pjbooks Chapter 450 Mebius in Progress
Chapter 450 Mebius in Progress
For hardcore tokusatsu fans with a keen sense of smell, just the Blue Planet series and the upcoming Final Battle in the trailer are enough.
Clearly, this could no longer fully satisfy their appetites, which had been thoroughly elevated by Gu Nan.
Now that the Ultraman storyline is nearing its theatrical release, given Light Chaser Animation's consistent project development pace, the next Ultraman season must already be in the works.
On Friday night, a week after the movie's release, at the largest tokusatsu (special effects) forum in China...
A post titled "Shocking News! Light Chaser Animation's Latest Trademark Registration Revealed, New Ultraman Code Name Confirmed!" suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
The post was made by a well-known textual critic on the forum.
In his post, he provided detailed screenshots of the latest data he obtained from the official website of the State Intellectual Property Office.
The screenshot clearly shows that Light Chaser Animation has filed a series of new trademark registrations in recent months.
And in this long list of trademarks, a name full of mystery is prominently featured.
Furthermore, it was highlighted in several core categories, including film and television, toys, and related merchandise.
That name is—Ultraman Mebius.
This post immediately caused a stir in various discussion forums.
In an instant, tokusatsu fans across the internet engaged in a frenzy of speculation and interaction surrounding this new name, showcasing the emotional fluctuations of the audience.
[Holy crap! Mebius? That name sounds really cool!]
[Finally exposed by the experts! I knew Gu was brewing something big; after Gauss, he's definitely going to take over from Xin'ao!]
Mebius... the etymology of this word is probably the Möbius strip, right?
[Class representative here: The Möbius strip represents an infinite cycle, without beginning or end, and in mathematics it symbolizes infinity (∞). The name has a rather profound meaning!]
Is the new Ultraman's ability to resurrect infinitely? Or to evolve infinitely?
[Think about it: Justice represents justice, Gauss represents compassion, and Mebius represents infinity. It really broadens your perspective!]
Am I the only one who thinks this name is a bit long? It's a little hard to pronounce /doge~
[To the person upstairs: When Ultraman Tiga first came out, you all said his name was weird, but now you call him "Old Man Tiga" sweeter than anyone else.]
Since the name is Infinity, could it be an Ultraman who can travel through parallel universes? After all, the older Ultramen from Tsuburaya Productions didn't have many crossovers before their collapse.
[Let's be rational and not over-hype this. But since this is supposed to be the main focus for the next season, has the suit design been revealed yet?]
[Anything made by Gu Nan is guaranteed to be of high quality! Serve it up quickly!]
I'm already looking forward to seeing what this new model will look like; Gu Yongkang's aesthetic sense has never disappointed.
Without a doubt, everyone's appetite has been whetted by the name "Mebius".
Everyone is eagerly speculating about how this new warrior, representing "infinity," will descend upon Earth.
However, the noise and fervor from the outside world did not disrupt the creative rhythm within Light Chaser Animation Studios.
Rewind a few months, and Gu Nan was sitting in his spacious office, setting the core visual tone for this new work that carried special significance.
As an important work that needs to build on the past and open a new chapter.
In the early stages of the project planning, Tsuburaya Productions established two crucial core elements for the entire Ultraman Mebius series: "youth" and "new Ultraman".
Unlike the Ultra Warriors of the past who were mature, steady, and experienced in battle from the moment they appeared, Mebius was a rookie who was new to the scene and had a bit of naivety and confusion.
He needs to experience setbacks together with his human companions on this unknown Earth, and together they will build a deeply moving story of youth.
It must immediately convey the youthful energy of Ultraman while also maintaining the sacredness that Ultraman is known for.
When the design drawings were delivered to several senior screenwriters and art consultants at Light Chaser Animation Studios, they all exclaimed in unison in admiration.
The core concept of Ultraman Mebius is "newcomer," and how to directly convey this sense of naivety and inexperience through his appearance was actually a challenge for Tsuburaya Productions at the time.
These gold lines, originally intended as armor buckles, visually resemble military ranks on an army uniform.
In a way that resembles "two bars," they subtly hint at Mebius's low rank and seniority, much like a private, perfectly fitting his character as a rookie in the Space Garrison.
In the subsequent production of the suit, these gold edges were not raised using hard materials.
Instead, the same material as the main body of the suit was selected, and through extremely precise tailoring, it was fitted to the surface of the suit perfectly, ensuring the suit's maximum flexibility during action scenes.
In addition, there's Mebius's distinctive cat head.
This unprecedented facial design breaks away from the traditional geometric and rigid feel of Ultraman.
The addition of feline features gives the face a youthful appearance, and the back of the head is slightly larger than in previous designs, yet it doesn't look cumbersome at all.
Overall, the design successfully created a new soldier's face that is both unique and endearing.
With repeated adjustments to the proportions of blue and red tones throughout his body, and final coordination on image quality details, the final draft of Ultraman Mebius, a warrior carrying infinite meaning and full of youthful vigor, was officially announced at Light Chaser Animation Studios.
Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, we've returned to the present moment.
While the public was still celebrating and discussing a trademark name that had just been revealed, the post-production center in the core area of Light Chaser Animation's headquarters building was making substantial progress on "Ultraman Mebius" far beyond what the outside world could imagine.
In fact, just two months before Blue Planet was officially released on Bilibili, all the live-action scenes of Mebius involving live actors, suit action stunts, and miniature model explosions, including the scenes of the older generation of human actors, had already been completed in multiple closed studios.
The dramatic scenes of the defense team members, the wire-flying of fighter jets, and even every scene of monsters rolling in the mud in the city ruins have all been properly stored in a massive server array.
Now, the entire production team has completely shifted its focus to the mid-to-late stage of production.
In front of rows of high-performance graphics workstations, special effects artists are wearing professional monitoring headphones, their eyes focused intently on the complex node editing interface on the screen.
On the screen, Ultraman Mebius is standing in a desolate quarry, with the Mebius wristband on his left wrist highlighted by a pre-programmed sequence.
The special effects team is adding unique visual effects to the energy fluctuations generated when the wristband is rotated.
They abandoned the simple halo overlay method used earlier and instead adopted a high-level particle system based on physically based rendering.
As Mebius's hand slid across the red crystal ball on his wristband, a trail of light composed of countless tiny golden particles instantly erupted on the screen.
These particles rapidly converge and intertwine in mid-air, eventually forming a dazzling "∞" symbol that symbolizes infinity.
The rendering of each special effects shot requires extremely rigorous color space conversion to ensure that the sacred texture representing the giant of light can be perfectly reproduced on the screens of different devices.
Right next to the special effects team was the equally busy editing and mixing team.
Editors are meticulously splicing footage shot from different camera angles using non-linear editing software.
They needed to precisely control the duration of each frame to perfectly present Mebius's bold, slightly raw yet powerful rookie fighting style to the audience through cinematic language.
Meanwhile, in the mixing studio, sound engineers and sound designers are giving life to every movement.
The friction sound generated by the suit moving at high speed, the dull echo of heavy punches hitting the monster armor, and most importantly, the crisp and penetrating high-frequency energy sound effect when Mebius releases his finishing beam.
All the human dialogue, ambient sounds, sound effects, and the symphonic background music created by the dedicated soundtrack master are carefully tracked and adjusted here to achieve the most perfect dynamic balance on the mixing console.
Gu Nan sat alone in the spacious screening room, the screen's glow illuminating his focused face.
Filming has long since ended; all that remains is the meticulous work of refining these details.
From the stunning debut in the first episode to the deepening bonds with the team members in subsequent episodes, all the material has been gathered here.
Each jump in the special effects rendering progress bar represents another step closer to the young warrior's actual arrival in this world.
This is not just a brand-new tokusatsu series, but also a comprehensive upgrade of Light Chaser Animation's industrialized production line.
While the post-production work on "Ultraman Mebius" is progressing smoothly, the various tasks are being carried out in an orderly manner.
"Ultraman Cosmos VS Justice: The Final Battle" is also ready.
It was preceded by the stunning debut of "Blue Planet".
Following closely behind, "The Final Battle" was released quickly, along with the long-running TV epic "Mebius" which was in full swing of production.
What a dream start!