Midnight Ramblings

Having a very good final day of 2004.

I'm sure I've ranted many times before how Tokyo Mew Mew was one of my favourite animes when I was in Japan and I'd watch it every Saturday morning before going to work. And I'm sure I've also mentioned that 4Kids Entertainment - the same folks who import the Pokemon cartoon and make the new Ninja Turtles toon - are in the midst of translating Tokyo Mew Mew for North America. Well, I did some research today. The translated product has been named Mew Mew Power, and it'll be premiering next month. I downloaded all kinds of promotional gear from the 4Kids website, including the English opening credits sequence.

I was taken aback by the opening credits sequence. I did have the good fortune of watching some of the original Japanese Pokemon opening credit sequences, and when I compared them to the English ones, I saw that they took all footage from the Japanese opening credits, only re-edited it to match the English theme song. But, with the Mew Mew Power opening credit sequence, very little footage remains from the original opening credits. I was watching the whole thing going, "OK, that's from the second episode, that's from the fourth episode, that's actually from the final episode, and that's from the closing credits." And the English theme is kind of lame, too.

But still, can't wait to finally watch the adventures of Ichigo Momoyo in English! I'm sorry, her new English name is Zoey Daniels.

I also managed to catch an episode of the original Star Trek that I've wanted to see for a while now. It was called The Savage Curtain. The Enterprise is taken to the planet Excalbia by Abraham Lincoln. Kirk, Spock, and Lincoln beam down where they meet Surak, the founder of the Vulcan faith. The Excalbians appear and say that they have no concept of good and evil, so they've set up this test. Kirk, Spock, Lincoln, and Surak will form the "good" team. The "evil" team consists of Genghis Kahn, Kahless (the founder of the Klingon faith), Zoya (an infamously evil geneticist), and Col. Green, a warmonger from early 21st Century Earth. So, the good guys and the bad guys proceed to slug it out. Marvel Comics ripped off the concept years later for their now-classic Secret Wars comic.

Now, I'd been wanting to see it for this character of Colonel Green. We don't learn that much about him. According to the Excalbians, he led a genocidal war on Earth. He was power hungry, and his favourite move was to use peace talks as a diversionary tactic.

I wanted to know more about this character because Manny Coto, the guy in charge of Enterprise, seems to obsessed with this character. In every interview, he goes on and on about wanting to do something with Colonel Green. He even said that, when planning his Eugenics Wars arc, Dr. Arik Soong was originally going to be Colonel Green.

So, I had to see this because this character is most definitly headed for Enterprise.

Next Issue...Next Year