Cute High Earth Defence Club Love!: "In the Name of Love"

First up, let's just address that remarkable title: Cute High Earth Defence Club Love! (exclamation mark included). It's as if somebody just read out the results of a Scrabble game. I'm a big fan of the weird and lengthy titles many anime receive. My all-time favourite probably remains All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, but I must admit that Cute High Earth Defence Club Love! gives it a remarkable run for its money.

What is it? Well, for one thing it's new. The first episode aired in Japan on 6 January, and it's currently being streamed online for free via Madman's Anime Lab website. I'm used to coming to review anime a year or two at least after everybody else. Watching something this up-to-date is a new experience for me, and I have to say I am really enjoying these anime-viewing sites and apps like Anime Lab and Crunchyroll for making so much material freely available to watch and try out.

But what is it? Okay, so five high school students are given magical powers by a mind-controlling pink alien wombat in order to save the Earth with love, starting with a talking noodle.

Go on, admit it: you're intrigued.

Gatchaman Crowds: "Genuine"

It's episode #8 of Gatchaman Crowds. Rui, still recovering from his injuries, is tormented by Katze - who manages to copy his identity and take control of the Galax network. Meanwhile Hajime forces the Gatchaman to announce their presence to the world, using a kindergarten as the venue.

Last episode was an earth-shaking action climax, so it's understandable that this episode is about the aftermath. While the bulk of the episode seems quite breezy and positive, with Hajime enthusiastically introducing the Gatchaman to the Japanese media, there's a very dark undercurrent running through it for many of the characters. This gives the episode some depth that takes it beyond being a passable episode to being an excellent one. When the episode begins Paiman is drinking himself into a stupor out of the shame of fleeing from last episode's battle. Joe seems to have given up on being a Gatchaman altogether. Then there's OD, making strange ominous comments every time no one can hear him.

Pretty Deadly Vol 1: The Shrike (2014)

The western genre collides with folklore and even light horror in Pretty Deadly, a new comic book by writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Emma Rios. It's an often-times thrilling read, and a has a lot within it to recommend. It's also maddeningly frustrating, sketchily illustrated and occasionally a little confusing. After reading this first volume The Shrike, which collects the first five monthly issues, I can't say my time was wasted. I can't say I'm in a rush to read a second volume.

A blind man goes on the run across the American west, a young girl in a vulture-feather cape named Sissy in tow. They're running from Death's daughter, a mysterious and deadly gunfighter with skull marks on her face and a penchant for violence. This is all told in retrospect by a rabbit and a butterfly.

The book's rich with magical realism and atmosphere, and certainly in this regard it excels. DeConnick has developed a very specific unsettling mood to the book, which does seem as if it could be rich with story potential. Sadly the story that's told feels too sparsely told, and in the end a little too rushed. It all seems like a pile of regrettable missed opportunities.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: "Visionary"

It's 27 February 1995, and time for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

After a workplace accident soaks Chief O'Brien (Colm Meaney) in radiation, he begins to experience momentary jumps into his own future. Meanwhile a delegation has arrived from the Romulan Star Empire, eager to hear what the Federation has learned about the Dominion.

Star Trek is obsessed with time travel. Overwhelmingly obsessed. For decades there were basically two big science fiction TV franchises - Star Trek and Doctor Who - and one of them was based around a time-travelling alien, and the other was the one actually about time travel. Only five episodes ago Chief O'Brien was travelling back in time to rescue Sisko, Bashir and Dax from the 21st century. It's only going to be another 11 episodes before there's another time travel episode. The writers were time travel mad.

Nostalgia Time, 3 February 2015: In the Mouth of Madness, The Three Caballeros

It's Nostalgia Time, where we celebrate pop culture anniversaries like nobody's business. Today sees the anniversary of two films that probably couldn't be any further apart: John Carpenter's 1995 horror movie In the Mouth of Madness, which turns 20 today, and the Walt Disney animated film The Three Caballeros, which turns 70.

In the Mouth of Madness is a Lovecraft-inspired horror movie directed by cult favourite John Carpenter. Shot in Toronto on a budget of just $7 million dollars, it represented a fresh hit for the Carpenter, whose career had been slowly falling into the doldrums after a string of early smash hits including Halloween and The Thing. The film starred Sam Neill as insurance investigator John Trent, who is dispatched to investigate an author who has gone missing without filing a copy of his latest novel with his publisher. Once in the strange town of Hobb's End (previously thought to be fictional) Trent is sucked into a nightmarish apocalyptic world.

The Pull List: 28 January 2015

Umbral's second story arc comes to a close in typically dramatic fashion. Twists are turned, climaxes are had, things are set up for issue #13 in a couple of month.

Antony Johnston impressed me enormously in 2014 by writing not one but two sensational ongoing comic books. The Fuse wound up being my favourite book of the year, and to be completely honest Umbral wasn't that far behind. A young thief named Rascal goes on the run when a demon takeover kills a city's royal family. This second arc has seen her on the run across the wilderness with an old wizard, a suspiciously dangerous trader and a gypsy assassin. The characters are well crafted, and the fantasy world excellently realised. Johnston has also plotted it with a canny eye for unexpected revelations and twists, and that's made it addictive reading.

Christopher Mitten's artwork really sells the dark fantasy angle, giving everything a sort of scabby, worn-out look. It eschews traditional comic book artwork for something a bit more grounded and realistic. His depictions of the shadowy demons are top-notch.

Issues #1-6 are already available in an inexpensive trade paperback edition. Issues #7-12 are collected into a second volume later this month. If you like fantasy, you really should be reading this comic. (5/5)

Image. Written by Antony Johnston. Art by Christopher Mitten.

Under the cut: reviews of Aquaman, Batman, Batman Eternal, Catwoman, Gotham Academy, He-Man, Revival and Thor.

Nostalgia Time, 2 February 2015: The Lost World

Welcome to Nostalgia Time, an irregular celebration of all the pop culture anniversaries that strike my fancy. Today it's time to celebrate a pretty significant milestone: the 90th anniversary of Harry O. Hoyt's adventure film The Lost World, based on the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle. How old is this film now? For a better perspective, just keep in mind that when it was released into cinemas on 2 February 1925, Arthur Conan Doyle was still alive.

Doyle was a presence in the making of this film as well. In 1922 he brought test footage of the film's famous dinosaurs to a meeting of the Society of American Magicians, showcasing the pioneering stop-motion effects to audience that included Harry Houdini.

It is for Willis O'Brien's remarkable effects that the film is remembered today: it's a landmark achievement in film-making technology, and foreshadowed O'Brien's later work animating King Kong in 1933.

This Girl is Bad-Ass!! (2011)

Thai actress Jija (pronounced "Chee Cha") Yanin has rapidly established herself as a rising star of international action cinema, thanks to films like Chocolate and Raging Phoenix. These movies showcased her talent for physical stunt work and martial arts, as well as a gift for comedy and a genuinely appealing screen presence. This Girl is Bad-Ass!! is her third film out of the five in which she's starred; it's a Thai action comedy written and directed by Petchtai Wongkamlao.

I really loved Yanin's two earlier films, and had high hopes for This Girl. Sadly it completely failed to engage. It's not so much an action comedy as an action film and a comedy film that each take turns to play out, scene by scene. The action segments aren't anywhere near as interesting as those in Yanin's earlier films. The comedy segments are just odd: either they're flat-out not funny, or Thailand has a particular sense of humour with which I've failed to engage.