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10-25-2016, 12:15 AM | #13821 |
Oldtaku
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Atlanta, Ga / Portland, Me
Posts: 855
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That's right, children - when Mom says jump you -WAIT!! I DIDN'T MEAN LITERALLY!
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10-25-2016, 08:41 AM | #13822 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,403
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10-26-2016, 02:02 AM | #13823 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 2,934
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Black episode 26.
This episode felt like a breath of fresh air. I'm not gonna mince words, I've honestly grown to find Black kinda boring. I don't find Kotaro to be a very compelling protagonist, and while it is the most modern feeling of the Showa shows I've seen, in practice that mostly means its plots of the week are more...grounded, I guess? It's not quite at the serialized level of the Heisei series, but (and I've started to notice this especially watching more X) they feel like they lack a lot of the insanity that makes the Showa series as endearing and fun as it can be. Not all of them, not all of the time (stuff like the mom-kidnapping episodes, among others, are bizarre enough) but it just doesn't feel as entertaining to me. This though? Man. "Buffalo monster possesses girl to wreck stuff" is at just the right level of batshit. Pretty great episode. Slightly off topic, but...I gotta say, I am pretty surprised that, in addition to more grounded, Black feels so...sanitized. There is so little death in this show, it's pretty shocking. Some people do die, don't get me wrong, but the numbers are staggeringly low. In every other Showa series (maybe, least the ones I've seen a significant amount of) they have basically no reservations about killing off any random people who happen to be around during cold opens, or kaijin introductory scenes and things like that. Quite the opposite, wanton murder is how those things tended to go. A lot of times in Black, however, people who would have been dead ten times over in any other show get off with mere injuries. In particular, I can't get over this one guy that I think one of the mutants threw off a mountain or something, and he still survived. Or that one about Omanyte the Mutant and his psychic powers. "Drunken guy stumbles into the monster and gets killed to death" is a classic way to start an episode in the Showa era. Dating back to the very first series. But in that episode, the drunken guy gets away! It's crazy. The low mortality rate is probably the most surprising thing about Black so far, and the thing that stands out as the most different from other Showa shows I've seen. I can't tell if my opinion on this is positive or negative though. On the one hand, it makes Gorgom appear less threatening and more ineffective than its predecessors, and often the crazy deaths contributed to the entertainingly weird feeling of many Showa shows. On the other, it always was hard to take the happy endings at face value when basically every monster still got away with a surprising amount of killing before being stopped. I don't know, it's complicated. |
10-26-2016, 08:24 AM | #13824 |
Oldtaku
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Atlanta, Ga / Portland, Me
Posts: 855
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Quote:
Okay, well, see - the 80's were a time when society got really concerned with the content on television and what it was doing to people's psyches since we were watching A LOT of it. In America, a common phrase was "TV Rots Your Brain". Consequently, "Concerned Mothers (aka Bored Moms)" started monitoring what their kids were watching and - DID. NOT. APPROVE. This happened in Japan as well; if you watch 70's kid's shows vs 80's kid shows vs 90's kid's shows - the mid-late 80's shows are definitely "holding back" - though, compared to the garbage American kids had, it's still a good cut above in the excitement department. American TV was all around pretty awful in the 80's, that's why hipsters love it!
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10-26-2016, 08:38 AM | #13825 |
Avi by @CSarracenian
Join Date: Jul 2016
Posts: 4,186
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So I realized I accidentally skipped like 6 Kuuga episodes. Currently at 33 playing catch up to 38
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10-26-2016, 11:37 AM | #13826 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 1,471
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I started Super Hero Time 2006 recently, so Boukenger/Kabuto.
I'm up to episode 9, and I'm impressed by how much better-constructed Kabuto is than some later Heisei series. Tonally, I think it's the closest series I've seen to what I'd hoped Kamen Rider would be before I actually started watching the shows. The Worms are creepy and interesting. I didn't realize how much I'd appreciate the absence of shadowy villains saying ominous things to one another until now. There are no plotting master villains, yet, so the Worms get to be mysterious. The show also isn't as weighed down by toys as more recent series. Cast Off is obviously reflected in the retail toy line, and I'm sure there were roleplay toys, but they look less like toys than, say, Shift Cars or Lock Seeds. It's easier to sink into the fantasy of this series and watch the show as a story rather than a toy commercial. Oh, my gosh! A chatty Driver that's not obnoxious. It makes me regret the relatively singsong voices of more recent drivers. Now that I'm on 9, I'm starting to suspect how Zecters work. (I don't yet know how to do the spoiler-tag thing, so I'm being vague.) I love that Tendou isn't necessarily the main character. I've somehow managed to avoid many spoilers for this series, so the first secondary Rider to appear was... not who I'd expected. I love being surprised. I'm enjoying Ex-Aid and Zyuohger, but Super Hero Time 2006 is tremendously more aesthetically pleasing to me. Weapons look less like toys, designs could aim for cool without feeling the need to also be wacky. Both shows feel like they're aiming for older audiences than Super Hero Time 2016. My enjoyment level so far is hitting Gekiranger/Den-O and Kyoryuger/Gaim heights. On to episodes 10...! |
10-26-2016, 11:43 AM | #13827 |
Stronger Than You
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: nyet
Posts: 25,326
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Spoiler tags are placed by [spoiler] text [/ spoiler] (No space between the /spoiler when you actually want to place a tag)
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10-26-2016, 03:07 PM | #13828 |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Englewood CO
Posts: 10,893
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Reviewed Blade. Let's see if Toei decides to give me a strike for this review too:
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10-26-2016, 03:50 PM | #13829 |
Stronger Than You
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: nyet
Posts: 25,326
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This may be the first occasion for someone to call Blade's special effects "Excellent"
I love Blade, easily my number 1 Kamen Rider series and one of the few that I would never turn down rewatching, but it's special effects are rather lacking. While the cinematography and action are done well, the effects that accompany them feel very weak, even considering it's time. The effects on things like Mach and Tornado are just straight bad, while Garren's burning drop needs a lot of touching up (Though that one might just have been the TV rip footage I'm used to seeing). Personally, I felt KR ramped up the special effects around Kabuto, where energy attacks were more than just blue/green colored blobs, speed effects were done far more effectively, and CG enhancements were a lot less conspicuous.
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10-26-2016, 03:53 PM | #13830 |
Avi by @CSarracenian
Join Date: Jul 2016
Posts: 4,186
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Blade's special effects? I ALWAYS cringed when Chalice used Tornado
Speaking of special effects, Amazing Mighty Kick is surprisingly good considering it's Kuuga SFX
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