Yeah, it definitely felt like they wanted to push the limits of what they would be allowed to create without ever stopping to think about if they should really go this far. The saying "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" kept coming to mind as I watched it. I don't think I've even seen such dissonance between two entries is a series that shared most of the same creative staff.

...Been hitting the tokusatsu kinda hard this weekend. No, don't stage an intervention! I'm having fun!

I gave Zeiram a watch. Pure Keita Amemiya goodness right there. I feel like Amemiya's nightmarish alien imagery combined with a cool female bounty hunter and the two lamest electricians in the world all came together to create something quite magical. Freaky, funny, and hands down just COOL.

Zeiram is cool in all sences! I especially remember the umbrella flight from the second part.

I watched at Armor Hero XT and was very pleasantly surprised. I liked the first show in this franchise, but I privately called it an amateur tokusatsu with a professional budget. But XT is a qualitative improvement in all parameters by several levels. Especially the plot. I know that there are those who dream of a show similar to Faiz and I can confidently say that this is the most similar to 555 tokusatsu that I have seen. There is even a street haircut here. Personally, I liked the XT even more than Faiz because of its greater dynamism. True, this dynamism also entailed a lot of problems. Characters radically change their opinions several times, heroes are forced to act like idiots in order for the show to continue, and the battles become too monotonous over time. So, as a result, the show turned out to be overly long, which spoiled my impression from admiration to grudging approval.
By the way, if XT was inspired by Faiz, then at least Gaim’s designers were inspired by him. Because three types of kaijins associated with colors and motifs with the main characters, in my opinion, are too many for mere coincidence. Yes, and time travel without the right to change coincides. Even the silhouettes of these Armor Heroes are slightly similar to armored riders (another coincidence).
I also want to note that what I appreciate in principle in the entire Armor Hero franchise is the lack of gimmicks to keep the viewer engaged. There are no cliffhangers or mini-finals, the plot is simply cut into episodes of equal duration. The main characters may be absent for a long time, and the center of attention may be completely insignificant, at first glance, characters. They just show us the story without flirting, and such directness is captivating.
Now about what I didn't like:
- Armor Hero dubbing is the best argument in favor of subtitles. Here it is even worse than in the first show, because some phrases are left untranslated.
- We were initially told that monsters of different types have different abilities, but later they, regardless of theirs, demonstrated all three types of abilities. I realized that having received armor, they became stronger, but this was somehow too much;
- transformation devices are disguised as a camera, mp3 player and joystick. At the same time, the camera allows you to recognize kaijin in human form, but the scriptwriters did not come up with two other useful functions. Probably to compensate for this, their owners communicate using musical and gaming metaphors, respectively;
- the gloomy and unsociable character of Li You'er/ Yozhi is caused by the Kula living in her. But after being freed from obsession, she remains the same. It is logical to assume that this is her real character, because the girl was born with a kaijin inside and has never been different. But why then are we shown her more joyful and active for an episode, and then return to the previous version again?
But these are all minor quibbles, otherwise I really like this franchise and don’t want to say goodbye to it due to the lack of translation. I saw that there are about 20 translated episodes of Lava on Dailymotion, but approaching an unfinished show is somehow intimidating. So I hope that someday Armor Hero will still receive a translation not only for Indonesia.
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Just out of curiosity, are you considering doing a Tier List for the Metal Heroes franchise like the ones you're doing/done for the Toku Big 3? Speaking of Metal Heroes, I am finally back to watching B-Fighter Kabuto and I am now officially at the show's halfway point. It really has been quite a while.

Hmm, I wasn't going to do it since it isn't an active series anymore, but it might be fun to make later on! I think at the very least I should watch a show in the series I really like first, because everything I've seen has been really middling so far. An entire tier list of Cs and Ds wouldn't be very exciting. :p

Ah, yes. The show where Seiji Takaiwa was an archeologist from Peru named Julio, Geki Chopper's real life brother was Kuwaga, and Reuben Langdon was the cool kid from America who transformed into a dragonfly superhero with a crossbow. Fun fact, Reuben's Japanese dialogue was voiced by Koichi Tochika who most of us know as En/Dag Fire from Dagwon and Daigoyou from Shinkenger. Tochika was also Dangoron in B-Robo Kabutack it seems.

Speaking of Metal Hero shows and their eternal aspiration to leave me with no strong opinions, I watched Shaider. It... It was just Sharivan but worse, what am I even supposed to say?! To be fair, it did have a few things that stood out. Annie is a much more impactful heroine than Lily was in Sharivan and the visuals try to play up the surrealness factor. And is that... a male actor who spends the entire show dressed in glamorous women's clothes? Pretty wild for the 80s. But overall the show is just not particularly compelling, with very standard episodes for the genre, to the point I could barely maintain my focus on it as I watched. Meh stuff!

I have watched some more B-Fighter Kabuto. 38 episodes down, 12 to go.

I watched Tomica Hero Rescue Fire. I liked that it was like a crossover of the ideas of Rescue Force (the concept of a rescue team, the general style, the emphasis on cool vehicles, and in general it is a direct sequel with the appearance of characters from there) and Ryukendo (swords, dragons and demons as antagonists instead of cars from Rescue Force). Overall, it's not the best kids' show out there, but it's one of the best kids' shows. I really appreciate that the authors decided to teach what they themselves understand and this is tokusatsu, which really looks designed for the stated age audience, and not adult viewers. And as an adult viewer myself, I could complain about some stupidity, too easy solutions to conflicts and the fact that Kenji, Hikaru and Tatsuya are the same person going through the same path, the flurry of emotions in the second half of the show easily compensates for these shortcomings.
I would especially like to thank you for the episodes in Nagoya. I really like the traveling episodes in old shows, even despite the flair of advertising in them, and it’s a shame that modern tokusatsu prefer to stay in Tokyo, occasionally going out to Kyoto and the suburbs. But the Nagoya episodes do more than introduce you to a lesser-known part of Japan.
This is not only a display of the sights (and something for every taste) of the city, but also an acquaintance with the work of real firefighters and rescuers. And done in the most exciting form possible. Just great, I wish they did this more often. To sum up, I am absolutely delighted and recommend it to everyone who has not watched it yet. Although, of course, it is best to go in chronological order: Ryukendo - Rescue Force - Rescue Fire.
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I'm glad to hear you liked Rescue Fire, I also enjoyed it a lot! I agree with your comment that is is definitely a show for kids, without much consideration for an older viewers, but it is a lovely experience if you are willing to accept what the show is aiming for. While it never delves into overly serious drama, the characters still have good arcs and the episodes are usually well written, with thoughtful lessons. It is also being packed full of the most awesomely hotblooded rescue and giant mecha action you could hope for! It was also a huge improvement over Rescue Force, which was charming but felt very amateur at times. After I was done I definitely found myself feeling sad that Takara Tomy never really tried to make a tokusatsu again, because I think they made something that had a unique appeal compared to other tokusatsu series out there.

Still haven't seen Ryukendo, but I plan to at some point of course. Rescue Fire might be a bit tough to beat though!

It also has one of the all-time greatest tokusatsu Christmas episodes.

Okay I will admit, the demonic ritual with the invested crucifix with a santa doll tied to it was some incredible imagery.

Well, in 2020 Takara Tomy released a mecha anime, which is also good. I still hope they return to tokusatsu someday, because their shows were really very good and heartfelt, and also unique in their lack own way.

I am now down to the final four episodes of B-Fighter Kabuto. I might actually be done with the show either tonight or tomorrow and that it will be the sixth Metal Heroes series I was able to finish as of this year along with Jiban, Janperson, Blue SWAT, Juspion, and Juukou B-Fighter. This also means that Jiraiya and the Rescue Police Trilogy will be the only shows that still remained unaccounted for in the overall franchise.

I really enjoyed the first Zeiram film, so I tried the second one too! It felt like a more limited film, but it was still pretty fun and it was nice to see the cast again. The original film has a ton of really indulgent special effect scenes, while this movie is lighter on them. Zeiram takes on a radically different form in this movie too, being a more robotic, fox-like version. The more disgusting and biological design from the first film wins for me easily, especially given the overwhelming sense of menace it has as a foe that simply would not die. Still, if you crave more Zeiram actions its worth a watch!

I managed to finish B-Fighter Kabuto as of yesterday and with that, I have watched both B-Fighter shows that are used as source material for Beetleborgs. I think I am going to rewatch Spielban and then Metalder before jumping into Jiraiya.

Best part of the show? Gaia Leon. :rock:
I seriously hope Takaratomy releases a high-end action figure of it now that they have their T-Spark and Toyrise stuff going for them.

And what a song he has! Definitely a hit.

Indeed. Props to Masaaki Endoh for that, the man who gifted us a song for a show about a robot with a lion's head on its chest way back in 1997. :rock:

Looked at Yongary. Basically, this is a typical post-Godzilla kaiju movie. So typical that the creators themselves even note it through the mouth of a boy asking: “Do earthquakes happen not only in Japan?” The Korean origin of the film is indicated only by the names and hanboks. And the miniatures are good, and the monster is not bad, but the secondary nature and some lack of ideas I mentioned spoil the whole impression. So in terms of kaiju, North Korea is far superior to its neighbors. Although, for a more fair comparison, I still need to watch War of God's Monsters from 1985.
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I watched "Monster SeaFood Wars" 2020. The essence of this film is that in the process of fighting giant octopus, squid and crab, it becomes clear that their meat is incredibly tasty, which radically changes the attitude towards them. A kind of reminder that even though kaiju embody disasters, within the framework of their universe they are all huge animals, with all that it entails.
The monsters and special effects are emphatically unnatural, and everything that happens has a strong vibe of an amateur film, but given the parodic nature of the project, this is justified. But what is not justified is that with a modest duration of an hour and twenty minutes, the film is perceived as drawn out. So I can only recommend it to those who have already watched at least a couple of dozen kaiju films and several Ultraman shows.
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You ever watch something and realize that you really needed more context? That's me with Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis. It's an adaptation of the famous "dark fantasy historical novel" series Teito Monogatari, but I kind of expected the film to try and do more for people who weren't familiar with the source material. Add that to my limited knowledge about Japanese historical figures, the extremely dense plot, and a runtime of over two hours. Needless to say, I struggled to follow it.

A few names that worked on this movie caught my eye. H.R. Giger contributed some designs to this movie, but it wasn't a film that was very heavy on creatures in the first place so I was rather disappointed. Akio Jissoji, who I know for the extremely surreal episodes he directed for the Ultraman series, was also directing for this film. While it does have a bit of his visual flair to it, I was also disappointed overall because the movie was so dang normal looking compared to his other stuff I have seen.

Might be best to leave this movie as a historical footnote... That being said I'll try the sequel later and see how I like it.

Follwing up with the sequel to my prior post, it is Tokyo: The Last War!

I hear that this is a far less faithful adaptation of the source material than the prior film, but perhaps because of that I found it a much more comprehensible film. I'd say it's a lot more accessible too: it's shorter, has more action and effects works, and didn't even have any weird incest or rape in it. Wow! It's still not a movie that tries to explain its characters and their pasts or motivations in too much depth though and the whole thing is so dimmly lit I could barely make it out at times.

Anyways, the climax of the movie where it is revealed that a Japanese mystic forced Hitler to commit suicide via dark magic was certainly an unintentionally funny move for the ages.

My watch for tonight has been Chou Ninja Tai Inazuma. Whatever I expected he plot to be, I wasn’t expecting “tv producers from the future travel through time to the Sengoku era to make a superhero show using locals”.

I remember this. Fun show.

Finally got around to watching Godzilla Minus One! It's a solid kaiju movie, although not particularly mind-blowing and certainly not what I expected from the trailers and reception. I think my favorite bit of the movie is how they used the post-war setting to have the human characters fight Godzilla with extremely limited resources, which stood out from the typical super science you see in these sorts of films. The story was quite simple, following traumatized a WWII veteran who avoided death as a Kamikaze pilot. It's nicely told, but lacks any major surprises. It also felt like the story was just a prologue to the real plot to me. The Minus One version of Godzilla has strong Hollywood influence compared to the more classically tokusatsu Shin incarnation. To me, he lacked much impact, feeling relatively weak as a monster since the humans had to fight him with so little and only having a few big destruction scenes. Comparing him to the Shin version again, I actually found MiGodzi less scary because he almost felt anthropomorphized with the way he stared right at people. In the end, I kind of feel like the period setting was a mistake. Godzilla is at its best as a tool for social commentary of some sort, and the WWII setting restricted it to making some lukewarm commentary on the Japanese government's disregard for the lives of their own soldiers during the time. America gets very little flack even when it would be relevant to bring up. Even disregarding that this version of Godzilla was seemingly mutated by nuclear tests at the Bikini Atoll, they also completely glaze over America was strong-arming Japan into disarming at the time. What can I say, both the monster and the commentary felt rather defanged in this one. Hoping the next film improves on some of these points, but I'm just happy we might be able to actually get regular Japanese Godzilla films again!

Starring the Magiranger cast, Deka Pink and Deka Red from Dekaranger, and Mugensai Hinata from Hurricanger. There is also a sequel called Inazuma Spark with Mami Yamazaki aka Shizuka from Boukenger. Mitsuomi Takahashi who was Akashi/Bouken Red is also a co-star iirc.

I watched "Smoking Causes a Cough." Well, if you are expecting tokusatsu or even a parody of tokusatsu, then this movie is not for you. Elements of the genre are few and superficial. The concept of “stories around the fire” is also not completed and they serve, for the most part, to stretch out the timing. As, indeed, is the main plot. And although I like this kind of leisurely humor, here it was too ill-conceived. I suspect they filmed it without a script. In general, the movie is reminiscent of “What are we doing in the shadows?”, if at some point everyone involved stopped caring about their creation.
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I watched the rather infamous 1998 American Godzilla film. Now, I'm not going to say this is a good movie. But, I had been lead to believe it was going to be boring. I found the whole experience to be delightfully riffable when watching with a friend. It has a bunch of stunted dialogue, a ridiculous plot, inconsistent tone, awkward CGI monsters, and just completely fails at capturing Godzilla's appeal. I'd call it a fun bad film for sure. Judging the movie on this metric, the two biggest issues I have with it are that it isn't nearly as destructive as some of Roland Emmerich's other movies and the fact it's way longer than it needs to be.

I like the reference to this movie in "Godzilla vs. Megaguirus":
"- The Americans claim that Godzilla attacked New York. But this is not certain."

I checked out some of the Yokai Monster films! A very strange little series.

100 Monsters: This is a kind of tokusatsu film you see periodically with older stuff, where it is mostly your typical feudal Japan movie, but it also throws in some supernatural elements so they can flex their special effects work. Due to this, the yokai are pretty secondary, but its not a bad little movie. Probably my favorite part of this one was how exaggerated the villains were. Literally show up, threaten to tear down a shrine and housing to build a brothel, then beat an old man to death.

Spook Warfare: This is the most famous of the films, for good reason. While it is still a period drama, it mostly focuses on yokai fighting against an invading Babylonian demon, creating a cool monster vs. monster conflict that also connects nicely to the human drama, since the demon is going around possessing and killing people. It was also surprisingly comedic, with lots of gag scenes and slapstick.

Along With Ghosts: Definitely the weakest of the ones I watched. This one goes back to the typical period drama style of the first, but the supernatural elements are even more disconnected from the main story.

The Great Yokai War: A 2005 reimagining of the series, directed by the madcap Takashi Miike. Miike left me as gobsmacked as ever, it was an absolutely chaotic film. It has some issues, such as scenes that are just narrative dead ends and stuff that just really needed to be explained better. Still, I ended up quite drawn into it and it was pretty unique. Watch Kato Yasunori from the Teito Monogatari series get defeated by a bean! Thighs! Nightmarish machines! Kirin beer product placement! Extremely dark humor scene where a cop accidentally shoots someone in the head! Pee gag! The killing of indigenous groups in Japan! Fascinating, though I felt like it was a movie that was aimed at everyone and no one at the same time.

There is also The Great Yokai War: Guardians (2021) - sequel/remake of the 2005th movie.

Switchblade is now legally obligated to watch the BIMA franchise. I will not elaborate further.

I assume this means Mayu Gamou shows up in a... episode? of this... show?

You're on the right track, but not quite there.

I was very intrigued ever since I heard about Q: The Winged Serpent the first time, and finally got around to giving it a watch. This is an American low-budget film from the 80s that smashes together a giant monster with a police procedural. I kind of expected it to be a quality movie for some reason, but it was a good stupid film instead! There is some kind of incoherent plot about an Aztec murder cult resurrecting Quetzalcoatl and our hilariously incompetent protagonist blundering around completely failing at all his attempts at crimes and extortion. One of those movies where the actual jokes fell flat but I found myself laughing out loud at all the unintentional comedy from the dialogue and plot. Honestly a pretty dang fun time. My biggest complaint is that this is one of those films with terrible audio editing, so the dialogue is often sounds mumbled and it blurs into the music and sound effects. It didn't have subtitles, so I ended up cranking the volume way up, which let me understand the broad strokes of what was being said, but it was not a nice way to watch.

Most tokusatsu fans are quite dismissive of Kabutack. It is even more surprising that this particular show received a New Year's special this year. And what a one! To create this little 20-minute comedy adventure, the international collaboration of several companies was required. First of all: Toya, the copyright holder. Secondly: the Chinese Alpha group, which essentially filmed the special and provided a villain for it.
And thirdly: the Bilibili platform, which promoted it, whose bloggers and employees were mentioned, and some even starred in it.
As for the rush itself, it is a story in the spirit of the original show, whose characters were temporarily transported to modern China. A frivolous presentation with a simple childish moral. Elements of the original are skillfully combined with modern special effects. During the battles it is very noticeable that they were filmed by the Chinese. Less wrestling, more flying, compared to the usual tokusatsu. Also, the photo in the finale managed to touch me.
In addition, I can’t help but notice that the release of this rush spurred the resumption of Kabutak’s translation. One can only hope that the translators will have enough passion for Robotak and then it will be possible to watch all the Metal Heroes. Although, who knows, maybe the franchise will have a new life in the modern world?
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It's not for me, but the theme song is an absolute banger.

I never got around to start watching on Kabutack is really due to the show itself not being fully subbed.