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04-06-2021, 07:24 PM | #8441 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
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~Fish's Zenkai Tour!~
Episode 5 – Taiyou Sentai Sun Vulcan You have no idea how hard I had to resist the urge to call the show "Sausage Fest Sentai Sun Vulcan" up there. Like, if you want my prior knowledge and opinions of this show, it's all in that dumb nickname I came up with years ago and have never had a chance to use until now. The thought of a Sentai that's basically the All-Dudes Squad has always been so weird to me, especially as someone raised on Power Rangers, which has a history of going out of its way to add even more women than Sentai sometimes has. (This is something I was very happy to see them remember for Dino Fury, by the way.) It's like all I can think about whenever I see Sun Vulcan. I look at these guys and picture them hanging out in their secret tree house base, which no doubt has a sign hanging on it that reads "1+2 = NO GIRLS ALLOWED". And you know, in retrospect, that may have been ironically narrow-minded of me, because taking this chance to actually engage with Sun Vulcan a bit more, I very quickly started realizing how much cool stuff is here that I wasn't paying any attention to. Honestly, this is probably my favorite premiere since Goranger? This show has got style for days, first of all. The raw production values felt way higher than anything else so far for reasons I can't quite put my finger on easily, and in terms of the motifs, it's got one of my favorite general setups ever. Shockingly enough, it took this long for us to get an animal-themed Sentai show, and I adore animal-themed toku heroes. That's a concept that I find lends itself perfectly to the very exaggerated, theatrical nature of tokusatsu, and watching Vul Eagle, Shark, and Panther all jump around posing their arms and whatnot to recall the beasts they're named after is plain cool and exciting. Each of them has a clear and distinct feel to their movements that springs so naturally out of that simple choice. I can't stress this enough – the animal kingdom is *the* ideal place to turn for strong character iconography, and Sun Vulcan gets major props from me for being the first Sentai to realize that. I don't think I ever knew why the show went with the whole sun theme prior to this (even despite the insanely catchy opening song spelling it out for me), but now it's obvious that it was chosen as the symbol of life on Earth, and that of course means the designated bad guys for this season are the machine empire Black Magma, a dichotomy that literally can not be more perfect and easy to understand. I'm very impressed by all the theming here, if you can't tell. It's super considered and punchy in a way I feel surpasses the previous shows. And then even simply on a design level, we've got a combining giant robot now, and suits that ditch the somewhat unflattering horizontal stripes for sharp and stylish V-shapes, which are infinitely cooler. I might even go so far as to say you could pass them off as a modern team with barely any updates needed, even? The main villain's design is none too shabby, as well. And on top of all of this, the premiere episode itself is another really strong one, taking Denziman's frantic pace, but applying it to the original Goranger special operative formula, because it turns out spies are still pretty cool after all! It's more of a straightforward military bent this time, and I think they once again really capture that romanticized ideal of a cool organization. We're back to highly trained protagonists using trinkets to activate covert secret base entrances, the crux of the plot revolves around the villains performing espionage, and, hey, we've even got a yellow who likes curry again. It's almost like a greatest hits album of Sentai to this point in some ways, with stuff like a fun montage of the protagonists introduced fending off assassins sent after them, like a more macho power fantasy version of the Gorangers' intro, but combined with things from Denziman like another talking dog, and, crucially for me, another giant robot fight right in the premiere. You can never go wrong with giant robot fights! So yeah, Sun Vulcan is a show I went into here with no particular expectations, and unlike with Denziman, I honestly am pretty pumped up about it now. With that one glaring exception mentioned upfront, everything here really gelled with me, and I can easily see myself enjoying the rest of this show whenever I get around to it.
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Last edited by Fish Sandwich; 03-05-2022 at 05:10 PM.. |
04-06-2021, 07:50 PM | #8442 |
Some guy. I'm alright.
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Michigan
Posts: 4,406
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I think the reason why the Sun Vulcan suits hold up so well is because pretty much every animal-themed Sentai since then has kinda used them as a base? It's especially prevalent in Vul-Eagle, of whom many Red Rangers would take the basics of their suit design from.
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04-06-2021, 09:01 PM | #8443 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Now that you mention it, yeah, they might even have the same thing going on as Goranger's designs where they nailed it so much the first time that there's never been any significant room for improvement. Pretty much the only major thing they figured out afterwards was that it looks cool to use the visors as an implied open mouth. So maybe they're not quite as immediately perfect as Goranger, but still, that's awfully close for a first attempt!
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04-07-2021, 02:06 AM | #8444 |
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Ah yes, the one Stan Lee tried to make a show out of by using the fight footage to save money. (Hilariously, he was working with the same producer who went on to green light Haim Saban’s much more successful attempts years later).
Jokes aside, the thing I remember most from this episode is the scene where the chief reveals he knew there was a spy in the base. And when the spy tries to escape, he seal off the corridor and jettisons her into a minefield. That’s hardcore. (Sure enough, he goes on to be pretty much the real hero of this series). |
04-07-2021, 03:13 AM | #8445 |
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Join Date: Oct 2019
Posts: 462
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From what I can gather the problem seemed to be not so much that it being all men is bad, but more just that it didn't add anything in that particular case and seemed a bit pointless to me. I just find it wrong that no English-speaking commentators ever seemed to have a problem with things like magical girl shows that don't have male transforming characters, granted it's anime and a different type of thing so arguably not so in your face but you are still teaching restrictive gender roles to kids and yes it's not like the men's rights movement in America is headed in a great direction either lol (it is generally young men similar to my demographic I'm more likely to care about than like old fathers, no offence!) but I just think that people should stop seeing it as a left and right thing when people won't always necessarily have for example a certain opinion on different races or something just because of their one on gender, and also I do think it does depend on the individual case and demographics can also play a part, it's not like it's all men or all women in the entire world either!
...Sorry if that ended up getting political, it's just a topic that genuinely can get to me, though I have (hopefully) mellowed with age. |
04-07-2021, 04:08 AM | #8446 |
Stronger Than You
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: nyet
Posts: 25,326
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I'm not surprised Fish is getting into Sun Vulcan. I found that show to be boring as sin (Though apparently it picks up once the new Vul Eagle is introduced).
Suits are good, though. I'll agree there.
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04-07-2021, 05:06 AM | #8447 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
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Quote:
Quote:
Jokes aside, the thing I remember most from this episode is the scene where the chief reveals he knew there was a spy in the base. And when the spy tries to escape, he seal off the corridor and jettisons her into a minefield. That’s hardcore.
I remember you saying this, actually! Who knows, probably helped to keep my expectations from being too high.
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04-07-2021, 07:45 AM | #8448 |
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Join Date: May 2019
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Well since it’s Yasuko Kobayashi’s birthday today, I thought I’d watch something to Mark the occasion. So I went with “Timeranger vs GoGoFive”, even though the movie is written by someone else (Ryōta Yamaguchi, if anyone’s curious). I chose to watch it because she worked on both shows being represented in some significant capacity.
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04-07-2021, 07:52 AM | #8449 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,527
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Sun Vulcan Robo is a good design, and the color scheme is awesome making nice use of blue and silver as well as the intricate yellow and red details. The intro section of the opening theme with the horns and guitar is nice too.
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04-09-2021, 03:54 PM | #8450 |
Stronger Than You
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: nyet
Posts: 25,326
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Finished Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger, and I must say, it's a fun one. I can see why it got a 10 Years After special. The cast is solid, and in general, it's energetic and memorable.
I feel it's largest issues are the Gozen character and how Shurikenger acts in regards to their orders. The main cast is constantly kept out of the loop of basically everything, ordered around, then admonished for having the audacity of calling everyone out for it? And then when Gozen shows up, acts like a prick, and I'm supposed to care when they die? Yeah, nawh. Still, that aside, I really dug it. It did have a bit of a problem of having the Gouraigers suffer a noticeable drop in power once they became good, but it didn't bug me too much.
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