more than familiar with. It is slightly jarring that even though the episode itself and the couch gag are presented with updated visuals, the remainder of the opening remains the same from the very early seasons.
Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and while it doesn’t get a lot of opportunity to shine it does a fine job. The voice acting is top notch as usual from the main cast to the guest stars all putting in quality performances. It’s just a shame that the scripts are not there to back them up.
Extras
The DVD extras on offer here are arguably the highlight of the entire package. Every episodes has its own commentary, giving viewers some great insight into their development. There are also a number of sketch galleries and an animation showcase. Finally, each disc contains deleted scenes from several episodes. These features bring up the overall quality of the DVD collection.
Overall
As a long time fan of the early Simpsons that involved great episodes with hilarious, tightly developed plots, it is hard to stomach what the show has become. Despite a few funny moments, there was barely a single episode that could be considered solid the entire way through and at times the viewing experience was a real struggle. This is essentially not the same show that was such a hit in the early to mid 90’s. While there are no complaints here on the visuals (opening aside) and audio and the extras are a saving grace that help bump up the value of the overall package, the disappointing core content of this DVD set makes it hard to recommend to even long time fans.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Square Enix has just released a trailer for their upcoming PS4 and Xbox One game Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. The latest trailer is fully dubbed into English. The original Type-0 game was released for the PSP in Japan in 2011. The English release of the game will feature dual audio.
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD will be released on 17 March, 2015 in the USA, 19 March, 2015 in Japan and 20 March, 2015 in Europe. Anyone who pre-orders the game will receive an exclusive playable demo of Final Fantasy XV called Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae. The trailer shows the war-torn world and a familiar Final Fantasy face, Cid, being given the unusual role of antagonist. At the end of the three minute video, embedded below, are a few brief shots of Final Fantasy XV.
Deep Eclipse: New Space Odyssey – A top down shooter with RPG elements, Deep Ecliplse features two skill trees, 30 perks, and 52 weapons.
Doorways: The Underworld– The third chapter in the Doorways horror series, players must track down an missing psychopath.
Desert Ashes– A turn based strategy game featuring a unique day/night system that creates challenging weather conditions to the strategic battles.
Doctor Who: The Adventure Games– The legendary British sci-fi series makes the hop to computers in an adventure featuring the Doctor’s most famous foes.
Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon – A turn-based RPG inspired by classic dungeon crawlers, Frayed Knights will take players through 30+ hours of gameplay filled with humour and satire.
Ensign-1– A space sim that mixes elements of FPS titles with ship boarding. The game is currently in Early Access.
For the first 24 hours of the sale, the bundle is only $1.99. Pick up your copy at Indie Gala before the price rises.
The developers responsible for Blackguards, Daedalic Entertainment, has announced that it will develop a game based on the popular novel The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. For those who have been living under a rock, The Pillars of the Earth is a classic historical novel featuring political intrigue and conspiracies and the disputes between the classes.
This isn’t the usual inspiration for game developers, but both the author and CEO of Daedalic Carsten Fichtelmann are both excited about the team up as it will bring the book to a new generation of readers.
“We are very aware of and feeling the responsibility that comes along with this project: The Pillars of the Earth is one of world literature’s most-read and best-selling books, and comes with a large and long-lasting base of millions of fans. To meet their high expectations of our game will be a tremendous challenge – but one we are very eager to face.” – Carsten Fichtelmann, CEO of Daedalic Entertainment.
It will be a while till we see it on the shelves, but when it do, it will most likely be an adventure game on the PC, iOS, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
If you happen to be following the Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches (Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo) manga, which is simulpublished in English through Crunchyroll, then you will be happy to hear that an anime adaptation for the series has just been 
