What do YOU enjoy about tokusatsu?
 

I'm wondering how you view toku, why you enjoy it and how you found it.

Found it through the airings of the old Godzilla-movies during my childhood, I loved those. I continued to like Godzilla and collected the movies, but I never saw anything outside of Godzilla. That was until I came back to collecting figures last year and saw pictures of the Gaim Figuarts. I really liked those, and back over another forum I used to visit there was a Kamen Rider-topic so I asked from which series the figure was and where I could watch it.

I admit, it looked like Power Rangers to me initially. I could not distinguish it properly. But after I gave Gaim a go I was in love. I loved how real the action as (most of the time), and I loved the armor designs. I was unsatisfied with the story at first (street dancing…) but when the show got darker and more interesting to watch I enjoyed it a lot more.

Since then I’m hooked and I watched some Sentai and Ultraman too. Sentai I can’t stand, I get very little enjoyment out of it, but Ultraman is cool.

I also tried Garo but that is just unwatchable. I hated every second of it.

So I stick to Rider most of the time. While it has it low points (Wizard) and the newer shows since Gaim which can’t really grab me, I watch a lot of older stuff and have a blast with those. I go through the Heisei-era currently and really enjoy these shows.

Well ignoring the Power Rangers I watched as a kid, I got into toku last year. Last summer...ish? I started getting into Japanese action figures around that time. (I'd gotten a D-Arts back in 2012, and that was cool, but it was about all I could afford at the time and it was plenty). I started getting figmas. Like, lots of figmas. Mostly I was in it for the cool toys, so I got a bunch from stuff I hadn't watched or had that much interest in. And one of the earliest figures I got was of Kamen Rider Spear, because I love that design.

However turns out once you have figures of something you kinda wanna know where it came from, so I started watching Ryuki a couple months after I got Spear. And I loved that, so of course, I didn't really watch anything else after that.

Until this past summer, anyway, when one of my friends got me a figuarts Abyss for my birthday, and then I started getting figuarts. Like, lots of figuarts. So I started getting more interested in Kamen Rider and in the last half year I've watched through, like, five other series and parts of four more. I'm getting interested in watching some Sentai and other stuff, but mainly I'm into Kamen Rider now.

So...yeah, toys, basically. I'm in it for the toys. By which I mean, the cool designs, more or less. Though at this point I guess I'm more into it for the franchise, the designs are still pretty important. And lack of toys for a given thing saddens me, because I got into this whole mess by getting cool toys, and so I'd like to get some more of more cool stuff. I think that's part of why I like to stick with Kamen Rider--most of the series is well covered in the figuarts line. On the other hand, with Sentai that's like a big old heap of disappointments. I watched RPM and the lack of good accessible toys for Go-Onger is already killing me.

Of course, that's not to says I watch for the pretty things and don't care for anything else. Cool designs will hook me, but the show itself is what keeps me.

My gateway for me was Godzilla when I was two and half years old. I grew up with the Showa movies and would rewatch those a lot. I also grew up with Ultraman 1966, Power Rangers, Beetleborgs and Masked Rider. I do remember seeing bits of ZO and Five Riders vs. King Dark at a collector's shop in the mid 90's and I thought it looked cool. There was also the time when I saw the Gaoranger anniversary special RAW on VHS back in 2002. I didn't really watch Kamen Rider and Sentai until 2012. I mainly grew up on Godzilla and Ultraman. Kamen Rider was something I always knew about for years, but never fully watch it until I saw W in 2012.


What I love about Toku is the special effects. I love suits and miniatures. It's so cool seeing different type of creative monsters in Japanese special effects films and TV shows. Even if it has no monsters or superheroes, I still like seeing Japan doing things the practical way. That's what Toku is, Japanese special effects.

Godzilla got me into Toku, and it holds a special place in my heart. I love that franchise to bits. It was my mom's fault because she loved Godzilla, so growing up I'd watch a lot of the Showa era movies on VHS (Most of them the lame cheesy ones, but hey, I still loved them :lol). Then there was PR, which was probably about 90% of most 90's kids Toku memories, and I was there with them.

However, that's just how I got into it. What I enjoy about Toku is the breath of fresh air it gives me. It lets me see things in real life that I never thought possible. While I know toku predates a lot of popular franchises, being an American meant I never saw a lot of the Toku first. So I thought that giant robots were only allowed in cartoons, armored heroes wore power armor larger than they were, and victories were won with bigger lasers, not by fist fights. So come Power Rangers, which showed me heroes flipping and kicking like a comic book, rather than charging in with lots of guns, and come the Heisei Godzilla, which had a lot better series of fights and a darker tone.
For me, I just love Toku because it offered me something new in an era where parental control was so heavy that guns fired lasers and swords only cut robots, and just fired lasers at other living things.

It lets me watch live-action superhero shows that put more effort into the action than the drama, as that can get rather distracting if not annoying.

It presents different ideas, some really crazy ideas on what to model a hero's powers around, what their motivations are, and if nothing else it acts as a second option of things to watch. Maybe I feel like putting up with Oliver's brooding or Barry's over reliance on his team, or maybe I'll watch Fourze ramble on about friendship or just watch Garo be awesome.

Also, while I would like to see some "After the End" stories for various Riders or Sentai, they have the decency to have a nice long season that by the end, usually feels like a completed story. It's not that I want X-men or Avengers or Superboy to eventually end, but there's a nice feeling knowing that the story want get fucked up by the next writer coming in (Frank Miller, Loeb, Quesada, etc).

Only bad thing is some of the CGI quality. I appreciate the effort, but it does make showing otherwise great shows hard to other people when Hibiki is fighting a painfully clear fake monster on screen.

The short answer is I love seeing the suit work and I love mecha and kaiju stuff. Sentai combines all of that.

The slightly longer answer is I got into Godzilla a couple years ago and really loved it. The culture behind it, the production and aesthetics of it, the cheesiness of the rubber suits and miniature models, the cool monster designs. Then somebody I know got into it, and he's the type of person that gets so into something that it annoys everybody else around them. So literally every other word out of his mouth had something to do with Godzilla. To make matters worse, another friend of his was into it and they sort of amplified the annoyingness of each other's fandom - all the while knowing that I was into Godzilla as well, but never even tried "celebrating" the fandom with me. So I was both annoyed and felt left out, which just about completely ruined Godzilla for me at the time. But I needed my giant monster fix, so I started watching Gamera stuff. I kinda became a Gamera hipster "oh the 90s Gamera movies are some of the highest rated kaiju movies of all time" but it was the only way I felt I could express my interest in it without coming off as one of this guy's followers. (as petty as it sounds, it happens a lot, and it pisses off everybody that knows him that gets him into something)

Anyways, one day my girlfriend saw a couple of Ultraman episodes on DVD at the store and picked it up for me. She said it looked super Asian and like something i'd enjoy, so I checked it out and loved it. From there, I discovered the world of Tokusatsu, and had to look more into it. Now, I knew that Super Sentai existed, but I never really knew what it was aside from "Japanese Power Rangers." But getting into Ultraman and somebody else I know nostalgia-ing over Power Rangers inspired me to check out Zyuranger, and from there I instantly fell in love.

It was a bit hard at first. I loved Zyuranger, but much of that love was fueled by nostalgia. Once I finished the series and realized that not every season of Sentai was exactly the same as that nor were they as PR nostalgia-heavy, my love affair with it almost ended. Dairanger had almost none of the elements of Zyuranger that made me love it, and just felt completely different. Gone were the awesome mythical warriors from the past, gone were the mecha that talked to them. Gone were the color-coded warrior outfits. Instead, we got a group of 5 random guys chosen to fight monsters. Part of why I loved Zyuranger was because of how different from Power Rangers it was, so when Dairanger didn't share the same differences, I hated it. Of course, I don't still have those problems with Dairanger, since i'm more familiar with toku, but at the time it bugged me. I went through a couple of episodes of a few seasons - Kakuranger, ToQger, Battle Fever J, Megaranger, Gokaiger, until I finally settled on Jetman. Jetman had enough similarities to Zyuranger that I started to take off the Power Rangers nostalgia glasses and see Sentai for what it really was.

At this point, Ninninger had just premiered, so I decided to check it out. I don't really know what it is about that series, probably a mix of the awesome mech suits, cool monster designs, and great ranger suits, but I absolutely loved it. I was finally free of comparing everything to Zyuranger and Power Rangers by the time I finished Jetman and got a couple of episodes into Ninninger, and have been enjoying Sentai ever since, and all for the same reasons I enjoy Godzilla (check the second and third lines of this post if you forgot)

Of course, Kamen Rider is (at least from what i've seen) more popular and generally considered to be better than Sentai, so I decided to check it out. However, I took a different approach; not knowing where to start, and wanting to avoid the mistakes I made with Zyuranger (such as thinking what made Zyu unique from other Sentai were actually some of the tropes of the series) and decided to start at the very beginning.

Now i'm finishing up Ninninger as it continues to air, and working my way through Kamen Rider. I recently started Kyoryuger, but I don't know how I feel about it. I'll give it a couple more episodes before I decide to continue it or not.


TL;DR: friend got obsessively into Godzilla and ruined it for me, turned to Ultraman and Sentai for my asian men in rubber suits fix.


If you don't mind my asking...I generally only hear positive things about Garo. What didn't you like?

I'm only in the Showa era of Rider (i'm trying to watch as much as I can in order) but Wizard is one of my favorite suit designs, and because of that has been one of the ones i'm more looking forward to watching. Is it really as bad as everybody says?

Wizard started off great and got worst over time. I thought the last few episodes are decent. Not the worst rider series, but I find it to be alright. I like it better then Drive.

Wizard is a lot better of a show to "binge" than to watch week by week. It's like most tokusatsu in that sense, getting it in big dumps can be better than in small doses.

Everything basically. Didn’t like the premise, didn't like he characters, didn't like the art style and general tone of the show. However, what really turned me off was the CGI. They have real suits - but only for standing around, walking and slight movement.

As soon as they fight its (bad) CGI only. None of the action is real. And that's not what I seek with my Toku.

Yes. It's not absolutely terrible, it won't offend you (probably), but it's definitely the worst I've seen yet. The hero is an emotionless stone and that won’t change, the sidekicks are special as you'll either tolerant them or want to murder them whenever they're on screen. Same with the secondary Rider. And the story is non-existent and also goes nowhere.

The action scenes are cool though, that's the only redeeming factor. Very well choreographed and nice to look at.

I watched it and got some enjoyment out of it, but man there’s just so much better Rider-stuff around, Wizard is the worst out of all the Rider-shows I've seen so far.

Let's see: The action, the music, the characters, the storytelling, the lessons the stories tell us, how to improve myself, the struggles the heroes go through that I can relate to, and overall how they make me feel good inside.

I would say it depends. I tried to very open about it even though I heard stuff before and I found it okay. It is at least somewhat interesting when you watch it the first time. The problem with Wizard is that it's extremely long, but the pacing is rather bad. Like in, they spill the beans about most of the important plotpoints within the first three episodes without having enough lore to make up for it. So for a long time, most episodes are pretty random.
As far as the characters go... it's a mixed bag and which tendency it has depends on what you can tolerate. For example, Shunpei. I talked to Convoy about him a lot and he hates him. Personally, I could care less. I roll my eyes sometimes, but that's about it.
Wizard is pretty flawed, but I think you can enjoy it to some degree nonetheless. It has some pretty neat moments. So if you feel like watching it, go for it :)




Anyway, TOPIC.
As for me, I had some conact with Tokusatsu before I started watching on a regular basis (Mystic Knights, Sailor Moon toku, Power Rangers Mystic Force, Magiranger), but the term itself was something I learned when I joined the fandom, which was about 2 and a half years ago with Shinkenger.

What I enjoy about toku is of course the overall storytelling and the Super Hero aspect (needless to say, I'm more the Henshin hero type rather than the Kaiju and Mecha type). I think what draws me into toku rather than anime (because the storytelling sure is similar there) is that it's live action. I completely migrated to live action these days because I admire the work behind it (the stunts, the suits, the acting...), especially what can be done with practical effects. I also like that due to all that, it feels pretty realistic overall, compared to crazy proportioned, always flawless-looking animated characters- not that this doesn't have it's own charm, but live action charms me more ;)

If i'm going to watch an episodic series, it's going to be a toku series for these reasons. However, I generally think that anime has better storytelling, and there are certain things that are easier done with animation than live action.

Welp, I may as well not even bother then.

Well, the anime comparison is actually a moot point. If you put the good anime against the good toku, you'll find that there's thousands of better anime.
Then you put the bad anime against the bad toku, you'll find that there's an entire ocean of bad anime in comparison to the scant few bad toku.
Not because either is inherently superior, but simply because Toku (Well, the action oriented Toku we know), by and large, is just a much, much smaller product around. I can say anime has worse story telling, and I'm not inherently wrong (Just look at the magnitude of gawdawful 90's-early 2000's anime that went straight to the bargain bins at Wal-Mart, FYE, and any Japanese retailer, that no one pays attention to).

I only recall CGI fights for the 3rd season and the end boss fights of most other seasons.

I just meant to say that when I prefer toku to anime, it's for the same reasons that Suzu listed, and not because I was actually comparing the two as art forms. Sorry, my posts tend to include way more than they need to sometimes.

Well I started this thread so I might as well state my things.

What I enjoy about tokusatsu depends on the franchise.

For Super Sentai it can sometimes be to see what they do with their human fights on the ground and megazord battles. The practical effects were what got me into the whole franchise. But if the story is crap then I can't stand the show, it sounds weird I know, but I enjoy practical with good story. I haven't seen a Sentai show in full in about two and a half years, because some of these more recent shows haven't been interesting me.

Kamen Rider I also adore for the practical effects and the stories that some of these shows have. Some are fun but others are pretty generic but again seeing those suits fight makes me want to know how they filmed some shots and fights. The suits for most shows are pretty good, but of course there are plenty that are questionable.

Ultraman and Godzilla I haven't seen much of, but the large scale fights do intrigue me. I've only seen on Godzilla film and haven't ever gotten past 4 episodes in an Ultra show.

As to how I got into it, I watched Power Rangers as a kid and then a few years back watched some marathons on TV to kill time and I couldn't help but remember some of these teams. It reminded me of when I was a kid and seeing the fights made me interested into seeing how they filmed the show. It was from there I got introduced to Sentai with Shinkenger and about 6 I became interested into rider with 7 episodes of OOO and my first weekly show Gaim.

Guys... I was referring to the way a story is told as in cultural quirks and stuff. I like how Japanese people tell stories in their media and that is basically the same range of styles in both live action (toku and drama) and anime. Yes, there are toku that do it better than some anime and there are anime that do it better than some toku, but I was referencing to the fact why I watch Japanese toku in particular.
Ultimately, except for the short phase before I discovered Magiranger, Amercian toku storytelling aka Power Rangers never clicked with me. That also goes for the last Godzilla they made. It was okay, but not really what I wanted to see in a toku movie. Pacific Rim was kinda cool in that regard but it did take a lot of Japanese style elements so... yeah.

since i was born in the 90's.. i kinda missed the parts where the heroes would be jumping of the cliffs or rolling down the mountains after they were hit by something.. more drama and intensity.. nowadays.. very few scenes like these can be shown own the modern super sentai and other tokusatsu shows.. ��

I love shounen manga, American comic books, and American superheroes. Especially when it's a team of characters with different strengths and weaknesses working together. Super Sentai is a live action superhero team show with Japanese design sensibilities, and that appeals to me for several reasons.

...so yeah mostly it's the characters and the team dynamic. If a show has great action, cool villains, or a good story it's icing on the cake, but I really have to enjoy the team to enjoy a show.