Hasbro's Power Rangers era and General Tokusatsu discussion

[Christopher]

I just rewatched Zero-One #2, and I've noticed a pattern. (As Kamen Rider Drive would say, it's all come together.) I remarked last week that the muscleman Humagear seemed to show emotion and happiness before Jin turned him into a Magear, and then he showed more emotion when fighting the reprogramming. This week, Horobi was monitoring the delivery Humagear and said a Singularity was about to occur, and sent Jin to turn him. The delivery guy also showed emotion when he fought the reprogramming. Later, when Aruto thanked Mamoru for protecting people, Mamoru smiled, and something beeped on the device Jin was holding; Jin then went on to turn Mamoru into a Magear.

So I think all three of the Humagear were reaching a threshold of sentience, which is what Horobi means by "Singularity." They're hunting down HGs that are turning sentient, and forcibly recruiting them to serve Metsubojinrai.NET -- which they probably interpret as "freeing" them from enslavement by humans, or some such thing. Although in practice it's bound to have the effect of slowing the emergence of sentience, since they'll keep turning the emergent ones into monsters that then get blown up by Riders.

I wish Fumiya Takahashi would dial down his goofiness as Aruto a bit. I'm used to the comedy beats and reactions in these shows being exaggerated, but he's a bit too over the top, and it could get grating over time.

 

[Christopher]

Beast Morphers: "Thrills and Drills" is a mediocre episode revolving around Ravi's fear of the dentist, rather a step down from its Go-Busters counterpart (jumping back to #8, before the fourth and fifth Go-Busters were added) which involved Ravi's counterpart Ryuji confronting an old friend who'd become a spy trying to steal the plans for the upcoming new Zords. However, it does begin a new arc where Evox's avatars are trying to copy the Rangers' powers so that one of them can get upgraded with them, putting Blaze and Roxy in competition with each other. That shows a bit of promise.

 

[Samurai8472]

Zero-One episode 3

https://www.mp4upload.com/0000ws9xjg4q

This was a good episode. Not too much cringe worthy Aruto comedy for this week. CGI was also less in your face

I guess the new car smell of the show is wearing down. They don’t have to do long shots of merchandise or features of the show so much like the cgi bio grasshopper

The show is really pouring on the backstory and plot details.

We didn’t even learn the name of the Helheim forest till around episode 10 of “Kamen rider Gaim”

My guess on the ark our mystery man was talking about is that zero-one holds bio data hence the bio animals that materialize when using the progrise keys such as grasshopper and shark.

We finally get an opening credits sequence. I like the chorus but this might be a theme I’m not 100% into. Maybe 70% ?

Lots of foreshadowing in the credits too. Looks like Izu is our main female character of the season. She might get hacked sometime in the series

I like that Aruto is trying to make an effort to promote humagear androids

Also in his office/ hangout there was an iron man type hall of armor of different humagear models. A hint of things to come?

And Valkyrie finally makes her debut. Pretty good fight too

Ryusoulger episode 26

https://www.mp4upload.com/gdvqmaepgiw2

The plot picks up again. Gaisorg is still very powerful.

Gaisorg even trended on Twitter the day the episode aired

Was interesting seeing the flashbacks of Koh as a kid, learning that as a kid he was not kind and rather ruthless

We also learned the reasons why Koh and Asuna were chosen over the other students to become RyuSoulgers. Wonder if we'll learn why Master Blue chose Melt.

 

[Christopher]

Zero-One: A pretty good one. It develops the themes of the show further -- the idea of Humagear having "heart" through their connection with humans -- and is a good showcase for Yua/Valkyrie. It's interesting -- and appropriate for her cheetah theme -- that she has a running henshin. There have been a few of those before, e.g. Blade and Garren running and jumping through the "cards" projected in front of them to transform. Meanwhile, Fuwa still has to force his Progrise Key open, I see. I'm amazed he didn't just break it.

I hope Yua's mysterious benefactor isn't a bad guy, or if he is, that Yua sees it and breaks ties with him. The franchise has had very few female Riders, but they have an annoying tendency to be villains -- Femme, Shuki, Larc, Marika, and temporarily Poppy. Valkyrie's our first regular female Kamen Rider (as opposed to a regular female character who briefly becomes a Rider at the end, like Natsumi and Tsukuyomi), so I want her to be heroic.


Ryu: A rather weird one. Kind of a big retcon to Koh's personality, though I guess they justified why he changed. The bigger problem, though, is the unresolved issue of the Minusaur's host, which the Ryusoulgers just seemed to forget about when the battle ended. The Minusaur's still alive and she's still in danger of being drained to death, so this should still be an urgent concern for them. There's also the mystery of what she was crying about, since Kreon seemed surprised by Canalo's assumption that he'd made her suffer.

So... a friendly new Ryusoul Tribe guy shows up shortly before Gaisorg returns. A guy who wanted the power of a Ryusoulger but got kicked out. Guess who'll turn out to be inside the armor!

 

[Samurai8472]

Kamen Rider Zero-One episode 4

https://www.mp4upload.com/wtpc900aj63y

Another good episode. I haven't been this excited to wait for another episode in quite awhile

It's interesting to see how the Daybreak event happened. It bares some resemblance to the 2011 fukushima daiichi nuclear reactor accident.

Also welcome back to the good old rock quarry location

Wow that was fast. Fuwa knows Aruto is Zero-One. I'm glad they didn't draw it out for like 20 episodes

We also get more backstory! We learn Horobi was already a Kamen Rider 12 years ago and that Metsubojinrai.NET has their own "Ark"

It was sad to see Anna get hacked too


Head writer Takahashi Yuya hit it out of the park. Like he's nailing the story and the human drama in ways that was hinted in Ex-Aid, but got screwed over by the tone mishmash and basically ridiculous premise. Having it grounded by a Black Mirror scenario works.



Henshin lesson

https://www.mp4upload.com/astiph866i2v

 

[Christopher]

^Yes, quite an impressive episode. I'm surprised they revealed so much backstory so soon, as well as revealing Zero-One's identity to Fuwa. It was a bold move for Aruto to choose to reveal it, in the interests of transparency. And it helped make Fuwa more sympathetic to tie his obsession with finding the truth to his empathy with the boy who had his own questions he needed answered. It's the first time I've come close to liking him.

Man, Anna was really an overachiever for a tour bus guide -- or else she was a frustrated historian. She was really dedicated to finding the truth rather than just reciting a tour script. It was also quite surprising that her dedication was so strong that she resisted assimilation (what else can we call it?) long enough to get the truth out. It raises hope that other Humagear have the potential to fight the virus rather than having to be destroyed.

There are some questions the episode doesn't answer, though. Like, if the explosion that destroyed Daybreak Town was nuclear, why is there no radiation hazard a mere 12 years later? And if Yaiba freely gave the Punching Kong Progrise Key to Fuwa, why did he still have to force it open?

We learn Horobi was already a Kamen Rider 12 years ago

Was he, though? The actor's only 24. That suggests that either Horobi's the second person to wear that armor, or he's something other than a normal human.

Head writer Takahashi Yuya hit it out of the park. Like he's nailing the story and the human drama in ways that was hinted in Ex-Aid, but got screwed over by the tone mishmash and basically ridiculous premise.

Ex-Aid felt to me like a rehash of themes that had already been done well in earlier seasons like Kabuto, Wizard, Gaim, and Drive. It was okay, but didn't really offer much of anything fresh, aside from the corporate satire, with the ultimate "bosses" in the video game sense being literal corporate bosses whose evil was motivated by pure capitalist greed. So far, I'm definitely liking Zero-One better.

 

[Samurai8472]

And if Yaiba freely gave the Punching Kong Progrise Key to Fuwa, why did he still have to force it open?

Aruto authorises his key by scanning it in front of his belt.
Yua authorises hers by plugging it in.

Fuwa is a hot head that doesn't know you need to scan the key first

Yuwa said herself he was not authorized to use the gun/belt at all, he forced the authorization by... well, force. If all he needed really was to insert the key to unlock it... that would be hilarious, but his belt might as well have that functionality locked.

It's like a safety lock on a gun(which is appropriate)

To confirm the thing about the authorization of the Keys, the official specs of the Progrise Key list the colored hinge (the one with the arrow on it) as the Trans-Lock Cylinder and this is the description:

Trans Lock Cylinder (トランスロックシリンダー, Toransu Rokku Shirindā) - The hinge mechanism. It holds the Rise Keeper (the faceplate of the key) in place until 'authorised' to unlock by a transformation device (Note: not the case in DX roleplaying versions). The Progrise Key can then be opened into its expanded state (展開状態, tenkai jōtai).

So yeah, basically Fuwa is just too hotheaded to follow the procedure

 

[Christopher]

Aruto authorises his key by scanning it in front of his belt.
Yua authorises hers by plugging it in.

Fuwa is a hot head that doesn't know you need to scan the key first

He should've watched the lesson video, then.

Fuwa's driver is the same type as Yua's, so they should authorize the same way.

Yuwa said herself he was not authorized to use the gun/belt at all, he forced the authorization by... well, force. If all he needed really was to insert the key to unlock it... that would be hilarious, but his belt might as well have that functionality locked.

That was true of his original key, but my point is that this time she gave him the key, so why didn't she authorize him to use it?

 

[Christopher]

Beast Morphers: "Tools of the Betrayed" -- cute title, and a decent episode. More predictable Ben & Betty clumsiness (why does anyone entrust anything to those two?), but they built an actual character conflict on it, so it wasn't pointless this time.

I'm amazed they were able sneak Roxy calling the Tooltron robot "You tool" past the censors.

I'm also surprised by how much new action footage they shoot. At first, I thought the fight scene in the cold open might be Sentai footage -- it wasn't at the usual stadium they routinely use for location work (Tokyo's Ajinomoto Stadium), but it was outside a stadium, and I did see a bit of Japanese signage in one shot. But then they had Blaze there in the "Dark Buster" armor that only appeared in the last two Go-Busters episodes, working with the Robotron-Maker device that's original to Beast Morphers (ugh, the acronym for this show is unfortunate), and clearly at the same location as the rest of the fight. So it must've been almost all new with just a bit of Japanese footage inserted. Similarly, the later fight in the park was clearly mostly new, but this time I did get a glimpse of Ajinomoto Stadium in one shot. So they're inserting odd bits of Sentai action footage into mostly new action scenes. It's really only the Megazord sequences (for once the term applies to both versions) that are Sentai footage. In this case, the robot suit and Megazord footage came from Episode 19 of Go-Busters, whose plot was completely unrelated to this one (involving Cruise's counterpart feeling useless now that Steel's counterpart had joined the team as a full-fledged Go-Buster). The one similarity was the wrench robot's power to disassemble things with a beam.

Anyway, it was a smart move for Devon to destroy Blaze's Robotron-Maker before he could use it. Too often in SS/PR, the Rangers just stand there and allow the villains to use the devices or characters that turn the monsters giant, and I'm always wondering why they don't try to destroy them and save themselves all future trouble. On those rare occasions where they're smart enough to try it, it's really refreshing. So it was nice to see something similar here, although it turned out to be pretty easy for Scrozzle to repair the device.

 

[Samurai8472]

Ryuusoulger episode 27

https://www.mp4upload.com/ud4i95pvr4os

Part 2 of last weeks episode culminating in Pachygaroo debut and new armor. Not that often that a ranger that doesn't have the color red get's to debut new merchandise/new armor

So the Gachilleus brought Gaisorg back from space?

A punching dinosaur really made me think of something Abaranger(Power Rangers dino thunder) would do.

Also, gotta love Nada calling sentai tropes with the whole "Red's the leader" and its importance thing

 

[Christopher]

Ryuusoulger episode 27

Kind of a weird one. The whole business of that cavern... why is there an incredibly deep cavern right under Tokyo? Why is there a hatch that allows direct access to it, but no ladder or anything? Why would you need a hatch if there's nothing down there? How did Koh not die from that extremely long plummet or getting huge boulders dropped onto him? And the mechanic of Melto punching the ground and somehow transmitting the force to disintegrate the boulders without harming Koh, and then conveniently trigger a geyser to bring him to the surface... even aside from how dumb and random that is, how did he even know Koh was buried under boulders? The whole thing was nonsensical, even by Sentai standards. The city layout and power lines randomly transforming into a boxing ring was weird too.

It was fun to see Wiseru pull the Bugs Bunny reversal on Gachileus, though. "Fled!" "Withdrew!" "Fled!" "Withdrew!" "Withdrew!" "Fle- uhh..."

Not that often that a ranger that doesn't have the color red get's to debut new merchandise/new armor

I thought it would've made more sense to give the boxing armor to Asuna, who's more defined by physical strength than Melto is.

So the Gachilleus brought Gaisorg back from space?

Gaisorg appeared in episode 20, while Gachileus was presumed killed in episode 16 and only returned now.

A punching dinosaur really made me think of something Abaranger(Power Rangers dino thunder) would do.

I was reminded of GekiViolet from Gekiranger, whose henshin sequence and occasional fight scenes also had a boxing-ring visual associated with them. (Also, this aired the same day that Zero-One debuted a boxing-themed upgrade with Vulcan's Punching Kong form.)

Also, gotta love Nada calling sentai tropes with the whole "Red's the leader" and its importance thing

There have been a number of teams with no defined leader, or with other Rangers, usually women, as the nominal leaders. In Kakuranger, Tsuruhime/NinjaWhite was the nominal leader, and Yuri/TimePink was the leader in Timeranger. In Gekiranger, Ran/GekiYellow got chosen as the team captain midway through, though they rarely acknowledged it. Then there was the fun case of Dekaranger, where the main team were all equals reporting to Kruger/DekaMaster, but Umeko/DekaPink operated under the delusion that she was the team leader.

When Red isn't the leader, he usually has something special about him to set him apart -- e.g. MegaRed was the slacker in a team of gifted students, TimeRed was the one present-day member of a team from the future, GaoRed and DekaRed were the last recruits to established teams, GekiRed was a jungle boy raised by animals, etc. That doesn't seem to be the case this season, though, at least not so far.

 

[Samurai8472]

I was going down memory lane with Samurai Sentai Shinkenger the sentai version of Power Ranger's Samurai

I didn't watch Power ranger's samurai but I was curious about how close they copied Shinkenger

Episode 1 opening scene practically shot for shot for Shinkenger's first episode

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And they turned one of ShinkenGold's mecha into an Octopus? When it's supposed to be a squid.

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Emily and Kotoha - "He's so sparkly"

LOL

I can't believe this is how Saban ushered in his return. It's an even cheaper/lazier adaptation/ attempt at turning Sentai into Power Ranger's series.

By some miracle the first 7 or 8 seasons of Power Ranger's managed to turn out decent content. I guess the cheesiness has an enduring quality?

Take the food fight from episode 6 of MMPR season 1

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I think the quality lessened by the time of Wild force IMO

 

[Christopher]

I think the quality lessened by the time of Wild force IMO

It's weird that I liked Wild Force so much less than Gaoranger despite them being almost identical aside from the added arc with Cole vs. Master Org. I guess it must've been a difference in the quality of the acting and production values.

Similarly, I'm working through Shinkenger right now myself and I'm amazed at how vastly superior it is to Samurai, which was the most slavishly exact adaptation in Power Rangers history but had the weakest cast in PR history.

 

[Samurai8472]

The next sentai series has been trademarked

"Mashin Sentai Kirameiger"

Which means “Demon Advancing Squadron Kirameiger"

Could be demon based. Won’t know till the first catalog in December tells us what they’re actually doing.

Right now it’s guess work based on the kanji

 

[Christopher]

Surprised that it's being announced so early. We're still just a bit over halfway through Ryusoulger.

I looked around to see if I could find any hints what Kirameiger could mean. It could be that it's related to kirameku, to sparkle or shine. But then why the mei part? Maybe a pun on English "mage" or "major."

Apparently the kanji for Mashin here is identical to Mashin Chaser from Kamen Rider Drive. There, it was no doubt a pun on Rider Machines, which is what they call Kamen Riders' motorcycles. So could it be a motorcycle-themed season?

 

[Samurai8472]

The guesses so far are demon infused machines. I was thinking speed demons lol

So vehicles with youkai(spirit/ghosts) in them

submarine that looks like a kappa, etc.

At least this proves that sentai isn't closing to cancellation yet. Ryuusoulger must have done well enough

 

[Christopher]

The guesses so far are demon infused machines. I was thinking speed demons lol

The kanji for "ma" (魔) can also mean magic or sorcery, as in Mahou Sentai Magiranger or the Japanese word for a mage or wizard, mahoutsukai. So maybe it's another magic-themed season, with would go with the "sparkling" implication in Kirameiger, and would make more sense than a demonic Sentai.

 

[Samurai8472]

Kamen rider zero-one episode 5


https://www.mp4upload.com/5p3mosxi6j94

Another good episode dealing with humagear mistreatment and Izu finding a loophole to not provide replacement humagear for the manga artist( the artist didn’t display any passion)

Looks like we had a tiny bit of a humagear getting upset at the mistreatment of another

It was also neat to see how people order and customize a humagear.

Humor was surprisingly lite. The only thing was fuwa laughing at Aruto accidentally burning his face

I hope Aruto pays back that artist for the damage he did to his mansion with his Bio grasshopper jumping around

Nice bit of continuity. This week's episode deals with a Voice actor humagear and they had a small cameo last week

Also Horobi called Jin his "Son" That's very interesting. It adds more to their character instead of just being two people that got together and decided to be evil.


I think this episode could serve as a test for a manga based Kamen Rider series. It would certainly be a homage to ishinomori.

Struggling manga artist gets an inspiration to draw a new hero(future kamen rider)

 

[Christopher]

An okay episode, but I'm disappointed that there was no Valkyrie and barely a role for Yua at all. Interesting development for Izu, though.

Interesting that the robo-voice intoning an English phrase is part of standard Humagear activation as well as Kamen Rider henshins. I guess it's a feature of all Hiden tech products.

Incidentally, I discovered while watching Shinkenger that hiden is Japanese for "secret" (or, well, "hidden"). So the name "Hiden Intelligence" probably has some underlying meaning.

Are they going to introduce a new form every week? I know it's been routine ever since Kuuga to introduce new forms fairly often, but once a week is pushing it to a new level.

Oh, and while we're at it, this season isn't using the standard formula of most KR seasons since Kuuga to devote 2 episodes to each monster and plotline. Is that how they're differentiating Reiwa from Heisei, by dropping the 2-parter format? Or is it just Yuya Takahashi's style? I seem to recall that Ex-Aid didn't use the 2-parter formula either.

I hope Aruto pays back that artist for the damage he did to his mansion with his Bio grasshopper jumping around

Right after the henshin, there was a shot clearly showing the intact ceiling. And in the first battle, you could see that that pavement "torn up" by the grasshopper was totally intact. So either they're really sloppy with the FX and editing, or the whole smashing-up business is just a hologram.

Also Horobi called Jin his "Son" That's very interesting. It adds more to their character instead of just being two people that got together and decided to be evil.

And it proves that Horobi is older than he looks. So maybe he's not human, at least not fully.

I think this episode could serve as a test for a manga based Kamen Rider series. It would certainly be a homage to ishinomori.

They touched on that a bit with Build's NinninComic form.

 

[Christopher]

Beast Morphers: "Real Steel" was pretty good, using an impostor storyline to advance the story of Nate and Steel's first fight. For a while, it seemed they weren't meshing the plots very well, e.g. having Steel discover the Nate impostor because he knew his brother so well or something, but it turned out they were saving that for the climax where Steel's apology distinguished him from the impostor Steel. That turned out to be pretty heartfelt.

The episode has almost nothing in common with its Go-Busters counterpart, episode 12, which was about Yoko (Yellow Buster) going undercover as a pop star who was her exact double. Like last week, all it kept was the robot's design and power set, some morphed fight footage, and the giant battle footage.

Given how good Go-Busters was, I'm disappointed that they're using so little of its storytelling, but I appreciate that they're working in a similar vein of strong character-based writing, and doing pretty well at it. GB was from Yasuko Kobayashi, the head writer for some of Super Sentai's best seasons, and of the three previous Power Rangers seasons based on her shows -- Lost Galaxy (Gingaman), Time Force (Timeranger), and Samurai (Shinkenger) -- the first was massively different from its source but still fairly good; the second was a faithful adaptation that kept what worked about the original and even improved on it in certain ways; and the third was an excessively slavish adaptation done without much skill, so that it somehow turned one of SS's very best seasons into one of PR's worst despite hardly changing anything. Beast Morphers is basically in the same category as Lost Galaxy, which is certainly better than being like Samurai. (The one remaining Kobayashi-run season is ToQger, which would be the next one Hasbro adapts if they continue doing the seasons Neo-Saban skipped.)