This week in tokusatsu!

Naas_Human · 2013-05-10 05:49:39

The American one was Ultraman: the Ultimate Hero, and the Australian one was Ultraman:Towards the Future.

Ah, so it's not like Power Rangers SPD then?

Kraken · 2013-05-10 08:16:24

I honestly wouldn't know.

Naas_Human · 2013-05-12 09:31:56

Well, I read that PR SPD had Red (1) rank higher than Blue (2).

Spoiler:

And that Bridge, who was Green (3) during the series got promoted to blue in the epilogue, and he later showed up in the Operation Overdrive teamup as Red. (which was the only Operation Overdrive episode I saw)

Also, for some reason I can watch the latest Ultraman Retsuden episode, even though a) it appears to be a normal episode an b) I'm not in Japan. I thought they were blocking the non-special episodes outside of Japan.

Anyway, it's the first part of that Imperializer two-parter in Mebius. He fights a giant robot with regeneration ability, and Taro (who apparently is not played by the original actor from the '70s) arrives to help.

fourteenwings · 2013-05-12 11:15:45

SPD ranks weren't exactly important (or explained) though. IIRC, Sky's (SPD Blue) entire thing was that his father was Red and he wanted to be red too. I think the only important one is Red, since it represents Captain and Blue which is Vice-Captain (You'll notice that in the SPD finale the girls don't change from Yellow and Pink and I'd like to believe that is not sexism).

Kraken · 2013-05-12 18:38:09

Yeah, but that's color, not numbers.

fourteenwings · 2013-05-13 00:21:33

I think the numbers were never actually mentioned. Anything involving Sky's plot would refer to Red/1 as SPD Red and outside of that it was never brought up in-story. Though I think they might've mention their numbers in their Post-Transformation Speech.

Naas_Human · 2013-05-17 07:42:47

Well, the numbers are always on the costumes...

Anyway, somewhat amusing exchange in Agito ep 15:

Shouichi: I want to know more about the Unknown myself.
Hikawa: And Agito? What do you feel about Agito? What kind of impression did you get?
Shouichi: Agito? Eh, nothing much.
Hikawa: "Nothing much"? You're interested in the Unkown but don't care about Agito?
Shouichi: Eh, it's no big.
Hikawa: Agito saved you and you're saying this? Shouldn't you be more grateful?

Keeping a secret identity is hard when you're like Shouichi. But apparently, Ryou doesn't care about keeping it secret. Speaking of him, I feel sorry for the guy now. Seems that he's pretty much all alone now. And as of episode 17, he got his ass handed to him by G3.

Also, wow I can't watch this week's Ultraman Retsuden even though it's the second part of a two-parter continuing from last week...

Naas_Human · 2013-05-18 10:33:11

So this is, uh ... something.

Naas_Human · 2013-05-27 14:55:26

Apparently that was advertising some sort of "Shocker recruitment drive" they might be doing at live performances, at least according to Anime News Network, of all places.

Anyway, I've finished up to episode 25 for both Jetman and Dekaranger now. What happened to the Garuda crew in Jetman was honestly lame, although I couldn't really care about them anyway. And it seems we're back to excessively short mecha battles with the "oh, this is only because Sentai needs giant robot battles" feel and there isn't really much going on with each fight. Maria and Grey's relationship honestly interests me more than the whole love polygon thing with Kaori (seriously, why does Raita need to crush on her? There was an "I'll stuff myself to forget about Kaori" scene earlier. Why? Didn't Raita already have a girlfriend? Did the writers completely forget about her?)

Unlike Jetman's Garuda people, Dekabreak is integrating into the main cast of Dekaranger kinda nicely. He also had a pretty cool scene doing a one-man rolecall in front of Succubus and her brother earlier, and I thought that was actually good since he was basically telling them "you don't scare me. I'm like the sunrise that pushes away the darkness" and that totally fit considering the villains he was facing. The episode with the opposite-talking alien also had a neat 1,2,3,4,5 scene since they actually had the dialogue be relevant to the villain they're facing instead of "we don't like evil and we fight crime because we're cops. Space cops" like it usually is. And I still dig that the main villain isn't involved very much so far since it actually helps the episodic format. He's mostly selling robots and stuff to criminals, without really doing much, so every time the Dekarangers win, it's not really a defeat for him.

Naas_Human · 2013-06-02 18:29:06

(yes, I'm quadruple-posting)

Ultraman Retsuden special episode, focused on Showa villains:

Highlights include: Alien Knuckle in Return of Ultraman, that drunk kaiju Ultraman Taro defeated using a bucket of water, some creature that gave people space acne, a kaiju from Ultraman Neos that's kinda like OOO Putotyra (but replace Pteranodon with Stegasaururs), Babalu/Fake Astra from Ultraman Leo and a scene from the animated Ultraman. Man that '70s animation looks lame.

Also, Belial is not used to working with the half-hour format.

I should note that these episodes tend to have a promo section for some complete series DVD sets, and the Mebius section of that promo has a spoiler for Mebius' finale.

Kraken · 2013-06-03 19:42:52

Breaking up that streak of posts with this! Youtube tokusatsu! A bunch of Youtube channel operators making a toku short film based on Pacific Rim with suits and everything. In this video, Totalbiscuit asks that you pick a weapon. I picked the drill-tipped missiles.

fourteenwings · 2013-06-10 00:40:03

This sounds promising...

Naas_Human · 2013-06-10 03:04:30

Wow, JEFusion, can't you at least edit for grammar when you copy-paste something? Seriously, it retains some grammar mistakes from okunohoshimich's post (i.e "has self-conscious").

Well, at least they're good for getting the news out there. (And they did help a blog post of mine get like 200 hits in one day, which was helpful for a blog that had just like half a dozen posts...)

Anyway yeah, Ultraman Gokaiger, basically. (right down to the doll gimmick)

Also, for some reason I can watch the most recent episode of Ultraman Retsuden on Tsuburaya's YouTube channel. It's from Ultraman 80, and there's at least a few things I don't really get, but I don't think I paid much attention when I first watched 80 all those years ago anyway. Next week's ep will be the Leo & Mebius teamup, which I've already seen but it's awesome anyway.

Naas_Human · 2013-06-13 04:16:32

So I hear that the next Kamen Rider's name has been confirmed, and it's pronounced like this.

fourteenwings · 2013-06-13 04:57:52

I think it's Gaimu

fourteenwings · 2013-06-16 12:35:30

So I eventually got back to Kyoryuuger, it's still as good as I remember

I watched the entire arc with American KyoryuuCyan, who has to be faking that accent because it was impressively bad and kind of distracting. I like that Amy got her own episode so early in series and that it was a good episode. I like that the Deboss army act like they do, I like that King is sort of meddling in everyone's business and it always works out, Ian's backstory is cool and KyoryuuBlue continues to be very Punny

Naas_Human · 2013-06-19 06:56:17

I'm closer to finishing Jetman and Dekaranger now. Is it just me, or does Sentai have a habit of situations that go "oh no, the stuff we normally use might not be sufficient for this!" followed by "so here's an upgrade that'll do exactly what we need". Jetman's Beak Smashers are just brought up suddenly, right when they couldn't use the Fire Bazooka anymore.

The Deka Wing mecha were also a bit of an ass pull. Swan was working on high speed flying mecha and we only find out right after they realize Dekaranger Robo has trouble against a kaijuki that turned into a jet. And before that, SWAT mode is brought up right after they lose against the Muscle Gear users.

I wonder if this is a thing with tokusatsu in general, so I decided to check out the Ultraman Tiga two-parter, "GUTS in Space" (or "GUTS to the Sky"), since it's the debut episode for the Artdessei ship. And it was a similar situation too. Rena sees a floating island in outer space, then the teams' big spaceship is revealed. Probably not hard to figure out that the ship will be used to reach said island. It's done a little better, though, since the ship was revealed before the team decided they actually needed it, as the space island was just glimpsed and they didn't know it was a threat yet. (And technically, the Artdessei was established earlier since it was already in the opening sequence, but that doesn't count.) With SWAT Mode and Deka Wing, the audience only finds out after a character decides the situation specifically calls for that upgrade.

Is my wording a little confusing here?

fourteenwings · 2013-06-19 07:50:12

or does Sentai have a habit of situations that go "oh no, the stuff we normally use might not be sufficient for this!" followed by "so here's an upgrade that'll do exactly what we need"

There would be no Sentai without this, don't forget: Primary objective is selling lots and lots of toys that come out over the year as it airs.

The thing about Sentai mecha is that in the modern era they will always only come up during mecha sequences, Go-Busters had a GoBuster-Oh and a Lioh episode, but I'm pretty sure that was it, that's two out of fifty.

the audience only finds out after a character decides the situation specifically calls for that upgrade.

I think this is mostly to grab your attention if you aren't actually interested in the episode, especially if you're a kid. Imagine this: In one scenario, the mecha is woven into the plot, so the kid can not worry about it as it's part of the episode, and in the other it's just episodeepisodeepisode OH MAN GUYS THIS IS GOBUSTERBEET GUYS LOOK AT IT IT'S SO AWESOME BUY IT NOOOOW.

Naas_Human · 2013-06-19 08:38:42

I wonder if I wouldn't notice this as much if I was watching Jetman and Dekaranger at a slower pace.

Anyway, I wanna bring Agito into this, because it's like my New Really Awesome thing or whatever. If G3-X was introduced as an upgrade convenient to the specifc situation like Deka Wing Robo, the situation would've been like "oh no, this new enemy can neutralize a grenade launcher! Fortunately, I'm working on a new armor that comes with a gatling gun, which is exactly what you need". But it wasn't. It's not like there was a new MOTW that brought the G3 down from "highly effective" to "kinda useless" and they suddenly had exactly the kind of upgrade to go against that MOTW. It was just a general upgrade that would have been as useful any time earlier. Maybe early Heisei Rider just wasn't all that toy-driven.

Come to think of it, Ultraman Nexus did the "convenient to this exact situation" upgrade too. One arc featured a monster that could escape by moving into other dimensions, and introduces a jet that can pursue the monster by following it into said dimensions. It didn't bug me before, but now it kinda does and I can't think of any excuse for that except that beating the monster didn't suddenly become really easy. Yeah uh, maybe that's not really a good excuse.

The Neo Jetman team that suddenly appears were also annoyingly covenient. So here's a monster that can neutralize Birdonic Waves. Well, here's a team with the technology that works to prevent exactly that. I 'm only up to episode 40 for now, so I don't know if said technology will give the main characters a permanent upgrade or anything, but it's ridiculously convenient timing either way.

Also, just saw Dekaranger episode 39. When did Jasmine have the ability to make complex illusions? It's like the people in rubber/spandex suits industry suddenly decided to annoy me today.

Naas_Human · 2013-06-23 07:33:20

So hey, word is that Ultraman Ginga will change the colors of his glowy bits to represent different powers. Basically a lazy-ass way to do form-changing, I guess.

Ultraman Retsuden had a special episode about predecessors of the Darkness Five and Tyrant. Was cool to see Grande from Ultra Galaxy again. This is pretty spoilery, considering it focuses on higher-tier bad guys. I liked it enough. Next episode is apparently the "climax", although I'm not sure how you do that for a clip show.

Also, it was amusing to hear Mamoru Miyano do a "da da da da" punching sequence during the scene from 21:40 to 22:15.

Naas_Human · 2013-07-01 10:59:15

So, I finished Dekaranger and Jetman. And I have problems with how both endings were carried out.

With Dekaranger:

Spoiler:

So, Abrella assumes that the SPD fleet won't notice the defense net thing. But he also assumes that they'll keep driving into it until every last ship blows up?

I also have trouble accepting that he supposedly has destroyed galaxies before. He seemed pretty light on equipment and weaponry, considering he had to take over Dekabase. But doesn't he have planet-destroying missiles? How come that doesn't get brought up? Basically the same issue I've had with the arsonist alien too (and possibly a few others). He didn't demonstrate that he was capable of doing very large-scale destruction, even though he allegedly has burned down entire planets.

And how come the Dekarangers managed to blow up aliens that were wearing Muscle Gear using just their normal equipment, considering it was established that they needed SWAT mode for that?

Also, not really an issue, but still (mildly) disappointing: we don't see the Fire Squad suit(s). I assume it doesn't show up on Magiranger vs Dekaranger either, but I don't really know.

Not really that bad an ending, but it has problems.

Jetman's ending was pretty good, for the most part.

Spoiler:

I don't think anything important was unresolved, plus Maria, Grey and Radiguet go down in pretty satisfying ways. But that epilogue, ugh. It was nice to see Raita's girlfriend again, but why is Kaori marrying Ryu? I can't recall her breaking up with Gai, so it's as if they just wanted the viewer to accept that it happened during the three years in between. And Gai's death happened in a pretty lame way, but at least I can see why he died.

Unrelatedly, Ultraman Retsuden is now over after (I think) 104 episodes. Ultraman Ginga's show, New Ultraman Biographies (Shin Urutoraman Retsuden) will take it's timeslot. I don't get why they don't just call the show Ultraman Ginga. Based on pictures that have been popping up, I think the first episode's monster will be an update of Neo Darambia, which was the first monster Ultraman Dyna fought.

fourteenwings · 2013-07-01 11:38:04

I still insist Jetman should've ended right after the final mecha fight because the entire epilogue was dumb.

I actually don't understand why Gai had to die, considering the entire series up to that point was pretty much building to him becoming a good human being who is allowed to live among others. Also it makes his character look terrible to not try and do anything because all non-suicidal characters in the universe would be terrible if they did what he did. And don't forget "I could've chosen any day to impale myself on a robber's knife but I chose your wedding ".

Naas_Human · 2013-07-01 11:42:45

I meant the in-story reason for

Spoiler:

Gai dying. At least that has an explanation. Unlike "oh, him and Kaori broke up, so she's marrying Ryu. No, we're not telling you how that happened". But honestly, it's really hard to say anything positive about any part of that epilogue, except Raita's girlfriend coming back for a little bit. That death wasn't quite the biggest problem for me.

fourteenwings · 2013-07-01 11:47:21

I think the entire thing was because they felt really sorry for Ryu, or something? Maybe somebody just really wanted to mirror the start of the series with other girlfriend who for I can't name who was White Swan before her?

fourteenwings · 2013-07-03 05:18:36

I finally remembered that Kyoryuuger was a thing that I was watching again (Not to mention that it's a pretty great series that's fun as well). Notable things include all the random dinosaur powers and the mecha that farts.

Naas_Human · 2013-07-03 13:44:35

Forgot to mention: I really wish more came out with Empress Juza in Jetman. Maybe have her come back in a later episode or something.

Anyway, since I've finished Jetman and Dekaranger, I'm going to give Ultraman Tiga a proper watching-through (instead of watching episodes kinda randomly). Finished up to episode 9 now. Various things so far:

The soundtrack is pretty good in a "simple to understand" kind of way. Everything just... works, nothing is inappropriate.

GUTS manage to be kinda competent for a few early episodes. They did pretty well against the one-horned Gakuma in episode 2, and were helpful in episode 4.

Episode 4 ups my opinion on this show's thematic strength/consistency, specifically with how the monster is defeated.

Episode 3 is still the big highlight of the early portion.

Episode 8 was a Halloween episode, which I don't think is very common in Japanese TV, but I don't really know. It even had some of the main cast in Halloween costumes.

Daigo and Rena hang around each other quite a bit, but there isn't really very much to suggest that they're the official couple of the series yet.

Episode 7 still baffles me with the casting choice of having the late Shigeru Araki, aka Kamen Rider Stronger as Rena's father, considering her actress' father in real life is Susumu Kurobe, who played the human host of the original Ultraman. But the 8 Brothers movie kinda fixes that, anyway.

"Take Me Higher" is awesome. It's hard to overstate this.

Naas_Human · 2013-07-15 15:54:07

Ultraman Ginga episode 1 on Tsuburaya's YouTube channel. Probably only gonna be up until Friday or so.

Starts of really slow, honestly. The lead actors might need to work on their facial expressions and the rural area just doesn't give Tsuburaya much to do with miniature sets. Premise is interesting, and Ginga's powers look pretty cool, at least. This is definitely an alternate universe with Ultras and monsters from different continuities existing together. Hope the next episode will be up on YouTube too.

I'm a little underwhelmed, honestly. But the next episode looks like it'll introduce the rival dude, so hopefully it'll pick up.

Spoiler:

This somehow feels a little like a Rider show with how the enemies basically get their powers from something similar to the hero.

fourteenwings · 2013-09-05 01:42:21

Hey Naas Hey Naas Hey Naas Hey Naas

Naas_Human · 2013-09-06 11:59:07

Wow, he still sounds pretty much like G3.

fourteenwings · 2014-01-17 10:46:14

Oh wow we somehow let this thread die.

Anyways, I'm finally catching up on Kyouryuuger (And due to it's cumulative nature I'm still about 20 episodes behind!) and I was initially bothered by what Chaos says at the end of the extremely hilarious Luckyro dream episode. He says he's realized that the opposite of Brave is Resentment, yet the episode doesn't actually involve much resentment.

And then I realized just in the episode prior KyouryuuViolet's own resentment of this idea that she'd naturally inherit the position from others stops her from transforming or unleashing any Brave even though she's trying her darned hardest. I was kind of floored that they'd play a trick like that.

Also KyouryuuViolet talks to herself so. much.

Also Yayoi jumping into Plezuon was the best thing. Made me tear up.

Also Doctor KyouryuuViolet has the best transformation.

Also it's kind of funny that King recommends that the other Kyouryuuger's rest two episodes before it's revealed that without any sleep they all completely fall apart.

also also also also also

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