Still no release dates about a full season box of the newest Spider-Man series, but on March 17th we will be getting 2 new DVDs. The Spectacular Spider-Man - Volume 2: Rise of the Super Villans! and The Spectacular Spider-Man - Volume 3: The Goblin Strikes! will both be single disc releases that will combine 3 episodes into a movie format like the first DVD that was released in September. No bonus features are planned. 

News and press release comes from TVShowsOnDVD.com

FORM BLAZING NOSTALGIA!

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There are two unavoidable topics when talking about sports-themed Japanese cartoons: baseball and Adachi Mitsuru. Baseball is America’s past time, but baseball here is nowhere the ’serious business’ it is in Japan. Oh sure, we have famous Hatfield-McCoy feud between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox or even the inter-league rivalries like Chicago’s White Sox and Cubs, but how many Cubs fans would jump into Lake Michigan if the team superstition meant it would help their chances in the play-offs and win a World Series? Cheering in an American stadium is nothing like the large flags, towels and team fight songs which are waved and bellowed more and more drunkenly as the game goes on. Every baseball game in Japan is played and cheered there like it’s October here. Yes, baseball in Japan is different than it is here; it was an import in the late Taisho period (late 1910s - early 1920s) but has distinctively grown into its own very Japanese phenomenon.

Adachi Mitsuru, likewise, is a name that is dropped in nearly every conversation when talking about sports anime. He’d been doing manga art since the early 1970s and by the close of the decade was writing his own narrative, usually about sports, youth and romance all wrapped up together. Today’s article isn’t about his first or last work but one that is typically lauded as his best. The story of twins, their neighbor, and a childhood dream simply called Touch.

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As Sasami Magical Girls Club returns for its second season, Sasami and her friends have returned from the world of the witches. They’re still in the same grade, still using their magic powers for good (and a certain amount of mischief), and still have their nurse Washu along to teach them how to use their powers. When one of the group members strays off the beaten path, the Magical Girls Club has to remind her that you can’t be a unique individual: stay with the clique or be an outcast! Gotta love elementary school drama.

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Welcome to the introductory segment of gaijINdebt. Scouring the Interwebs (What? Spider-Man said it) for the best deals, hoping to save you cash. I won’t point out any good deals if I wouldn’t buy them myself, so the sites are reputable at least. Show me a respectable nerd who doesn’t have crippling amounts of debt.

EDITED- Updated to add The Simpsons and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

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So, on Christmas Day, I did the responsible family member thing and went out to the movies with my dad. We were split between Frost/Nixon, The Spirit, and Gran Torino, and eventually boiled down to Clint Eastwood most likely being a badass. I walked out, thinking Gran Torino was a great movie, and easily one of the best things I’ve seen in the past few months.

Yet, I also walked out thinking something else: Gran Torino could have been an excellent Batman film, or at least apes enough things from the Batman-verse.

(WARNING: Spoilers for Gran Torino, and, well… Batman stuff)

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From Yahoo News, it is sadly reported that actress/singer Eartha Kitt has passed away today. Kitt was most famous for being the third Catwoman on the 60’s Adam West Batman and singing the famous song Christmas song, “Santa Baby”. Kitt also played Yzma on Emperor’s New Groove and its sequel and tv series based off the movie. Her work was always appreciated from actors and directors as Orson Welles has once called her “most exciting woman in the world”. She unfortuanetly suffered from colon cancer.

Santa is not just a big, fat, jolly man at the North Pole. There’s a Santa who lives in Japan. No, he doesn’t have any holiday spirit, but his birthday is December 24th, and he was named after Saint Nicholas. As he doesn’t believe in the Christmas Spirit, he’s part of the weakening of the holiday heroes. To restart his faith of Christmas, a Santa-in-training, Mai, is sent to Japan to make him have a good holiday. She only has limited superpowers, a small cup size, and a pretty weak argument in her arsenal as she tries to get the boy named Santa to have a good birthday and believe again. But once she can power up with his faith, she’ll be way too much for him to handle.

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According to the article in MTV’s Movie Blog, Keanu Reeves is eager to have a movie based on the anime Cowboy Bebop, which he wants to star as Spike Spiegel. The outline of the plot will be about the Red Eye plot from the first episode and will be intertwined with the last episode of the series.

My personal opinion, the West does not need to make movies about Eastern cartoon series.

I started to get into comics when I was in High School. If I wrote how I got into comics, then this review would be forever long about me. I will say that while my brother would read X-Men (because that was the new cartoon at the time), I read three comics about a solo heroes: Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Iron Man. Now out of the three, Iron Man was my favorite and I started to read Force Works and War Machine dropping Wolverine (during the Age of Apocalypse saga) and Spider-Man (during the Clone Saga) due to lost of interest. Now that with a very successful movie, the country has a big love of Iron Man, so it’s natural that a new cartoon is on the works.

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