Fade to Black

The third Bleach movie Fade to Black quite nice and didn't disappoint as much as Diamond Dust Rebellion did. So I guess my fears were all unfounded. Phew! What a relief.

It's quite interesting, packed with enough action and fights to satisfy bloodthirsty!Fi, contains captains' and lieutanents' zanpaktou releases (in fighting Minor Baddies), has several flashbacks from the earlier arcs to lend it a tinge of melancholy and has a rather interesting insight into a part of Rukia's past as an orphan in Inuzuri as well as focuses quite a bit on the dynamics between Ichigo and Rukia which had my inner fangirl going "Squee!" However, there's no further development to their relationship than what is already known i.e. Ichigo and Rukia have a special connection, are more than friends, but are not in a romantic relationship as quoted by Tite Kubo. Sighz.

Basically it's about Seireitei (as usual) being under attack under mysterious circumstances. As a consequence, everyone's memory of Rukia was immediately erased. In the real world, Ichigo's memory was also affected temporarily, however, as he slept that night, he dreamed of her and hence suddenly remembered again who she is.

Being the "save-everyone-Ichigo" that we all know and love, he immediately went to Seireitei to sort things out. And as per any Bleach movie (or episode for that matter), Ichigo has to fight against disbelieving Shinigami as well as the Big Baddies to save Rukia once again.

You can watch it Fade to Black here.

Being finicky!Fi, of course I have some complaints of the movie (heh, coz maybe my expectations were too high) with the main one being the quality of the drawings. To me it seems that the drawings are getting progressively uglier. It's like the animators are becoming lazy LOL.

In addition, there seems to be a discrepancy in the plot i.e. Rukia met the twins when she was older than when she met Renji, so where's Renji in the whole flashback thingy?

And wow, they've released the name of Shuuhei's release BEFORE it was revealed in the manga (Karakura Arc), bearing in mind that this movie is already a year old? Cool eh?

But anyways, FtB is definitely a must-watch for Bleach fans.

I Love to Crap (An Exam Oriented Post)

Figuratively of course. Not literally.

When I look back in the past, it seems that it's the only thing I'm actually good at.

I've refined this technique over the years, crapping in debates in secondary school when I don't have a script nor any points (since I'm often the third speaker in Parliamentary Debates who's just supposed to rebut everything the opponents say), crapping sometimes when Million asks me super tough questions in A-Levels (I really got to thank her for my strong foundation in Chem though - it's thanks to her relentless whys that I actually got to thinking more than just memorizing all those facts), crapping bout lecture notes when they are actually not self explanatory, crapping during exams when I forgot the facts and so on.

But these are too much:
1. Explain the differences in CNS pharmacokinetic profiles of DepoCyt and conventional cytarabine following intrathecal administration. (8m)
- Depocyt has a longer half life of 87+/- 15 h hence distributes evenly in the CSF compared to conventional cytarabine with a half life of 2-3 h.
- Depocyt is eliminated via biphasic elimination whereas conventional cytarabine follows a first order decrease.
The end.

Seriously, what else is there to write bout these to merit the 8m? Absorption here doesn't play a role since they're administered directly into the CSF, neither will metabolism (via deaminases) since they only want the CNS pharmacokinetic profiles. Sighz.

2. Explain how the stratum corneum prevents water loss from the skin. (10m)
- By acting as a barrier to water loss.
The end.
And really that will be the end of all my marks too :P.

Ok, technically I can talk bout the structure of the skin bla bla bla but that really will not contribute all the other 9m.

Anyways, these are all too boring to talk about for long since they really a sleep-inducing topics. So to make this entry somewhat palatable, I bring some funny Bleach stuff.

Cute rite? Haha. Renji vs Ichigo for Rukia! With Byakuya as the judge in the background too. LOLZ. By Etania.

"Oh, Rukia! Our children have already grown so much!"

"Shut up." Kaien said grumpily from his seat. "Why do you keep that stupid poster up, anyway?"

Rukia sighed, putting dinner on the table. "Idiot."

Like father like son. LOLZ. By TigerShinigami.

Now, that makes life a little more bearable. :)

Fade To Black

Promotional posters and the movie guide for the newest Bleach movie, Fade to Black is already out.

This 3rd movie hopefully will do better than its predecessors in being more than just a shounen filler extragavanza.

Anyways, this movie sounds and looks promising, basically it's about Rukia and the rest of Soul Society losing their memories due to some incident.... hence, it's Ichigo to the rescue again! However, what makes this different compared to the other movies is that KT has some input in this movie - the title of the movie, Fade to Black is his idea as well as the Japanese subtitle - Calling Out Your Name.

Fans of Ichiruki all over the world are also eagerly awaiting this movie as there has been not much development in the Hueco Mundo arc where the focus was mainly on Orihime - so, is this a hint of what to come pairings-wise in Bleach as KT apparently has a say in this movie? Will there be anything concrete occuring? Is this a subtle acknowledgement of Ichiruki? Well, maybe FTB will answer some of this burning queries but IMHO, this is and will remain just a filler. Granted, Byakuya saving Rukia against the Bounto Yoshi and in Memories of Nobody are fillers as well and he really did save her again in the canon arc (i.e. against Zommari). However, it must not be forgotten that fillers are merely fillers - i.e. no further progress on Hitsu/Karin despite the soccer episode, Ashido is about to be forgotten, Cloud, Nova and Ririn are memories of yesterday, to illustrate a few examples. Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I think it's better to go with low expectations and to be pleasantly surprised rather than vice versa (despite being a BIG fan of Ichiruki as well).

Enough with all this meaningless chatter, here are some FTB movie goodies:

Kubo: From the 2nd movie the subtitle was brought up by me. From the time when I first heard that the memory of Rukia will be disappearing inside everyone an image came into my mind that Rukia’s memory of Ichigo and the gotei 13 will be disappearing. From there the meaning of “Disappearing into black” became the subtitle “Fade to black”.

After coming up with the English subtitle "Fade to Black” they asked me to come up with the Japanese subtitle (laughs) So after carefully digesting the scenario I searched for some scenes that can be the key word or words that I can use, and found that in the plot, someone calling out someone’s name, especially in this story where Ichigo calling out Rukia’s name was a strong expression that even though no one else remembers you I do, and I found out it had an important meaning behind it. So that’s how I came up with the subtitle “Calling Out Your name”

- An excerpt from an interview with KT about his role in the upcoming movie.

Go here for another tidbit of a translated interview with Ichigo and Rukia's seiyuus as well as links to Bleach TV for a sort of behind the scenes of the movie (too bad it's not subbed though) - credit to Bleachness.

If you're interested to know what happens in the movie, go here for the translated version of the movie (of course it still doesn't beat watching it but we'll make do with what we have).
- credit to all the people on Ichiruki BA.

Here's the movie preview on the current episode's opening and closing credits.

Another trailer for the movie - the background music is the movie's theme song by Porno Graffiti - supposedly a famous band in Japan.

Here's part of the lyrics:
Tonight where does the moon illuminate
With the thick clouds covering the sky
Tonight who will you be embraced by
You wander in the lost road you escape the wind by the thunder cloud
You even start hating your true self
You even pretend you are a traveler
Alone, you let the rain pour on you
If you are going you rather go to a wasteland
Tonight, I wonder if you can you see the moon
Even, tonight if you can't find the place where the moon illuminates I will make sure I'll find you.

Sounds pretty shippy (I like! :P).

Despite trying not to, I can't help but feel quite excited bout this movie.. Looking forward to next September then (when the subbed version will be out). :)