Apparently Miki Mizuno is well on her way to becoming a bona fide action star in her mid-30s. With two high body count revenge thrillers scheduled to come out later in the year, Hard Revenge, Milly and Sasori, she’ll apparently also be whooping up on some fools in this summer’s Katana Karumono: Nihonmatsu no Bouken. In the movie she plays the ex-lover of an electrician (Usoh Ozaki) who works part time as a “benriya”, which is basically someone willing to solve general problems in exchange for money - no questions asked. A past incident drove the two of them apart but when he gets hired by a hot widow (Natsuki Okamoto) to retrieve a collection of mysterious swords they’re brought back together for the mission.

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The website for Takashi Saito’s quirky romantic drama Biru to Dobutsuen (literally “office building and the zoo") is up with a teaser trailer. The story involves a young music student (Katsuya Kobayashi) who works part-time as a window-washer. One day he sees an office lady (Maki Sakai) through one of the windows of a local office building and the two exchange an awkward glance. He pursues her, but the age gap between them and circumstances at her job keep them apart. Eventually they get a chance to spend some time together at the zoo and fall in love. However, they’re forced to consider the viability of a future together when her father (Tetsu Watanabe) voices concerns about the relationship.

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The live-action movie based on Takafumi Mizuguchi’s light novel Ren, directed by Sadakazu Hori, has had a few preview screenings and will be coming out sometime later in the year. The story revolves around a girl named Ren (Rei Okamoto) who’s banished from the future and is now trapped in modern-day Tokyo as punishment. Akihito (Toru Baba) returns to school to find that all his classmates apparently know this girl and he quickly develops a rapport with her. She tells him her secret but things get complicated when a transfer student named Shu (Masei Nakayama) arrives with a message from the future.

Don’t expect any special effects or complex explanations of quantum physics in this one. Judging from the trailer (see below), the whole time-travelers from the future element will just be a plot device leading up to typical teenage romance and human drama.

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We like to stay well-rounded in our coverage around here, so in the spirit of inclusiveness it’s time for some gravure idols fighting intergalactic crime in Eitoku Kawamura’s Spy Girl’s Mission Cord#005. It was actually announced back in April, but I’ve been waiting for synopsis that actually made sense. It never came, but here goes…

At Manazuru Peninsula strange UFO sightings are accompanied by killings in which the victims’ corpses are completely mummified. When the proprietor of the nearby Institute of Space and Astronautical Science decides to investigate and promptly disappears the Spy Girls (played by gravure idols Sawa Hashimoto, Megumi Kagurazaka, and Saya Hikita) are called in to get to the bottom of things. They eventually discover the cause of all the trouble, an alien seductress with murderous intentions known only as Gold Lady (Akiho Yoshizawa), and a ridiculously slow-paced battle ensues.

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The official website for the upcoming live-action movie adaptation of Motoro Mase’s manga serial Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit is now up, and with it comes a new teaser. Like most teasers actual movie footage is pretty sparse, but at least we get a peek at Shota Matsuda in the traditional Fujimoto “sorry dude, you’re dead” pose.

For those not familiar with the manga, the story basically involves a national death lottery in Japan meant to force citizens into becoming more productive members of society and reduce the suicide rate. Children are injected with a lethal nanocapsule along with a nationally-administered vaccine at a very young age. The capsule eventually makes its way to their pulmonary artery where it waits to be activated. Between the ages of 18 and 24 people become eligible for ikigami. 1 out of every 1000 people are chosen to die, being informed of their fate only 24 hours before it happens.

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