It’s another very slim slate of disc offerings this week.  Still there are some bright spots including the anime source material for Voltron, more classic films including Apollo 13 and Nightmare on Elm Street on Blu-ray, along with the underrated Disney animated feature The Great Mouse Detective.

 

Anime

 

This week Media Blasters has two major releases including the Beast King GoLion Complete Collection (13+, 1275 min. $69.98), which includes the anime that was the basis for the1980s Voltron cartoon series, and Genshiken 2 Premium Complete Collection (13+, 300 min., $59.98), the popular otaku comedy based on the manga series by Shimoko Kio published here by Del Rey.

 

Sentai Filmworks is releasing Living for the Day After Tomorrow Complete Collection (300 min., 13+, $39.98), which includes all 12 episodes of the series animated by J.C. Staff and based on the manga by J-ta Yamada about two girls, one a young teen about to enter Junior High and the other her brother’s girlfriend, a high school graduate, who are magically transformed in age.

 

The only other major anime release of the week is Viz Media’s Nana: Complete Collection Part 4 (13+, 285 min. $59.90), which includes the final episodes (35-47) of the Madhouse adaptation of Ai Yazawa’s popular rock-and-roll-themed manga series. 

 

Classic Films

 

The best releases from this weak session are re-releases.  Ron Howard’s Oscar-winning Apollo 13 (Universal, “PG,” BD $26.98) is now available on Blu-ray along with loads of extras in a 15th anniversary edition.  Howard’s real life space flight epic looks fantastic in hi-def.  Wes Craven’s intricately structured, franchise-creating 1984 horror film Nightmare on Elm Street (New Line "R" BD $24.98)s also appearing for the first time in high-def this week.  

 

Also available in a new restoration (but not yet on Blu-ray) is Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective, an entertaining Victorian mystery saga, which was directed by Ron Clement and John Musker (The Princess and the Frog). 

 

TV on DVD

 

Not much doing in this category this week either unless you are a fan of the last two seasons of the 1970s ABC Butch Cassidy-lite series, Alias Smith and Jones: Seasons 2 & 3 (Timeless Media, 1765 min., $49.98), or the 2002 UPN series Haunted (Phase 4, 495 min., $29.99), which was cancelled after just 7 episodes, or perhaps the 1977 series The Oregon Trail: The Complete Series (Timeless Media, 750 min. $49.98), which includes all 14 episodes of the show that were aired along with 6 that were never broadcast.

 

Other TV releases out on Tuesday include a single-disc collection of 4 episodes of The Donna Reed Show: Family Favorites (Virgil Films, 104 min., $14.99), Dallas: The Complete 13th Season (Warner Bros. 1431 min., $39.98), and Emergency: Season Six (Universal, 1138 min. $39.98).

 

Children’s programming releases include The Jim Henson Hour: Song of the Cloud Forest & Other Earth Stories (Lionsgate, 100 min., $12.98), Jim Henson’s Animal Show With Stinky & Jake: Lions, Tigers, & Bears (Lionsgate, 120 min., $12.98), and Tom and Jerry Tales: Season 1 (Warner Home Video, 288 min., $19.98).

 

Theatrical Films

 

Pirate Radio (Universal, “R,” 116 min. $29.98, BD $36.98) is the 2009 version of one of those 1950s kids-are-all-right films like Don’t Knock the Rock, except instead of musical appearances by classic rockers we get a soundtrack full of golden oldies and a cast of far better actors (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Emma Thompson, and Kenneth Branagh) than those who frequented the rock films of fifty years ago.  Still Richard (Love Actually) Curtis’ film, in spite of its great cast, lacks the snap and brevity of those 50s rocksploitation flicks. 

 

Speaking of great actors, there’s a bunch of them including Sigourney Weaver, Ray Liotta, Kelsey Grammar, and J.K. Simmons in Tim Allen’s Crazy on the Outside (Fox, “PG-13,” $22.98), but they can’t save a film so bad that it scored a 0% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.