Video: "‘A Rugrats Chanukah’ Special 🕎 FULL EPISODE in 5 Minutes! | NickRewind"

Here is a video I found from the classic Rugrats cartoon that talks about Hanukkah (or Chanukah). Today is the first day of this celebration.

What is Hanukkah, you may ask? It is a Jewish holiday lasting eight days that commemorates the Old Testament miracle of the menorah burning for eight days with one day's worth of oil. The word Hanukkah is Hebrew for "dedication," hence the alternate name Feast of the Dedication.

Even though I am a Christian and a Gentile, I still believe it is an important event to be at least familiar with. The story of Hanukkah can be found in First and Second Maccabees. Even Jesus and first century Jews celebrated the holiday, which is recorded in John 10:22.

Anime Review: 'Sailor Moon S: The Movie'

original Japanese theatrical poster (source)

Today I'll be going over the second theatrical film based on the classic 90s anime Sailor Moon. This is Sailor Moon S: The Movie. The "S" in the title implies that it takes place at some unspecified point in the Sailor Moon S arc, which is the third season/series in the overall canon.

Why am I reviewing this during the Christmas season? Simple: it takes place during Christmas break, in much the same manner that Die Hard takes place on Christmas Eve, therefore making it a Christmas movie, technically. For this review, I will be utilizing screenshots that I took myself from the Blu-ray disc, because I finally have that capacity now (yay for me!).

'Evangelion' Officially Releasing in North America on Blu-ray!

(source)

This is admittedly a late post after the news dropped, but GKIDS has obtained the rights to Neon Genesis Evangelion and its movies Death(true)² and End of Evangelion in North America and is releasing it on Blu-ray for the first time! There are three versions of this release: the Standard Edition (pictured above), the Collector's Edition (pictured below), and the Ultimate Edition which is only limited to 5,000 copies and is now sold out. More information can be found on the GKIDS website. I have preordered the Collector's Edition as it contains the old ADV English dub in addition to the new one. Once it arrives, I'll review it.

The snazzy Collector's Edition. Source is the same as above image.

I had discussed the bootleg Blu-rays previously, and after hearing what will be contained in the official release, I've decided to keep them. First of all, "Fly Me to the Moon" is intact, the ending theme that unfortunately will not be present in the rerelease. It also contains the original versions of episodes 21 to 24, Death(true), and then some. In short, I want to preserve some of the original material from the franchise.

Manga Review: 'Revolutionary Girl Utena'

Source

As the current coronavirus plague rages on, keeping most of us cooped up at home, I thought it a good idea to snuggle up with a good book.

Today's subject will be the manga of Revolutionary Girl Utena. You're probably more familiar with the anime series. This is a classic shoujo (Japanese: "girl") story that, in lieu of its name, revolutionized the genre, similar to how Sailor Moon and Neon Genesis Evangelion changed the magical girl and mecha genres respectively. In fact, Utena is basically the love child of both those shows since the director is a Sailor Moon alumnus and a good portion of the staff worked on Eva. Utena went on to influence other media for years to come, some prominent ones including Scott Pilgrim and Steven Universe, the latter having recently finished.

The manga was written and illustrated by Chiho Saito, character designer on the series. Both the manga and anime were made at the same time, but the manga was released first in 1996, a year before the series. It served as promotion for the show, not unlike the manga version of Evangelion. While both versions started at relatively the same place, they each went in different directions in terms of story and characters, as I will discuss later.