Feel free to skip over this blurb if you just want to get to the trailers… This week has been quite a slog. I have completed 9 days in work due to taking on as much overtime as I can get – I’m thankful I can get it, to be honest.
When not in work I have been clearing out twenty years worth of items from my life. It was a veritable treasure trove of childish and bookish lower-middle class life through the ages with early signs that I would turn into a film/anime nerd. I found lots of old anime, manga, Ghostbusters calendars, stacks and stacks of Real Ghostbusters comics, Nintendo adventure books, NES, SNES, Dreamcast games, literature from the likes of Dickens, Austen, and so many film and video game magazines dating back to the early 90′s. I’ve already started recycling things and taking things to charity shops after checking e-bay to see if it was worth selling them to people who might want them and value them.
TRAILER TIME!
Gekijouban Shimajiro no Wao! Shimajiro to Kujira no Uta
Japanese Title: 劇場版しまじろうのわお！
Romaji: Gekijouban Shimajiro no Wao! Shimajiro to Kujira no Uta
Release Date: March 14th, 2014
Running Time: N/A
Director: Isamu Hirabayashi
Writer: Takashi Yamada (Screenplay)
Starring: Miki Takahashi, Takumi Yamazaki, Saori Sugimoto, Naoto Nojima
The second Shimajiro film. This title is aimed at young children and features short stories, dancing and sing-alongs.
Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage 3: Eternal Friends 
Japanese Title: 映画 プリキュアオールスターズ New Stage 3 永遠のともだち
Romaji: Eiga Purikyua Oru Sutazu Nyu Suteji Suri: Eien no Tomodachi
Release Date: March 15th, 2014
Running Time: 30 mins.
Director: Koji Ogawa
Writer: Izumi Todo, Yoshimi Narita (Screenplay)
Starring: Magumi Han, Magumi Nakajima, Haruka Tomatsu, Naoko Matsui
The latest Precure film is the sixth of the Pretty Cure All Stars crossover movie franchise where all the current Precure make a feature in the story (that’s 33 magical girls!!!). They unite when the girls go into the world of dreams where a mysterious foe threatens to turn the positive dreams of children into nightmares!
60,000 Tries 
Japanese Title: 60万回のトライ
Romaji: 60 Man-kai no Torai
Release Date: March 15th, 2014
Running Time: 106 mins.
Director: Park, Park
Writer: N/A (Screenplay)
Starring: N/A
Rugby is a big feature in Britain and almost always near the top of the sporting headlines as well as being a fixture of the school curriculum. Miserable days in cold and wet winter months spent running around with a ball, zig-zagging on a muddy field like a loon trying not to get tackled and dragged to the ground. And if it wasn’t that it was getting kicked and kicking other boys in the shins during scrums… That’s one thing I don’t miss about high school. Rugby doesn’t really interest me but this documentary looks unique because it follows a school in Osaka predominantly attended by ethnic Koreans. The boys love rugby and wish to play for the national side. The school side does advance into the semi-finals of a national tournament in 2010 but suffer a series of setbacks like the withdrawal of the captain, frozen subsidies and other social situations…
The Limit of Sleeping Beauty 
Japanese Title: 眠れる美女の限界 THE LIMIT OF SLEEPING BEAUTY
Romaji: Nemureru bijo no genkai THE LIMIT OF SLEEPING byūtī
Release Date: March 15th, 2014
Running Time: 43 mins.
Director: Ken Ninomiya
Writer: Ken Ninomiya (Screenplay)
Starring: Natsuko Kobayashi, Soichiro Yoshimoto, Katsuhiko Shimizu, Aya Takami
The Limit of Sleeping Beauty is playing as part of a double-feature with the 2012 film The Adventure of Cherry Boy. Sleeping Beauty is the latest picture from Ken Ninomiya, a chap who has produced a large catalogue of works (a lot of which are available on Youtube) while at the Osaka University of Arts. In this latest feature he tells the story of Aki, an actress who is about to turn 30 but has yet to make a major debut in anything substantial. Instead, she spends her days pin a magic act and has to pretend to be hypnotised by a magician. The lack of progress in her life leaves her depressed and dredging up sad memories of her father while losing touch with reality…
Great Adventure of a Cherry Boy
Japanese Title: 大童貞の大冒険 ADVENTURE of a CHERRYBOY
Romaji: Dai dōtei no dai bōken adobenchā of a CHERRYBOY
Release Date: March 15th, 2014
Running Time: 106 mins.
Director: Ken Ninimoya
Writer: Ken Ninomiya (Screenplay)
Starring:
This is playing with the Sleeping Beauty film and is about a guy named Taro who is still a virgin even though he’s in his 20′s. Alas, he’s not attractive to women, least of all the girl he loves, Hitomi. Follow his misadventures as he tries to charm her…
Absolute Territory 
Japanese Title: 絶対領域
Romaji: Zettai Ryouiki
Release Date: March 15th, 2014
Running Time: 95 mins.
Director: Hiroshi Horiuchi
Writer: Hiroshi Horiuchi (Screenplay)
Starring: Mirai Ono, Maki Hira, Chocolate Ikeda, Kyohei Sawada, Mirai Yoshida
Hiroshi Horiuchi may be familiar to the one or two people who follow Japanese films AND read this site because I posted about a film of his last year! He was the writer/director of a film about a woman who scratches and cleans men’s ears – this is a bit of an erotic pleasure although a history of watching horror films means that I’d find it disconcerting to leave myself wide open to attack by laying my head in a ladies lap and letter her poke around in there… Anyway… In this youth love story, Masaki Katayama and Mio Kawashima play fan and idol respectively. They are in a mysterious relationship which started when the idol group split up and Katayama disappeared.
GET ACTION!! 
Japanese Title: GET ACTION!!
Romaji: GET ACTION!!
Release Date: March 15th, 2014
Running Time: 99 mins.
Director: Junya Kondo
Writer: N/A (Screenplay)
Starring: N/A
Teengenerate were a Japanese punk rock band who ran from 1993 until 1996 and are known for their fun style and incomprehensible English lyrics according to Wikipedia. I’ve never heard of them but one of their songs (My GTO) was used in the film Wild Zero so that makes them okay in my book. The guys reformed in 2005 and played a series of shows worldwide, gaining fans old and new. Despite worldwide fame, Japanese media didn’t take much notice. Junya Kondo’s documentary lets them have their say over their career. The film title is also the name of an album of theirs.
