#listen. ultraman's love for humanity is intense and real

[chacerider-casual]

You had me hooked at Godzilla

Are there robots? Cus I remember reading robots somehwere

And these guys give me superhero vibes, do they have superpowers? Or are they like, power rangers but high tech

Fun fact! The original head of the company that makes Ultraman, Mr. Eiji Tsuburaya (may he rest in peace), was the special effects director for the original Godzilla, before he split off to create his own production company! (Yeah, Ultraman's been going a while... Off and on since 1966!) So there's a good reason Godzilla is an easy comparison to make, and it's not just because of all the kaiju!

There are robots sometimes! The big focus is on the titular Ultramen -- aliens made of light from a distant galaxy, (usually,) capable of being large or small, generally do-gooders and capable of fusing their life with a human host for mutual survival -- but there have been both robot antagonists and robot friends throughout the years. The current season, Blazar, is very new-viewer friendly and has a giant mecha-godzilla-esque mecha that our heroes pilot (starting from episode 3)! His name is Earth Garon and we all love him.

As for superhero vibes... Kinda! As I mentioned, Ultramen can fuse with humans for mutual survival - Ultras need intense solar radiation to survive more than a few minutes, which Earth's atmosphere unfortunately blocks, so fusing lets them hide in the human's body on Earth to survive long-term when waiting for kaiju to show up, and lets the human hide in the Ultra's body for combat! (Well, there's other situations too, because not all "Ultramen" are from the same place, and others find other solutions... but that's the most common way.) So the protagonist is usually very superhero-like, with a "secret identity" of sorts! (EDIT: ... And yes, Ultramen themselves typically have superpowers. The most basic is beam attacks, but there's been everything from healing powers to energy weapon summoning to CRAB MINIATURIZING BEAM to summoning black holes! They're a bit magical like that.)

But then there's usually a government Defense Team, or other human allies, who are trying to solve mysteries and save Earth themselves, with human technology! So that part's often more got Star Trek vibes than Power Rangers, I'd say, but they'll often have combining jet fighters or mecha and such, so a bit similar after all, lol. A big theme is humanity trying to find its own place in the universe and grow to protect themselves!

... Though, that's mostly in proper seasons. Zero's a bunch of movies, usually set out in space with very few humans (or human-looking characters) at all, so it's very much a larger-scale sci-fi superhero romp there. A bit more Star Wars than Star Trek, but still it's own thing and very fun!

... Ah, I talked too much again. Well, if you need any more rambling about my favorite series, I'll be around, lmao

[zendozebra]

All the Time in the World Chapter 9

So, the UA Sports Festival happened. He ended up watching with Inko at her place, watching her fall apart as Izuku did his normal dumb bullshit. He’s gonna be giving that kid a detention when he sees him on monday. Apparently he’s got a date sunday afternoon? Something about Ashido helping him fix his bandages because he’s a hopeless fuck. Majima might have added that last bit himself, but his displeasure of everyone around him continues to persist and grow. He also dropped his mask on his way back to his apartment, which shattered on contact with the ground? Which idiot decided to make a fucking mask out of fucking porcelain! It’s a ceramic mask that he’s meant to be fighting in, what if he gets punched in the face, is he supposed to just take the hit? Luckily, shards of ceramic in his eyes would affect him less than it would anyone else, but his point stands.

Now he has to wait for that name-stealing Power Loader guy to get him a new mask. In the meantime, he now has to deal with the problem that stands before him, bouncing on their feet as they held a notebook in front of them. “I’m not giving you an autograph, guy. Leave me alone.” He’d just wanted to grab some food before his next class, but he’d been stopped on his way back by some fanboy asking for his autograph. He pushed past the guy, his lunch growing colder as his patience grew shorter. C’mon, he has to deal with class 1-B later, he has enough bullshit scheduled for today, he doesn’t need this. He still hasn’t mentally prepared himself for the dumb shit he was about to tell a group of children. Seriously, fuck coin flips, he’s never once gotten heads. Now he has to give another class nightmares for a week.

Eh, they’ll be fine.

When he got back to his office, class 1-B was already there waiting for him. So fuck that fanboy, now he’d have to deal with Nezu later. Seriously, how the hell did that guy know about him, wasn’t he supposed to be a secret? He sat down at his desk, pulling his food out of his bag as he started the class. “Alright, so I never at lunch, so you’re gonna have to deal with me eating throughout this class. Don’t like it, well, there’s the door. Also” He took a bite of his sandwich, continuing to talk with his mouth full, “I’m about to tell you guys some fucked up stuff, so if you’ve got a weak stomach or something, get out.” Surprisingly, none of them moved. He definitely wasn’t being as tough about this as he’s supposed to be. “I’m talking about my definition of fucked up. This is the kind of stuff that would make Toxic Chainsaw look like a playground bully.” There we go, Ibara’s startin’ to look a bit pale. He’ll have to pull her aside after class, have a talk with her. Heroes live a tough life, and Ibara seems to have always held a certain love of all life. He needs to make sure she’s still prepared for the cruelty of the hero industry, and if she is, then it’s his responsibility to make sure she’s handling everything alright.

“Alright, you’ve got your choice of villains today. Should I tell you about the Nuclear Villain: Maltruant, or Eviscera, a mass murderer who quite literally bathed in the blood of hundreds? Raise of hands for Maltruant?” The class took a quiet minute to come to terms with what he’d just said, while Majima took advantage by taking a few bites of his lunch. Slowly, about 12 hands went up for Maltruant, meaning that he won the little poll. Good, the kids are learning that the past holds a metric fuck ton of horrible stories. Unfortunately for them, Majima has access to each and every one of them.

“Okay, Maltruant was an early one, pretty sure he was in the 4th generation? Destroyed a few cities. And an island. His quirk, Nuclear Form, resulted in his entire body being a walking talking nuclear reactor, essentially being made of radiation, meaning that if he wanted to safely interact with other humans, he was forced to lock himself inside of a giant lead suit that contained the intense radiation he generated. The only outlet on the suit was in the center of the chestplate, where the government would siphon out the excess radiation to power cities, essentially creating a renewable energy source. However, seeing as the government had to shoulder the costs of both developing his suit as well as finding a safe way to keep him from overloading with his own energy and causing a meltdown, they refused to compensate him for the power the took from him. Understandably, he was extremely upset about this.” He took a drink while he pointed towards Kendo, who had their arm raised to ask a question.

“If we can assume that Maltruant was locked within this suit, one that was designed to contain all of his power, then how did he cause all of the destruction that you say he did?”

Majima had thought her question would be longer, so he’d stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth, meaning he was now chewing as fast as he could so he could answer. Choking down his food, he said, “The outlet, at the center of the chestplate, was used as a valve by the government to collect the power that he created. However, Maltruant found that if he focused his power at the center of this valve, he was able to forcibly open it, generating a beam of highly concentrated nuclear energy that decimated anything it was aimed at. Through this method, he was able destroy multiple small towns, but he was still held within the normal restrictions of the containment suit, such as limited mobility.”

Tetsutetsu had a question, let’s hope it’s not as annoying as all his other questions. “So who took this guy down, sir? Someone had to have beat this guy into the dust, right?”

“Eventually, yeah. Took about 15 years to do it, but they got him eventually. This is still relatively early into the global acceptance of the hero society, so there weren’t that many heroes that were powerful enough to handle something like this. Multiple local heroes were killed whenever he attacked, as they just weren’t strong enough, or had the right kind of quirk to combat him. The real heavy hitters were few and far between, and the government had them working other missions at the time. Hell, Maltruant killed the first two that were sent after him. I don’t know why, but the first person they sent after him was the Firework Hero: Festivity. She used her quirk Firework to launch multiple high-yield fireworks at him. Good idea, until you realize that your target is trapped inside of a lead-lined suit of super armour. After a day of bombarding Maltruant with her rockets, Festivity was killed when he manage to cut down the building that she had stationed herself on top of. Apparently, Maltruant didn’t have as much fun as she did that day, as her body was found violently beaten and disfigured.”

“The second hero they sent was another woman, the Hero for All: Okoye the Brave, an African woman with an, at the time, unbelievably power and strength enhancement quirk. She fought and died to Maltruant as well, however she was a bit more successful. She was fast enough to avoid his attacks, and strong enough to break through the containment suit, but she also succeeded in breaking the lock on the suit. Freed from his prison, Maltruant was finally able to access the full extentent of his power, which included flight, focused nuclear beams, and able to detonate himself in a large scale atomic explosion. It was that last one that killed Okoye, and, as was originally thought, Maltruant himself. Unfortunately, it only put him out of commision for a few months, and he was back on his bullshit in no time at all.”

“But yes, hard head, someone was eventually able to get him. In fact, it was actually Okoye’s named successor who took him down for good. The Hero for All: Ultraman, would eventually become what would have been the All Might of his time. He had an incredibly powerful strength enhancement quirk, that seemed to grow stronger as time went by, but had a very damaging side effect. Ultraman’s quirk, Blood-Fuelled Enhancement, allowed him to bulk up and achieve a level of strength that had never been seen before. But, this enhancement would slowly drain him of his own blood, meaning that he could only perform his duty as a hero for like… I dunno, it was like 1 pint every 15 minutes? He could safely work for about an hour a day before it started to get risky. Any more than and hour 15, and he’d die. Ultraman and Maltruant fought on one of Hawaii’s 8 main islands, and- What is it Monoma?”

The Copy quirk user seemed smug when he said, “Majima-sensei, Hawaii only has 7 islands. Have you forgotten that in your old age?”

“Smug little prick. If you’d listened to the end, you’d realize that it has 7 islands now. That’s because the largest island, the Island of Hawai’i, was destroyed in its entirety during the fight between Ultraman and Maltruant. Ultraman was finally able to put the Nuclear Villain down for good, but he contracted severe radiation poisoning as a result. He died a few days after the fight, and the mantle of Hero for All was passed on to his successor, the Hero for All: Wilfre, with his quirk, Atomic Flame.” The bell rang, signalling the end of his class. He let them all leave, but he made sure that Ibara stayed behind. There’s some things that they need to talk about, and he’ll make sure that she has a note for her next class.

“Alright kid.” He sat down at his desk, taking a drink of water. These lectures always killed his throat. “What’s up? Kendo was telling me that you’re worrying about me, and I saw you look a bit pale when you realized what today’s lesson was gonna be about. So talk now, or I can give you a detention and we can talk then. Your choice.”

“I’m not a fool, sensei. I understand that in our society, and in your prof-”

“I’m not a hero.”

“The hero profession, is one that is soaked in violence. I just don’t feel comfortable being involved in that violence.” Majima started laughing at that bullshit, making Ibara look at him in hurt.

“Kid, I’m gonna tell you a story, and it’s not one of the horror stories I usually tell you guys.” She seemed to calm down a bit at his assurance that she won’t have any more nightmares and continued,. Oh man, this was going to be tough. “A long time ago, I had a friend. He was my closest friend, in the whole wide world. Henka Akira, was his name, and he had a younger brother, Jin. Those two, oh let me tell you, they couldn’t have been more different. Jin was always trying to help people, getting himself put in the hospital every other week because he was trying to help someone. But Akira, he was a great man. He was a terrible, horrible man, but he was a great man. Now the four of us, myself, Jin, Akira, and Jin’s girlfriend, Aimi, we found something. Something, that could have made us gods. And we each reacted to it differently.”

“Akira embraced it, used it, and became more of a monster with every passing day. Jin was influenced by it, and spent every day after standing against it, fighting until it eventually killed him. Aimi tried to stand with Jin, but it was too much for her, and she hid herself away from all of the pain and the suffering.”

“But what about you sensei?” Ibara asked.

“Hmm?” He raised his eyebrow at her, a smirk playing at his lips. “Me? Oh, I did what I always do. I ran. I ran and I ran, and I’ve never stopped running. I don’t… Entirely remember, what I was so scared of, but, I know that Akira did something that… I, I don’t know. It’s gone, all my memory of it is just… Gone.”

“Why did you tell me all of this, sensei?”

Why did he tell her all of this? He was supposed to help overcome this fear of violence that she had but now? He stood up and made his way over to her. “You can’t focus on your training if you spend all your time worrying about a sad old man. No, I’m not fine, but I haven’t been fine for a while. I’ll manage.” He made to ruffled her hair, but he ended up just prickling himself on her vines. Whoops. “Go on to class. I have some things that I need to think about. We’ll work on that little violence phobia you have some other time.” She bowed and left his office, leaving him alone. He sighed, sitting back down in his chair. He should really sort his shit out, shouldn’t he? He also needs to talk to All Might, figure out if he’s the 8th Hero for All. He lost track of the title after Wilfre, and he’s got a feeling that All Might might be a good place to start looking.