Kit becoming Onyx and staying that for the last third of the show was raw as fuck and vastly more interesting then the majority of main rider character arcs.
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TokuERA 2020/2021 |OT| Masks Required
- Thread starter DioMuller
- Start date
- Entertainment OT
I don't like how Gaim treats its female characters, and overall, it tries to hard to be Ryuki... which is a problem with a lot of Urobochi's work.
Rider is typically awful to it's women, you got me on that one. Ryuki is in my Bottom 5 though so we probably don't see eye to eye on that.
Gaim is somehow worse to it's female characters than other series between Mai and Marika.
Marika was so close to being a great example of a female rider, but then there was a point Urobuchi seemed to have no idea wtf to do with her character once the faction started falling apart.
And yes, Valkyrie is a disappointment because her character development is heavily tied to a shitty character that dragged the show down in general.
Gaim was an amazing ride to be on while it was airing, though I admit it buckles and cracks at the seams on rewatch. I did gain a newfound appreciation for Mai that wasn't as apparent to me when I was watching the first time - despite all the shit that happens around her and often witnessing her friends turn into broken, emotional wrecks, she still unflinchingly maintains a brave face throughout, be it acting as a crucial pillar to get Kaito to open up, or when she still unflinchingly fights for Team Gaim's right to keep dancing despite having no Rider power or physical prowess to back her up, or when she sees through Micchi's shit and fiercely admonishes him for it. That was until Urobuchi decided to outright turn Mai into a literal trophy for dudes to fight over.
Ryuki's alright. It's been a while since I've checked it out, but I'll go along with the fan consensus and say that the show never really found its footing until Ouja came along. Prior to his appearance, there was a surprising lack of real stakes or tension in spite of the show's whole premise being a battle royale to the death. Ouja coming in as this dangerous, unpredictable catalyst was exactly what it needed, because now there was this lit fuse who could start shit at any moment and culminate in up to two guys being killed off in a single episode. It's certainly far better executed than whatever they were attempting to do with Leangle in Blade.
On the topic of utterly wasted and disappointing female Riders, there's Alain's sister in Ghost. For no discernible reason she suddenly transforms into that pink Necrom ripoff once and fights for barely 30 seconds only to lose in such a spectacularly anticlimactic fashion I haven't a clue why they even bothered with it. Outside of those humiliating 30 seconds she does literally nothing. She never partakes in any scheming against Adel behind his back. She never leaves that bunker they live in. She never fights again. She is demoted from nothing status to hostage status after her one and only stint as a Rider.
Ghost has so many of these wasted, nobody characters. Those two teenage lads who hang around at the temple with Onari do nothing and I don't recall even their names. Kanon spends the whole time as a human onscreen doing nothing. Edith turns out to be an overall load of nothing, because his story already concluded in flashbacks. Akari on the other hand is among the standout female support characters in Rider, because while she isn't ever relevant to the show's primary plot, she does proactively seek out samples and test out her little homemade experiments to help resist the Ganma incursion into their world, even if it puts her at risk and jeopardy to do so. I'd say she's accomplished a lot more than someone like Kiriko in Drive, who Riku Sanjo liked to turn into a damsel every month or so.
Ryuki's alright. It's been a while since I've checked it out, but I'll go along with the fan consensus and say that the show never really found its footing until Ouja came along. Prior to his appearance, there was a surprising lack of real stakes or tension in spite of the show's whole premise being a battle royale to the death. Ouja coming in as this dangerous, unpredictable catalyst was exactly what it needed, because now there was this lit fuse who could start shit at any moment and culminate in up to two guys being killed off in a single episode. It's certainly far better executed than whatever they were attempting to do with Leangle in Blade.
On the topic of utterly wasted and disappointing female Riders, there's Alain's sister in Ghost. For no discernible reason she suddenly transforms into that pink Necrom ripoff once and fights for barely 30 seconds only to lose in such a spectacularly anticlimactic fashion I haven't a clue why they even bothered with it. Outside of those humiliating 30 seconds she does literally nothing. She never partakes in any scheming against Adel behind his back. She never leaves that bunker they live in. She never fights again. She is demoted from nothing status to hostage status after her one and only stint as a Rider.
Ghost has so many of these wasted, nobody characters. Those two teenage lads who hang around at the temple with Onari do nothing and I don't recall even their names. Kanon spends the whole time as a human onscreen doing nothing. Edith turns out to be an overall load of nothing, because his story already concluded in flashbacks. Akari on the other hand is among the standout female support characters in Rider, because while she isn't ever relevant to the show's primary plot, she does proactively seek out samples and test out her little homemade experiments to help resist the Ganma incursion into their world, even if it puts her at risk and jeopardy to do so. I'd say she's accomplished a lot more than someone like Kiriko in Drive, who Riku Sanjo liked to turn into a damsel every month or so.
Yea, I'll agree with that...also, maybe it's just me but Mai just screamed trophy wife by the time we reached the end of Gaim, kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. Like I enjoyed Gaim, but that was a hang-up for me.
Also agreed, it's tough to see female characters written poorly, especially when it goes through people like Inoue.
I dunno how purposeful it was but I do think the way they portrayed Yua illustrated a victim of abuse pretty decently. Like, no argument it sucks that the female rider gets saddled with that narrative but the fact Fuwa doesn't blame her being stuck in a toxic cycle and that all the characters rightly put the blame on the abuser was kind of nice.
I've never seen OOO and I don't think I ever will. I've seen the shows surrounding it and I know for a fact they all share the same plot and episode structure that I got real tired of with those three shows. This is also the reason I'm afraid to go back to try and watch W which I liked at the time
OOO rules, I highly recommend it. The structure is definitely going to be familiar but it has really strong character writing and the gimmick is interesting - Eiji gains and loses access to different powers pretty frequently so it always feels pretty fresh.
I think it's most notable as a series that doesn't really have any major stumbles or loose ends. It's not everyone's absolute favorite but the number of people who actively dislike it is miniscule.
Eh, I think the middle of OOO was pretty weak.
What's wrong with it?
I don't feel like OOO is about capitalistic greed, even factoring in Kougami. He's a rich eccentric who correctly identified an existential threat to the world and actually allocated considerable resources to help stop it, even if he seems very mysterious and morally ambiguous at times. It's not even clear what exactly the Kougami Foundation even does, just that they're capable of funding all the technology that makes the series tick.
The Greeed are comparable to the homunculi in FMA, they're creatures of pure obsession and the show mostly depicts it as being tragic since they eternally want stuff but are mostly incapable of really valuing it. On Eiji's side they grapple with the question of whether or not his selfless desire might go too far in the sense that it makes him act in ways that are counter-productive at times.
The Greeed are comparable to the homunculi in FMA, they're creatures of pure obsession and the show mostly depicts it as being tragic since they eternally want stuff but are mostly incapable of really valuing it. On Eiji's side they grapple with the question of whether or not his selfless desire might go too far in the sense that it makes him act in ways that are counter-productive at times.
Despite being a pretty bad movie overall, it was cool to see that Eiji's true desire is caring about every other person in the world so much that it overloaded and destroyed the "grant your wish in a twisted fashion" machine.
He's a pretty interesting character all things considered, his arc was just dragged out way too much and the blatant cheating and sabotage strained credulity, even for a toku show. I think the rest of Project Thouser will help flesh him out even more.
I watched OOO recently, and I didn't love it. I don't dislike it, but I also don't understand the love it gets.
Ankh is not an appealing character to me and the action is just plain bad all the way through.
I like Date and Eiji and pretty much all the suits, and that's about it.
Huh, maybe I didn't like OOO after all.
Ankh is not an appealing character to me and the action is just plain bad all the way through.
I like Date and Eiji and pretty much all the suits, and that's about it.
Huh, maybe I didn't like OOO after all.
Can't even nail the henshin choreography, though. :)
Watching through Drive with my kids, and despite the blasphemy of a Kamen Rider driving a car, I like it.
Like most series, we started it when it first came out and then dropped it because it was a chore to keep up. I think the only ones I watched all the way through in the current/last era was 555, Kabuto and OOO, and that was mainly because I either didn't have kids or just had a baby. We got decently far into Gaim and Ex-Aid, so I think I'll either try those next with the kids or just start Build, which we only watched like 2 episodes of.
Been watching the original Kamen Rider on Tokushoutsu and man, my kids won't go for that. Which is unfortunate, considering I have V3 on DVD (my favorite) and Ultraman on Blu (they just released Ace). Guess I'll be watching by myself.
There's a prologue episode for Saber with low quality raws floating around. It gives the backstory of the main character, what's presumably the beginning of the attack and battle in the first episode... but between those two parts there's a large recap scene where he's shown reading and writing about Zero-One and talking about him and the events of the series. I doubt the recap is part of episode 1, but I wonder if the Zero-One stuff will be there at all.
As far as Saber itselg goes, there's a character who mentions that the true battle will start once Saber recovers his childhood memories.
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New manga out there on the Shonen Jump app with Rider vibes: Kaiju No. 8.
A failed entrant in the Kaiju defense force of Japan ends up becoming a kaiju cleanup guy. But he gets infect, becoming a kaiju himself. Now with his new powers, he's got to fight kaiju and try to retake the defense force test, without letting folks know he's a mini-kaiju himself. Real, real early, but fun.
A failed entrant in the Kaiju defense force of Japan ends up becoming a kaiju cleanup guy. But he gets infect, becoming a kaiju himself. Now with his new powers, he's got to fight kaiju and try to retake the defense force test, without letting folks know he's a mini-kaiju himself. Real, real early, but fun.
^ it's also a shonen manga with the protagonist of my age (32 y/o), that's like once in a blue moon type of story.
Ultraman Z
Yeah that was an awesome fight. It's hard to nail giant fights in the era of CG, but they handled their choreography well, and it's good that the show isn't burdened at 50ish episodes of weekly giant fight. Didn't care much about past connection to the series so I'm glad the plot is moving on.
Ultraman Z
Yeah that was an awesome fight. It's hard to nail giant fights in the era of CG, but they handled their choreography well, and it's good that the show isn't burdened at 50ish episodes of weekly giant fight. Didn't care much about past connection to the series so I'm glad the plot is moving on.
New manga out there on the Shonen Jump app with Rider vibes: Kaiju No. 8.
A failed entrant in the Kaiju defense force of Japan ends up becoming a kaiju cleanup guy. But he gets infect, becoming a kaiju himself. Now with his new powers, he's got to fight kaiju and try to retake the defense force test, without letting folks know he's a mini-kaiju himself. Real, real early, but fun.
Looked into this, and yeah this is promising. Also the protagonist is 32, which I think is rare here ha ha (edit: as already said XD).
It's not a Shonen Jump manga, though, it's Jump +, which often has stuff that skews a lot older (like I wouldn't consider Hell's Paradise or Fire Punch manga suited for the traditional SJ audience).
Just give us a translation of Kamen Rider Spirits. Or heck re-release the Uchiyama Ultraman manga that Viz put out in the 90s.
Yeah, it's not Jump in Japan, but it is on the Jump app/sub in the US, like Hell's Paradise.
Actually, I'm surprised there's no age gate on the SJ app.
There is, at least on ios. Hell's Paradise doesn't show up there, in fact, you have to go to the webpage on the browser or use the Shuiesha Manga Plus app. They even skipped over a chapter of Chainsaw Man.
New manga out there on the Shonen Jump app with Rider vibes: Kaiju No. 8.
A failed entrant in the Kaiju defense force of Japan ends up becoming a kaiju cleanup guy. But he gets infect, becoming a kaiju himself. Now with his new powers, he's got to fight kaiju and try to retake the defense force test, without letting folks know he's a mini-kaiju himself. Real, real early, but fun.
Thanks for the recommend! I'm really digging it so far despite it still being quite early and rather like the direction they went in the most recent chapters.
Is that still going? I read up to what had been fan translated years ago but eventually it seemed it stopped getting translated.
I think it became Shin Kamen Rider Spirits, I think because the magazine it was in folded. I haven't read it in a while but I would buy it if they translated it officially.
I didn't say it was a Shonen Jump manga, only it's shonen. It's pretty much structured like an archetypical shonen manga so far (an optimistic "boy" chasing his dreams, cool rivals, fantastic battles and powers, even an exam arc upcoming) only with an older protag.
Speaking on comics and Tokusatsu, Ultraman is again leading the way. The ULTRAMAN manga spawned its own Netflix series, a mobile game, and model kits, and then there's the Marvel collaboration with classic Ulltraman. Kamen Rider & Sentai is so complacent in their lead they're hardly trying to grow anymore.
Kamen Rider Spirits has been fully fan translated now, so there's that at least. For Shin, I'm not sure of the status.
Shin Spirits has the first volume fully translated at least, which is a neat side-story taking place alongside the first arc of the original series up to Rider 2's debut, filling in and connecting many of the events. Even if you don't read Spirits at all, I really recommend reading that side-story after watching the first 13 episodes of the original. That side-story basically has nothing to do with Spirits' main plotline (although after it's over Shin Spirits goes back to Spirits' plot).
Ultraman Z 07
Hahahaha, I like the Orb callback. And the villain plot is finally progressing a bit!
Small Ultra is always a weird thing, hahaha. That fight was *really* cool.
Too bad Riku and Zero aren't staying. There goes my hopes of seeing Leito return as well (at least for the moment, hahaha)
Hahahaha, I like the Orb callback. And the villain plot is finally progressing a bit!
Small Ultra is always a weird thing, hahaha. That fight was *really* cool.
Too bad Riku and Zero aren't staying. There goes my hopes of seeing Leito return as well (at least for the moment, hahaha)
Catching up on Zero One I'm glad the Vice President finally did shit...on episode 37 btw.
I feel like this show might be better received watching it all in one go. Because of the coronavirus it feels like it's dragged on forever...but it's gaining steam quickly
I feel like this show might be better received watching it all in one go. Because of the coronavirus it feels like it's dragged on forever...but it's gaining steam quickly
The challenge/contest or whatever they were definitely chugged along... but yeah, I can definitely see the binge being more tolerable for it as opposed to the week to week.
I know Zero-One isn't over yet and could end on an explosive high note, but I still think it's the most disappointing Rider show I've watched on a weekly basis since Ghost. I'm not suggesting it's on the same poor quality level as Ghost, but personally speaking my enjoyment of the show took a heavy nosedive from the moment the Thouser & competition arc came into play. While the episodes following that arc have been a notable improvement and the show is actually watchable again, I can't get over the lingering stink left over from that arc and realising how badly squandered major characters such as Yua are.
As of now, Zero-One is somewhere on the middling level on my Rider show scale. Roughly Kabuto level for me. Tech-based season with multiple Riders and fantastic ideas on paper but marred by poor execution and half the time things just happen with no proper buildup or payoff.
As of now, Zero-One is somewhere on the middling level on my Rider show scale. Roughly Kabuto level for me. Tech-based season with multiple Riders and fantastic ideas on paper but marred by poor execution and half the time things just happen with no proper buildup or payoff.
Kiramager 17
Yay individual weapon for Tame, even if it's only for one episode! Also, a great way to close this silver arc. Everybody had their moments with him, and then everything came together at the end.
I really like that Silver is his own stone. I expected the stone to get out of him, not him to turn into it, hahaha
Also, I can't believe they put yet another PPAP reference. I wonder if *every* episode has one of those.
Yay individual weapon for Tame, even if it's only for one episode! Also, a great way to close this silver arc. Everybody had their moments with him, and then everything came together at the end.
I really like that Silver is his own stone. I expected the stone to get out of him, not him to turn into it, hahaha
Also, I can't believe they put yet another PPAP reference. I wonder if *every* episode has one of those.
Hey where did the robot dog go?
Anyway I'm caught up on 01 and now it's on to catching up to Kiramager. So, like I was watching episode five and it suddenly changed frame rate on me? Didn't seem to be my television, like the episode just looked...faster and more realistic, like when you go your grandma's house and she has the distracting increased frame rate setting on.
Anyway I'm caught up on 01 and now it's on to catching up to Kiramager. So, like I was watching episode five and it suddenly changed frame rate on me? Didn't seem to be my television, like the episode just looked...faster and more realistic, like when you go your grandma's house and she has the distracting increased frame rate setting on.
Holy shit you guys gotta watch this Golden Bat character's history from this vid that just dropped.
Turns out this dude was what Garo was originally going to be rebooting before it became Garo.
This character sounds nuts. I watch Hurricane Polymar and posted...maybe I should find and watch Golden Bat next.
EDIT:
Okay you can apparently watch the complete animated Golden Bat series under its Italian release known as "Fantaman" on youtube using the autotranslate function in its closed captions. Okay...upon watching longer these subtitles go off the rails quick with auto translate. Watch at own risk. I'll look for a better version.
Golden Bat Series on youtube ( use auto translate with captions to view in english)
Turns out this dude was what Garo was originally going to be rebooting before it became Garo.
This character sounds nuts. I watch Hurricane Polymar and posted...maybe I should find and watch Golden Bat next.
EDIT:
Okay you can apparently watch the complete animated Golden Bat series under its Italian release known as "Fantaman" on youtube using the autotranslate function in its closed captions. Okay...upon watching longer these subtitles go off the rails quick with auto translate. Watch at own risk. I'll look for a better version.
Golden Bat Series on youtube ( use auto translate with captions to view in english)
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I got a little behind, here's the 3 eps I watched last night.
Kiramager 16
The extra bit of Silver's backstory was surprisingly sweet and touching, not what I was expecting in a kids show. Nice final battle, love the way the two halves of it ended in Parallel
Kiramager 17
Wasn't loving this ep quite as much. It's nice seeing Silver feel more like a full fledged team member now, bad guys were kinda flat. Big main plot advancement at the end, though.
Zero-One 41
This one kind of felt like a false finale for the whole series, they show what you could very easily interpret as a final fight and then the next episode preview is just "jk here's where it's going next"
Kiramager 16
The extra bit of Silver's backstory was surprisingly sweet and touching, not what I was expecting in a kids show. Nice final battle, love the way the two halves of it ended in Parallel
Kiramager 17
Wasn't loving this ep quite as much. It's nice seeing Silver feel more like a full fledged team member now, bad guys were kinda flat. Big main plot advancement at the end, though.
Zero-One 41
This one kind of felt like a false finale for the whole series, they show what you could very easily interpret as a final fight and then the next episode preview is just "jk here's where it's going next"
Whomst among us doesn't create robot terrorists due to a tsundere business rivalry, from time to time
I almost had a heart attack when a Toku-based news site I visit showed a picture of Toshiko Seki alongside some of his iconic roles (Momotaros natch)---I'm so use to that format being used alongside an obituary.
He's got Covid-19 which isn't good obviously, but better than what I thought at first. Also Emu's actor has it too, which sucks.
He's got Covid-19 which isn't good obviously, but better than what I thought at first. Also Emu's actor has it too, which sucks.