Mature Literary Themes in TOEI
 

Hey guys what literary themes do you see in TOEI installments that you really like? Why do you like them in particular? For me I like in Timeranger how they actually explored the notion of freewill given the plot of the police travelling back in time to the 21st century.

TOEI Installments? You mean tokusatsu done by Toei Studios?

In that case, I like Gaim's themes of struggle, growth and maturity which is seen in the characters, as well as the different ideas of justice that was explored. What can I say? Toei hiring the Urobutcher to write toku was a genius idea.

And then there's Ex-Aid which explores the theme of death. Really brings the medical world, which deals with preserving life, and the gaming world, which has the gaming mechanics of 'restarts' and 'extra life', together to explore the idea while introducing moral questions.

I've been rewatching Kuuga, and I really love how it explores that paradox of a hero having to embrace violence to achieve peace. Yusuke has subtle but pronounced depth with how his outward optimism contrasts with his growing melancholy. I also feel like the filmmaking of the show is a bit above later KR shows

The "no longer human" theme of Kamen Rider is something I enjoy a lot. They don't do this a lot anymore, we were given a reason why too, but I miss it. Zero-One KINDA goes into with the humagears with the "Humagears aren't humans but they're people too!" thingy.

There was the beginning part of Gaim where Kouta was almost killed by Zangetsu and completely lost it after that, refusing to wear the belt because he might meet him again and die, or he'd have to kill to.

Then there's this one in Kuuga, I can't remember exactly what it was. There was this teacher looking at the window. He said something like: "I'm a teacher, I'm supposed to teach kids. The students are all thinking about this, that, and this. What am I supposed to do?" I think it's something like that. It got real for me cuz I do one of my old math teachers was kind of in the same situation.

Zero-One touched on a lot of interesting stuff for me. The Humagears raise questions about A.I. and what it means to have a "dream," and the way the various human characters treat them also brings up themes of prejudice and how we treat those different for ourselves, you could even see a theme about how it's easier to treat someone badly if you can rationalize it by saying they're not really a person. I remember there was some argument on here about the HumaGear protest marches and whether or not they were inspired by any specific real events, but I hope we can at least all agree that the allegories for racism are in there. Also, I don't know if this was intentional by the writers, but Delmo's speech about "pride" and being true to herself even if people wanted to destroy her for it really spoke to me as a queer person.

And the deep themes aren't limited to the HumaGears! All the main Riders, even Naki and Ikazuchi, were dealing with some form of grief, trauma or abuse, and reacting to it in different ways. Yes, the show could have handled some of their character arcs better (Yua was robbed), but it was still interesting and moving to see the show touch on those themes at all. That's why I think that even though the ending was a mess, it was still very powerful, since it was about two people who had both been through tragedy each realizing that the other was in just as much pain as they were, and that the only way to break the cycle of violence was to reconcile. I'm especially impressed that the show sent that message without naively thinking love and peace could just solve everything: The Ark still needed to be destroyed, and mbjr.net still needs to guard against it rising again. I guess the final message of Zero-One is something like "sometimes force is needed to stop evil in the moment, but only compassion and understanding can bring peace in the long run."

And then there were also themes about corporate greed and the dangers of perusing profit regardless of the risks or who gets hurt in the process, mostly through Gai and ZAIA in general, though I wouldn't really say that Zero-One was anti-corporation because Aruto and Hiden were always shown in a positive light. I guess since Toei is a big corporation itself and always looking to make more money, the writers could only take that message so far XD But even the job battle arc, for all its faults, touched on themes of automation and the fear of machines taking jobs away from humans.

(Sorry for spamming, I just kept thinking of more things I wanted to say about Zero-One)

Hasn't anyone done romance themes in KR? Would be nice if Kamen Rider does those concepts more.

Fairy tale endings? The hero gets the girl?

Brave is the closest thing I can think of in terms of a 'fairy tale'; damsel in distress, fight the villain who's holding her captive, rescue the princess. I mean, of course she died but, eh, minor details.

Oh, and I'm talking about the situation in Another Ending: Brave & Snipe.

Well there was Drive with Shinnosuke & Kiriko, but to me it felt forced.

I want something that ends with a kiss!

Agito is extremely Man vs. God.

It depends by what you mean by mature? Stuff like death and blood is not always dark and mature. It all depends on how its used.

They could have expanded on that even more if Hikawa/G3-X was the main character.

Isn't there an episode of the toei spiderman where spiderman had to destroy a blue print from ww2 for a WMD and it like touches upon the themes of war and how we disconnect from the creation of weapons to the firing of bullets? Like am I misremembering? I just remember toei spiderman burning something and their being flashes of like ww2 bombers.

Liveman has tons of that. Betrayal, redemption, giving up being human for more power, etc.

I don’t know why, but this reminds me of a complaint made during a reading of a bad fanfiction when he got to the “Liveman” tribute. Which instead of focusing on any of Liveman’s actual plot elements, had more references to Hurricaneger and Maskman than it did to Liveman. This screenshot sums it up.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnLb8tkX...jpg&name=large

Let's face it, the main point of these shows is to sell toys to children; literary values are gonna come second. It's al one big money-printing enterprise. Of course, good plot and good morals are integral to keep the children watching and the parents from complaining. And considering how they're pumping out these shows by the year, there'll be some misses. Also, good plot can contribute to good toy sales (I think?).

Take Ghost for example. Friendship is a nice trait and all, but it won't give you superpowers in real life. And the whole 'human potential is infinite' is nice idealism, but ignores the realism of external factors, such as whether or not humans are actually willing to work together to achieve said potential, whether or not an asteroid might suddenly kill us all before we reach said potential, whether humans actually have infinite potential given our inherent limitations whether it be physical limitations or moral defects, etc. etc. and so forth.

I do admire the show for its tasteful handling of Fumi and her death, however.

What kind of fanfiction reading is this? Link to a video or something?

Here’s a link to the playlist of the read along. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...lCQXUr8kqKksIB Please note that some videos are out of order.