Dadaism.

No, not the art movement, rather the Ultraman villain, Dada, who is one of 11 cards that you can grab at the Famima Festa (Family Mart Festival).

This is the entire lineup, including special guest, Mirror Man.

So far, Zoffy is the only other card I've wrangled.

By spending 700 yen, you can get one of these cards for yourself and there is an opportunity to win one of a ton of prizes.

These are a few of the promo posters for the Festa.

There are a couple of TV ads as well, such as this one from a few days ago, which features a hapless interviewer conversing with a few baddies waiting idly outside the Conbini.



This one was released yesterday.



I'll keep you posted, should there be further ones.

REVISED: a new one.



ReRevised: Several more of these can be found here.

The only item for sale of note are these two Nikuman (steamed buns filled with meat). One is a Baltan-man, stuffed with pork.

The yummier of the two is the Ultra-man, stuffed with minced meat.

Family Mart isn't the only marketer for Ultra-goods. Nissan is in on the deal as well with some cool looking vehicles. Click that link to see the cars. I can't copy the pics. Or watch this...



And of course, a true Ultra-promo would be remiss if they didn't have a Battle Card Game. Click to see the goodies, or watch this. (I'd suggest you turn down the volume first. It blares!)



All of the above is for the purpose of flogging tickets for the upcoming Ultraman X: the Movie..

It's over two months away so I'm sure we haven't seen the last of new promos...

That's a helluva lot of Ultramen!

Into the Labyrinth.

I finally had a chance to watch Labyrinth last night and it was as fun now as it was 30 years ago when I last saw it.

I learned something cool recently. Gates McFadden (Beverly Crusher of ST:TNG fame) did all the choreography for this movie.

Here are a bunch of behind the scenes tidbits for you to peruse.

These Brian Froud cards came along with this Collector's edition. I know I have a Brian Froud/ Terry Jones book sitting in my locker in Brampton. I'd really like to leaf through it now.

RIP. David Bowie (My second favourite David Jones. My dad is #1, Davey Jones of the Monkees is #3.)

I was planning to place a whole bunch of photos of tribute to David Bowie that I'd scammed from the Net but there are too many to choose from. I will add this one from the wonderful Super-Team Family blog though.

This Simpsons animated tribute is pretty sweet as well.

Speaking of animation, I'd like to draw your attention to this Cartoon Brew article with a few animated tributes. This one is my fave of the bunch.



Now tonight, I just read of Alan Rickman's passing. What is it about 69-year old Brits and succumbing to cancer? The best villain ever. From Die Hard to Prince of Thieves to insert your favourite bad guy here. Also brilliant in Galaxy Quest and the best thing about any Harry Potter movie.

 Let's just bunch him together with Richard Libertini who some will equate him with Fletch or All of Me or dozens of other roles. For me it is his turn as Geezil in Popeye or his several different characters on Barney Miller that I'll remember.
And there's Pat Harrington who is best known as Schneider or the Pink Panther's Inspector but I have a unique memory of him from a really old episode of F-Troop where he portrayed a spy by the name of B Wise who did a spot-on spoof of Maxwell Smart.
B Wise: Would you believe I'm the man of a thousand faces?
Capt. Wilton Parmenter: I find that hard to believe.
B Wise: Would you believe eight hundred and fifty?

Let's try and go a few more days without any more deaths please...

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges!

A long time ago in a cinema not so far away, a movie called Star Wars, The Force Awakens opened and, since then, has gone on to be the #1 grossing movie topping Avatar in less than a month. But that kind of cash is Peanuts* compared to the bucks they make off merchandising, especially from suckers like me. On opening day, I didn't get a chance to see the movie, but I did manage to buy up some of the goods for sale prior to the movie's 6:30pm release.

I don't really need no stinkin' badges (especially at a cost of 350 yen a pop), yet I still wanted to check them out. This is actually a random draw deal with 3 levels of rarity. On the plus side, I did get one of the rarer ones. I shan't be purchasing any more of these.

Other goods include: two different kinds of mini Post-it notes,

A Millennium Falcon pen,

Some tape,

2/8 magnets. These are much nicer than I expected them to be, otherwise I would have purchased more.

There were several of these Reflectors and some were even sold out hours before the movie opened.

On a curious whim, I bought a pack of cards for a "Trading Card Battle" which is all the rage over here. Note, if you can find these in a vending machine, spend your 2 bucks there. If you buy them over the counter like I did, you have to cough up the sales tax.

This was the most disappointing purchase of the day, I am SO glad I only bought one. Expecting a package of breath mints, all you get is a little metal case that goes over a package of breath mints that you have to buy separately. IF you can find the right sized mints!

Checking out the bending machines, we (a fellow Michael and myself) discovered some B5-sized Clear Files. I bought 3/8 of them.

 

 Above are two different ones; below are two sides of one file.

  

And in another vending machine, we cleaned it out of these Holographic cards. We each got a full set and only a few doubles all in all.

If you wiggle them back and forth, the image changes slightly.

(That took 2 hours to upload. Definitely using YouTube next time.)

I also picked up a The Little Prince tape,

 Cute, but it'll go into a package for a friend.

And a pair of Snoopy stamps. They were going fast, so I had to snap them up.

Most of the above goods are sold out now. Sorry, I suppose I should have informed you earlier (but I misplaced this bag of loot!)

Chewie, We're Home.

With those three little words, a franchise is guaranteed its success.

Welcome to the Millennium Falcon! Those fine folks at DeAgostini have finally released their "assemble your own Millennium Falcon" model kit. (For details, check this out.) I spoke in some detail way back in November about their latest scam enterprise and it is worse than I thought.

I usually buy the first book at the cheap price (in this case 499 yen) and then ignore the next and subsequent issues at 1,999 yen. This time, I snapped a few surreptitious photos in the bookstore. This is what you get:

I don't know how many issues are planned but it'll take about 1000 bucks to amass the parts to put together this vessel. At least you get a couple of nice pictures in the book, such as this one.

There's also a binder, I could probably use one to hold some of the SW paraphernalia I've already collected (cards, posters, Clear Files, etc.) but at 699 yen, it's a tad expensive.

Chewie, you may be home but I'd suggest you get a cheaper spaceship.