robotech_master

This week is the start of the two-week "Anime Bento" film festival event. Two films this week, two films next week. This week, Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles and the Full Metal Alchemist movie. Next week, Hayao Miyazaki's Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro and some other movie I've never heard of.

Now, given my handle, you would expect me to tell you to go and see Shadow Chronicles, wouldn't you? And I'll certainly agree that if you're going to see it, you might as well see it on a big screen at least once; it's a decent enough effort for Harmony Gold's first original feature film, even if as a feature film it's more of an OAV in terms of quality.

But it's not fit to sweep the floor for next week's Castle of Cagliostro, which has always been and still remains one of my favorite anime films (for which I contributed an mp3 commentary track, by the way). How unfair it is that it's showing, for the first time in a decade or more and one night only, in Kansas City and Saint Louis, but not anywhere near Springfield. Even if I had a car, I couldn't make it up to and back from KC in a resonable length of time, what with work that and the next day.

If you're living anywhere in driving range of one of the theaters showing Castle of Cagliostro on the 26th, you owe it to yourself to get tickets in advance and go and see it. Big screen, high-definition…even if it's shown in dubbed format (as it probably will be) it's still worth the time and effort. Who knows when or if it will screen like that again?