The post full of Ultraman, part the second.

State of mind: bouncy
Current soundtrack: Heisei High - Ultraman Nexus - Eiyuu (doa)

So, one finally gets to watch the Mebius and Ultra Brothers movie. (I also did Cicakman this hols, but...Cicakman deserves a separate post.) About time, too, as it came out late last year. A big shout-out to Seij, who pointed me in the right direction to getting it. Now how do I burn it off...?

Ultraman Mebius & Ultraman Brothers

The Rabid Fangirl Review

Once upon a time on the moon there was a big old scary monster...

GYAAAAH! Whose idea was it to use the 'A-type' Ultraman mask!?

Onceuponatimeonthemoon, there was a big old scary monster called Ukillersaurus out to defeat four of the Ultra Brothers — Ultraman, Seven, Jack and Ace. The monster was controlled by the bigger, scarier Yapool, who kicked puppies, shot wee ducklings and was just generally pissy for fun. To make sure the Yapool wouldn't harm any more people and kick any more puppies, the four Ultra Brothers used the Final Cross Shield (which was more of a tetrahedron) and imprisoned the Yapool and his scary monster off the coast of Kobe. For even though they knew that the use of the Cross Shield would take away their powers as giant superheroes, they were confident that humans would be able to defend themselves from evil on their own.

Apparently in this reality, there was no such thing as Dubya Bush.

Ultra SQUASH!!!

Now let's fast forward to the present day 20 years later (yes, that was all backstory). It appears ALL FOUR liked Kobe so darn much they all settled down there, did the whole normal human thing again and lived very happy, peaceful lives. Inspired by this battle, a rookie decided that he would go to Earth and figure out what drew the brothers to it. His name...was Mebius.

(c/wise from top left: Hayata/UM the air traffic control chief, Moroboshi/Seven the farmer, Hokuto/Ace the chef and Goh/Jack the go-kart circuit manager.)

In the human guise of Hibino Mirai, Mebius has been defending the grand old Earth for six months. He is sent out to Kobe on a recon mission, because some pretty scientist thinks Something Is Up. (and Something Is, as is usually the case.)

(l-r) Hirokawa the marine centre dude, Hibino Mirai @ the Human Puppy and Shinguuji Aya the Pretty Scientist.

Pretty Scientist has a little brother called Takato, and he has his OWN subplot about bumping into a monster once and losing all courage, love of Ultraman and dream of joining the human defence force. Mirai uses all his puppypowers on him (and believe me, these are Puppy Powers indeed) but it takes some serious work to convince him that even the Ultra Brothers had big foes whom they were scared of, but if they stuck together and fought then they could win over anything, so on and so forth. This is actually something that the other brothers mention to the rookie when he meets their human forms for the first time, but it works, and Mirai promises that if Takato bears up and holds on, Mebius will give him the V-sign when he next appears.

Mirai TRIES to use Puppypowers, but Takato's apparently more of a cat kinda guy.

Before long, Ultra Big Brother Zoffy sends a message that SOMETHING is going to blow up pretty soon, which is explaining all the disturbances in the ocean. Despite the target being the uber-evil, puppy-kicking Yapool, who would sooner thump than thank anyone who tried to resurrect him, the slightly-less-evil Nackle, Guts and Temperor aliens are planning to...you guessed it, resurrect U-K and whip some Ultra butt.

The wild, woolly, and rather ELDERLY Nackle Seijin.

So Temperor Seijin goes out into the field, destroys some buildings, attempts to engage Mebius...and gets pwned. Those who have seen Temperor's fight in Taro should probably not be TOO surprised - more so if you read UM manga. *coughgekidencoughlosercough* However, this enables Zarab to gain Mebius' 'battle data', and by kidnapping the lovely Aya and changing himself into a clone of her, he plies Mirai with...The Poison Coffee of EEEVIL!!!

Note to self: Green milk does NOT give your coffee healthy intestinal cultures.

Needless to say Mirai DRINKS this PCoEEEVIL, which incapacitates him while Zarab goes off and happily turns into fake Mebius, smashing some buildings, wreaking havoc and scaring the shit out of a train full of cameo stars. When Mirai does manage to pull his poor stomach together long enough to transform, he is pissed beyond all belief. Rightfully so, too. I mean, YOU'd be pissed if a potential love interest fed you PCoEEEVIL, transformed into a rather obvious fake version of you and went around smashing buildings.

Yes, that is Fakebius - no, he is not flipping Mebius off.

So pissy!Mebius and snarky!Fakebius fight, and Fakebius is defeated in due course. Unfortunately, being pissy is not a luxury Ultras can afford, as Guts Seijin takes Mebius by surprise and claps him in a crystal cross suspended mid-air. To save him, the Ultra Brothers transform despite the risk of death AND the supposed impossibility of it in the current day. They proceed to pwn the Guts and the Nackle. All this goes down in front of young Takato, who in truly Ultra fashion regains his courage his pomp and splendour.

One question remains — if they can't transform, and they don't want to transform, and Hayata was all we-must-not-transform-ever, why does he still have the Beta Capsule with him??

Of course, this was all part of another, bigger plan, and when Mebius is finally freed, Guts and Nackle go for the other four brothers and take our rookie out. This time, however, Mirai regains his strength when he sees Takato brave the hordes of screaming people, falling rubble and batshit giant aliens to save his dog, Alto - who, by the way, was involved in the traumatic incidents mentioned some paragraphs above.

Yes, I forgot to mention there was ANOTHER puppy involved besides Mirai.

With HIS mojo back on track, Mebius rises once more, guts the Guts, knackers the Nackle and frees the others. Mebius is not only the human puppy, he has Gary Sue tendencies, too. Unfortunately, this all comes a mite too late, as the Ultra Bros' energy has all been drained out, converted to negative energy and used to negate whatever seals remain on U-Killersaurus and the Yapool. The shield breaks, the monster reappears, the Nackle gloats and...the Nackle gets offed.

But come on, you expected this, didn't you?

U-Killerzaurus has not only come BACK, but has become even larger. There ensues a mighty fight in which there are plenty of flying tentacles (you in the back there, get that thought out of your head!), Zoffy and Taro arrive to restore the Bros' energy and help kick ass, and Aya is found, mostly unharmed. Too bad she's been jammed into the crystal embedded in U-K's head.

The unfashionably, unfashionably late duo. Hey brother, this is not Malaysia, this is JAPAN!

Caught between the potential love interest and the Ultimate Eeevil, Mebius is at a loss. The Six Ultra Brothers join forces and transferring their energy into Mebius, create a new, uber-powerful being: Ultraman Mebius Infinity.

Little did anyone know that even the human puppy went through a teen angst phase, where he went half-black, had a tongue piercing and listened to nothing but the Ultran version of Evanescence and My Chemical Romance.

Mebius Infinity, with seven times the bashing power of your ordinary Ultra Brother, saves Aya, makes short work of the giant U-Killerzaurus (because there are only 15 more minutes left to the movie), separates into the 6 Bros and normal!Mebius and fulfils his promise to Takato. Everything is now peachy keen again, Mirai gets to pontificate heartwarmingly for one scene, and he joins up with the rest of Crew GUYS and goes home. The end.

Hearts and flowers and YAY! :D

My verdict? 4 stars out of five! It was great to see the Bros back in action, and get a bit of a glimpse into how they are as characters. Mirai/Mebius was a right puppy, and there were a lot of cameos that I quite enjoyed. But the best part comes in the end credits, where...well, I still want y'all to go get the movie, so you'll not be hearing about if from me. Now if only we could figure out WHY Tsuburaya used the wrinkled old A-type mask...*is not letting up on this* Overall, it's a good, fluffy movie that any Ultra fan should enjoy. :3

I'm sorry, I just...feel very warm and fuzzy...

The post full of Ultraman, part the first.

State of mind: insanely pleased
Current soundtrack: Heisei High playlist - Ultraman Cosmos - Wandaba Team EYES (Project DMM)

All right, all of you who knew me prior to reading this blog - you KNEW it was coming. Sooner or later, I was going to make a big squeeful post about Ultraman, or something to do with Ultraman. It had to happen, and y'all were just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Well, forget one shoe - here are several! *fling*

BANG! BANG! CRASH! WALLOP! SQUASH!

Over CNY, I met up with fellow squee-filled Ultrafangirl Lynn at Sunway Pyramid. I brought my sketchbook full of fluffy doodles to show her, plus the latest volume of Ouran High Host Club to show her the pseudo-UM appearances (hint: Last chapter volume 9, Tamaki's food-toy collection) ; she brought the Utraman Story 0 volume 3 that she borrowed from another Singaporean fan called Yoshi. For those who have not heard of Story 0 - it's thoroughly endorsed by yours truly. Great art, a solid story (although certain details taken as canon so far are conspicuously missing) and great art I worship Mabune Shinji. A fun hour was had by all as we hooted, squeed and translated stuff. I collapsed in laughter when she pointed out the EXTREMELY pretty human form of Ultraman near the end of the book. Not handsome: PRETTY. I guess you had to be there.

We went skating, and had sushi, and after she left I decided to go browse some handphones for a minute. I know Buddhism is supposed to be moderate and unmaterialistic, but OH MY STARS, I would kill for a MotoKRZR. So blue, so high-tech, so shiny...so expensive. *sigh* I then saw some signs up announcing the opening of the Sunway Petting Zoo Interactive Zoo, which I'd been dying to see for some time.

As luck would have it, by the time I got to the ticket counter, purchased a ticket and stepped through the entrance gates, the skies opened in a glorious Malaysian downpour. I spent about an hour waiting for the squall to stop squalling and fussed over an extremely patient sulfur-crested cockatoo in the meantime. Pictures came later. =3

(In the meantime, I'm hoping that macaw doesn't bite my ear off.)

Today was, all in all, a pretty good day. I went to open a bank account a bit nearer to my college, but was still a little apprehensive. The only experience I'd personally had with this bank was sending a postal order through it, once.

I guess I shouldn't have worried - good omens abounded. The bank was founded the same year that the first Ultraman took to the air; when I went to pick up my PIN pouch, someone had pasted an Ultraman Nexus card onto the table. To the best of my knowledge, they were only available at the launch of the Ultraman Nexus VCDs in Malaysia, and the N Project is one of my favourite Tsuburaya efforts by far.

The card in question: Nexus Junis and Dark Faust having a go at each other. Yes, Nexus looks that grumpy all the time.

And y'all thought I was just your ordinary Ultraman fan, huh? Not by a looooooooong shot. :D Which reminds me, gotta go down to the bank again after classes on Tuesday...

恭喜発財！

State of mind: sleepy
Current soundtrack: The ceiling fan

To all the wonderful people on my miniscule leadership: Happy Chinese New Year!



As most of y'all know - it's the year of the pig! I'm a bit confused as to WHAT pig it is, though - I seem to recall 2007 being the year of the Fire Pig (charsiew jokes abound) but CCTV and some friends insist it is the year of the METAL Pig. @_@ In any case, I'm finally off on break, the new clothes have been bought (including the obligatory red garments for the first day) and the food! O, the food!


Only one of my favourite sweets in the world - nien ko, or nien gao. However you spell it, it's a confection of molasses rolled in grated coconut. The idea is that you give it to the stovegod (and I am the only one amused by the fact that in Japanese it is the Koujin [荒神]*) and when he goes up to report to Big Boss Jade Emperor in Heaven, he'll have his lips stuck together or only be able to say sweet things.

It's also very good fried. Mmmmmmm.


This is what dinner looks like at my gran's on the first day of CNY...after everyone's done with it :D There's about enough for 11-12 people.


Tau yu prawns! These tiger prawns cooked in soya sauce aren't exactly the famous hee hee har har** dish, but what the hey, they do. And are super tasty. Thanks, grandma.


Joo hoo char is a mix of cuttlefish, turnips and shiitake mushrooms, all fried nicely together and eaten with rice or in little packages of lettuce (sang choy sounds like 'live and prosper' - please no Spock jokes). It's my favourite dish in the entire universe (mostly because of them thar turnips) but it's highly labour-intensive and my grandmother's getting a bit too old to prepare it this year...so my uncle made it. It tasted very strongly of fat, for some reason. This is one of those dishes I want to learn how to make before chow-ing off somewhere overseas.


And what's CNY dinner without a nice sweet mandarin orange afterwards, hm? P:

As for how it's going with work - well, things could have been worse, and could have been better. :/ Multimedia Production project threw up on me--but that was my fault. WHY it's my fault, I'm still trying to figure out. Next time read the gorram brief, genius Motion Graphics went all right, given the circumstances. We got the Hue Visualab team to come and critique our work presentations, but I didn't get much of anything beyond technical tips. This usually means in my book it was really bad, or so very mediocre nothing could be said. I AM, however, quite pleased with the fact I did manage to put together a whole new one for submission. It even rendered...fairly...smoothly. Consumer Behaviour went very well, what with our group's 'dramatic' presentation. JL, Cons, James, Yen, go you! :D

Suffice it to say that I'm slowly coming back to life and I owe my friend Lynn about two pots of tea. We met up earlier today--but more on that, and other teeny issues later! Sleep is a rare commodity in design!

*Convoluted Ninja Manual joke. Might be better to just pretend you get this one. ;)
** Hee hee har har is a prawn (har) dish which, for obvious reasons, is supposed to bring you happiness.