But there is a post in the making! Several, in fact!
I’ve yet to write a review of Dairanger, which I finished months ago, and I’m thinking of writing a little treatise on why I feel Akibaranger is kind of Gokaiger’s little brother.
I may have to rewatch some Dairanger to get back in the mood for reviewing it, but let’s just say it’ll be a positive one overall.
- Adrian
Related, Gokaiger nitpick rant to come eventually, when I have time
Gokaiger review to hopefully come once Adrian and I are together and have free time.
lol, free time
have some Dairanger to compensate
So Go-Busters.
In the early stages of knowing about it, I wasn’t entirely impressed. The suits just plain didn’t look like good Sentai suits, the weapons (a camera and binoculars that turn into, respectively, a gun and sword thingy) were uninspiring, and what the hell was up with those Buddyroid things?
I watched the first episode recently and whoops guess whose worries immediately melted away oh wait spoiler alert my worries are the ones that were melty guess you know now.
I’m going to say this a lot, but Gokaiger was so absolutely fantastic. Even as my first proper Sentai I can tell it was one of the best. So coming into Go-Busters, I was worried it wouldn’t hold up. The suits looked bad, the Buddyroids seemed dumb, and I was just unsure.
After watching Mission 1, Go-Busters is, in a word, different.
In three words, it’s kind of spectacular.
Kamen Rider OOO, as far as I have watched, is a fun and enjoyable show. The characters are pretty well-written, the fight choreography is great, and the effects are done pretty well (… mostly…). The designs for the Greeed and the various OOO suits are, on the whole, visually appealing.
I do have a problem with the Yummies, however.
Aggghhh the Yummies.
First of all, the very name “Yummy” annoys me. It feels all… kiddy. Admittedly, it sounds somewhat like the word “Yami”, which I think is Japanese for “dark”.
Second, most of them have a visual design quality ranging from “meh” to “what am I even looking at?” The base Yummy form, which is a dull grey humanoid with dirty-white bandages on it. Some of the most eye-bleeding designs are the terrifabulous butterfly thingy and the horrible, stupid cat-woman with the scalpel hand, and just looking at them hurt my eyes. The first beetle thingy in episode 17 was, however, pretty well-designed… and then the second was a little less so. Aaaand back to the shitty shit shit shit with the fucking lion with jellyfish bits thing. I pray they start to look better soon… at least Kazari preparing to go god tier Complete is cool to look at, all flying dreadlocks and shit.
Other things:
The CGI is sometiiiiimes, uh… no, sorry. The swarm of Yummies in ep 6 look goofy (and the physical puppets are almost as bewildering as the shit from Hobgoblins). However, when the swarm combines into one mass working as a whole, it looks pretty damn good. So the CGI isn’t consistently bad, just sometimes kinda lame.
Ankh’s clothes, at least at the beginning, are kind of… fabuloathable. The autumn-leaf pattern pants he wears a few times look like someone’s mom took a lot of Valium and hit up JoAnn Fabrics. However, later designs are cooler, like his leather jacket around episode 17.
In the late 70s, Toei got Marvel to let them make a live-action show based on Spider-Man.
By this point, Spidey was pretty well-established in the comics. He had a good-sized supporting cast and a spread of villains he faced.
Naturally, Toei’s production used none of those characters. And his origin story was totally different. And he was totally different in his civilian identity. And he had a flying car and a spaceship that became a giant robot with a sword in its leg armor.
And sweet merciful shit was it AWESOME.
Spider-Man was Takuya Yamashiro, a motorcycle racer. He got his powers from an alien blood transfusion from the last survivor of the planet Spider.
THE PLANET SPIDER.
That’s also where he got the clunky metal bracelet that contains his suit, and also acts as a comm-controller-thing for his flying car and spaceship/robot.
He has basically the same powers, though he yells “SPIDAH STRINGU” and “SPIDAH NETTO” when throwing webs around. His movements are actually fairly spider-like, and the wallclimbing effects are good wirework for the 70s. I think.
The villains are pretty… uh… Toei-ish. The big bad is PROFESSOR MONSTER, with his henchwoman Amazoness (who has a fake human identity as Takuya’s girlfriend’s boss); they send out their mooks, the Niders along with a different Machine Bem (i.e. monster of the week) each episode or so. Professor Monster is actually kind of a horrendous dick, and his plans start constantly ruining families (especially separating the father from the mother and kid[s]) about halfway through, whether that was his intention or not. Dude just hates families, man.
This series may be completely and utterly ludicrous, but it’s genuinely awesome. The theme song and end theme are really great, the soundtrack in general is very stirring, and one episode has a rock band playing a song called “Spiderman Boogie” and it’s just fucking glorious (the first lines translate to “Shaking his bum, climbing up walls/jumping like Tarzan from building to building”).
In short, Toei Spider-Man is very fun to watch—and free on Marvel’s website, all 41 episodes and the theatrical episode that comes between 10 and 11.
SPIDAMAN BOOGIE.
~ Adrian
So I typed up a rant post about little inconsistencies from Gokaiger that stuck in my mind.
But it’s a little tl;dr
So instead, I’m going to divide it up, and record myself ranting! Because…well I want to :P
So stay tuned for the first installment of Conor Nitpicks!
-Conor
Gokaiger & Goseiger - 199 Hero Grand Battle
Ah, 199. I actually got quite a fair way into Gokaiger before ever watching this, so I already knew and loved the Gokaiger crew. On the other hand, I didn’t know Goseiger at all, and had heard that they were a lackluster team on a lackluster show, except for GoseiKnight being cool. However, I tried to go in with an open mind.
I said I tried.
Welcome to 30 Minute Toy Commercials, the blog where two stupid bastards yell about why toku is awesome (and occasionally why it’s not).
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