[Mesnick]

I started watching the second season of Sukeban Deka. And even though I’m only at the beginning of this show, I already like it even more than the previous one. The budget has grown noticeably, the battles have become better and more varied, and the arsenal of techniques for both the MC and her opponents has increased. Mass fights are one step away from being called battle scenes. The new heroine is cute and intriguing, and she's similar enough to the original Saki to not turn off fans, but different enough to not look like a copy with a different appearance. And the introduction of girlfriends who are capable of not only supporting, but also participating on equal terms in battles adds variety and spice to the show.
If there is one thing I can nitpick about, I thought the show was too fast-paced. In the first episode, Yoko becomes Sukeban Deka; in the second, she teams up with her first friend, in the third, she meets the second, and in the fourth, they already help her on a mission. Somehow all this is too hasty, especially in comparison with the original, which, being almost half as long, spent the first ten episodes on fillers. But the thought that there are still 38 episodes of this story ahead makes me squeal with delight. I recommend it.

[GoldenXtreme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mesnick

Considering that the origin of the hero also is not revealed for a long time in Janperson, I think this is due to the commercial failure of the first Metal Hero show with the robot MC - Metalder. Apparently, Toei decided that the hero's introduction to the world and the inevitable making of mistakes is not very suitable for the tokusatsu genre and therefore subsequent shows began with fully prepared heroes. And their origin was revealed later, when the viewer had already fallen in love with them and therefore assessed them less critically.
P.S. I hope I haven't wandered into spoiler territory. If anything happens, I apologize and cover what is needed.

Add another thing to the list of vague things I have heard about Metalder that intrigue me to no end. Greatly looking forward to watching it at some point.

With Jiban though, I kind of feel like they went too far in the opposite direction though. The show takes so long to establish what the backstory even was that it was hard to get invested for a while, simply because I was too distracted trying to work out what the show was even about and why everything was happening!

[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldenXtreme

Add another thing to the list of vague things I have heard about Metalder that intrigue me to no end. Greatly looking forward to watching it at some point.

Metalder is a fantastic show, some of the best MotWs of all time.

[Mesnick]

Metalder is great and looks original even now, but in some ways I understand why it failed. There are many reasons, including those not related to the show itself:

But if you are looking for the main thing, then it is the lack of direction. The show threw in a lot of creative solutions that didn't really want to add up to a cohesive picture. It seems that Metalder was inventing new tricks, waiting for what would hook the viewer, but it never found the right one.

[GoldenXtreme]

I watched... Kaiju Mono! This is a giant monster film where a guy turns into a giant wrestler to battle the titular kaiju. It is full of Ultraman references and cameos, but is also of course something of a genre parody. In that respect it is sort of like Death Kappa, but while that film relishes in being as unhinged and slapdash as possible, this is a slightly more serious attempt. That being said, I kind of felt like it lacked a good sense of comedic timing or truly absurd content, which sort of undermined the whole movie for me.

I did realize after watching this that the maker of this film also made something called Crab Goalkeeper though, which the Wikipedia article cites the creator as describing as "like Forrest Gump, but with a crab". Sounds awesome.

[Mesnick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldenXtreme

I did realize after watching this that the maker of this film also made something called Crab Goalkeeper though, which the Wikipedia article cites the creator as describing as "like Forrest Gump, but with a crab". Sounds awesome.

Agree. I'll have to take a look sometime.

[Sunred]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldenXtreme

I did realize after watching this that the maker of this film also made something called Crab Goalkeeper though, which the Wikipedia article cites the creator as describing as "like Forrest Gump, but with a crab". Sounds awesome.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mesnick

Agree. I'll have to take a look sometime.

Hiroshi Fujioka aka Takeshi Hongo/Kamen Rider Ichigo and Naoto Takenaka aka the hermit from Kamen Rider Ghost seem to play major roles. Also seems to have Arthur Kuroda aka Itsuro/Kamen Rider Verde from the Ryuki 13 Riders special and Nao Oikawa aka Kegalesia from Go-Onger as part of the cast.

[Mesnick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunred

Hiroshi Fujioka aka Takeshi Hongo/Kamen Rider Ichigo and Naoto Takenaka aka the hermit from Kamen Rider Ghost seem to play major roles. Also seems to have Arthur Kuroda aka Itsuro/Kamen Rider Verde from the Ryuki 13 Riders special and Nao Oikawa aka Kegalesia from Go-Onger as part of the cast.

Then it's even more worth watching.

[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.

[Mesnick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldenXtreme

I gave the two Zebraman movies a shot.

The second Zebraman really went too far. Considering the differences between the parts and the time travel motif, it seems to me that Miike and Kudo were taking cues from Evil Dead and this was their Army of Darkness. But in the process, it all became, "Let's put every crazy thing they'll let us on screen!"