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04-08-2015, 04:51 PM | #6141 |
Cynical, But Sweet
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Mata Nui
Posts: 186
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I've finally, finally(!!) finished ZyuRanger and will now be proceeding to AbaRanger with high hopes. (:
Wait, what? TimeRanger has HK boootlegs? How are they? Are they complete? If it's not butter, then what is it??? |
04-08-2015, 04:53 PM | #6142 |
Kawaii 5-0
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Cardiff, United Kingdom
Posts: 12,851
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If it's the RRR subs versions, from what I've heard they're complete but incredibly wrong. Like, the dialogue was guessed from episode synopses.
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04-08-2015, 04:57 PM | #6143 |
「蝙蝠騎士の魔界<ブラム>」
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: The Catacombs of Ohio
Posts: 12,794
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Plus the video quality of the RRR subs are just plain terrible.
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04-08-2015, 10:45 PM | #6144 |
Member
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Chilling with StarNinger, Kyoryu Gold, ToQ6, and Shinken Gold
Posts: 954
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Yeah, the quality is pretty bad. I am considering just waiting for Overtime to finish it and watching it that way.
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04-08-2015, 11:23 PM | #6145 |
Bang Bang Critical Fire!
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: The tardis
Posts: 2,069
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I am watching shinkenger and I can honestly say that this and samurai are very similar except samurai's way more serious.
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04-09-2015, 09:24 PM | #6146 |
Neppu Yarou.
Join Date: May 2014
Location: TN
Posts: 951
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Liveman 11-12
Goddamn. Yoshinori Okamoto really just stole this episode in the role of Arashi Busujima, an underground thug that's way more brawn than brain. He is incredibly intense and imposing, almost outright scary. Really the MOW is just there to show that Arashi can instil fear into the monster and force it to become his lackey to rob banks. The monster here is able to turn people into apes, and I don't know what it is, but Toku Shows of the 80's loved using really cheesy ape masks/gloves that were clearly bought from a store. It looks about as good as you'd expect. The humor helps break up the scariness of Arashi without taking away from it, very good job. Really that's all I have to say about this episode. Nothing else is as great, you watch this episode for Yoshinori, it's entertaining as hell and they did a great job building him up as a baddie. Yeah the monster grows and the Liveman destroy it, but not at entertaining as Arashi. The episode ends with him being abducted, which leads into episode 12. Unfortunately I don't find this quite a good as the prior episode. Granted I didn't have a lot to say about the previous one, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the hell out of it. It just that I don't wanna have several sentences describing pretty much the same thing "Yoshi being awesome." which inevitably are the parts that stick out most and you should go watch it. In contrast, I also didn't have much to complain about either aside from horrible looking ape-men, which doesn't so much anger me as make me laugh. This is a bit more 50/50 So lets start with the good. Brain army abducted Arashi, and makes perfect sense an interest would be sparked, given he beat the hell out of their monster and made it a slave. The scene between him an Bias is a bit of an interesting one, because you have two different types of crazy here. I was concerned that the main head honcho would be undermined by Arashi's intensity, so of course they have to make Bais intimidate him. Now, whether or not they succeeded in a believable manner I believe is up to the viewer, which you can say that about anything but I find it very true here. Regardless, this does have a very fantastic representation of the two different types of crazy they each have. Arashi is a berserker, like a mad dog, relentless. Bais is scary in that he is calm and collected and still violent. When Arashi gets irate with Bais' simple math questions, Arashi is up on his feet, slamming his fist on the console between the two and yelling. Bias never gets up from his chair, simply glares at him and cuts Arashi's face, and then asks him the question again, never changing his tone of voice. This, is a very good character scene for both of them. Bias has a desire to make Arashi unbelievably intelligent, because I suppose having someone like that be as intelligent as they are destructive could prove very useful. Mr. Stormy becomes super intelligent(and mutated into the being, Ashura) and then we get another great moment in this episode, with him being pitted against the greatest minds in the world each from a different field, while competing in a sick gameshow like fashion. Catch is simple; they have to answer stupidly complicated questions more than Ashura does, or they'll die. Two people die in the contest. Eventually The Livemen show up and rescue the rest of the scientists and such. Ashura beats the Livemen, badly. But then something interesting happens afterwards. He goes to rob a bank. Despite his great rise in intelligence, despite having been on a damn alien space craft and mutated into a demonic like being, his core personality hasn't changed at all, or even his pitiful ambitions. The Livemen figure that if his personality is the same, that also means his irrational hatred of establishments that represent higher learning will still be present. This is actually a great idea, unfortunately this is also where the episode gets way too damn zany for my liking. Yusuke wears a full Science Academy uniform as he, Megumi, and Joh, confront Ashura. Of course, this sends Ashura into a blind rage and he isn't able to exactly focus like in their previous battle. This is all well and good until Yusuke tosses his academy jacket to Joh. Then Ashura start attacking him...and then the music kicks in. This entire sequence is cartoonish, that's the best way I can put it. I'm sorry, this sequence is just trying way too hard. Now if there is something great I can say about this is that the action is really good, I just think the cliche music along with how Ashura acts really clashes with the rest of the episode, it really takes away from the situation, making it seem very loony toons-ish. Maybe that was the point, in showing that Ashura despite being such a threat has become a joke by his own lack of common sense. But I still feel it is more goofy than needed. It's so out of left field from everything else. Ashura lacks common sense, yes, and I get him actively going after a person representing something he hates, but he isn't that dumb to attack the jacket like a bull over the person that is holding it. And yes, they do use the jacket like a matador would use a cape. After that...thing, we get a rather good special effect of Ashura dive bombing into the ground, incapacitating himself. Then it's pretty much standard stuff. Fight mooks, team cannon on monster, revive, etc. There is a neat part where the monster x-rays Liverobo to find it's weak spots, and honestly that seems like a waste of a good idea on something that's just here to give us the usual zord battle. Indeed, the finishing attack is used on the monster as soon as this happens. Bleh. We get one final scene of the villains cursing the team. Maskman 1-2 Yeah... Alright, I've watched this several times, and each time I watch the first episode I always have a million questions about just what in the hell I'm watching. It's like they tried packing in way too much information while at the same time not really telling us anything. We start with a race, with one car pulling into a pit stop. We get a few glimpses of the cast, but mostly of Takeru, our Red. After a scene that really want us to see cars going around a track, with the occasional cut to a woman running onto said track, she falls because running in heels is bad. Then less than 3 minutes in we're getting bloody flashbacks, which seem to be all over the place...I think. One moment Takeru is on a bike going down a street, he almost hits a woman(her name wasn't given yet) peeking out from a manhole. He wrecks, and then we see her above ground peeking around a tree at Takeru. Takeru removes his helmet and smiles at her. The woman comes out from behind the tree with no shoes, Takeru is a bit surprised by this. Then the camera pulls back and we're in a park now, there's no bike, or street lamps, other cars. Takeru is holding an acoustic guitar case which he brings over to her, and it happens to have a pair of high heels within, they even have a gift bow attached. What in the hell is going on? Did we see one meeting take place and then another? Because it's shot like it all takes place at once, and they never have a change of clothes. Is the scene in the park like an hour after the wreck? Did Takeru go and get a guitar case and a pair of shoes? Was a scene transition in the flashback too much trouble to give some indication? The only thing I got from that is Takeru probably has something going on with her and maybe plays guitar. Fuckin' hell, I'm practically already lost at three and a half minutes in. So we get some villain exposition, and I've gotta give credit to the set design, and the monster suits. From a technical aspect it's quite good. I do think Underground Emperor Zeba is too busy, like SquareEnix ate Liberace and threw up kinda busy. But I like everything else, particularly Anagmas. Bravo to his suit actor, Takuzo Kamiyama. That thing could not have been easy to move in, yet it looks so good on screen. Then more things happen, which mostly just consists of the woman, Mio, warning Takeru about the villains and getting kidnapped.(Which is a pretty good effect) As the episode goes on I think it starts to become apparent why the story suffered in this episode. I think most of the budget and time went towards the effects and it cut into the writing. I'm not joking, I think they decided episode 1 needed to be grandiose in the effects department, which makes sense given this is the first sentai where each member has an individual large vehicle for the combining mech. But the writing suffered a lot because of this. It is a damn good sight I'll admit, the models and explosions are quite something, the super imposing is decent, the battles and camera work during them is great too, especially for the time with POV shots and the like, very ambitious. But good effects, fantastic as they may be, do not make up for a confusing and/or bare story any more than good sauce makes up for burnt food. When the heroes show up in their respective vehicles, I don't know who any of the people are. We spent less than a minute with them in the beginning, so I couldn't remember what the hell they looked like at this point or even their names. We Spent more time with them in the intro, and yes I know their names are displayed there(although they weren't subtitled, but that's G.U.I.S. fault) yet that's still no excuse for this kind of pacing. I can forgive a 30 minute show not explaining or getting everything out in that time, I don't need to find out about the zords, powers or their suits quite yet, and any sort of developments can and should be done over the course of the series. But maybe if they spent just a bit less time showing a race car going around a track, less on things blowing up(some of which is repeated), and not showing another flashback that was pointless(and will be shown again in full, next episode) then maybe we could have gotten some character interaction from the main cast beyond "You're on my foot" maybe actually recognize the characters behind the masks within the first episode, maybe get a good name drop for someone other than Takeru and Mio. Things do happen, but they're either fluff that should take up less time than they do, or is just confusing. Lay some ground before you start doing big battles, otherwise I'm not gonna be invested and all that hard work will be for nothing. Anyway, they defeat the Monsters of the week with the team cannon, and then meet up with their commander, Sugata. He tells them not to gloat over their victory and that they need to focus on unleashing their aura power. The final statement confuses everyone as to what he's talking about. 80s credit music kicks in. I wanna go back to Liveman. I gotta be honest. I didn't want to watch Maskman after this. This was frustrating to watch. Sure there were good parts and aspects. The action and music are good, but I can't focus to appreciate it. It all falls flat for me, and I have never been this put off by a toku. Usually my feelings are mixed at worst, which was the case with some of the early episodes of Zyuranger. Or it isn't bad persay so much as not my cup of tea, like what I saw of ToQger. This...this was bad for me. Really bad. Alright so onto the second episode. We pick up right where the last episode left off. Sugata demonstrates his aura powers to the team by floating. We learn that he has trained all five of them with the intention of making their aura powers stronger to fight Tube, which he is well aware of. Though the team seems to doubt their abilities. Sugata also addresses all five of them by name, thank bloody Daizyujin. We also get scenes of the team training, which means we see a lot appearances by our main cast. *gasp* We get some villain scenes of Zeba taking out his anger on everyone for their previous failure. Btw, I didn't mention this earlier, but Zeba is voiced by Seizō Katō, and as a result sounds awesome. Kinda funny though given his later role, guess he really hates Hikari no Senshi. Anyway, Anagmas comes along and says it would make more sense for a certain spy turned traitor to feel the Emperor's wrath. We cut to Mio in a cell, lamenting to Takeru, who can evidently hear her through a pendant she has given him, and vice versa. We get a quick flashback of the two in happier times on a beach, as Mio thanks him for the short but sweet time they spent together. She comes close to revealing her true identity, but is taken away before she can reveal it to him. We learn her real identity is Princess Ian and that one of the villains, Lord Igam, is her brother. She pleads with everyone that the people above are good, and Tube should be peaceful with them. Her pleas fall upon death ears and she is cast in a frozen state deep into the earth. Zeba decides it's time to strike again, this time focusing on the Masks. Some quick internal conflict strikes between the villains on if Igam can be trusted, given his sister's actions. It's decided the big brute of the team, Baraba, will be sent to deal with them. Meanwhile we see Takeru making a promise to rescue Mio no matter what. Halfway into this and we already have far more development and cohesiveness than the entire first episode. So four of the Maskmen go to confront Baraba, and are surprised to see the monster from last time be revived as a giant. Takeru gets called in to help deal with the creature, but he gets confronted by Igram. We get a short battle and our first henshin. But rather than stick around to fight, Takeru ends up giving Igram the slip since there are more pressing matters. He makes his way to the big carrier of the series, the...Turbo Ranger. Huh. In all seriousness though, this sequence is absolutely incredible. The stock footage of Niagara falls is a bit funny, but the model work and sound quality are too good for me to really pay attention to that cheesiness. Big thunderous rumbles of jets when the carries flies in, the way everything moves and launches out, the theme song in the background, the "Thoom!" sound of the vehicles combining. The production team put a lot of heart into this, and I'm not gonna shy away from saying this is one of the best scramble and combining scenes I've seen in Sentai, this is freaking gorgeous. The fight is short but sweet. We get get a gun, sword and shield shown off during the battle. There isn't a lot to go into with the fight, it's fine just short. Given the last episode, I'll gladly take that in turn for story. They get kicked around a bit, which is to be expected being their first big fight, but they pull through. Great Five finishes off the monster, but before the Masks can celebrate, a dark castle rises up, casting the area in darkness(more like day for night blue, but ya know) They try to attack the castle but are flung back. Credits! Goddamn this episode is so so much better than the first. In fact, I don't think you need to see the first episode. Just skip it, because you pretty much get everything you need to know in a first episode told here. You see the team commander, you see the team training, you get their names, if only once. You get the villains names and motives here too. You clearly see Takeru and Mio had a relationship in much better flashback sequence. We have some (if albeit little) character interaction, I know Aoi is the comedic relief from this episode at least. The effects are great and I was actually able to enjoy them here. No, really, what was the point of the first episode? Because the only thing it did that this one didn't is show that Takeru was an F-1 racer...which you see in the intro of every episode. There isn't a point to the first episode. This was fun to watch, I wasn't asking this and that every two minutes, I felt like I was actually seeing things of importance. This makes me want to watch more of Maskman, not ask "When does this episode end?" And yes, I have already watched episodes 3 and 4, which I'll post about...eventually. |
04-12-2015, 01:37 AM | #6147 |
Insert witty comment here
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Ripley, TN
Posts: 142
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Well I'm going to give Kakuranger a shot. Heard a lot of good things about this series.
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04-12-2015, 06:41 AM | #6148 |
Super Sentai Eien ni
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Germany
Posts: 2,862
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04-12-2015, 05:25 PM | #6149 |
Member
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Chilling with StarNinger, Kyoryu Gold, ToQ6, and Shinken Gold
Posts: 954
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Kakuranger is always a good decision.
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04-19-2015, 04:07 AM | #6150 |
Devil from the Depths
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Airspace B7R
Posts: 7,718
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Go-Busters vs. Gokaiger.
Probably one of the better, if not best, uses of the "Good guys pretend to be bad guys to get something from the bad guys" plot, due to the fact that they get the hell over that in the first 20 minutes of the movie. Probably one of the best feature I've seen, too. The stuntwork was excellent, both the on-foot and robo action. The first fight between the Go-Busters and Gokaigers was so brutal and heavy it was like a technicolor version of Deadliest Warrior, except without some ridiculous asspull outcome. And that end fight with all the Sentai Robos... Good god, how is it possible to feel nostalgia for something you never actually experienced (Daizyujin and RyuuseiOh notwithstanding). Would've been great if Gai got to use some Sixth Robos, but I'm happy with what we got. And finally, more Yuki Yamada. Because there will never, ever, EVER be enough Yuki Yamada at any given point in time or space.
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