Tokusatsu

[madhair60]

Paging @Spiteface ...

I've been following a tokusatu gifs Twitter for a while and yesterday was in Forbidden Planet browsing toys with a friend and saw an old school Megazord figure, which made me nostalgic. So I decided I want to watch a tokusatsu. I asked Twitter and they recommended Kamen Rider W, so I've watched the first two of those and enjoyed it but I think I want to see some big fucking robots, you know?

So, anyone know any good big fucking robot shows I could enjoy?

[letsgobrian]

My favourite is Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger.

Good directing from Koichi Sakamoto. Riku Sanjo script (who also wrote Kamen Rider W), so plenty of monster soap opera from the villains. And Shigeru Chiba is the narrator, a 59 year old man who is determined to be more excited by the prospect of robot dinosaurs than even the most hyperactive child watching.

[Spiteface]

You rang, @madhair60 ?

I've attempted to start toku threads a couple of times here and they tend not to last. Always happy to see it getting discussed, though.


As, like me when I started getting into this, Power Rangers was a bit of a spark for it, I'll start with some Super Sentai shows.

Kyoryuu Sentai Zyuranger - aka the one that first became Power Rangers. A genuinely great show that was somewhat groundbreaking for the time, as it was the first show to feature a regular 6th Ranger (Dragonranger, aka the green one) and a story and motif that was more fantasy than sci fi (the giant robot was technically god in Zyuranger).

Gosei Sentai Dairanger - it's criminal how little of this got adapted. Chinese mythology is the order of the day here, fight scenes having a bit of a Hong Kong flavour.

Choujin Sentai Jetman - another 90s classic. This was more in the vein of the military sci-fi vibe Sentai was about in the 70s & 80s. Also borrowed heavily from the "Trendy" dramas popular in Japan at the time. Suits are basically ripoffs of Gatchaman
/Battle of the Planets.

Samurai Sentai Shinkenger - I wanted to say this os one of my favourite modern shows, but even this is 13 years old now. Sharp suits, good sword-based combat meets magic calligraphy.

The current show, Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger, comes to an end this coming Sunday, meaning the following week will see the start of a new show, Avataro Sentai DonBrothers, so a nice jumping-on point there:



Interestingly, this is the first male pink in Sentai. He, along with black, are CGI as opposed to physical suits. Motif this time is the legend of Momotaro.

That said, if you have a particular favourite Power Rangers series, there is nothing wrong with going to the source material for that. I think everything has been subbed somewhere by now, officially or otherwise.

I'll pop back in with guidance for other franchises..

[madhair60]

fucking cool

[Spiteface]

Realised I haven't covered the other big toku shows yet.




So, onto Kamen Rider. Rider is split into three main eras, based on Japanese imperial reign (Godzilla also does this in a way):

Showa - from the initial 1971 series, until Kamen Rider Black RX
Heisei - 2000's Kamen Rider Kuuga to Kamen Rider Zi-O (sometimes split into two halves)
Reiwa - Kamen Rider Zero-One to the current show, Kamen Rider Revice, still ongoing.

While there was no Rider show on TV during the 90s, there were three movies made: Shin Kamen Rider Prologue (Not to be confused with Hideaki Anno's forthcoming Shin Kamen Rider. This movie is also the Paul McGann of Kamen Rider), Kamen Rider ZO and Kamen Rider J. Technically released in the Heisei era but are lumped in with the Showa Riders in teamup movies and such. ZO and J are excellent,each under 50 minutes and on Youtube with subtitles, LEGALLY.

Personal recommendations:

Kamen Rider V3 - while this is a sequel series to the original, once Hongo and Ichimonji leave, it's still mostly it's own thing and the formula for the show has been worked out by this point. Available on DVD but absurdly expensive.

Kamen Rider Black - refining the cyborg grasshopper formula even more, with things getting dark towards the end. Proved so popular they just did a sequel the next year, Kamen Rider Black RX. Has Shadowmoon in it, one of the iconic Rider villains.

Kamen Rider Agito - while Kuuga kicks off the Heisei era, I feel Agito is the true start in terms of the formula it establishes, with multiple Riders in a show, form changes & powerups being more of a thing and the infamous Toshiki Inoue as head writer.

Kamen Rider Ryuki - Imagine if Kamen Rider was mixed with Highlander, but the fights also take place in a parallel dimension that exists within mirrors. That's Ryuki.

Kamen Rider W - A lot of people cite this as one of the best entry points. Ditches much of the soap opera stuff that pops up in the preceding Heisei shows (The previous year's Kamen Rider Decade serving as an anniversary show and Crisis-style blowoff). This has two characters as one Rider. Cool suit, cool gimmick and a a cool setting of a detective agency in a small town (again, in contrast to the dimension-hopping of Decade)

Kamen Rider Gaim - Ryuki with fruit samurai and dancing. Written by the "Urobutcher" Gen Urobuchi. I loved this when it was airing. When a show makes me angry it's finished for the week I know it's onto something.

If you want to play catchup, Kamen Rider Revice is about halfway through and it shaping up nicely.

These are just my personal recommendations, but if you see something that you think is cool, dive right in. The first 2 episodes of a lot of these are on Toei's tokusatsu Youtube channel.

I'll do Ultraman and a "Miscellaneous" (likely to be mostly about Garo) post soonish.

[madhair60]

Bumping cos I did watch about eight eps of Kamen Rider W and will continue doing so. What has surprised me the most is that it is genuinely funny. A bit of slapstick in a recent episode (Philip walking into a door) had me rolling and rewinding.

[Spiteface]

W is a good entry point. Solid show that firmly establishes the 2-parter format a lot of heisei shows stick to. Sweet, SWEET suit design for W, too. Even better when Shotaro shows up alone as "Kamen Rider Joker" on occasion.

Avataro Sentai DonBrothers is 2 episodes in and I haven't a fucking clue what's going on, but I'm enjoying how different it is.

Sentai with a dash of They Live and Gridman in it, and the ability to use suits & abilities of past Sentai right out of Gokaiger.

It's also interesting that these two episodes seem to present the "main" character of the show as being OniSister, the Yellow ranger of the team, as opposed to another red-centric show (although Kaito from Zenkaiger was technically white...).


The CGI on KijiBrother and InuBrother doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. As a Garo fan I'm used to CGI sometimes replacing practical suits in action scenes.

I swear I'll do an Ultraman suggestions post at some point...

[Spiteface]

Ultraman's a bit weird to cover, as there's a bunch of eras, and more interconnected stuff, yet I think each one is plenty watchable in isolation.

If you like Godzilla and have a particular favourite era there, I think it's worth looking at what Ultraman was doing around then.

Also, it's easier to access than Sentai & Kamen Rider, in that there are official releases on Bluray and DVD via Mill Creek (the blurays are region-free, to boot), and Tsuburaya also puts stuff out on YouTube, including simulcasts of current shows.

So, a list of favourites of mine:

Ultraman (the original show that establishes much of the classic formula from the off)
Ultraseven
Ultraman Leo
Ultraman Nexus
Ultraman Mebius
Ultraman Geed
Ultraman Trigger

Not all of these are out physically, yet, though.

[Spiteface]

BUMP, BITCHES!

Shin Ultraman trailer.

[Spiteface]

Right, the new Ultraman series for this year started on Saturday - Ultraman Decker.

As last years Ultraman Trigger was a homage/sequel to 1996's Ultraman Tiga, this one is based off Ultraman Dyna. It also seems to follow on from Trigger with a version of GUTS SELECT being our defense team again, and colonies on Mars (most Ultraman is all that multiverse stuff that Marvel likes these days, direct sequels are a rarity in tokusatsu)

Anyway, as is now tradition for new Ultraman shows, new episodes go up on YouTube with subtitles every Saturday as they air in Japan, and stay up for 2 weeks.

Mill Creek also announced further DVD releases- between that and Kamen Rider Kuuga getting a bluray release in America, maybe I should finally shell out for a multiregional player now...
 

[Spiteface]

So further to Kuuga coming out on Bluray, they announced a release of Kamen Rider Black recently, too.

Also, the reboot/remake thing of Black, Kamen Rider Black Sun, is on Amazon Prime Video.

I have high hopes for that, the last prime-exclusive Kamen Rider was Amazons, which was fucking amazing.

Basically, I want more adult-oriented tokusatsu. Shit that isn't trying to flog me lumps of plastic made by Bandai.

There hasn't been a new Garo since Versus Road in 2020 either.

Falling behind on stuff right now, but DonBrothers is bonkers. Geats looks like Kamen Rider does Fortnite (I hate Fortnite), Ultraman Decker is serviceable, though.

[Spiteface]

Black Sun is fucking awesome. Amazons-style gore and very heavy-handed, not even subtle politics especially in the last episode where

Spoiler alert

there's a cop holding down a kaijin by placing his knee on his throat, the kaijin is saying "I can't breathe" - They might as well have just put up a massive caption saying "THIS IS GEORGE FLOYD" over this bit.

[close]

[Urinal Cake]

But they say the Japanese are a subtle people?

Yeah it's on my radar though I'm not sold on premise and more importantly the Shin/Amazon design influence on the suits etc.

 I'm not normally one of those, 'privacy actually will make money for commpanies' but I think Toei really fucked up by stopping the translating communities. I would've bought more figurines, maybe. Or a belt.

[Mister Six]

I reckon the best tonkatsu comes with a simple vegetable side, but it can be nice tossed into a bowl of ramen, if you don't mind losing the crunchiness.

[Spiteface]

But they say the Japanese are a subtle people?

Yeah it's on my radar though I'm not sold on premise and more importantly the Shin/Amazon design influence on the suits etc.

 I'm not normally one of those, 'privacy actually will make money for commpanies' but I think Toei really fucked up by stopping the translating communities. I would've bought more figurines, maybe. Or a belt.

That was one or two idiot fans directly bringing up that they watch fansubs to Shinichiro Shirakura. There was a bit of looking the other way before that.

Then TV-Nihon got slapped with a cease & desist, and Over-Time along with a few others backed off, too.

Over-Time is still currently subbing DonBrothers, they just don't publicise it themselves. You look at their website and the last thing they apparently did was Garo Versus Road, but the torrents still go up on nyaa.si anyway.

TV-Nihon understandably won't touch anything toei now, it seems. A bunch of smaller groups are doing Kamen Rider Geats (O-T are shying away from Rider after Zero-One got licensed making things a little uncertain there).

[Urinal Cake]

I know Toei(?) did start uploading the first two episodes of Kamen Rider and large chunks of older and lesser known tokusatsu on their YouTube channel. But it's really not cutting it. There was a new, International decent community growing as well as others who started coming back to it from their childhoods in Hawaii, Brazil etc. They should've put their efforts in killing cheap knockoff toys and gear from AliExpress.

It sort of reminds of when Japanese music publishers used to limit their music videos to 480p because they were scared that this was talking away sales from iTunes and physical sales etc.

[Spiteface]

The Toei channel could have been so much more.

Tsuburaya to their credit, does things good by having the latest Ultraman on youtube with subs as it airs in Japan. It's a simple thing, but if Toei did just that, it'd do wonders for building an international fanbase for their stuff.

[Urinal Cake]

Yeah even I nearly started watching it.

[Spiteface]

I haven't been crazy about Trigger or this year's show, Decker, but I quite enjoy Ultraman when it's done well.

I just like that Tsuburaya is actually making an effort. Toei's attempts with Rider are all over the place.

I'm still gonna invest in a multiregional player for Kuuga and the forthcoming Kamen Rider Black set on Bluray though. I'd love to "legally" have those.

[Spiteface]

It seems to mark the show's 40th anniversary, Toei will be uploading Space Sheriff Gavan to youtube with English subs.

Definitely worth your time, a classic of 80s tokusatsu, and Kenji Ohba is awesome.

[Urinal Cake]

Toei doesn't know if it wants to sell toys to small kids, have popular MCU appeal or sell low cost, high concept shit to adults. Then you add the International market shit to it and it becomes more muddy.

To me Gaim is still the high point of Kamen Rider only bad thing was the ending which  Gen Urobuchi probably did to kill off any spin-offs etc. Which Toei should've kaiboshed.

Cheers for the recommendation Spiteface, I'll give it a watch.

It says something when I get more excited for Garo than Kamen Riders nowadays. Garo!

[Spiteface]

Not strictly tokusatsu, but very much tokusatsu-adjacent, but Jason David Frank, who played the Green/White/Red/Black Ranger (depends which season you watch) has died, apparent suicide.

[VelourSpirit]

I watched the film Mechanical Violator Hakaider recently, my first toku thing since Power Rangers as a child. I came across it and it seemed like a nice standalone thing to get into.

I love this kind of night time city vibe you'd get in 80s/90s films, which funnilly enough I feel like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Movie had. Hard to put my finger on what it is, perhaps the lighting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGC8Wtn1aec
But this was obviously a bit grittier. I enjoyed it a lot! Quite sad in an understated way. Great action too. Is there anything else like it?

[Spiteface]

I watched the film Mechanical Violator Hakaider recently, my first toku thing since Power Rangers as a child. I came across it and it seemed like a nice standalone thing to get into.

I love this kind of night time city vibe you'd get in 80s/90s films, which funnilly enough I feel like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Movie had. Hard to put my finger on what it is, perhaps the lighting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGC8Wtn1aec
But this was obviously a bit grittier. I enjoyed it a lot! Quite sad in an understated way. Great action too. Is there anything else like it?

Most things by that film's director, Keita Amemiya, would fit that bill. Hakaider is very much his ballpark.

There are two Kamen Rider films he made in that 90s period, Kamen Rider ZO and Kamen Rider J. Both on YouTube, via Toei's own channel. ZO in particular is a favourite of mine. Both short, under 50 minutes each if you want a nice double bill.

There's also the two Zeiram movies. Toku with a bit of grit to it, and freaky creature design.

I'd also like to mention Garo, Amemiya's "Hyper Midnight Action" series that's essentially tokusatsu aimed at adults. Darker, more violent and that. Will try and make a post about that tomorrow.

[Spiteface]

new Sentai series in 2 weeks:



Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger. Insects this year.

I've fallen behind on DonBrothers so am catching up. But it's been a fun show, no complaints. I'm just finding it amusing how everyone is saying they like Toshiki Inoue's writing again after him being poison to some after his latter-2000s Kamen Rider stuff.

One thing I like about that trailer, the mecha battles seem less CGI-heavy than the DonBrothers ones. More traditional tokusatsu stuff.

[Urinal Cake]

Wtf were people talking about?

Kamen Rider Black Sun was fucking awesome.

Too ambitious, trying to say and do too much about the now, the 60s, Japan and the world, about old people and young people. Dorky costumes but realistic gore. Some of the worst acting I've seen  e.g. that little person  but the child actor playing Aoi was really great.

Sometimes more is more.

Also can't wait for Shin Kamen Rider.

[madhair60]

i liked Kamen Rider W and am experiencing a Power Rangers nostalgia wave, please recommend me a Toku with a cool mecha and maybe less CG?

[letsgobrian]

Belatedly discovered TAROMAN from last year. A tokusatsu tribute to the sculptures of Taro Okamoto from the director of weird stop motion historical anime "Extra Olympia Kyklos", Ryo Fujii.

[madhair60]

is there anywhere to download this stuff? like a dedicated site, tracker?

[letsgobrian]

is there anywhere to download this stuff? like a dedicated site, tracker?

I use nyaa for stuff that's airing weekly and not streaming. I think there's specialist Asian live action private trackers that might have more stuff on, but I've never been made privy to them.