All posts

Posted by Justin D Williams Grand Scheme is pleased to announce that the documentary film Bot Love from writer/director Tyler Funk (Anything for Fame) will receive its world premiere on Wednesday, October 21st at 9 pm (9:30 pm NT) on CBC and CBC Gem as part of The Passionate Eye. Bot Love is a character-driven documentary exploring sex, loneliness, and a question at the center of a rapidly changing world: if artificial intimacy feels real, what does that mean for human connec

By Justin D Williams I went into Get Jiro! expecting something stylish, violent, and maybe a little ridiculous. What I did not expect was to burn through all ten episodes almost immediately. By the time the season ended, what stuck with me was not simply the action or the food obsessed premise. It was how much personality this world has, how well the characters are written, and how committed the voice cast is to making the entire thing work. The basic setup is already strange

By Justin D Williams There is nothing wrong with a horror movie taking its time when the atmosphere is strong enough to justify that patience, and Never After Dark understands that. The film follows Airi, a traveling medium whose work involves helping restless spirits move beyond the world of the living. Her latest assignment brings her to an isolated property where what initially appears to be another haunting gradually becomes something far more complicated. Never After Dar

By Justin D Williams Qliphah in Providence’s Shadow is the kind of game where I could constantly see the ambition behind what Arc System Works was trying to build, even when the final experience did not always reach the level of those ideas. The story immediately grabbed me because it feels like playing through a supernatural anime season, with Tokyo altered by the World Collapse, Anomalies appearing throughout the city, mysterious Stigmas spreading across people's bodies, an

By Justin D Williams After watching the first two episodes of JAY-Z In 8, I’m not entirely convinced I would call this a documentary series. HBO may be presenting it that way, but what I watched feels much closer to a filmed podcast. Jay-Z sits across from Rick Rubin and talks. There isn’t a constant narrator guiding us through his career, there isn’t an overwhelming amount of archival footage filling in every chapter of his life, and the series doesn’t seem particularly inte

By Justin D Williams HBO’s Youth gets off to a very strong start with its first two episodes, introducing us to Alex, a 50-year-old divorced mother trying to figure out what she wants from the next stage of her life while seemingly everyone around her still needs something from her. She is balancing work, dating, aging parents, the physical changes that come with being in her 50s, and a college-age son who is technically grown but does not always act like it. I was only provi

By Justin D Williams I have always felt like Resident Evil has had a rough history when it comes to live-action adaptations. There have been several attempts to bring the games to the big screen, but most of them either moved so far away from the source material that they barely resembled Resident Evil anymore, or they leaned so heavily into action that the horror got pushed to the side. Going into this movie, I was not asking for a perfect recreation of any one game. I just

By Justin D. Williams Sunny Dancer is the kind of coming-of-age drama that could have easily become overwhelmingly sentimental, but instead finds a surprisingly effective balance between humor, teenage awkwardness, friendship, fear, and the complicated experience of trying to move forward after cancer. The story follows Ivy, played by Bella Ramsey, a 17-year-old cancer survivor whose parents send her to Children Run Free, a summer camp for young people whose lives have been a

By Justin D Williams There are plenty of games about assassins, and there are plenty of games built around running a business, but BLACKWOOD combines those two ideas in a way I wasn’t expecting to become so invested in. The game follows Anton Blackwood, a man living in New York City in 2012 who spends his days helping run a DVD store and his nights taking on a far more violent line of work. That contrast immediately caught my attention, but the biggest surprise was discoverin

Posted by Ashley Williams Crunchyroll Reveals Fall 2026 Anime Lineup With Black Clover, The Apothecary Diaries, Firefly Wedding, and more. Crunchyroll has officially revealed its Fall 2026 anime season, bringing a packed lineup of returning favorites and new series to the streaming service. Among the biggest titles are The Apothecary Diaries Season 3, Black Clover Season 2, Firefly Wedding, Overgeared, The Vermilion Mask, and the upcoming adaptation of PSYREN. The season gets

By Justin D Williams Nobuo Uematsu: On the Record by James Mielke is the kind of biography that works because it understands Nobuo Uematsu is more than the man who composed some of the most famous music in Final Fantasy. I went into the book expecting a deep look at his work on the series, and there is certainly plenty of that, but what surprised me most was how personal the book becomes. Mielke spends a lot of time exploring Uematsu’s childhood, family life, personality, int

By Justin D Williams There is a lot about Na Hong jin’s Hope that I genuinely admire. The direction is excellent, the performances are strong, and the movie knows how to create chaos on a massive scale. Unfortunately, underneath all of that technical ambition is a film that left me constantly wanting more from its characters and its world. Hope gives us plenty to look at and plenty to question, but rarely gives us enough information to become emotionally invested in what is h

By Justin D Williams The Runner is one of those movies where I can see exactly why the concept probably sounded good on paper. Gal Gadot leads a race-against-the-clock thriller that essentially asks one simple question: how far would a mother go when her child's life is being controlled by someone on the other end of a phone? The film takes that idea and turns Gadot loose across London, constantly running from one location to another while following a series of instructions.

By Justin D Williams Going into the demo for Final Fantasy Resonance, I was curious, but I did not expect it to grab me as quickly as it did. Almost immediately, it gave me the feeling of playing the Final Fantasy games I grew up with. The presentation is much more modern, but the overall approach feels rooted in that classic style of party based RPG design. By the time I finished the demo, my biggest takeaway was simple: this feels like the Final Fantasy of old, and I absolu

By Justin D Williams City Hunter on Nintendo Switch is the kind of rerelease I appreciate because it understands exactly what it is: a preserved piece of anime gaming history rather than a modern reinvention. Originally released for the PC Engine in 1990, the game follows Ryo Saeba through a collection of cases involving criminals, kidnappings, shady organizations, and eventually a larger conspiracy. I found the story fairly simple, and it feels more like a handful of City Hu

By Justin D Williams Few anime characters have undergone the kind of transformation Rudeus Greyrat has experienced throughout Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation. Audiences have watched him grow from infancy into adolescence and now adulthood, with marriage, fatherhood, loss and responsibility reshaping not only the character, but the performance behind him. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Madeleine Morris, the English voice of Rudeus, about approaching the cha

By Justin D Williams Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia immediately stands apart from most anime. Between its historical setting, cultural influences, focus on education and a protagonist whose greatest weapon gradually becomes knowledge itself, the series explores territory rarely seen within the medium. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Cristina Vee, the English voice of Sitara, and Yussef Benelbar, the English voice of Mohammed, about what attracted them to the serie

By Justin D Williams Clevatess is entering a new chapter, and with Season 2 shifting Alicia and Klen into an academy environment, the change of scenery gives both characters new challenges that go beyond surviving another battle. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Katie Wetch, the voice of Alicia, and Morgan Berry, the voice of Klen, about how the academy changes their characters, Alicia's evolving definition of heroism, Klen's growing understanding of humanity, the

By Justin D Williams When I first started Donutal, I wasn’t expecting interviewing aliens to become as entertaining as it did. The basic idea sounds almost too simple: extraterrestrials arrive at an international spaceport, I question them about why they want to enter Earth, and then I decide whether they should be allowed in. Once I started meeting the different species, comparing their stories, scanning them for potential threats, and seeing the consequences of my decisions

Upcoming psychological horror game Baptiste places players in the shoes of Tom, a young boy who moves into the mysterious mansion at Jagged Shore Cliff with his mother, Sara, following a devastating family tragedy. While Tom is already struggling with grief and his deteriorating emotional state, the discovery of a disturbing doll named Baptiste begins to transform their new home into something increasingly dangerous and difficult to understand. Rather than building its horror