[GoldenXtreme]

I gave the two Zebraman movies a shot. Still kind of reeling from the... well... I'll get into that shortly.

The first film has a pretty simple premise. The protagonist is a teacher who is unpopular with his students and family, whose only form of release is trying to cosplay as Zebraman, the hero from a 70s tokusatsu that was cancelled after only a few episodes due to low ratings. However, her slowly starts to actually become a superhero and ends up fighting an alien menace. It's overall comical, but also surreal and has some very serious moments too. Some parts of the story were a bit odd or rushed, but it was overall quite charming. Probably my favorite part was how much effort they put into creating the old, failed 70s toku for Zebraman.

The sequel is probably one of the most ill-advised things I've seen in a while. Both films were directed by Takashi Miike and written by Kankuro Kudo, but the second film definitely felt like the both of them has been allowed to cut loose. Gone is oddly down to earth setting of the prior film, replaced with a bombastic Hollywood-esque superhero film. The new story follows the same protagonist, who wakes up with no memory 15 years later in Tokyo, now renamed Zebra City. A new law has been enacted that lets the police and politicians commit any crimes they want for 10 minutes a day, which lowers the crime rate somehow. Turns out our hero had been strapped into a centrifuge for 5 years, which split him into his good side and also a sexy, evil woman (whom the film will thirst wildly over). Lots of stuff happens, the alien menace returns and a conflict between the white and black zebras ensues. The film ends with the protagonist having sex with the evil woman version of himself, recombining them. Then he throws a box of condoms on the ground as the words "stop AIDS" flash on the screen?! Then he defeats a giant alien by eating it in some kind of weird fetish vore scene before his bloated body floats off into space?! WHAT?! The film was a total critical failure, since it's doubtful most of the people who enjoyed the first film would be receptive to... whatever this is. We really do need editors in this world.

Also in the second film Zebraman got a rebooted TV series in the interim years in-universe, but it was done in more of the style of an 80s or early 90s tokusatsu instead of something more modern that would have fit the time period. Terrible research failure, 0/10 film.