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I watched Godzilla vs Biollante last night. I see why this is one of the most fondly regarded entries in the series. The plot moves at a fast clip, has lots of interesting elements like ESP and spies. It also was a cool time capsule of the concerns of the era, with the focus on the potential dangers of genetic engineering and a dash of cold war fear seen in the tensions between various countries. Effects were also very nice looking and Biollante is even cooler looking than I expected. She's HUGE! I was watching the new Criterion release of the film, and while it was a good release I did have an unexpected issue with the subtitles... or rather a lack of them in spots. There are quite a few scenes where characters are speaking English, but due both some questionable audio mixing and strong accents, these scenes are really hard to understand. But Criterion left these scenes unsubbed, which was... not a good idea. Still, I think it was a good kaiju film that made a simple yet effective impact.
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This time I watched a trio of kaiju anime. Guess who was given access to someone else's Netflix account?
Gamera Rebirth - This is probably my favorite of the three things I watched, though I wouldn't exactly call it good. It has an interesting combination of Showa and Heisei Gamera traits. The way things are emphasized from a child's point of view is very Showa (and I won't lie, there being a main character who was a kid from an American army family like there were in many of the old movies made me laugh.) But it also has a streak of violence and mysticism that are more like the Heisei films. Undeniably the show looks pretty awful, characterization is kept pretty light, and the later episodes kind of fell apart with their semi-coherent plot about kaiju being some kind of ancient population control measure and people on the moon. It wasn't great, but it was a clear passion project by the staff. On a personal note, I think Zigra was my favorite of the reimagined kaiju! The Godzilla Anime Film Trilogy - This is writyen by Gen Urobuchi so the sheer edginess of off the charts from the very beginning. To the point it almost became funny from being so bleak. I don't think I *hated* this film trilogy to the degree many Godzilla fans do, but I don't really get why they exist. Kaiju are depicted so sparsely that it could really be any old space opera and while some of the philosophizing could be interesting at times, each movie got a bit worse than the previous one so I was hardly impressed by its grand plot in the end. The third movie in particular was a complete drag, with the world's most boring and dragged out kaiju battle and some bonkers ending where the protagonist does a suicide attack on Godzilla because apparently technology is so evil its worth abandoning your pregnant wife over. Characters themselves are also very flat and archetypical, which really interfered with how seriously I could take the plot. Probably would have been better as a single film experiment. Godzilla: Singular Point - Oh my gosh, I have not seen such awkward dialogue and such endless streams of hard sci-fi technobabble in a long time. It was kind of funny, but ultimately resulted in a plot I could honestly only follow in broad strokes as things got progressively more reality warping. The subtitles would probably have been fine in a show with a more reasonable plot, but were awkward enough that they just undermined the comprehensibility of the plot even more. It certainly had more kaiju action than the anime film trilogy, but I'd say they were about the same quality overall. Why's it so hard to make a decent Godzilla anime? This should be the easiest thing ever, c'mon! |
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I managed to finish my Gavan rewatch as of last night via my copy of the series on Blu-Ray as released by Discotek Media. Yes, I am planning to rewatch Sharivan and Shaider the same way somewhere down the line although I kind of wanted to take a break from the Space Sheriff sub-franchise for a little while as to not get a bad case of burnout once I start to revisit either one or both. I am also up to episode 29 of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.
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For those unaware, Avalon is back! Just saw the latest episode and am still having alot of fun with this indie toku. I feel like the team has definitely stepped up a bit in terms of technicals. Rather liked those exhaust effects they did for the new enemy that debuted during this one.
And if you don't know what Avalon is, it's an indie toku that airs on YouTube. And by indie I mean like, "dude and his friends got together to film a toku" levels of indie. And if you're open to watching that sort of thing, I definitely recommend checking the show out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejV6D4UO9QQ |
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Aaaand I got swept along and before I knew it I was caught up on the whole series. Yeah, this is good stuff! A bit unpolished, sure, but the story and action are both solid and you can really tell it's a labor of love
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Yeah, I was starting to suspect it in episode 5 but having it confirmed still feels like a shock. It also makes me wonder what, exactly, his armor is...
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I am finally back to watching Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and I am already up to episode 39.
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Watched some more of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon today and I am now down to the show's final three episodes.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7aAyTgM520 |
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Last night, I managed to finish everything related to Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and I am honestly glad I decided to watch this series all things considered. Like I said, this might actually be one of my favorites.
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I went to a used bookstore a while back and did the natural thing: got a bunch of cheap DVDs for tokusatsu-adjacent monster movies.
King Kong (2005): This one surprised me because I feel like I should have been the exact right age when this film came out to be keenly aware of its existence, but had no idea it was a thing until I saw like 10 or so copies on the shelf. It was a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the originals in a lot of ways and I enjoyed it overall, but the whole thing was over three hours for some godforsaken reason. Action setpiece after action setpiece, all drawn out as long as possible. Everything has to be as melodramatic as possible! It was fun, but needed editing so badly. It also decided that it needed to be very faithful to the original, even when it came to really dated racist elements, which was really questionable. I also got the first three Monsterverse films. Each one got progressively stupider and worse, which also made each subsequent one more entertaining. Godzilla (2014) was a semi-serious film, pretty much a traditional Godzilla story if it was stripped of any coherent social commentary. It is unfortunately also one of those Hollywood movies that has a bunch of overly dark scenes where I can barely see. Kong: Skull Island pretty much just operated on rule of cool weeb logic. Then finally, Godzilla: King of the Monsters went full-on idiot-mode with a monster battle royale, silly dialoge, nuclear bombs being *great* actually (don't worry about that shockwave everyone was caught in), a plot I can only assume is supposed to be some sort of wish fulfillment fantasy for divorced dads, and an ending where it turns out Godzilla will just fix all of humanity's issues if they let him. I wouldn't call any of these good, but they seemed to get better at being action slop each time. |
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I just finished Solbrain. Even though I already thought it was pretty good on its own merits, it got even better with the Winspector crossover, the surprise new member joining midway and the introduction of a recurring villain who directly challenges the main theme. Minor observation that some episodes establish the setting in the 20th Century, which seems like a continuity error, but oh well. Overall, I enjoyed it!
Metal Hero Ranking: 1) Jiban 2) Janperson 3) Spielvan 4) Sekai Ninja Sen 5) Solbrain 6) Winspector 7) Battle Cop Next up, I'll actually progress in sequential order and watch the last of the Rescue Heroes, Exceedraft. |
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I'm sorry, I had to. :lolol Theme song is stilm great and protagonist in red is played by Shigeki Kagemaru, who was most notably Shinjo in Tiga and Squid Orphnoch in Faiz. |
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I am well aware that the incoming rant I am about to unleash will make it sound like I have snapped, but I am going to type it out anyways! I finished watching Super Rescue Solbrain!
When I started with Solbrain, my reaction to it basically amounted to "Sweet, more Winspector!", not realizing that it was really "Winspector but more!". A show even more bizarre and singular than the already very unique first entry in the Rescue Police Trilogy, I would even go as far as to call this show the Ultraman Leo or Kamen Rider Black Sun of the 90s. Winspector is more of a rescue drama, while Solbrain leans very hard into the police drama angle, and at it's absolute best delivers on some astounding sci-fi crime stories. The show, while at times having lighter episodes, often instead goes for some honestly very heavy ones with bittersweet endings at best and being blatantly depressing at worst. Odds are in a given episode someone sympathetic will commit a crime due to their circumstances. Or there will be suicide. My god this show had so much suicide in it, almost like Solbrain saw me comment on the depressing episode of Kamen Rider X about it a while back and was like "That's nothing, check THIS out". The show was also surprisingly politically charged, with a lot of critical references to real life organizations and events by name, from NATO to Japan's ties to Nazis in WWII. Even the less direct references often clearly invoke elements from recent events like the Tsutomu Miyazaki serial killings or Happy Science's crackpot beliefs and exploitation of believers. All of this combined makes for an honestly fascinating (though exhausting) show that seemed to have some recognition of tragedy that often lurks in the shadows of society, shadows that can often lead good people to tragedies that the heroes can only partially save them from. The show does have a lot of rough points though, don't get me wrong. Like many Metal Hero shows, the editing of the video and music can be jarring, but it was actually so bad in Solbrain sometimes that it completely took me out of the moment. Some episodes ended up feeling repetitive when they would touch on similar concepts too. The main cast is also largely lacking in any in-depth characterization, which prevents it from reaching the highs of something like Janperson. But in the end I was impressed by the show and consider it a must-see for anyone who is intrigued by more unusual tokusatsu shows. |
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I especially miss these characters after starting Exceedraft, like, man, I know Masaki got promoted and all, but the new chief taking his place isn't even close. |
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I haven't jumped right into Exceedraft yet, but honestly anyone would have a hard time following up Hiroshi Miyauchi. :lol I have a feeling Exceedraft just isn't going to be as fascinating as Winspector and Solbrain in general though. It's honestly shocking we got both of those shows, no way it could happen three times in a row, right? (Please happen three times in a row, it would be so funny.) |
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I'm definitely looking forward to seeing everyone again when I get around to Gotchard now. Ryoma's actor in particular has such distinctive mannerisms that I hope I can identify him right off the bat.
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