Sometimes shows get better with time and repeat viewing, as I discovered when I re-watched My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU. Sometimes the reverse happens, although in the case of Is This a Zombie? and Is This a Zombie? Of the Dead, which MVM are upgrading to Blu-ray, it’s a fine distinction. It’s a show about a school boy who’s brought back from the dead by a mute, cute necromancer, and the shenanigans he encounters in the world of magical garment girls and vampire ninjas. It’s a case of throwing a bucket full of ideas at the screen and hoping something will stick, an endearing novelty the first time around, but not so much for a re-watch, not even in high definition. Still, there’s something about Is This a Zombie...
Things are the other way around for Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Season 3, which focuses on story and character first, and then lets the fan service and harem comedy take care of itself. Also known as Danmachi, the show mashes up RPG tropes with the idea that the classical gods live among mortals, gathering their worshippers together and forming Familia. The series follows one of the smallest Familia for one of the lesser gods. In a story that works best when it’s subverting tropes, Season 3 is the biggest subversion yet, introducing sympathetic characters among the previously mindless D&D tropes, the monsters, turning the premise on its head in a really good way. Click on the review to read more.
I stepped outside of my wheelhouse to take a look at Son of The White Mare, a collection of vintage Hungarian animations... and spent the time looking for my wheelhouse again. Son of the White Mare adapts a Hungarian folk tale with some seriously psychedelic animation, and it left me torn between appreciating the visuals and tuning out of the simplistic narrative. You’ll also find the first ever Hungarian theatrical animation on this disc, as well as three other short animations from the director. It’s all definitely worth one watch.
This Week I’ve Been Mostly Rewatching...
AD Police. I went right back to the beginning of my anime fandom last week, as I revisited one of the shows that I first viewed on TV, back when Channel 4’s Late Licence used to show anime. It wasn’t long before I was down an HMV, picking up Manga Video’s Cyberpunk collection on VHS, comprising this, Genocyber, and Cyber City Oedo 808. Back then I loved cyberpunk, and I loved uber violence, animated sex, and out of place swears. That seems pretty juvenile from this end, but AD Police still holds up well, a three episode prequel to Bubblegum Crisis, homage to films like Blade Runner and Robocop.
Manga Entertainment released AD Police on DVD back in 2004, and it’s available second hand now if you look for it. Here’s my review. Note that it is dub only, pretty much the VHS masters sourced for the DVD release as was Manga’s MO with their back catalogue titles back then. You would have thought that a company like Discotek would have found an HD master by this point, but at the time of writing, still no Blu-ray for this vintage classic.
MVM released the Is This A Zombie? + Is This A Zombie? of the Dead Collection on Blu-ray way back on September 12th. They also released Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?! - Season 3 Collector's Edition on Blu-ray on October 31st. Eureka Entertainment released Son of the White Mare on Blu-ray on November 14th.
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