The MUST-SEE Independent Tokusatsu Short Film - Secondary Education
 

There's a bit of a sour taste in some people's mouths these days when they talk about fan-created tokusatsu films or series - some self-proclaimed amateur filmmakers take to places like Kickstarter and make absurdly large promises in hopes of securing the money of fans of various tokusatsu series, promising dark and edgy material centered around their favorite franchises of years past. The questions of ethics and morals take shape once the truth comes out behind the filmmakers, having lied about their knowledge and passion for a franchise they hope to abuse in order to reach their own personal success.

But then there are films that come out that restore your faith in the independent films that people make. I'm talking about the new independent short tokusatsu film titled "Secondary Education".

Three high school kids face detention for their performance on the latest chemistry test. As they sit and wait for their late teacher to arrive, we see a battle taking place outside the school windows between a red-suited hero and a lobster monster. It becomes blatantly obvious that the teacher is our hero.

A majority of the film is spent with the kids being taught science and electrical conductivity - and at first, I was confused as to why we spent so much time on it. But by the end of the film, it all makes sense and is brought together.

This is an absolutely amazing short-film and one that I am very proud to support, endorse, and promote. THIS is how you do a tokusatsu short-film. Spend about 12 minutes watching it and you will feel inspired yourself to want to sit down and create your own tokusatsu film.

Check out the film below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQN-YE5G7lo

The creators of this film have been kind enough to join up on the forums, so watch it and post in this thread your comments and questions.

I cannot stress enough - this is a MUST-SEE film! A short film that has managed to surpass even the mainstream, high-budget shows that we get on a yearly basis, and in only 12 minutes.

What do you think?

That was fun , educational and better acted then the last 3 years of Power Rangers.

That was great.

Man, that was fun! MORE!

It captured all the things that I love about a traditional tokusatsu - action, identifiable characters, and campy humor. But it wasn't shoved in your face like we see with Power Rangers, or done just way over the top like we get in some Super Sentai and some Kamen Rider series. It was more of a "in the dark, waiting in the bushes to get you when you least expect it" campy humor, and more importantly, they managed to tie it in to the overall conclusion of the film.

I want there to be a sequel of some sort - it was simply too good not to have a follow-up on the students, but more importantly, the teacher.

They should turn it into a web series if you ask me.

Okay, that was good :lol

I would whole-heartedly support that.

This was wonderful! Funny, campy, but lovably self-aware.

Somebody give this a bigger budget, better suits, and a longer run time. It's AWESOME.

"Don't shoot, it might be endangered!"

Yes because giant bipedal crustaceans that attack people are endangered species that mankind should preserve.:lol

I've said it before and I'll say it again:
I want to watch an ongoing series like this! Metacaptain: Warrior of SCIENCE! Everyday on Disney Channel and Disney XD!

How did I miss that? :lol

Yes. Oh, how I would back that.

Bill Nye should totally be the professor who gives Metacaptain his powers.

Like I said in the other thread, I wished it focused on the teacher rather than the students, but that aside, I really enjoyed it. I would love to see a sequel of sorts.

This was great, I really hope this continues.

That was enjoyable. Yes they should turn this into a series. I'd watch it.

Indeed. My only complaints are: 1: The "Fried Lobster" line was rather corny (or campy?) and 2: MetaCaptain's costume was rather cheap looking, but that's to be expected, since they're not going to have the same budget that kamen Rider or Super Sentai has, so I'm just being nitpicky there. Fantastic job overall! :D

Hey Everyone,
Jon Truei here. I just wanted to jump in this thread real quick and thank each and everyone one of you from the Tokunation board properly. When I originally posted the short here, I had no idea that it'd get dug up and featured on the front page (THANK YOU KICKBACK).

Excited as Eric Lim and I have been to unveil this movie online, these last couple of weeks have been a pretty trying time, especially as we spent night after night after night speculating over the kind of reception that we would receive from the online audience, but stumbling across this review tonight has almost singlehandedly made the last year and a half we spent developing, shooting, and finishing out this movie worth it.

I definitely wouldn't go anywhere as far as saying we designed this movie from a 100% tokusatsu genre based perspective, as the film is ultimately a big mishmash of a whole bunch of pieces of movies I love that I've really wanted to see back in movies for a while, but from the beginning, we always wanted to make sure Secondary Education that could channel and live up to what's kept our memories of the huge imported Toku craze in America in the 90s so universally close to our hearts. I can't tell you how much it means to me that the members of this board, who might perhaps be the truest of Tokusatsu fans that you could find around, would show our team such support.

So thank you once again! I'll be lurking around this board here and there, feel absolutely free to ask me any question about the movie that you'd like, and I'll make sure I get back to you, either on here or in a PM or something.

LONG LIVE TOKUNATION!

I actually did enjoy the little science lesson you guys added in, also wanna find those Salt snacks. :lol

Hahaha, unfortunately you're not going to. That candy was completely made up by our team for the convenience of the plot and the electrical conductivity plot device.

http://i43.tinypic.com/2iw0tw.png
Artwork on this by the amazing David Monaghan, Justin Smith and Grace Na, btw.

It's just too bad that there isn't any candy that I know of on the market that is like, undisputedly the SALTIEST and MOST DISGUSTING majorly circulated candy by reputation.

Thats still pretty cool. Wish my high school Chem teacher was this awesome, or interesting in anyway... But my point is, all teachers need to fight monsters i they want the kids to learn!!!

Oh and I liked the godzilla statue for the light demonstration.

SHHHHHHH it's BEATzilla, BEATZILLA. ;) We actually have a rough future episode outline in which Beatzilla would actually appear as a villain.

In all seriousness though, that's actually a Godzilla puppet that my buddy Rashaad Santiago had been making that I knew about. I asked to borrow it and modified it slightly so it could make a cameo in this short. We were actually planning on doing some form of Godzilla fan short, but whether or not that happens will just depend on whether the puppet and the other monster puppets ever get finished or not.

If any of you are interested in Rashaad's work though, it can be found here:
http://empirefx.weebly.com/bio.html

Huh. Well I hope to see Beatzilla again soon. :)

Pretty damn enjoyable for 12 minutes, especially the chemistry lesson coming back to save the hero at the end. Even though I like dark and edgy toku with amazing plots, I still enjoyed it. I wish my chemistry teacher was this cool. Although we do have Gamma Graham.....

Jon,

Even if you didn't mean to tap in to the tokusatsu genre, you managed to capture the essence and spirit of a true, honest tokusatsu idea. I can honestly say that watching your film was one of the most enjoyable 12 minutes I've had in regards to tokusatsu since we started this place nearly two years ago, and since I have been a fan of tokusatsu for many, many years before it.

Enjoy the praise - it is truly well deserved. Thank you and Eric both, for creating this film and for sharing it with us. Please pass along our praise for your work to everyone involved in the film. If you ever need to get the word out on anything in the future, please drop me a line anytime. I will be more than happy to use Tokunation as a platform for you and Eric.

Thanks again!

*drool*
Such. Epicness.
We need more episodes, fan made toys, and a theme song, STAT!!!!!!

By the way, can I just say how ingenious it was to have the mutated lobster's claws be restrained by giant rubber bands as it was being hauled away by the police? It's those little details that push this over the top.

THAT. WAS. AWESOME!! I love everything about it, reminds me so much about Wingman, an Manga/Anime series I grew up with

Secondary Education had a little bit of everything. Great job!! Hope to see more films in the near future!!

Thank you so much again everyone!

To answer the question that's been popping up here and there, we are trying to shop Secondary Education as a series around currently, and we've already developed a set of about 8 episode concepts and outlines that we think are HILARIOUS.

Mostly, for us, it will be about finding a good place to partner with and sponsor/distribute the universe to a wide public audience. I'll definitely keep you guys here at Tokunation posted about things as they develop!

Those are great news! :D

Kickback was right, this truly captured what a Toku series was about. I absolutely loved the science lesson, it shows how education can be fun (and not in your face like Captain Planet).

Again, it would be awesome to see more of this in the future! Poor guy needs a henshin device though, to not need to take his clothes on and off each time. :lol

Hahaha, I'll make sure he suffers long and hard before he gets to have one, so I can have my fun and know he has damn well EARNED it.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Will we see an origin episode covering how the Teacher got the suit? Did he build it or was it given to him? Where did the monsters come from and why are they appearing now?

I wonder if they would introduce other heroes that MetaCaptain does not know about. Imagine if we had an entire school team of heroes:

red-substitute teacher (MetaCaptain)
blue-janitor
green-groundskeeper
pink-gymnastics coach
yellow-school librarian
black-school security
purple-baseball coach
orange-basketball coach
brown-football coach
teal-swim coach
white-school nurse