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The All Purpose Tokusatsu Talk!


J.H.

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2 episodes in and Kamen Rider BUILD is keeping me negaged to keep matching. I like the idea that not every combination used is a PERFECT MATCH and that even the base form (RABBIT/TANK) is just a dfault. They already plated the seeds for the 2nd Rider and the theme song is slowly growing on me.

James

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  • 1 year later...

Raising this thread to point out that Vrv (on Vrv Select) now has the un-Rangerized Super Sentai Zyuranger.  What I REALLY want is Dynaman, since I've only ever seen the Canadian gag dub (the first 3 episodes of which are also there, though not in the 'movie' format I first saw.)

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  • 2 years later...

Okay I'm casting some necromancy here and mods I apologize if I'm resurrecting something too old, but man there is just too much to talk about right now.

Officially English subbed Toku is at an all-time high: Both Tsuburaya and Toei have Youtube channels with English subbed Toku.  Tsubaraya's is more limited in that its whatever is currently airing plus random vintage episodes and they cull episodes from time to time; but you combine that with Millcreek's awesome job at getting Ultraman out in a physical format and freaking Marvel putting out Ultraman comics and it's a great time to be a fan.  Toei's channel is immense, they've been uploading all their non Kamen Rider shows with subtitles (Sentai is region-locked, but that's what VPNs are for!) and finally they've started with Kamen Rider.  Right now its the OG, Amazon, Ryuki and Agito getting epsidoes each week, plus Shin has been added as well.  Also Toei's been doing some of the Heisei movies as watch-alongs in conjunction with Bandai's Team Kamen Rider (talk about a great job). Arrow just rereleased their Gamera set in Showa and Heisei era box sets, so if you missed out on the super-rad collector's edition, you still have a chance to get some HD Gamera action.  Now if Criterion could magic up a Heisei/Millennium Godzilla collection....

Oh yeah and some nerds named Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi ( I think they were famous for the Mahoromatic anime) are doing a little movie called Shin Ultraman:  https://youtu.be/AnYP1yzSe5E

I've used the Quarrentimes to get caught up on a fair amount of Kamen Rider, as well as dive into Ultraman more, I'll post my thoughts in a bit.

 

EDIT: No need to reply off myself; so to continue with that I was saying before, here's some capsule reviews of what I've watched:

Kamen Rider Ghost:  I bailed out of this about 3/4ths of the way through originally, it just didn't grab me a the time.  So I restarted from the halfway point and by the end it was perfectly fine. Takeru and Makoto were fine protagonists, but honestly the side characters like Akari, Javel and Igor made the show for me.

Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: So this show definitely caught me by surprise.  It took a bit for the suit designs to grow on me, but the fact that they leaned in so hard on the absurd medical drama aspect was great and helped make the second half plot reveals feel a little more in line.  Dangerous Zombie was such a good suit design and Dan's fate is perfect for an egotist like him.  I wish we had gotten more of Kiriya, but that's just nit-picking and Toei actually apologized to fans over it.  But this is definitely going to be one to show to friends some day.

Kamen Rider Build: This was so good, probably Top 5 in the Heisei shows for me.  I liked the chemistry between Sento and Banjo was great and the supporting cast was fun.  It was cool to see Kouhei Takeda back in a Rider show, as he was my favorite part of Kiva.  Gentoku was a good character too, though I feel like they tried to make him like Dan in the end and it didn't work as well.  Definitely the suit designs and even Build's odder combos still looked cool.  I really hope this show ends up on Toei's youtube page as I think it'd be a great one to get people into the series.

Kamen Rider Zi-O: I love me some Decade (I own the DX Decade Driver), so to have Tsukasa be a part of the show was a treat.  It's an anniversary show, so it's chock full of fanservice for the other shows, but still manages to have a fun plot about the kindest demon king in the making.  To me though this was the Woz show, such a gloriously over the top character and Keisuke Watanabe played it as over the top as humanly possible.  My girlfriend actually got me the Woz Driver as a x-mas gift, which was a huge surprise (she really is a saint for putting up for my love of Karate Bugmen and rubber suit monsters) so I'm probably even more biased in it's favor.

Kamen Rider Zero One: I just started this, I'm like 6 episodes in so I don't really have an opinion yet.  I do appreciate that the Reiwa era seems to have dialed back the tranformation scenes a bit.  By Zi-O they just became a cacophony of sounds and effect; so the simpler transformation and Faiz-esque engrish lines from the belt are fun.

Shin Kamen Rider: Woof.  I watched this on Toei's channel and I can see why nothing came of this movie.  Don't get me wrong, the suits looked great and good lord do people get their throat's slit, but man the acting.  I'm still glad I watched it, but it's best enjoyed in GIF form.

Ultra Q: If you told me 5 years ago I'd have a legit Blu-Ray release of Ultra Q I'd say you were nuts, but here we are.  I love the Twighlight Zone meets X-Files feel of the show and getting to see the birth of a lot of classic Ultra Kaiju is great. Yuriko was a great character and really felt like the lead to me, though the main trio were all fun.

Ultraman Z: Sadly I didn't get to watch all of this before Tsubaraya pulled it down, but it was fun.  STORAGE was a cool group and I liked the focus on the team building robots to stand up to the Kaiju/assist Z.  Definitely will get this when it comes out on Blu-Ray.

Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Absolute Conspiracy: The last episode dropped this weekend and man is it nothing but glorious Ultra fanservice.  It's also a great remind that I still have a lot of Ultra shows to watch to get caught up.  It's interesting as it seems to be both a prequel to Ultraman Z but also possibly teasing the next Ultraman as well.  As long as they give me more Ultra on Kaiju action I'll be watching.

The other cool thing is I had no clue a bunch of Garo had actually got a subbed blu-ray release, so using various sales at Funimation, Rightstuf and a lucky find of the first TV set on Amazon.Ca I've now got everything they've released.

Edited by GojiColin
Just continuing my thoughts
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  • 3 weeks later...

So I'm watching OG Kamen Rider on Tubi and I was thinking of jumping backwards to watch Ultraman and some of the OG super sentai series ( I started with Jetman and stopped at what we know as the aqua rangers). Is it worth checking out the older stuff or am I better off starting with certain series?

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Does anyone know if Ultraman Towards the Future is streaming online anywhere? I didn't realize until recently that this was the show the whole Ultraman blitz in the US in the early 1990s was about.

EDIT:
 

Looks like YouTube.

Edited by TheVileOne
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On 2/15/2021 at 5:04 PM, The Outsider said:

So I'm watching OG Kamen Rider on Tubi and I was thinking of jumping backwards to watch Ultraman and some of the OG super sentai series ( I started with Jetman and stopped at what we know as the aqua rangers). Is it worth checking out the older stuff or am I better off starting with certain series?

I haven't watch a ton of old Ultraman, but Ultra Q has been tons of fun; plus I think giant Kaiju fights never get old.  If you're enjoying Kamen Rider, Toei Tokusatsu's Youtube page has been uploading the first 2 eps of various shows.  They just put V3 and Kuuga out this week, so it looks like they're gonna keep on doing it.  There's a ton of full shows to watch there too and if you've got a VPN they've got all the old Sentai shows subbed as well.  Hope that helps!

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On 2/20/2021 at 8:55 PM, GojiColin said:

I haven't watch a ton of old Ultraman, but Ultra Q has been tons of fun; plus I think giant Kaiju fights never get old.  If you're enjoying Kamen Rider, Toei Tokusatsu's Youtube page has been uploading the first 2 eps of various shows.  They just put V3 and Kuuga out this week, so it looks like they're gonna keep on doing it.  There's a ton of full shows to watch there too and if you've got a VPN they've got all the old Sentai shows subbed as well.  Hope that helps!

Thank you so much, I've been running through the original Kamen Rider and got 50 episodes in lol. I got two episodes into Ultraman and I might jump back after I finish Kamen Rider.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I watched the first two episodes of Skyrider that Toei posted and it really feels like they wanted to revist the original show.  There's a really brutal moment in the first episode that's a call back to all the nasty deaths people had in the original and it would have been a really great motivator for Tsukuba had we known those people for longer then 5 minutes.  The suits look good, General Monster is a cool first villain/midboss character and I like that the monsters still have their human eyes as well as the eyes of whatever beast they're based off; it gives them an even creepier look.  I wish the fights were a little better done, but it's only 2 eps in so I'm sure it gets better.  Like most of the Showa stuff Toei's been posting I hope they get around to uploading more episodes of the seasons. 

 

I'm on a re-watch of the original Ultraman, since I forgot that Mill Creek's BluRay editions came with digital codes; it makes for a nice break from the world during lunch-breaks.  I don't remember a lot of these early episodes, like the one where they go to "Arabia" and confirm that not only was Noah's Ark real, Noah was in fact a being from the land of light and worshiped as a God by the people in a long lost city where everyone looks Japanese.  Oh and a Giant Ant Lion creates, magnetic tornados and wipes out most of the world's SSSP teams and is destroyed by an artifact that looks strangely like Ultraman's color timer.  Just a gloriously wild episode.

Oh Ultraman Z has finally been re-uploaded to where I haven't watched before and we get some PEGUILA!  Also I love that this show has no issue using cheesy miniatures but then does a great shot from a car dashboard of Peguila's frozen breath upending everything on the street.   And then there's another great POV shot of Sevenger fighting Peguila from a child's room where we a big hit lands it shakes the room and all the toys fall off the self and squeak/light up.  I'm such a sucker for those levels of detail. Not knowing much about more recent shows I'm assuming Juggulus Juggler (what a name) is a re-occurring antagonist, so it'll be interesting to see what he's up to.

Outside of that I saw there's subs for the Zi-O vs Decade stuff, I'll probably watch those later.

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Zero-One is really good, especially when you realize it isn't really Aruto's story until the last 5 episodes or so. Izu is the main character

Also REALXEYEZ is the most rockin Rider opening since Switch On!

James

Edited by J.H.
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Princess Sandra is all of 2 & 1/2 and she ROCKS OUT to REALXEYEZ and OVERQUARTZER.

Toku Watching Story: 1st time I watched the last episode of Zero One, I ended up crying (first time in all my Rider watching years).Princess Sandra sees Daddy crying, crawls up to me, hugs me and pats me on the back and says "Ok, Daddy... ok"

 

Also, as much I hated Zi-O, the Zero One/Zi-O movie is fucking great!

James

Edited by J.H.
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Zi-O isn't really made to be liked.  It's an anniversary thing and the best part is the producer telling people to go fuck themselves and making the big bad literally "Another Decade" after everyone complained it "would just be another Decade, boring."

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Ugh... it's been more thsn 10 years since DECADE and I'm STILL angry about its bullshit non-resolution just so they can keep having an excuse to bring Inoue back every now and then. Meanwhile poor Shigeki Hosokawa is treated like a fuckin leper by Toei because he spoke his mind about why HIBIKI failed!

My hatred for DECADE only abates because it was followed by W which was awesome!

Jamnes

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I guess I'm the odd duck here as I enjoyed both Decade and Zi-O; though I feel they'd be very middle of the pack in an overall list.

I finally got to some of the episodes of Ultraman that I remember, as we got the first appearances of Red King and Jirass.  Also this is where we get into the era of Ultraman just ripping monsters to pieces; though Red King did get in on the action as well.

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Decade was my first Rider (well, some odd Ryuki episodes back in the newsgroup days) and holds a dear place in my heart.  I liked Zi-O well enough, but the .5 episodes were generally better than the actual series.

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  • 3 weeks later...

So the the KR50th Anniversary news has been dropping like crazy this week.

1. Kamen Rider BLACKSUN - a tv series reboot of Black. I'm excited as fuck about this!

2. FUUTO PI - the official manga sequel to W is getting anime adaptation and Funimation already got the US rights locked up

3. Shin Kamen Rider - Movie directed by Anno. I dread this

4. Shin Kamen Rider - nothing on ybis yet, just the trademark being registered. I'm hoping its a continuation and they somehow got Joe Odagiri to come back but that is a longshot. I hope it isn't a reboot because we don't need a 3rd version of Kuuga

James

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I don't know, considering how shockingly good Shin Godzilla was, I have hopes that Shin Kamen Rider will be another high point in Anno's career.

I am super psyched for the Kamen Rider W anime, it'll be nice to see what's up with Shotaru, Ryu and company.  I do hope they get the original cast back as voice actors.

I really hope the Black reboot is good, but I'm gonna keep my expectations low.

My real hope is an announcement that the Toei Youtube page will be dropping more then just the first two episodes of shows.  There's so much Showa I'd love to watch and to be able to do it legit would be rad.

*EDIT* Tokushoutsu confirms English physical edition of Zero-One! Guess I'm stopping my watch till the official release is out.

Edited by GojiColin
ITS HAPPENING~!
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Ryuki's not a top choice for me, but I guess with Dragon Knight airing here they think it'll have the most recognition?  If they price it like Mill Creek does the Ultraman box-sets then I'll probably get both.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well thanks to TTWO I got to watch ZO, J and the first two episodes of Black.  As much as I didn't like parts of Shin, it felt like they were tightening things up with the follow-up movies and I found myself really digging J.  Black was super cool, I really hope that it'll be a show that gets a physical release here.  I will say this about the Amemiya run of Kamen Rider shows, the monster design is so good. It's like he uses the uncanny valley to his advantage, where there's just enough humanity to his designs that you brain just screams "THIS ISNT RIGHT!".

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It's probably not a true tokusatsu show and more of a plamodel commercial, but I really enjoyed the first three eps of Girl Gun Lady.  Thankfully Bandai's putting up subbed versions of each episode pretty much right after it airs in Japan.

Edited by dogwelder
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  • 4 weeks later...

So Toei has been shooting copyright/IP protection letters to a few fansub groups in regards to Super Sentai and Kamen Rider (TVN was the most prominent which led to Over-Time to pack-up shop it seems).

Interesting that Toei only cited toke properties and not TVNs insane catalog of Precure fansubs

James

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If I'm being optimistic it means they're gearing up for more US BluRay releases of the shows, in which case I'm okayish with it.  I've watched a ton of KR and Sentai via fansubs so I'm cool with paying up for it.  But on the other hand if I wouldn't have even known about most KR shows without fansubs (TV-N in particular) and Toei's rollout of subbed shows on youtube has been...interesting to say the least.

 

I'm just saying @J.H.better watch out, they might CnD him on his signature ?

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