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Flip The Frog: The Complete Series

Thunderbean’s greatest achievement is here, as Steve Stanchfield and his team bring Ub Iwerks’ 1930s creation to high definition disc, with all shorts lovingly restored and accompanied by scads of quality bonus features.

The Puppetoon Movie Volume 3

With 21 stop-motion puppet films and seven hand-drawn animated shorts, this third volume of George Pal’s classic cartoons is overflowing with creativity, fun, and simply amazing artistry!

The Croods: A New Age

Everyone’s favorite stone-age family — no, not that one! — are back for more of the same.

The Puppetoon Movie: Volume 2

Featuring brilliant restoration work, this new compilation of classic George Pal stop-motion shorts astounds the viewer with its animation, music, and color. Also included are rare European films, including ones with hand-drawn animation.

Star Wars – Rebels: Complete Season Four

Lucasfilm’s TV show brings pain to our heroes, who constantly have to turn losses into wins. The final season provides both tears and cheers in the best Star Wars tradition.

Mary And The Witch’s Flower

Studio Ghibli fans will be happy that sort-of successor Studio Ponoc has made a beautiful debut film. The tale of a girl who finds herself a witch may be familiar on the surface, but the seeds of future greatness are obvious.

The Breadwinner

This Oscar-nominated film tells of a young Afgan girl who disguises herself as a boy to support her family, after her father is arrested by the Taliban, in an eye-opening story that sees oppression fought with courage and love.

Star Wars – Rebels: Complete Season Three

The crew of the Ghost face off against Grand Admiral Thrawn as the penultimate season of Rebels sees the Alliance fully formed and the story inches towards A New Hope.

The Red Turtle

The award-winning Studio Ghibli film, that actually is a European production, has characters that never speak, but the film has plenty to say.

Sing

Fun and funny, with a killer, wide-ranging soundtrack that overcomes its cartoon karaoke concept, and some great character animation, Sing turns out to be the best singing contest on screens right now.

Miss Hokusai

This tale of famous Japanese artists – a man and his daughter – is told using Buddhist ideas of life’s simple pleasures, rather than trying to fit a Western-style genre. Its rewards are subtle and may be unexpected.

Moana: Ultimate Collectors Edition

Disney’s second animated smash of 2016 is this brilliant action adventure musical from masters of the craft John Musker and Ron Clements, and this disc presentation is as solid as they come!

Trolls: Party Edition

The delightful DreamWorks musical hit looks great on disc, even if the number of extras included isn’t exactly hair-raising.

Pinocchio: Walt Disney Signature Collection

Walt Disney’s epic masterpiece joins the Signature line, with a typically light treatment where the (lack of new) supplements can’t hold a candle to the brilliant feature.

Adventure Time: Islands

The event mini-series fulfills its promise of revealing the answers to a few of the hit series’ greatest mysteries, as Finn, Jake, and Susan Stong sail off on a journey to find more humans and the secrets to their pasts.

Lego Star Wars – The Freemaker Adventures: Complete Season One

This slick and exciting Lucasfilm show earns a surprising amount of credit for crafting a credible Star Wars story, even if it is told in a humorous fashion.

Pete’s Dragon

One of Disney’s biggest surprises of the year is this wonderfully good-natured gem, a mighty fine family film that stands out from all the other talking animals and fish currently out there. Just lovely.

The BFG

Spielberg directs a rare misfire that draws on Roald Dahl’s book, Amblin production values and Disney magic, but disappointingly fails to deliver on all lackluster counts.

The Secret Life Of Pets

Illumination’s latest finally breaks away from those Minions, with a less distinctive movie that still delivers laughs even if it gets close to being lost in the animal comedy fray.

Kubo And The Two Strings

Laika steps up stop-motion, and largely western animation in general, with this beautiful and deeply heartfelt tale, nicely showcased on this disc.

Finding Dory

Pixar’s Nemo sequel is a movie in search of a plot and, despite huge audience approval, one just doesn’t get the feeling the filmmakers were really invested in what amounts to being a major creative disappointment.

The Venture Bros.: The Complete Sixth Season

The Ventures relocate to NYC, The Monarch takes on a bold new identity as his wife also takes a new job, and this very funny show finds its best rhythm yet.

Adventure Time: The Complete Sixth Season

Finn finds his newly found father to be a crushing disappointment, Gunter gets an origin, and lots of crazy stuff happens in the latest run of Cartoon Network’s insane hit.

Beauty And The Beast: 25th Anniversary Walt Disney Signature Collection

As with Snow White, this second Signature disc is perfectly fine, but loses everything that made past editions must-haves.

Star Wars – Rebels: Complete Season Two

All the excitement of Star Wars is present in Rebels, with solid specs and the addition of great bonus features in this second season set.

The Jungle Book

A terrific audio-visual presentation, commentary and documentary bolster this disc debut for Disney’s triumphant re-do, though it feels more might come in a promised 3D edition.

Raiders! The Story Of The Greatest Fan Film Ever Made

A terrific extras package makes up for a slight lack of focus in the main feature itself, which tells of a bunch of kids remaking Indy’s first screen adventure.

April And The Extraordinary World

GKids gives us yet another slick international feature, this time an exciting steampunk adventure that utilizes the conceptual skills of cartoonist Jacques Tardi.

Only Yesterday

A young woman from Tokyo reflects back to her life at age ten, leading to a re-evaluation of who she is now. The final theatrical Studio Ghibli film to make it to disc in North America is now here.

Anomalisa

Not for everyone, and certainly not for kids, Anomalisa reminds us that animation is a medium, not a genre, and can be used to tell all kinds of stories, from the fantastical to the mundane…in a fantastical fashion.