Even though Google’s title graphic by Jim Lee features DC characters, Marvel rules San Diego Comic Con. We talk about the last-ever LOST panel (links to videos included — SPOILERS!), and all the Marvel comics we AREN’T reading… because we’re all reading DC and the Blackest Night right now. Take a listen!

Audio Netcast Details
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Direct Link: Powetcast Episode 15: SDCC, Marvel, LOST, and DC

(What was your favorite San Diego Comic-Con panel? Are you as excited for the final season of LOST as we are? Share your thoughts and theories in the comments!)

Show notes after the jump!

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This is the follow up to Sega/Treasure’s Bleach: The Blade of Fate which was released in the U.S. in 2007. Based on the popular anime of the same name, Bleach: Dark Souls provides more fighting action featuring your favorite characters from the series. One would look at this and call it Bleach: The Blade of Fate Championship edition, and they wouldn’t be completely wrong, as Dark Souls borrows a lot of its content from Blade of Fate. However, there is a huge amount of new content in the game, and some gameplay refinements have been made, making this game stand out from its predecessor.
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Although this movie is not available in North America, you can import it from Amazon Japan. The new Ghost in the Shell 2.0 Blu-Ray disc has English subtitles. The original Ghost in the Shell movie Blu-Ray has an English dub track and English subtitles. Both this and the new version are available in the box set. Both Blu-Ray releases will play in a North American PS3. I am not familiar with the DVD details, but it will likely not play in a standard North American region 1 DVD player.

Within the past decade or so, we Americans have seen a trend of comic book-based movies and adaptations from books all over the silver screen. In fact, it’s become so commonplace that we expect it now. If there not a summer blockbuster that isn’t based on a comic or a book, good or bad, then it hasn’t been a fulfilling year, has it? Even the success of Transformers has proven that other venues can be tapped for potential in the film industry.

So it’s only fitting that anime become the next big thing to be converted by Hollywood. And that’s got potential in and of itself, right?

Perhaps not as much as you’d think.

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Remember 3 years ago when we first got wind of what was going on with a Transformers live action movie? How some people cried and said it was all wrong? How some of those people are still saying that?
I join their ranks today. Cowboy Bebop is becoming a Hollywood movie and they’ve got a 44 year old washed up Keanu Reeves to play 27 year old Spike Spiegel. Lets do this movie a solid, get Shia Labeouf as Jet Black, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Vicious and just purposely try to make it the worst thing ever.
I know in my heart this movie will not get made, like so many other anime and comic adapations with bad casting or direction from the get go. But mark my words, if this reaches the screen it will make that Dragonball movie look like Heat.

Variety: Keanu Reeves set for ‘Bebop’

Like Encounters in Space in my $20 Game of the Week, this week’s Lost Classic, Gundam Wing: Endless Duel is one of the few good Gundam games in existence. For those of you not in the know, the Gundam Wing series takes place in the After Colony Universe, which is outside of the Universal Century universe depicted in the original Gundam series, War in the Pocket, Stardust Memory, and pretty much any other Gundam series which had been released up to that point (besides the G Gundam series, which itself takes place in its own universe, but that’s another story). Like the original Gundam series, Gundam Wing tells of a war between Earth and the space colonies. A group of young pilots wage a war against a corrupt organization which is trying to play both sides against each other. The series spawned movie, Endless Waltz, which takes place a year later and deals with the aftermath of the war. The series proved to be a favorite among fans everywhere, despite a few annoying characters here and there. Unfortunately, at the time of this game’s release(1996), Gundam, like many other classic anime properties, had no presence in North America (indeed, the Gundam Wing series wouldn’t make its U.S. debut until 2000). It goes without saying that Bandai didn’t bother with an English translation, leaving this game a favorite of importers and emulation pirates.

Endless Duel is pretty much your basic mid 90s fighting game which makes use of a preexisting intellectual property. You take your pick of several pilots and defeat the rest in a series of one on one battles. Each mobile suit has its selection of special moves. They can also hover for a short time. There is a super meter which allows players to preform more powerful versions of their special moves as well as machine gun attacks. Players can play through arcade, versus, and trial modes. Some of the music has been lifted from the show. By completing the game on hard mode, players can unlock a secret code to play as the boss. Although there isn’t much in the way of replay value, the control is responsive, the backgrounds are detailed, and the game does a good job of representing the source material.

Although Endless duel makes no huge attempt to set itself apart from the numerous other fighting games out there, it does a good job of providing fun gameplay and representing the series in interactive form. It’s doubtful that we will see this game come to Virtual Console any time soon (as Wing’s popularity has waned in favor of more recent Gundam series), but since Namco-Bandai still holds the rights to the license, there is always hope.

A number of Powet.tv members have been attending Otakon for a few years. What follows was at some point intended to be some kind of comprehensive overview of the con, but it should be immediately obvious that we weren’t able to follow through with such an ambitious goal.

Enjoy the trannies, furrie, LARPers, and some even seedier perversions that plague the geek community attending a standard convention. All things considered, the simple act of Cosplaying really isn’t that weird at all.

To be eligible for the contest to win the Yaoi book mentioned in the above video, please leave your relevant comment to this blog post in the next month.

Directed by Takashi Murakami, this is the animated music video for the opening track of Kanye West’s album “Graduation”

Do note an appearance by one of our Top 5 Movie Cars!