With five release days in July it is fairly slim pickings on the home entertainment front this week, though there is a key release from Nickelodeon’s The Legend of Korra, plus the sci-fi thriller Helix, a bizarre BBC comedy featuring Daniel Radcliffe and John Hamm, a full slate of anime releases, a great slice-of-life Bollywood drama, a probing Japanese film about the true nature of family, and Errol Morris’ documentary interview with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
 
TV on DVD
 
This week’s top TV release is The Legend of Korra, Book 2: Spirits (Nickelodeon, 300 min., $19.99, BD $34.99), which collects the first 14 episodes of Book 2 of the popular Nickelodeon series that continues to build on the success of Avatar: The Last Airbender.  Like many addictive YA novels, The Legend of Korra is an entertainment designed for viewers of a “certain age” that adults can enjoy as well.
 
Also of great interest to geek viewers is Helix: The Complete First Season (Sony, $55.99, BD $65.99), which contains all 13 episodes of the first season of the science fiction thriller about a group of scientists from the CDC investigating a virulent outbreak at the South Pole that aired on Syfy earlier this year.  Ronald D. Moore, who was behind the Battlestar Galactica revival is one of the producer of this series, which has been renewed for a second 13-episode season.
 
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are about to make yet another big screen debut, so it’s no surprise that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Vol.5: The Good, The Bad, & Casey Jones (Nickelodeon, 133 min., $14.98), which collects six episodes from the current TMNT cartoon series is due out as well, though bargain-conscious buyers will wait for a season set.
 
The lone vintage release this week is a new Blu-ray collection, The Twilight Zone: Essential Episodes (Image Entertainment, 425 min., $29.98), which contains 17 brilliant episodes of the best science fiction series of TV’s Golden Age.  Normally I am against sampler collections, but with “To Serve Man,” “The Monsters Are Due on Maple St.,” “Nightmare at 20,000 Ft.,” “Time Enough at Last,” and “The Hitch-Hiker,” and a dozen other classics, it is hard to see how one could go wrong with this collection.
 
The lone U.K. release this week is a bizarre one indeed---A Young Doctor’s Notebook: Season 1 (BBC, 93 min., $19.96) is a dark comedy series that stars Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe and Mad Men’s John Hamm as a young doctor and an older version of that same doctor respectively in a strange and disturbing saga set in 1917.
 
Anime
 
This week’s top release is A Certain Scientific Railgun S Season 2, Part 1 (Funimation, “14+,” 300 min., $59.98), which contains the first 12 episodes of the 2013 A Certain Scientific Railgun S series produced by J.C. Staff and based on the light novels by Kazuma Kamachi that have inspired two manga series as well as games, an anime movie and several anime series.  These episodes were simulcast by Funimation, but this is there first American DVD release.
 
Also of interest is Devil Survivor 2: The Animation Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, “14+,” 325 min., $59.98), which includes all 13 episodes of the 2013 anime series produced by Bridge and based on the 2011 Nintendo DS video game Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2.  The supernatural action/adventure anime spawned a manga published in Japan by Square Enix.
 
The Photo Kano Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, “14+,” 325 min., $49.98) collects the 13 episodes of the 2013 Madhouse series based on the “dating sim” game (“Photo Kano” means “Photo Girlfriend”) created by Enterbrain for the PSP.
 
Also new this week is the Yuyushiki Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, “14+,” 300 min., $49.98), which includes all 12 episodes of 2013 series from Kinema Citrus based on the 4-panel manga series by Komata Mikami about three high school girls who are less than precise members of their high school’s Data Processing Club.
 
Previously released series due on Tuesday include Cat Eye: Season 1 (Nozomi, “16+,” 900 min., $59.99), which contains all 36 episodes of the 1983 anime series produced by TMS and based on Tsukasa Hojo’s manga about three sexy sisters who become art thieves in an attempt to collect all the works of art that belonged to their missing father.  The Cat’s Eye manga is one of the bestselling manga series in the history of Shonen Jump, and the anime is great example of a classic 1980s series.
 
The Right Stuf is also bringing its unparalleled skills at resurrecting classic anime series to The Lost Universe Complete Collection (Nozomi, “13+,” 650 min., $29.99), which collects the 26-episode sci-fi romance based on the light novels of Hajime Kanzaka (Slayers).  A studio fire destroyed many of the drawings done for the first episodes, which as a result have a sketchy appearance.  Right Stuf previously released this set in 2007 (at $39.99).
 
This week’s other re-priced re-release is the Shakugan no Shana Season 2 Complete (Funimation, “14+,” 600 min., BD/DVD combo $34.98), which collects all 24 episodes of the 2007 series produced by J.C. Staff.
 
Theatrical Films
 
The most successful film due out this week earned a mere $4.1 million, but The Lunchbox (Sony,”PG,” 105 min. BD/Combo $40.99), a lovely slice-of-life comedy film about the connection between food and love that never slops over into sentimentality.  Irrfan Khan gives a brilliant performance in this gentle drama that demonstrates that not all Bollywood productions are musicals.
 
Another film that will appeal to art movie lovers is director Hirokazu Koreeda’s Like Father, Like Son (IFC, “Not Rated,” 121 min., $24.98), a wrenching family movie about children who are switched at birth and then reunited with their “real” parents at the age of six.  Koreeda specializes in films about children, and perhaps no other movie has done a better job of examining the thorny and difficult issue of “nature versus nurture.”
 
Horror movie fans will have to be satisfied with the “found footage” film Afflicted (Sony, “R,” 86 min., $26.99, BD $30.99), which purports to be the video footage of two best buds on a round-the-world-trip, which takes a very different turn when one of them becomes “afflicted.”  Yes this is another bastard stepchild of The Blair Witch Project, but Afflicted is actually better than many of the more well-known “found footage” movies that have made big bucks in the theaters.
 
For those who like challenging documentaries there is Errol Morris’ The Unknown Known (Anchor Bay, “PG-13,” 103 min., $24.98, BD $29.99), a film in which Morris questions former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who displays the same ability to obfuscate on screen that he did while in office.  Those who would like to see Rumsfeld skewered by aggressive questions or admit any wrongdoing in his role in leading the invasion of Iraq are going to be disappointed, but there is much to like about the subtle ways in which Morris provides his subjects enough “rope” if not to hang themselves, at least to reveal their true personalities (or lack thereof).
 
Tom Flinn
 
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.