BLEACH Fade to Black 君の名を呼ぶ, Turbo & Chip Tuned Rockman

Yesterday night I watched BLEACH Fade to Black 君の名を呼ぶ (Bleach Fade to Black I call your name). I was actually quite impressed by how emotional the whole movie was. I really thought that the first movie, Bleach: Memories of a Nobody, couldn’t be toppled by another Bleach movie as I did not enjoy Diamond Dust Rebellion whatsoever! Thinking back it might just be that I don’t really give a toss about Hitsugaya. Anyway, back to the third movie! It starts off with Mayuri Kurotsuchi apparently going absolutely insane and more or less blowing up the Research Bureau. What follows is a twisted story about everybody having forgotten about Rukia and Ichigo. A bit more about Rukia’s backstory, although I am not too sure when all of that should actually have happened, but still it’s very touching. Being Bleach it obviously has some very cool fights in it as well, so no need to worry there. Also Kisuke Urahara is wearing his 12th squad captain uniform. The focus in this movie is more on Ichigo again, but of course overall it’s about Rukia and her past. Although about every Bleach character appears it doesn’t feel like they’re just trying to please everyone, but rather it actually make sense. I am not sure what else to write on this movie to be honest without spoiling everything – this is why I don’t review movies. All in all if you’re a Bleach fan I don’t need to tell you to buy the DVD but even if you just like Anime in general, you might want to give this one a try.
Alright let’s get on with Turbo then, find the quote on what the movie is about below:

TURBO is a high adrenaline short film in the tradition of The Karate Kid and Tron. It tells the story of Hugo Park (Justin Chon, Twilight) a misspent youth whose only outlet for angst is a 4D fighting videogame called “Super Turbo Arena”. When Pharaoh King (Jocko Sims, Crash the Series), the Michael Jordan of cyber-sports, announces a tournament to determine who will join his pro-team, Hugo sets his eyes on the prize. But, Hugo isn’t the only gamer who wants fame and glory. If Hugo wants to win he’s going to have to beat Shamus (David Lehre, Epic Movie), the all time Turbo champ at the local Pandemonium arcade, and Ruse Kapri, a feisty prep girl that knows how to win. Realizing he can’t win on his skill alone, Hugo turns to his brother Tobias a former kick-boxer whose last match left him wheel-chair ridden. Together the two will mend old wounds and see if a washed up street fighter can teach a troubled teen how to become a virtual gladiator!

Now keep in mind that this is the product of a student for his thesis project. I don’t know about you, but I am immensely impressed that this 30 minute feature had me more hyped than anything else I’ve seen in the last 3 or so year on the same subject. When I say same subject I mean movies like Never Back Down, which was utter garbage! Hell, let’ take this from a different angle. Remember Street Fighter and Street Fighter The Legend of Chun Li? These are proper blockbuster movies with a huge budgets behind them. This one is a school project if you will and you wouldn’t be able to tell! Yes the storyline is cheesy. Let’s be fair here though, for the genre he’s picked, name me one flick that does have a story line where you’d say, oh yeah that was deep… Karate Tiger? Bloodsport? … Funny how all these movies feature Jean Claude Van Damme… Anyway, they’re not deep or intelligent, but hell they’re entertaining (can’t say as much about the SF movies, although Legend of Chun li was so retarded, it was hilarious). The special effects in Turbo are way out there, they don’t look cheap and really do feel as if they’ve been correctly implemented! Bad special effects stand out, good special effects you think “how’d they do that?”, awesome special effects are the ones you take for granted and don’t question because the flow directly into your viewing experience – and this is what this short movie pulls off! Give the thing a watch in the embed below.

TURBO from Jarrett Lee Conaway on Vimeo.

Lastly – I finally got a hold of Chip Tuned Rockman!!! This album is about the best piece of 8bit glory since the golden days! My favorite? Hands down the opening stage from Rockman & Forte (Rockman 8 sequel / spin off on the SNES)! Now If you’re not a fan of 8bit in general this won’t really do much of a difference for you, but over all I don’t think you’ll be able to find anything of higher quality (in 8bit land). The songs have all been very carefully selected and remixed. If you loved your NES and even though you might not be a Rockman fan, you oughta give this Album at least a shot! The Album contains of 20 songs in total:

1. Kaze Yo Tsutaete (Buster Core Meltdown mix) from Rockman Battle & Chase / Chibi-Tech
2. Tornadoman Stage (Integer Spin mix) from Rockman 9/ Virt
3. Special Stage (Handy remax) from Rockman 9 / Goto80
4. Oilman Stage, Timeman Stage (200621978 mix) from Rockman: Powered Up /Ippo Yamada
5. Opening Stage (LSI-Babe mix) from Rockman & Forte / Akari Kaida
6. Groundman Stage (Unlimited Overdub mix) from Rockman & Forte / Hiroki Isogai
7. Tenguman Stage (Back to 2a03 mix) from Rockman 8 / Rushjet1
8. Slashman Stage (Dot Matrix Dinosaur mix) from Rockman 7 / K->
9. Megawater_S Stage, WILY TOWER 4 (Area-2A03 Navy mix) from Rockman: The Wily Wars / Manabu Namiki
10. Mercury Stage (Light Shuffle mix) from Rockman V / Saitone
11. Blizzardman Stage (DPCM’n Forte mix) from Rockman 6/ hally
12. Gravityman Stage (Aftermath Sleaze Edit) from Rockman 5 / Zinger
13. Brightman Stage (Portable mix) from Rockman 4 / Saskrotch
14. Wily Stage 2 (Extended ChiProg mix) from Rockman 4 / Ryo Kawakami
15. Shadowman Stage (Big Boot mix) from Rockman 3 / Shioda Nobuyuki
16. Opening, Snakeman Stage (2A03+VRC7 mix) from Rockman 3 / kplecraft
17. Bubbleman Stage (Rockman’s RPG mix) from Rockman 2 / Dong
18. Woodman Stage, Wily Stage 1 (Respect2dabeat Mix) from Rockman 2 / USK
19. Fireman Stage (FC DPCM-additional mix) from Rockman / naruto
20. Cutman Stage (Misty mix) from Rockman / Manami Matsumae

That’s it from me for today! :)