I’m currently watching the first episode of Jiban and I’m already really liking what I’m seeing so far.

I also watched few more episodes of Gavan.

I am now slowly but surely getting back to watching Gavan. I'm actually considering watching some more shows of the Metal Heroes franchise among my Toku viewings during the new year especially Spielban, Jiban, and the B-Fighter duology and maybe another rewatch of Metalder just because I can.

Spielban has all the feels. The late Ichiro Mizuki is part of the cast.

I watched "Eight Rangers" in 2012 with members of the Japanese boy band Kanjani Eight. Quite an interesting parody of tokusatsu and superheroes in general. Elements of the future (the action takes place in 2035) are saturated with satire and at the same time quite realistic. Someday something like this may come true, albeit not in such an absurd form. There is also a very strong contrast between overtly parodic superheroes with incredible powers and real-life issues like corrupt police. In general, I can advise those who haven’t watched it: it’s quite funny and interesting, albeit drawn out.
https://tokuzilla.net/wp-content/upl...rangers-01.jpg

I watched Gappa today. I have pretty mixed feelings on it overall. It has some bits that looked really cool and I kind of like the general premise of the movie being about a bunch of overly ambitious humans who refuse to take responsibility for a kaiju attack of their own making is fairly unique (a little reminiscent of the original Mothra). That being said, holy moly, this movie has some of the worst human drama in a kaiji flick I've seen. Generally very awkwardly written and with a particularly heavy dose of tactlessly written scenes involving the Obelisk islanders and female characters, even considering it's a 60s movie. Still, kind of an interesting watch considering it's the only major kaiju movie from Nikkatsu.

Watched the Christmas movie Kabutack. Quite an interesting action with very intense fights, which I basically did not expect from such a childish series. When the Earth Dragon stepped on Kabutack's shell and it crunched, I even became a little scared. Another thing is that even a child can neutralize local troopers in a couple of blows, which slightly reduces the anxiety graph. Also now I understand where Build and Saber got their final "tower assaults" from. The crossover element is, of course, very far-fetched and I'd rather see the generals dealt with by other characters on the show rather than the guest stars, but seeing the characters of three related shows together was cool (especially for the 90s, which were not (especially for the 90s, which were not so generous with crossovers). Kabutaсk also looked quite organically next to his older comrades. All in all, a good holiday movie for a tokusatsu fan.
https://tokuzilla.net/wp-content/upl...-battle-01.jpg
I also started watching "Blue Blazes", a comedic autobiography by mangaka Kazuhiko Shimamoto. Many people who later became real celebrities in manga and anime appear in this show, including Hideaki Anno as the protagonist's ever-winning rival. A lot of interesting things for fans of retro tokusatsu and anime, and fans of modern works will be informative to find out how the people who created their favorite works started and what inspired them. But I’ll make a reservation right away that the tone of the story is as frivolous as possible and the actors overact even by Japanese standards, which is not suitable for everyone.
https://www.themoviedb.org/t/p/w533_...y37Gu5RZES.jpg
https://berekescrubs.files.wordpress...age.jpg?w=1024

I watched Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds, a movie which if you know anything about it you probably know it does not actually contain dinosaurs or monster birds. Biology never was the strong suit of 70s toku... Neither was science in general. What you might not know about this movie is that it is barely a kaiju film too! I definitely wished there was more action, but there was something about the atmosphere of this movie I liked, so I got a kick out of it. Going to have its smooth soundtrack in my head for a while.

As a kid, I thought the best part of this movie was the battle between the pleiosaurus and the pterodactyl. But after revisiting it recently, I was able to appreciate just how creepy the lakeside murder scene was. This movie is credited for making kaiju scary again.

Speaking of Spielban, I have finally decided to start watching the series.

I watched the 2000 film "Juvenal". This is a story about how 4 Japanese children find a cute little robot Tetra from the future and, with his help, save the Earth from aliens. What distinguishes this film from the category of other children's films about fantastic pets is that there are a minimum of funny moments with a robot, while a lot of time is devoted to scientific justification and solving pressing problems. So in a way it's more of an adult sci-fi that's made into a children's movie by the age of the main characters and the fact that by some miracle everyone survives. The robot is a toy, but the aliens and their ships are computer graphics. It is also the second Japanese film where aliens invade Earth for water.Apparently, this explains their appearance in resource-poor Japan. Also, judging by the behind-the-scenes footage during the credits, many scenes ended up not making it into the film. I don't know if there is a director's cut somewhere or if they were just removed because they didn't affect the plot. In general, nothing overly impressive, but it was interesting to watch.
https://tokuzilla.net/wp-content/upl...uvenile-01.jpg

I'm now up to episode 6 of Spielban. It took a little bit to find its footing but I am pretty invested with this series so far.

What are considered the best subs for OG Garo?

If you can't track down the blu-rays, your best bet is probably the GomenRider version. They're just a scrub of TV-Nihon, but the video quality at least should be better. I don't think Over-Time ever went back to do the original series.

Noted. Thanks!

No problem. Honestly not sure I'd even recommend the blu-rays. High definition does not play well with Garo's 2005-era CGI.

I'm now up to episode 15 of Spielban and I'm really liking the series so far and Machiko Soga did a great job as Pandora.

Agree. Further it will be even more interesting.

I'm now up to episode 30 of Spielban and I should be able to finish that series in the near future. While I am planning to watch Jiban next, Metal Heroes-wise, I'm honestly tempted to watch Shaider afterwards instead just so I can officially say I have seen all three shows that were used as source material for VR Troopers like I have with two of the three 90's Kamen Rider movies (ZO and J respectively) plus Black RX since they were the source material for Saban's Masked Rider.

Not exactly tokusatsu, but I think many will be interested. The fact is that the first film about giant (more precisely, just large) robots was shot in the Soviet Union in 1935. It's called "The Death of a Sensation" or "Jimm Ripple's Robot". Poster:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1PhhcdykZKw/hqdefault.jpg
But for a better understanding, it is better to look at the excerpt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IdLBGM1pa0

I have just finished Spielban and it is another Toku series I can officially cross off on my own watch list. While Metalder still remains my overall favorite Metal Heroes series so far, Spielban, at least for now, is a pretty close second.

But if I remember right, the ending makes absolutely no sense!

Perhaps, but very kind and optimistic. I mean, this show believes that in the future our planet will become a utopia. Already in the 80s it was too naive.

I watched the movie "Slaveman" 2017. This is a variation on the "dark" tokusatsu theme, like GARO and the rethinking of the Showa riders (I wonder if we can wait for Sentai?). More precisely, this film only pretends to be such, in fact being a reflection on the topic of creativity and human life. But no tedious moralizing, everything is very dynamic and bloody. The staging ... raises questions. On the one hand, the shots are beautiful, the staging of the fights is gorgeous, the actors also look quite professional. On the other hand: a minimum of staff forces the actors to play several roles (and, it seems to me, sometimes even play the role of an operator), special effects are terrible even by the standards of genres and the entire space is bounded by one building and adjacent street. Almost the entire budget was spent on the MC costume, so the monsters were given one rusty mask for all. Judging by such characteristics, as well as the theme, this is a fan project from people working in the field of tokusatsu, but who did not find sponsors. But in this form, it is quite watchable.
I won't talk about the plot so as not to spoil the twist. Who cares, he will see for himself.
https://tokuzilla.net/wp-content/upl...lavemen-01.jpg

If you guys want to check out this cool indie toku movie with subs here you go.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GcibuYdB31A

I watched Ork!

For a short indie film that was primarily filmed on an iPhone, I was pleasantly surprised at just how well made it was!

The cinematography was great, the atmosphere was on point, and action scenes were well choreographed, and the effects were surprisingly solid. I had a fun time watching it even despite the machine translated subs!

I watched Ork as well.

I feel like the biggest twist in that short film somehow is that the suits are actually frog themed. Like, I assumed general demon theme but nope, they're frogs!

I'll manage a 36 on Aba before I get Deka in the mail
Monday.

As for other Toku I plan to wait for English subs to see
them.

I'm not sure what ones the Toku World feed on You
Tube has subbed.

Well, for starters, Gavan and Juspion are available to get on Blu-Ray from Discotek Media.

Thanks. Next month I'll get a Blu Ray player.

I had wanted to get what I could on DVD first.

Jet Man and Deka were the last Ranger sets
out I was missing.

I recently watched through all of Fujiyama Ichiban.

Never heard of it? It's an older indie toku show produced and directed by Michi Yamato, a member of the Power Rangers stunt team during the Neo-Saban days.

And for what it is, well, I dunno if I'd say it's good, but it is certainly entertaining. It's an hour long, very low budget affair with very cheesey acting and an incredibly paperthin plot. But at the same time, that's part of what makes it fun.

Like, if you're in for an ironic watch, I sat through it with two friends of mine, and we had a fun time riffing it while watching. But that aspect aside, there are some legit good things here: Most notably the suit design and the fight choreography. And the trio of bumbling bad guys are legit funny alot of the time.

If you're at all interested, give it a go. I dunno if I can really give it a conventional rating due to its very nature, so I guess the best way I can sum it all up is that it's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RjYzuXRlDo

Cool. I saw it too. The show is very low-budget, but it looks easy and does not irritate. Although a slightly more intricate scenario would not hurt them.

I recently watched "Taketori Monogatari" or "Princess from the Moon" - Toho's version of the 1987 Kaguya Hime story:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...987_poster.jpg
The film is made in the style: "What if this would actually happen?" Kaguya is clearly an alien here and all frankly fabulous elements are replaced with sci-fi ones. Actually, in childhood, the silent main character with bright blue eyes is more like a character of a horror than a future fairy-tale beauty:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...WZFAE&usqp=CAU
And they tried to give depth to other characters, while not changing their role in the original legend. For example, the old man Taketori, played by Toshiro Mifune, is a kind loving father, but also a very greedy and conceited person, sometimes cruel even towards his family. But, despite this, the fabulous atmosphere is still felt because of the beautiful costumes and sublime speeches. And even if the special effects are outdated, and the decision to make the aliens glowing puppets in spacesuits and kimonos was controversial even for the late 80s, it's still a beautiful and high-quality movie. You can watch it when you want to be transported for a few hours to distant fabulous times that never existed, but in which so strongly want to believe.

Anyone know where I can find subs of Gundeen? The one batch of it on the cat site is very dead.

Kinda reminds me of that one toku movie where a giant robot fights Orochi and I think had Hiroshi Abe as a villain.

This is Yamato Takeru. It is also from Touhou and the main female role is played by the same actress who played Princess Kaguya. But at least there's a lot of action, so it's much easier to classify him as a tokusatsu.

Thank you! Definitely adding this to my list of things to watch.

Koichi Sakamoto directed the movie "Ninja vs Sharks" with a bunch of Ryder and Ultraman actors. It will hit theaters next month:
https://twitter.com/extreme__film/st...93autosize%3D1

Starring Koshu Hirano who played Haruki in Ultraman Z as the protagonist ninja.

I watched a few more episodes of Space Sheriff Gavan including the one that first introduced San Dorva and Witch Kiba into the series. I might even finish that series sooner than I thought. I also seriously enjoyed Kenji Ohba as the show's main character and most of the show's effects are pretty good for its time.