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12-11-2020, 09:55 PM | #261 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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Something I've been thinking about today and I'm curious about your opinion on.
So, of course; a big thing about Kuuga is its message of non-violence, which it partly achieves through its framing of Kuuga itself being a terrible curse, especially for someone like Godai. Like, the power of terrible unstoppable violence being 'gifted' to someone who just wants to bring smiles to everyone is... it's obvious what they're going for there! And while it's not like it's driving him insane it's of course having a huge mental effect on the guy. ... yyyet as noted, to Kazari's constant misinterpretation; Godai also has a fixation on how cool Kuuga is and makes light of it while also being proud of it; his names being fun and simple like "purple Kuuga" while he also goes about printing Kuuga's symbol on everything. You got an opinion on this duality? Because it's hitting me like a ton of bricks right now
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12-11-2020, 10:53 PM | #262 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Quote:
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Minori confronts Yuusuke with the fact that the thought of what he could become scares her, and Yuusuke admits something important to remember. It scares him too. So how can he still so gung-ho about being Kuuga? Why can we have scenes where he seems so at peace with it, to the point of branding his own clothes? That seeming contradiction could've run the risk of hanging over the show in a bad way, but what this episode accomplishes is addressing it by reemphasizing what we already know. When Minori asks why he still does it if he's scared, Yuusuke answers with another question. Why is Minori a teacher? The answer, in both cases, is because they believe in the importance of making people smile. Minori does that in her way, and right now, being Kuuga is Yuusuke's way of doing it.
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And I don't want to say Yusuke sees himself as a superhero or someone that swoops in to save the day or even someone that's proud to fight, because I think that goes against the core tenets of his character. Rather, I think he's very optimistic and very driven. He's determined to turn this power into a positive in any way he can; he refuses even at Kuuga's worst points to see it as the ultimate darkness. He refuses to give in to the idea that it's inherently a terrible thing -- he's going to go against everything that's been said and make Kuuga a beacon of hope that shines through the darkness.
There's also a bit from Document of Kuuga where Arakawa, talking about these exact themes, sums Yuusuke's attitude up as perfectly as only the show's head writer could: "I don't believe he ever thinks things like 'why do I have to fight!?' He fights because he believes he should; it's just that he plain feels it's unpleasant, and that feeling is something he holds dear."
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12-12-2020, 07:56 AM | #263 |
Some guy. I'm alright.
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Michigan
Posts: 4,407
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It's funny that this comes up right after I finished rewatching SSSS.Gridman, because it has a line I also feels sums it up pretty well.
"It's something only I can do; Something I must do!" We all have things in life that, even though we might not like it, we have to do it in order to keep life, whether it be ours or others, going forward. And unfortunately for Yusuke, only he can properly deal with the Grongi, so he tries his best to make the most positives out of being Kuuga that he possibly can, despite his distaste for violence.
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12-25-2020, 05:55 AM | #264 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Hey again, and happy holidays! It's been most of a year since I "finished" up this thread, and while I gather a lot of that year has been about as much fun for people as getting thrown off a building by a grasshopper, poisoned by a mushroom, stabbed by a porcupine, or... well, most of what Yuusuke put up with on a weekly basis, I can only hope it wasn't without its brighter spots as well.
For me, one of the brightest was getting to share my love for Kuuga with everyone in here. It went over far better than I could have ever expected, and I'm still eternally grateful to everybody who felt my passionate ramblings were worth their time, whether you were eagerly contributing your own thoughts, or simply reading along as this little journey unfolded. And as I mentioned some months ago, it's not exactly done unfolding quite yet. I figure there's no better time than now to do a big blowout of all those odds and ends I haven't yet touched. A perfect way to send off the old year and greet the next with renewed vigor. Oh, and speaking of which, you'll never guess what's up first on the docket! New Year Special See, one of the reasons I deliberately put this off for a while was because I thought it'd only be fair to give this special the extra context it deserves. Far from simply another clip show, this beast of an event is THE clip show for Kuuga, bridging together reruns of episodes 17 and 31 with short new scenes that lead into the entirely new (well, "new") episode 46.5, "Hatsuyume". That title literally means "first dream", but is more specifically a term in Japanese culture referring to a person's first dream of the new year, which is by tradition thought to signify their luck for that year. More important than the title right now is that number. At the risk of stating the obvious, this special aired on the 2nd of January, 2001, a few days after episode 46, and a few before 47 would kick off the series' final trilogy. What this means is that, with episode 17 revisiting 1-16, 31 recounting 18-30, and now 46.5 retelling 32-46, the New Year Special summarizes the entirety of Kuuga's run in the year 2000. I know clip shows are inherently unexciting, but put like that, I honestly find this thing sort of awesome. I can easily imagine myself as some kid back in the day, when the home video releases had only barely started, being genuinely psyched to sit down and just bask in all the show's condensed glory for a few hours. I mean, this is so much Kuuga you guys! And all in one convenient package! Am I making this sound interesting at all? I wouldn't blame you if this still seems on a similar level of fun to filing taxes or something, but that's where the aforementioned extra context comes in for me. Trying to watch this during the middle of a binge-watch of the entire series in the span of one or two months, yeah, that's going to be a little rough, and this isn't something that left an impression on me the first time around because of that. But by giving it some distance, it became to me what it was always meant to be: a neat way to revisit a lot of old memories in a truncated span of time. Especially trying to put it fully back in the exact context of how it aired, it's actually a shockingly thorough way to catch yourself up on Kuuga before it all ends in a month. Breaking it down, you've got good old "Preparation" kicking things off, which, as I mentioned back when I covered it, does a fantastic job quickly establishing the premise and world of the series in a mostly no-frills manner. I called it a "video encyclopedia" before, and I can't think of any better way to put it. It probably won't make your heart pound, but it's dang good at being informative. Following that is "Retaliation", which I was a tiny bit harder on, but the informative bits are still informative, and, removed from the expectation of meaningfully advancing an overarching plot, the proper new scenes in it are all good glimpses into each of the show's main three corners of Yuusuke, the police, and the Grongi. One brand new version of the ending sequence later, and we're finally at 46.5 proper, which was written by the always enigmatic Kiyoshi Takenaka like 31, and as a fun piece of trivia here, what little new material there is was directed by Kouichi Kotou, the director for Kuuga's opening and ending sequences. He was a little tricky for me to find information on too, but at least where Kamen Rider is concerned, I can tell you he also directed Blade's second opening, as well as Hibiki's first OP/ED combo. He also seems to occasionally be credited as Kouichi Kotou IV for reasons I'm not clear on (I figure if it was the obvious one, it'd be consistent?), but I'm sure there's a interesting story behind that somewhere out there. Focusing back on Kuuga, 46.5 has a unique style compared to the other two episodes, being longer in length, and focusing on essentially being true digest versions of the arcs that had happened since 31. The new scenes bridging the recap sections are kept brief, the structure is totally linear, and narration is used sparingly, only when it helps make transitions between clips smoother. Despite this arguably meaning it has even less effort put into the production, I think there's something to be said for how, unlike the other two clip shows, it has room to give you more than simply the cold facts of the events of the series. Scenes like Yuusuke witnessing a news report on Jaraji's victims in 35 and his subsequent vicious beating of him in the climax are in here largely uninterrupted and uncut, which is good, because material this emotionally impactful speaks for itself. Again, if I had only watched those episodes last week, it's like "who cares?", but I hadn't, and it was cool being reminded that the episodes in the last third of Kuuga are all so utterly fantastic. Despite naturally leaning into a heavier atmosphere as it progresses, things wrap up in a lighthearted fashion, with Yuusuke's series of increasingly odd encounters with some of the show's side characters culminating in no less than the actors for Garima, Gooma, Biran, Zain, and Garume showing up at Pole Pole to get some of Yuusuke's special curry. I uh, trust you all still remember these names. Now, five Grongi showing up for a bite would ordinarily be bad news, most of all when one of them is a piranha, but this is just a silly scene to leave off on, so they honestly are just enthusiastic about getting their curry. Not that it matters when Yuusuke wakes up in the next scene, and suddenly the meaning of the title becomes clear. Whether this means good luck or bad luck for Yuusuke, I have no clue, but I'm entirely sure that it's a cute way to end a special I'm honestly shocked I managed to go on about this long. I almost feel like I should apologize, much like the jokers who decided to make the sponsor screens of this thing feature Amazing Mighty when there still wasn't any merch of it in sight. It's a very Kuuga move to have the segment of the show dedicated to reminding viewers of its commercial nature feature just about the only thing from it that had yet to be commercialized. You can really tell this was a series on top of the world at that point, and that's probably how an oddball special like this happened in the first place. It's as much a celebration of the show's success as it is the holiday. Who wouldn't want to ring in the new year with the hottest hero on Japanese televisions, right? Heck, I had so much fun with this, I wouldn't mind even more low-budget recapping! And good thing, too... Super Secret Video This sure is more low-budget recapping alright! Well, that's not entirely fair. It's about 70% recapping, and 30% a token fight scene. The title hadn't exactly been settled yet, but this is the obligatory Hyper Battle Video distributed by major Japanese kids' magazine Televi-Kun each year. Although it was less obligatory when it came out, seeing as it's the very first of its kind, making this yet another Rider tradition that got its start with Kuuga. That start was far from ambitious, however. It's so light on story that Kiyoshi Takenaka is credited with "composition" instead of writing, which can't help but sound to me like a subtle insult. This video wasn't written, it was assembled. And on the subject of staff trivia (my favorite part of talking about clip shows, apparently!), the director is Nobuhiro Suzumura, who does a solid job on the big fight, while the music was handled by Kazunori Miyake, who would go on to do Blade's BGM. It's an interesting mix where even though the music patterns itself after Sahashi's work on the series proper, you can hear those little bits of Blade's style poking through at points. Summarizing the plot will take no time at all: Yuusuke looks through Pops' scrapbook about Unidentified Lifeform #4 and reminisces about his adventures, then gets a phone call and rides off to a warehouse to fight a new Grongi. The clip show aspect is very much focused on what toys were available in stores at the time, and thus there isn't much to say about it. The fight, on the other hand, is pretty cool, for what it is. Go-Jiino-Da is a boar-themed Grongi exclusive to this video, which was naturally a huge selling point. I've heard his suit did later get modified into Baberu's, but while they have similar builds, I don't actually see a lot of obvious identical details, so it must've been a thorough job if that's the case. Ultimately, though, Jiino is just a big angry guy who fights Kuuga and dies, and that's about all to be said about him. Remember, there's no writer. It's up to the way the fight is shot to make it fun, and it does that adequately with some ominous dramatic lighting and slick camera movements. It's clear Suzumura had the talent to tackle the bigger projects he'd eventually be given. Jiino has the somewhat dubious honor of being the only one of the high-ranking Go to get taken out by a basic Mighty Kick, and afterwards, things wrap up by having Kuuga stand up to reveal Rising Mighty Form, which this whole video essentially exists to promote, being released somewhere around when it was the hot new thing in the series. It's maybe not the best ad, given it's just one shot of it standing in more dramatic lighting? It's downright hilarious if you take it entirely literally, too, and assume Yuusuke decided to break out the golden power after defeating the monster for absolutely no reason whatsoever, rather than taking it as part of the music video of old clips set to the theme song that closes the whole thing out. Overall, it's an amusing glimpse into what Kuuga would look like as a much more shallow toku show, but on the same token, it doesn't exactly capture what makes Kuuga special, you know? But if we wanna talk about special... Special Edition Now things are really coming full circle. The Special Edition of Kuuga was essentially a director's cut style re-edited compilation of the first two episodes of the show, released well into Agito's run, while Kuuga was still in the process of coming out on VHS and DVD. I say it's in the style of a director's cut because the amount of work that went into it was more elaborate than simply inserting new and extended scenes. One of the absolute most interesting things about it to me is that it's the singular piece of Kuuga media to be in HD. I'm far from the best person to explain all the technical details here, but Kuuga was actually filmed entirely on a then state-of-the-art, prototype HD digital camera, only to be broadcast exclusively in SD, what with it being the year 2000 and everything. The problem here is that Kuuga was filmed in HD, and only filmed. All the post-production work on the raw footage was done in SD too, which means that unfortunately, Toei can't release a high resolution version of the entire show without doing all that work again. This sort of thing is far from uncommon for shows from around this time. (The process of remastering old TV shows is a topic worth looking into from sources more informed than me.) As such, even the Blu-ray releases of Kuuga are merely upscaled from the original SD footage, which people passionate about this topic will tell you is "not ideal", if they're feeling diplomatic. Thanks to the Special Edition deciding to touch up the effects, however, we do at least have this one glorious glimpse into what a slightly crisper Kuuga would look like, and even as someone who doesn't get too hung up on video quality (this paragraph doesn't even mention hard numbers), the difference between before and after is noticeable. For that novelty alone, I'm glad this exists. The bulk of the real changes, on the other hand, I feel somewhat ambivalent towards. The few new scenes and many extended cuts of existing ones serve mostly to make me appreciate how good the editing for the original episodes actually was. Like many director's cuts, it's insubstantial fluff, wisely removed from the final product, put back in for the sake of hardcore fans looking for that little bit more. It's not meant to improve the cut you saw on TV, because that already was the improved version. Additional dialogue mostly elaborates on unimportant details, such as Sakurako informing us that Yuusuke actually ate a huge steak prior to passing out in that diner at the start of episode 2. The most interesting new bit is definitely the revelation that Ichijou took the rifle he uses in the church without permission, which I'll have more to say about in a while. The different edit naturally means the music is changed around, and while there's nothing wrong with the way the tracks are switched up, I'm definitely partial to the TV version's choices. The ending of episode 1 in particular loses something without that triumphant score, in my opinion. There are also quite a lot of retroactive changes that I think are serving a few different purposes. The fuzzy static overlay effect from the show's first scene is gone entirely, for instance, perhaps losing some of the mysterious vibe, but gaining the ability to emphasize that sweet new resolution, which is certainly an understandable call to make. All around, it's evident the goal here was to be a supplement, and not a replacement. A lot of the Grongi dialogue is changed up, for instance, which wouldn't even be noticed by most viewers, and the replaced dialogue rarely offers any interesting revelations. It's stuff like Gumun going from observing Growing Form's small horns on TV to noticing its white coloration here. Gumun also has a new voice actor for whatever reason, as does Daguva for a very particular one. Since this was made after the show ended, his eventual human form's actor Kenji Urai dubs over the original growly monster voice from the premiere. This makes sense, but it's more than a bit weird hearing those youthful tones coming out of Daguva's initial hairy caveman form. It doesn't really succeed at making the series more cohesive, but I also don't think that was the mission here. Again, it's all about the novelty factor, and while I won't be going over every last change in detail, it is a lot of fun to spot the differences and see how the versions compare. More than any of that, though, I think it's just a lot of fun to watch Kuuga again. It's funny, because I made this whole thread, have watched the entire series twice, have probably seen these first two episodes in whole at least a half-dozen times between both versions, and yet, the whole time I was watching the Special Edition again to write about it here, I was noticing all these details I never thought about before. All these extra bits of cohesion to the story that go towards proving how thoroughly Kuuga was thought out. And even beyond that, I look back at the post I did about these episodes, and I'm struck by how much more I could've talked about. So you know what? Let's do that right now! Take the iconic transformation into Mighty Form, for instance. There are so many more layers going on there than I originally covered. Some of that was out of a concern for pacing, but some of it was downright neglectful of me. Like, did I seriously go this entire thread without once mentioning what a bold stylistic choice it was at the time to not use stock footage for Kuuga's transformations? I guess I must've been taking it for granted now that it's standard procedure for Rider, but as laughable as that CG probably looks to modern eyes, I don't think there was a lot of, if any, precedent for making a hero tokusatsu that way in 2000. On top of being easy on the budget, stock footage is legitimately part of the identity of the genre. It's something the viewer wants to see each week, but Kuuga, as was its way, showed everyone a fresh new approach, and that's why the early episodes in particular put so much effort into the way the transformations were integrated into the scene, with the armor forming bit by bit. There are also cool bits of trivia like how the pose was the first in Rider history to deliberately match up with how the DX toy functioned, hence why Yuusuke presses on the side of the belt where the toy's switch is. There's also one thing about the pose I noticed this time that I'm shocked I never picked up on before. Kuuga was all about realism, right? But then Yuusuke still feels the need to do a dramatic pose when he transforms. Where did he even learn that from? I always figured it was just a concession to toku tradition, but the show does give a very clear justification for this: Yuusuke sees the original Kuuga doing that exact pose to transform in the visions the belt shows him. I don't think I ever registered the significance of that before. It's actually less clear in the Special Edition, too, with that footage being placed before Yuusuke's first transformation. On TV, it happens in episode 2, directly after Ichijou tells him not to get involved if he isn't serious, and directly before Yuusuke tells Sakurako he thinks Kuuga is supposed to be red. Hey, and speaking of the name Kuuga, I always thought it was kind of goofy Yuusuke picks that one word out from Gooma's dialogue to use as his name, too. What if that was some horrible insult or like, a preposition or something? But no, sure enough, there's a clear, plausible explanation presented, which is that the video of Daguva waking up Yuusuke and Sakurako are shown by Ichijou prominently featured him holding the belt in the air and saying "Kuuga", so Yuusuke probably put two and two together after hearing it again that the word relates to the belt and the person using it. It's airtight, man, and I feel like there's all these things staring me in the face with this show that pass me by. That sci-fi earpiece I called out from Yuusuke's transformation in episode 27? Visible as early as the first episode. That other guy who worked on constructing all the Linto/Grongi culture for the series along with Murayama? None other than Shinji Ooishi, who Takatera would go on to have handle the script writing on Hibiki when he was producing that show later down the line. It boggles my mind how much I can think I know about Kuuga and yet never stop finding out more. And it doesn't just end with the trivia. Take that bit with Ichijou "borrowing" the rifle I mentioned up above, for instance. Totally recontextualized Ichijou's behavior in that second episode for me. It might seem like his character hadn't settled in yet with how aggressive he can be in places, but really, I think it's all as in-character as it gets for him. He bends the rules in episodes after this, he tells people his injuries are nothing serious when they most definitely are, he even continues not wanting Yuusuke to be involved with the fighting. He's just more cranky about all of it here because he's struggling to process the idea there could ever be a threat to the people the police can't handle. So if anything, he's probably more frustrated with himself than Yuusuke. Of course he'd drive right out to that church with the biggest gun he can get his hands on, because he's getting desperate to prove Yuusuke's help isn't necessary, a stance we see him grow out of in the following episodes. It's one of my favorite things in a story, which is when it's simple, clean, and straightforward on the surface, but has more and more substance the more you dig into it. And the reason that's one of my favorite things is because it means the story only gets better the more times you go back through it. Because you'll pick up on those extra bits of significance. The weight behind each action, or all the layers a single moment can have. A show like Kuuga is endlessly fun to watch and discuss, and I think it's because that's the case that you can be reading this right now. And lucky for me, I even have one last episode to talk about... EPISODE 50 Just when it seemed like the fighting was over, Ichijou and Yuusuke have both been called back into action after receiving scripts for a fiftieth episode of Kamen Rider Kuuga. Only one problem: the scripts are almost totally blank, because Arakawa is running behind schedule... again. Yuusuke remarks on how inconvenient that is for them, and as he does so, Arakawa's writing credit fades out, only to be replaced by the word "sorry". You might think this is only aimed at our heroes, but I know better; I know that this was Arakawa's way of apologizing to the audience, for having written what may well be the single most esoteric Rider production of all time. It's hard to even talk about this one, because going into any detail will invariably involve trying to decode all the in-jokes it was loaded up with. I don't even feel comfortable trying to explain the meaning(s) of the title, hence it's absence up above. Episode 50 of Kuuga was a product of pure unbridled passion, put together by the crew on their spare time, simply because they loved working on the show that much. It feels like some dumb amateur film somebody made for their own amusement without any consideration to the idea that there would ever be an audience watching it. Actually, considering the "on their spare time" part meaning nobody got paid for this (I think, anyway), that description might just be 100% accurate. Going back to this knowing enough about Kuuga to comprehend a decent chunk of it was absurdly delightful. I'll go ahead and describe an easy example to give everyone an idea what I'm talking about. The joke leading into the truncated opening is that the camera starts dramatically spinning around Yuusuke and Ichijou so closely it's practically up their noses, and then once the opening ends, it's still the exact same shot, before abruptly transitioning to one from an extreme distance that makes the duo barely visible, confirming Ichijou's suspicions about who's responsible for this overly intense and unorthodox cinematography. An instant later, "Director: Hidenori Ishida" gently fades onto the screen. Anyone who's followed along with this thread should have the context to understand why that's hilarious, and the exaggerated parodies of all the directors who worked on the show that make up the bulk of the runtime are similarly on-point. It's great stuff, and even though I had to go looking up explanations for most of the jokes not related to directing, the whole thing is filled with this kind of self-deprecating meta-humor. I'm honestly in awe of how much was packed into a scant nine minutes. There's a brief tease at the end for the Kuuga movie that was never meant to be, which is probably how the staff managed to justify releasing this for public consumption, but it's so obvious that's not why this exists. Episode 50 exists to be a pure celebration of a job well done, and it really feels like a great sendoff for the series in a weird way. At the very least, it's a great to way to send off this thread, because working my way back here and finding myself able to laugh along at so many of the gags in a way I never would've been able to years ago, it put into focus for me how glad I was to be doing all of this in the first place. How, even if it was just a little, I'd grown in the process. If I said anything about Kuuga that sounded smart or informed or whatever else, I don't think I could've said it before making that decision to dig so deep into the show, not only watching it again, but writing about it and looking a bit into the production history and all these other things. Giving people a greater appreciation and understanding of everything the show did was one of my hopes, but I didn't realize at first that I'd get to be part of that myself. This may be more or less the end of the thread, but at this point, I don't think I'll ever truly be done talking about Kuuga. It's a genuinely exceptional series unlike any other, and when I think of all the great memories it's still going to be making not just for me, but for all the other fans who will either discover or rediscover it in the future? I have to say, it puts a smile on my face.
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Last edited by Fish Sandwich; 04-06-2023 at 06:37 PM.. |
12-25-2020, 06:53 AM | #265 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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I don't have anything to say about the episodes itself; mostly because the only one I've seen is a hazy recollection of the clip show where I actually just skipped through every clip (which. I NEVER do, actually; why did I do that?), and it took me a few minutes to get that the people at the store were supposed to be the grongi. So I'll just say this -- waking up to see you rambling on about Kuuga again in an interesting meaningful way, with all the love you put into each word the way the show does with each scene; it's a real treat for Christmas Morning. Happy Kuuga
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12-25-2020, 10:38 AM | #266 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Yeah, boy, what a delightful Christmas morning treat! I love getting to read such thoughtful and exhaustive coverage of Kuuga. (Especially Episode 50! I really really really didn't know what was going on in that one, and my previous takeaway was At Least They Had Fun Making It.) I don't see any good reason, based on that look at Special Edition, why this thread can't just segue into Fish Sandwich rerewatches Kamen Rider Kuuga in 2021.
As always, thank you for setting the gold(en power) standard for Kamen Rider discourse on these boards. Merry Christmas!
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12-25-2020, 11:00 AM | #267 |
Some guy. I'm alright.
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Michigan
Posts: 4,407
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I can't really think of anything to add that you haven't covered already, so I'll just go with something superfluous like I usually do:
Should Shout Factory ever release a DVD/Blu-Ray set of this show, I can only hope that all of this bonus stuff is included. I feel they're all a really important aspect of the show and it'd be a shame to go without them. Merry Ridermas!
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12-25-2020, 02:00 PM | #268 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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Quote:
I can't really think of anything to add that you haven't covered already, so I'll just go with something superfluous like I usually do:
Should Shout Factory ever release a DVD/Blu-Ray set of this show, I can only hope that all of this bonus stuff is included. I feel they're all a really important aspect of the show and it'd be a shame to go without them. Merry Ridermas!
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12-25-2020, 02:28 PM | #269 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
It has been something that's been weighing on my mind when it comes to other series: how does licensing for those kinds of little things work? I imagine it'd be a simple and typical enough deal to license the series itself and any associated big movies (well, not 'easy', but you know) but for instance... I feel like any release of 555 would be criminally incomplete without the HBV, but how does the licensing and legal rights to that work? Do Toei even still OWN the original reels and footage of a DVD-exclusive half-clip show for a show from 17 years ago? And then of course, you've got this stuff which is even more minor. How do director's cuts figure into all this? Heck, how would OOO's final episode director's cut?
The bigger problem with older content is always, and will always be, music clearances. If you used any music that you don't fully own, get ready to scrub that content or pay through the nose. (That said: not a lawyer! The rights situations for a Japanese studio and a Japanese magazine could be way more convoluted!)
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12-26-2020, 09:21 AM | #270 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Quote:
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I'd assume that any work produced by Toei, featuring characters they retain the ownership of, would've long since reverted back to their control. Something like a HBV, that's likely under a limited window of exclusivity for Televi-Kun. I doubt there'd be a demand by the company that's promoting/sponsoring it to have that window be more than a few years, especially if they don't have a need to reissue it.
(Oh, and as a quick side-note aimed specifically at Die: TV-Nihon actually just subbed the Agito HBV recently using a raw from the Blu-ray... even though I swear they already subbed it and that's how I watched it back in the day? But whatever, the point is Die can bring back one of his threads from the dead for a bit too now if he feels like it. It's a great HBV, actually! Written by Kobayashi and everything!)
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