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StarTopic Tokusatsu |ST| Forum Squadron FamiRanger, Combine!


Derachi

Fresh Eater
Founder
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What is Tokusatsu?



Tokusatsu is a style of Japanese television and film that features heavy use of special effects, practical and computer generated. In layperson’s terms: it’s got people in costumes, explosions, miniature city sets, etc.

Godzilla, Ultraman, Power Rangers and its Japanese equivalent Super Sentai, and Kamen Rider are all well-known examples of the medium. Its history dates back to the 50’s, and they’re still making television and movies in this style all the way to today.


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What’s currently airing?

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AVATARO SENTAI DONBROTHERS

The 46th Super Sentai show, Avataro Sentai Donbrothers, is a Sentai take on the story of Momotarou, the peach boy.


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KAMEN RIDER GEATS



The newest Kamen Rider, 4th of the Modern Era, is Kamen Rider Geats. This show is a tokusatsu take on modern Battle Royale video games such as Fortnite and Apex Legends.



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ULTRAMAN DECKER

The 34th Ultraman, Decker, is both a sequel to last year’s Ultraman Trigger, and a 25th celebration of Ultraman Dyna.



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KAMEN RIDER BLACK SUN

Kamen Rider Black Sun is a modernized version of 1987’s fan favourite Kamen Rider Black, to celebrate it’s 35th anniversary, as well as the 50th anniversary of the Kamen Rider franchise overall.

Kamen Rider Black Sun is coming to Amazon Prime Video on October 28th, worldwide!


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I’m excited to chat about tokusatsu with however few fellow toku fans are on Famiboards.

What’s your favourite tokusatsu show? Who’s your favourite characters? What suits do you like the best? Let’s hear all of your explosively hot takes on the medium below!
 
They finally separated the thread. If I have to mention favorites that would be the original Garou and Gokaiger. Both of the have very good action and the armor / pirate theme worked great
 
They finally separated the thread. If I have to mention favorites that would be the original Garou and Gokaiger. Both of the have very good action and the armor / pirate theme worked great
Garo was always so wildly interesting because Keita Amemiya got to make his own non-franchise tokusatsu show. It wasn’t ever really my thing but I cannot deny the show simply oozes Amemiya’s signature style!
 
thanks for splitting the thread! now that the original thread is very busy with anime season stuff I'd stopped checking it for any hope of tokusatsu discussion lol

i just started Build the other day, I don't love it yet but I'll stick with it for a bit, the posts above are encouraging at least

I've been watching Geats each week, the first time I'm watching one of these as it airs, and I'm actually enjoying it a whole lot. much more interesting tonally than the other recent series I've sampled. also excited by Black Sun despite the bizarre, tone-deaf police violence/protestor angle that's been present in the trailers lol—if nothing else I'm psyched to see Hidetoshi Nishijima transform

Keita Amemiya's stuff is my absolute favorite though—I've only seen up through the original Garo series but all of his film output is imo the pinnacle of the medium
 
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hey look, interesting video game factoid. :)

i still need to finish watching Kamen Rider Zero One at some point. i've already went through Kuuga.
 
I’ve only watched a chunk of power rangers fully with just a smattering of OG Kamen rider, Zubat and half of Ultra Q and og Ultraman otherwise. But I’m in the mood to have some more on the shelf for a whim since I have budget again so I’m leaning Kamen Rider Black. KR Kuuga, CS Jetman and Gavin on my random Toku series I’d love to add to my collection list. It’s just fun to have something I can pop in and watch on a long weekend or vacation. Kuuga and Jetman specifically I’m going to try and get during the big RSA sale next month.

(I currently have Ultra Q, Ultraman, Ultra Seven, Return of Ultraman, Ultraman orb, and a random smattering of Godzilla movies.)
 
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Black Sun is pretty damn good so far, two episodes in. Way more into this than Amazons. Sadly, for some reason it's not accessible in the Amazon search if you're American. But if you have a Prime account, you can watch it clicking this link:


Then if you pause it and continue it on your TV your Amazon account should keep the episode.
 
Here’s my fun but small collection. Just got in Gavan and Kuuga today. Now as for when I’ll get around to watching them? That’s a mystery

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FYI, Shout Factory is starting a 4-day long series of airing various giant monster films daily in about an hour, hosted by the legendary John Carpenter.


schedule is....
  • 11/3 - Godzilla (1954)
  • 11/4 - Rodan
  • 11/5 - Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
  • 11/6 - The War of the Gargantuas
it's also sponsored by Call of Duty, for some reason?
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there was an event starring godzilla in Warzone, but still.
 
Here’s my fun but small collection. Just got in Gavan and Kuuga today. Now as for when I’ll get around to watching them? That’s a mystery

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Nice! I should post a similar pic of my collection.
 
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I meant to post my thoughts on Black Sun, which I finished recently! So here are my SPOILER-FREE THOUGHTS:

It was neat! It was trying a LOT, really swinging for the fences, and while I do think it accomplished more than one would expect going in I don’t think it nailed everything. I think it was neat to see a higher-budget, shorter-run Rider show like this and I do hope to see more in the future, but I hope Toei gets over the “let’s make it messed up and bloody/gory because we can’t on Sunday mornings” thing because while I think some of the excessive violence of Black Sun was in-place to help establish tone/stakes, it definitely got well past the point of “unneccessary” less than halfway through the show’s short run. Some of the narrative choices also felt like runtime padding, and I think this almost would have been served better as like a 2.5 hour movie than a 10 episode miniseries.

Some of the plot points do not make sense but I don’t think anyone making the show cares. Frankly I don’t think you should either. I have a long rant in my heart about tokusatsu prioritizing “cool moments” over “plot coherence” and why that’s one of the best things about toku that sets the medium apart, but that’s a rant for another day!

The show has a lot to say about racial injustice that takes a LOT of imagery from modern day anti-racism protests/movements. It’s handling of that subject is frankly pretty loose in a way that, while it’s heart is in the right place on the topic, should have maybe put more care into.

In fact there’s one moment in the last 10 minutes of the show’s runtime that they absolutely should have cut. In fact I’ll just put it right here in a spoiler tag. CW for mention of racist police violence.

A Kaijin, the show’s stand-in for a group of people discriminated against, is being arrested by human police. They bring him to the ground while people start filming it. The police officer puts his knee on the neck of the Kaijin, who starts shouting “I can’t breathe,” recreating the murder of George Floyd.

The rest of the show isn’t nearly that careless, but it being within a few minutes of the end of the show really left a terrible taste in my mouth. Just an absolutely unnecessary moment that should have been cut.

Other than that one final moment, I do think the show is worth watching for Rider fans, especially fans of Kamen Rider Black. But it’s not even close to perfect and it’s absolutely not the 18+ mature Rider show to show non-toku fans that I know a lot of people were hoping for.
 
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Been watching Gekiranger and it really nails the ideal villain: martial artist who is willing to give up everything to get stronger.

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Also, the opening in general is fantastic:

 
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When the boss's daughter wants you, there's a rogue agent to take down, and the bad guys want to literally steal everything. Oh and they can basically do dividing driver to boost their own men. And of course his mom was an earthling

Been meaning to focus on one of these. Thought I’d give this a try before Kuuga or Orb cause it’s easier to go forward than back. Also got in Gridman today
 
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Finished a couple of shows since my last post:

Juken Sentai Gekiranger

Wow, what a fantastic series. While the Sentai heroes were a bit on a bland side (with the caveat that the final arc gives Jan some much needed character development), the villains were incredible, particularly Leo, whose journey throughout was so well done. Mix that in with a tightly serialized story, great fights, high emotions, and a solid soundtrack and this is a bonafide Sentai classic. Definitely a must watch for any toku fan. If the main cast was just a bit more developed and fleshed out, this show might be my favorite, but as is, it's comfortable right next to Gokaiger and Timeranger on my Sentai tier list.

Kamen Rider Kabuto

Although I enjoyed it, you could tell the writers had no idea what sort of show they wanted tonally. All sorts of plot threads pop up and then get dropped just as randomly. But! The characters are enjoyable, the suits are cool, and the action is great, so... that's about what you could want from a toku, right? It's a lower tier Rider series but I still had fun with it.

Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger

A very fun show with a likable cast, great action, and appealing costumes. The story is pretty standard fair for Sentai but it's a good watch no doubt. I did feel the villains didn't stand out much until the final arc, though I admit after coming off Gekiranger, it would be very difficult to live up to those villains.

One thing I really liked is how it handled supporting Rangers. Having a show with this many Rangers could feel bloated, but they did a good job cleanly delineating between the core team and the secondary team, letting them pop in and out of the story as need be. So yeah. Good show! Time for another toku break because I've made a lot of progress on my Sentai backlog but still probably have half a dozen or so Sentai series I want to check out.

Kamen Rider manga

Got this earlier this year and finally finished reading it yesterday. Overall very enjoyable, the paneling is great (something of a lost art looking at modern action manga, to be honest), with the classic 70s art and mix of melodrama and camp that you could expect from this era. The ending is abrupt, without going into spoilers, and the way they handle Rider 1 and 2 is interesting but feels a bit jarring. Still, I liked it a lot and I'm glad to own an official print of it. Definitely worth checking out for any Kamen Rider fan.
 
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the sole (subbed) US screening of Shin Ultraman is tonight—really looking forward to it even though it's a bit of a drive to the nearest theater playing it for me lol

also still enjoying Geats a fair bit but the last few episodes haven't done much for me. the previous episode's 'reveal' wasn't very surprising or interesting and it's still hard to get wrapped up in any of the drama or conflict of each episode/two-parter when it's all 100% contrived even within the fiction of the show—starting to feel like a bit too much zero-stakes fluff while we wait for the actual conflict to finally come to the surface. but again, I still like it a fair bit! if nothing else, it's got a much better tone that what i've seen of the last few series
 
Shin Ultraman was a lot of fun. Definitely has Anno's fingerprints all over it. Really hope Shin Kamen Rider gets a US release too.

I will say this though: the promo clip they played before the movie started where the lead actor was like "I play a character that's half alien half human, he sees both sides and in today's world we have to see both sides" was a big eye roll lol. Just roll the movie where the big space man punches the monster please.
also still enjoying Geats a fair bit but the last few episodes haven't done much for me. the previous episode's 'reveal' wasn't very surprising or interesting and it's still hard to get wrapped up in any of the drama or conflict of each episode/two-parter when it's all 100% contrived even within the fiction of the show—starting to feel like a bit too much zero-stakes fluff while we wait for the actual conflict to finally come to the surface. but again, I still like it a fair bit! if nothing else, it's got a much better tone that what i've seen of the last few series
I like the recent twist, but I get where you're coming from. It definitely feels like the show is just sitting on a big secret (or several) that's gonna turn the story upside down and until then we're just killing time. But I'm enjoying the characters, action and mystery so that's enough for me.
 
I will say this though: the promo clip they played before the movie started where the lead actor was like "I play a character that's half alien half human, he sees both sides and in today's world we have to see both sides" was a big eye roll lol. Just roll the movie where the big space man punches the monster please.
I wouldn't say the "big space man punching monster while the characters complain about Japanese non-independence" movie is a respite from that lol
 
Saw Shin Ultraman last night despite barely knowing what Ultraman even was a week ago. I’m sure all the Ultra-heads out there will love it, I thought it was alright. I spent most of the movie extremely confused by the plot until I realized it was one of those ‘anthology’ style movies and that the previous arc had little impact on the current goings-on. Also no EM20 so what’s even the point

More interested in Kamen Rider since it’s directed by Anno, but I would still probably rewatch Ultraman at some point.
 
Oh HELL YEAH TOKU
adding some black sun opinions- I like a lot of how it adapts Black, and recontextualizes it. Kamen Riders tackling modern issues of racism and xenophobia is interesting- I think that a figure that stands against all forms of injustice is promising, but I agree fully that they use them in the same way it uses its over the top violence. They're meant to shock and draw intrigue, but fall a little flat at more than that.
That being said? "Did you see the Sunrise" is potentially one of my favorite songs used in Kamen Rider history, and that's in a heavily stacked competition.
7/10, better than Amazon's, on the right track, maybe it'll hone its flavor
 
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More interested in Kamen Rider since it’s directed by Anno, but I would still probably rewatch Ultraman at some point.

Yeah I don't care for Rider at all but the fact that Anno didn't hand it off to his bestie as some pity project makes it so much more appealing. As long as it doesn't have some lecherous BO scene then it should be good.
 
I wouldn't say the "big space man punching monster while the characters complain about Japanese non-independence" movie is a respite from that lol
That’s the thing though, the movie doesn’t even really reinforce that point. The government’s politicians is portrayed as ineffective at best and downright corrupt at worst, and most of the aliens are portrayed as unsympathetic to humanity. It was just a weird non-sequitor from an actor.
 
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Ok my Toku buddies on here, my brother in law said he'd give me a try with one of the shows since he has some memories due to his dad being a ultraseven fan, which should I do as his intro to Toku? From my collection here

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Ok my Toku buddies on here, my brother in law said he'd give me a try with one of the shows since he has some memories due to his dad being a ultraseven fan, which should I do as his intro to Toku? From my collection here

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I’d vote Juspion!
 
one more Shin Kamen Rider teaser......out march 18 in Japan


I really, really hope it gets a decent theatrical release in the US (and ideally this year) but I'd even take that single-screening fathom events nonsense again lol.....so excited for this movie
 
Great finale for Donbrothers, this has been an amazing year and I'll miss this cast. Easily a top 5 Sentai show.

Kingohger looks like it'll be good but it'll be hard to fill the Donbros-shaped hole in my heart.
 
An English dub for Ultraman Z has just started being put on the Ultraman YouTube channel, with new episodes every Saturday and Sunday. I highly recommend the show to anyone who hasn't seen it before, as it's an excellent Toku series, with the dub looking like it's very well-done too!

 
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thanks Mekanos! i'd checked a couple times the last few days and hadn't been able to get through but just grabbed mine—been looking forward to this one for such a long time, I'm really psyched it's getting such a quick (though extremely brief lmao) US release!
 
Also, trailer for Blazar, the new Ultraman show:



Notably the lead actor played Heart from Kamen Rider Drive.
 
The best seats are already taken at my local kinoplex and the movie's release hasn't even been publicized anywhere.
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Yeah unfortunately the rollout for this has been strange. For days Fandango had seats up at my theater but two were taken and none other could be bought. Not sure if this is a Fathom issue or Toei. Hopefully everyone can still see it in some form!
 
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Oh wait Ultraman Z got an English dub?!?! And it’s on YouTube?! Oh I’m totally starting there then and I’ll pull out my copy of Orb another time
 
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KingOhger has been incredibly good these first 8 episodes. Like I'm sort of an awe a Sentai series has so many moving parts while also having a fantastic cast, great action, cool suits, and fantastic worldbuilding. Already feel this is shaping up to be one of my favorites, and that's high praise considering the same was true for DonBrothers. If you like Sentai whatsoever, you must watch this show.
 
loved Shin Kamen Rider to bits, can't remember the last time I came out of a theater buzzing like that. I think maybe someone who's not into or familiar with both Anno's post-anime stylistic choices and Kamen Rider in general may not resonate with it too well, but as someone who's at the precise intersection of loving both of those things deeply, I found it to be just perfect.

and in case anyone missed it, there's a second US fathom events screening of it this Monday the 5th! I believe they added it after a bunch of tonight's screenings sold out super quick. already considering trying to make it to that one too.....
 
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I loved it too. Anno’s direction of fight scenes will definitely polarize people but I was super into it. Had a blast with it. And the music was incredible.

Pacing was a bit wonky but I didn’t find the story confusing like some did, based on what I’ve been reading.
 
feel very mixed on anno rider, it's like a less refined version of his cutie honey. i wasn't expecting anno and co to fire on all cylinders like they did with shin godzilla, but i was a little disappointed with how so many elements mirrored higuchi's shin ultraman. i really loved the story, i think anno always tackles despair and hope in a really sincere and heartfelt matter. the dynamic between hongo, ruri, and her brother was oddly touching for me. i heard shooting was troublesome but the actors portraying them really sold the story. both of the moments at the beach with the telephone wires was kino as hell. the problem i had was with the action scenes. besides the intro and the badass wasp fight, i thought the set pieces were distractingly bad. something about the blocking and weightless cgi really took me out of the movie. it felt way too fake and just did not work for me. i took my siblings to watch this movie with me and when like
the digital riders were just jumping around beating the crap out of each other
i cringed and thought "i can't believe i dragged my siblings to watch this chigyu ass movie" but they actually loved it lol. i had the same problem with shin ultraman, but with this one at least everything outside the action was really well done so i can't be too disappointed.
 
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A bit mixed on the Ultraman Blazar premiere. Love the crazy monkey energy Blazar has but it felt like the fight went on forever and the episode being entirely at night made it feel a bit drab. But it’s got potential so I’ll keep watching.
 
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