[Switchblade]

It's weird, I actually watched a pretty similar episode of Metalder recently. Spoilers for this episode and Metalder follow:

Both are about the bad guys using a kid as the weapon to kill the hero, although in Metalder it's a little girl that's actually a robot with a bomb inside of her. I think Metalder pulled that part off more effectively, to be honest - mostly because the little girl was a full character and not a mostly mute infant. Plus she didn't know she was a bomb, or even a robot for that matter, which made it feel more heartrending to me when she blew herself up so she couldn't kill Ryusei.

Still, I think Skyrider had the stronger ending, mostly because it runs with the tragedy right up to the end, while Metalder wussed out and had the little girl rebuilt and sent to live with another friendly robot. Still, they were both really strong and moving episodes and I can't see any modern tokusatsu try something like this again (well, besides Garo). I definitely don't expect to see an episode of Fourze that does anything even half as dark as this.

[Steel A Jeeg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

It's weird, I actually watched a pretty similar episode of Metalder recently. Spoilers for this episode and Metalder follow:

What I've seen of Metalder (and loved) has impressed me with how well written it is. I guess it has the advantage of being newer, but I feel like it takes a lot more risks, like a lot of other non-Rider and Super Sentai tokusatsu.

What I like about this Skyrider though was that it really made you feel for Hiroshi. The plot felt like a (particularly insane) device meant to show us that he keeps a kind heart despite all of this craziness that NeoShocker throws at him.

How are you watching Metalder, btw? Raw, or HK subs?

[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steel A Jeeg

What I've seen of Metalder (and loved) has impressed me with how well written it is. I guess it has the advantage of being newer, but I feel like it takes a lot more risks, like a lot of other non-Rider and Super Sentai tokusatsu.

What I like about this Skyrider though was that it really made you feel for Hiroshi. The plot felt like a (particularly insane) device meant to show us that he keeps a kind heart despite all of this craziness that NeoShocker throws at him.

How are you watching Metalder, btw? Raw, or HK subs?

DFF had 1-20 and 31-39 subbed before the site went down; I was fortunate enough to grab them all back in December. I filled in the gap with raws, which was an experience. I have four episodes left to watch and it has not stopped being incredible.

I've heard some group was going to take up Metalder after DFF, but I haven't heard anything else about that in over a month.

[Steel A Jeeg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

DFF had 1-20 and 31-39 subbed before the site went down; I was fortunate enough to grab them all back in December. I filled in the gap with raws, which was an experience. I have four episodes left to watch and it has not stopped being incredible.

I've heard some group was going to take up Metalder after DFF, but I haven't heard anything else about that in over a month.

Hi no Tori was going to pick it up (and I think they even released an episode) but then the whole drama with their staff went down, and the project just evaporated.

Once school is out again you'll see a lot of these shows picking up steam again. A lot of the sub groups have members in college, and things grind to a halt when the second half of the school year rolls around!

I wish I'd grabbed the DFF episodes. The last few months around the holidays were really a nightmare for me, and I didn't have time to grab a lot of stuff that I wanted to. I didn't even know that they had done the show! Maybe I can find backups online.

[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steel A Jeeg

Once school is out again you'll see a lot of these shows picking up steam again. A lot of the sub groups have members in college, and things grind to a halt when the second half of the school year rolls around!

Yeah, I hear that. Even being on the other side of the classroom is really time consuming and draining.

Quote:

I wish I'd grabbed the DFF episodes. The last few months around the holidays were really a nightmare for me, and I didn't have time to grab a lot of stuff that I wanted to. I didn't even know that they had done the show! Maybe I can find backups online.

I also hear that. I was going to watch Changeman after I finished Metalder and that's gone, too. If you can't find any backups, though, you can probably find someone who still feels he owes you for a great SHF Agito Trinity deal that has the whole series on his hard drive and could find some way to do you a solid.

[Steel A Jeeg]

Kamen Rider episode 26 released!

This is the first appearance of Colonel Zol, and the start of the second arc for Rider 2. This is where the show shifts gears from your typical monster-of-the-week action, to our heroes focusing more on trying to take down Shocker Commanding Officers. And this is the first one we meet!

Kamen Rider episode 26:
[MKV] [AVI]
[MKV Torrent] [AVI Torrent]

Check out the blog post for more information and trivia!

[printer6]

So, Colonel Zol... what is the point of the eye patch? When he puts on his little disguise, he just takes it off, revealing that his left eye is perfectly fine!

[ljacone]

Watched the KITsubs release of episode 3 of Kamen Rider last night and all I have to say is oh my damn! ScorpionMan and his man-eating scorpions were pretty brutal. You can definitely see the manga influence on this show, both from the storylines and the crazy camera angles, which to my eye seem to be trying to emulate or otherwise reference the akimbo panels you see in some manga. This was also evident to a lesser degree in some of the daikaiju movies of the era (Godzilla vs the Smog Monster) which like this show was going after a young audience.

We just get some really great scenes this time out, including the prisoners being terminated in the desert, the entire bit in the hotel (loved the Shocker girls!) and then the final fight on the beach.

Also, besides the Nazi connection, Shocker really gives me a vibe of Unit 731 from them as well, with their experiments on humans and the like. It's horrible to say that in the context of a show with a heroic cybernetic grasshopper, but the influence is there. This is even more evident when one considers that this was 1971 and the war was not exactly ancient history for a lot of people, especially in Japan.

[Steel A Jeeg]

A very belated release post. This episode actually went out at 6pm (eastern) and then I "took a nap." As in, I slept for 6 hours and woke up in a stupor.

Skyrider episode 26 is out! NeoShocker has a plot to spread a new epidemic across Japan, and also for an apparently related reason, turn the schools around Tokyo into fortresses so they can take over Japan. Sure, why not!

But the real surprise here is the help that Skyrider gets along the way. X and Riderman show up to lend a hand in the fight... and it all build up to a huge showdown next episode. Stick around for the preview to find out why you should be excited!

Kamen Rider Skyrider episode 26:
[MKV] [AVI]
[MKV Torrent] [AVI Torrent]
Skyrider 26 @ KITsubs

[Switchblade]

That was a weird episode. It felt like they were trying to cram too much into one episode, leading up to those ridiculous "Benny Hill-speed" scenes during the last fight(s). I'm always happy to see more X Rider, but I'd hoped he'd get more focus (I sometimes feel he's the Rodney Dangerfield of the original seven Riders, which sucks because he's one of my favorites). The next episode looks really cool, though.