Hasbro's Power Rangers era and General Tokusatsu discussion

[Christopher]

Saber #2: I wasn't greatly enamored of this one. It was mostly exposition and action, with the climactic battle being more like a video game than anything else. So far they seem to be prioritizing spectacle over substance.

Rintaro is a bit bland as Secondary Riders go. Usually a Secondary Rider starts out as an adversary, or has an independent agenda that can clash with the Main Rider's goals, or just has an attitude that makes them hard to get along with, or something. Rintaro is a bit haughty and starts out trying to take Touma's new gear away from him, but he doesn't put up much of a fight and is quickly convinced by Sophia, Our Lady of Exposition and Not Much Else So Far, that it's okay for Touma to be a Rider, so any conflict is nipped in the bud.

But then, it looks like the third Rider is the guy who showed up at the end, the same way Rintaro showed up at the end of #1. We'll see if he has more of an edge to him.

It's weird that Rintaro is Kamen Rider Blades, when we've already had a Blade. And it's Bureizu, which seems like it should be "Blaze," but he's a water-based Rider while Saber is the fire-based one.

It looks like this series has a similar dynamic to Build in that defeating a monster earns the Rider a new collectible. Unless I'm misinterpreting, it seems the Megiddo are using corrupted Wonder Ride Books to try to transform the world, and when they're defeated, the books are restored to their original form. So it's another video game-like aspect in that you get loot when you destroy a boss.

I really hope this show gets better. Reiwa got off to a very strong start with Zero-One, and I'd hate to see that momentum lost.

 

[Samurai8472]

I watched the live stream yesterday. Not many people were impressed

The CGI was heavy.

Apparently they upgraded to the unreal engine to render their graphics

All this CGI is probably to make up for not being able to film much on location. At least that what I think.

Kiramager has no problem doing prolonged ground fights, so I’m not sure why Saber can’t.

If this series were to be adapted IMO video game theme wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility

Saber just isn't really doing it for me right now whereas Zero-One had hooked me in by this point(All that world building). I'll stick through it to the end, but this series definitely needs improvement if it doesn't want to be a chore each week.

The pacing was just terrible. We got Diago Speedy, Ride Gatriker, Dragon Jackun, and the Peter Fantasista Wonder Ride Book all in what didn't even seem like three minutes. Episode 3 is also introducing both Peter Fan forms for Touma and Rintaro, Espada minus the belt, and Buster which just spells quick pacing for me.

I think Toei is thinking more in terms of what would happen if production had to shut down again - with zero-one they had no idea when or if they'd be able to resume shooting (staff members have said publicly that they had to plan for the possibility that the shutdown would continue past the time 01 was supposed to end.) With Saber, they've managed to ensure that if shooting had to stop again, it would be easier for the show to keep going. I imagine we'll see some changes in the next Sentai too

Probably more pre-filmed things incase of an emergency shutdown.


Also they used a very similar Zelda tune during one scene. Specifically the Song of Storms

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Christopher]

Apparently they upgraded to the unreal engine to render their graphics

No wonder it looks so game-like.

All this CGI is probably to make up for not being able to film much on location. At least that what I think.

That makes sense. Although they're definitely using some familiar locations. Both the square where the monster was defeated in episode one and the plaza where they first fought the ant and grasshopper Megiddo this week are very familiar.

Well, at least the monsters didn't grow giant this week like the Golem did last week. I was afraid that was going to be a regular thing, another Sentai-like element. But this week there was a different gimmick, the spawning of ant monsters.

Saber just isn't really doing it for me right now whereas Zero-One had hooked me in by this point(All that world building). I'll stick through it to the end, but this series definitely needs improvement if it doesn't want to be a chore each week.

I wouldn't say it's a chore for me; it's just kind of underwhelming so far. I like Touma and Mei, though they had less to do this week than last, because of the focus on Rintaro and the heavy exposition, gadget/vehicle introductions, and so forth.

 

[Samurai8472]

In Chapter 1 on TV vs. What they showed in the trailer.

The settings, clothing, situation is different while dialogue is exact same. Most obvious is that in TV episode, Rintaro only interacts with Touma and Mei at the end while in the trailer he seems to know Touma and Mei before Touma becomes Saber.
Dunno why they change it though.

That's interesting.

 

[Samurai8472]

50th Anniversary logo for Kamen Rider. I like that the leaves are stylized after the kamen rider eyes

 

[Christopher]

50th Anniversary logo for Kamen Rider. I like that the leaves are stylized after the kamen rider eyes

Ahh, yes. Took me a while. Starting just left of 6 o'clock and going clockwise, on the left:

Ichigou
Nigou
V3
Riderman
X Rider
Amazon
Stronger
Skyrider
Super-1
ZX
Black
Black RX
Shin
ZO
J
Kuuga
Agito
Ryuuki
Faiz

And on the right:
Blade
Hibiki
Kabuto
Den-O
Kiva
Decade
W
OOO
Fourze
Wizard
Gaim
Drive
Ghost
Ex-Aid
Build
Zi-O
Zero-One
Saber

Hmm... Zero-One had the most conventional-looking Kamen Rider bug eyes we've seen since Fourze.

Interesting how Riderman, the first Secondary Rider, always gets counted among the primary Riders, while none of the secondary Heisei or Reiwa Riders do. I guess that's just tradition because he was always counted alongside the other classic Riders when they came back for guest appearances in the later Showa series.

But poor Denpa Ningen Tackle (Stronger's sidekick), the only female secondary hero in Showa, always gets left out of the count of Kamen Riders.

Let's see, the 50th anniversary will be April 3, 2021, which should be during Saber's run. I was expecting next year's series to be considered the anniversary season, but this logo suggests they're treating Saber as the one.

 

[Samurai8472]

No wonder it looks so game-like.

Just noticed it in the credits. Yep. They're on the Unreal engine

 

[Samurai8472]

Starting last week(this episode), and continuing for a period of 9 weeks, there will be no ending sequence for Kiramager. Instead, the “ending” will be a character song depending on the focus character of the week.

This episode is Mabushina. Tomorrow's episode(Sunday in Japan) will be Sayo and the other Kiramagers as her band mates

With that out of the way on to episode 23 of Kiramager.

I was expecting the Lupin rangers to unlock the safe...

Did they really laser off a MOTW's face?

And Jyuru just casually headshotting the monster in close range was both brutal and amusing.

Gotta love Shigeru's commitment to staying in character. He'll only break character when they're filming the dvd commentary

 

[Christopher]

Kira 23: Okay, but nothing special. The cliched "We have to put on a big deception for a main character's relative" sitcom plot doesn't do much for me, and the goofiness of it clashed with the solemn tragedy and life-or-death stakes of the reason for it. And the whole thing was largely just an excuse to give Mabushiina's voice actress a musical number.

Speaking of which, the preview for next week established that it's about music too. Are they going to do nine straight music-themed episodes to set up the character-song end titles?

Well, at least I learned from the translated karaoke lyrics that Mabushiina's name is apparently from the Japanese word for "dazzling." That clarifies things a bit. I found it odd that her name was so close to Marushiina, the highly sexualized main villain of the parody series Akibaranger, from Kiramager's head writer Naruhisa Arakawa. It seemed an odd pair of characters to give such similar names to. But if it's derived from "dazzling," that means the similar sound may just be coincidental.

Have we ever before seen a Ranger de-morph like Shiguru did here, with the quick-change gag of reaching down and pulling off one set of clothes in a single dramatic whoosh to reveal another outfit underneath? That's a fairly standard trope in tokusatsu, but usually for other kinds of costume change (e.g. donning ninja outfits or removing disguises), not actual henshins.

I was expecting the Lupin rangers to unlock the safe...

Yeah, when the safe monster showed up, my thought was "They need to borrow a Dial Fighter." (Though I couldn't remember they were called that, so I'm interpreting after the fact.)

 

[Samurai8472]

Gosh. It's been a long time but on the US side "Beast Morphers" has started airing new episodes

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

So there's storage area with a bunch of old Power Ranger equipment?

 

[Christopher]

So there's storage area with a bunch of old Power Ranger equipment?

Nice bit of nostalgia there. It's interesting that the first Hasbro season has chosen to build on prior PR history rather than making a clean break. Some odd choices of what to feature, though, like Mystic Morphers and the froglike Ninja Blasters from Ninja Steel. I can see why they featured the Cell Shift Morphers, though, since they've tied their story arc in directly with RPM's.

 

[Samurai8472]

Newest sentai has been trademarked

https://twitter.com/trademark_bot/status/1308423163731214339

At this time people are assuming the name is KIKAI SENTAI ZENKAIGER

The name roughly translates to “Machine World Taskforce Full Throttle/Full Power Ranger.”

Since there's just a name and alot of translated versions the theme could be anything.

-Go-onger like?
-Ohranger like with a military leaning sentai?

-Cyborg rangers? with a cyborg assistant? or Cyborgs in some capacity

Alot of ideas to think about until we get closer to concrete evidence

 

[Christopher]

Newest sentai has been trademarked

Already? Hmm, well, I guess we are close to halfway through the season, and it was delayed by the shutdown.

At this time people are assuming the name is KIKAI SENTAI ZENKAIGER

The name roughly translates to “Machine World Taskforce Full Throttle/Full Power Ranger.”

So going from a season whose Japanese title is Mashin Sentai to one whose English translation is "Machine Sentai."

Although you're right -- the kanji break down as "Machine World," though it's a homophone for "kikai" meaning just a mechanical device or robot (as in Android Kikaider or Kamen Rider Stronger's Kikaijin monsters). And the "world" part can mean something more like a society or grouping, like the entertainment world or the academic world, rather than a physical planet.

So maybe it'll be set on a high-tech alternate world, sort of like Zero-One was, or will involve mecha characters coming to Earth from such a world, like Go-Onger.

They won't do this, but wouldn't it be wild if it were actually set in Zero-One's world, with a team of human and Humagear Rangers? That would be a fascinating idea, to do an SS season that was a sequel to a KR season.

 

[Samurai8472]

They won't do this, but wouldn't it be wild if it were actually set in Zero-One's world, with a team of human and Humagear Rangers? That would be a fascinating idea, to do an SS season that was a sequel to a KR season.

Well since Kamen Rider Saber is borrowing a bit from sentai I think it would be cool for Sentai to borrow from Kamen Rider.

Five humans are converted to cyborgs by the villains and must rebel against their creators.

Probably too heavy for sentai if they want to keep the mood light in the wake of the corona virus pandemic

 

[Christopher]

Well since Kamen Rider Saber is borrowing a bit from sentai I think it would be cool for Sentai to borrow from Kamen Rider.

Five humans are converted to cyborgs by the villains and must rebel against their creators.

Didn't they already do Kamen Sentai Gorider?

Probably too heavy for sentai if they want to keep the mood light in the wake of the corona virus pandemic

Yeah, it's probably something more basic like a vehicle/racing-themed season.

 

[Samurai8472]

Kiramager episode 24

Since Kiramager is another series penned by Naruhisa Arakawa he should write an episode where the Kiramager band battle the Dekaranger band.

It was pretty cool to have Sayo's other colleagues be the opening and ending singers for Kiramager.

Nice continuity nod back to episode 10 with Yodohime.

it looks the cast were taught how to play the basic components of the song for real.

-Rio Komiya holding the actual chords for the song;
-Mio Kudo is actually playing drums
-Shiguru looks like he's actually playing the bass.

I hate to sound like a broken record(har har) but I noticed some of civilian crowd covering their ears at Speaker Jamen were wearing face masks.

 

[Christopher]

Kiramager episode 24

A fluffy filler episode, just an excuse for a musical number, with little else going for it. Some cute business with Jyuuru and Sayo convincing the others it would be fun to be in a band, then Sayo being a slave driver to whip them into shape.

And it was cute when Sayo borrowed Jyuuru's "Kirame-kingggg!!" cry of inspiration as "Kirame-queen!"

Since Kiramager is another series penned by Naruhisa Arakawa he should write an episode where the Kiramager band battle the Dekaranger band.

You mean from the end titles? The Wiki says this is the first time a Ranger team has formed a band canonically/in-story since Megaranger.

 

[JD]

I was just about to ask if they did a Sentai/Kamen Rider crossover, but then followed the link in the post above and got my answer. Was that the only one?

 

[Christopher]

I was just about to ask if they did a Sentai/Kamen Rider crossover, but then followed the link in the post above and got my answer. Was that the only one?

Oh, there have been a fair number. The first was a multi-part crossover between Kamen Rider Decade and Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, a 2-episode Decade arc with a Shinkenger episode in between. For a while, there was an annual movie series called Super Hero Taisen (basically "Great Super Hero War," though it's probably a pun on Super Hero Time, the block that KR & SS are aired in on Sunday mornings) that crossed over both franchises and sometimes other Toei toku series, and the shows did crossover episodes/specials that very loosely tied into the movies. Though the Taisen movies tend to focus more on KR than SS; the third and fourth ones (out of five to date) were almost all KR with just brief SS cameos in the climactic action.

https://tokusatsu.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Hero_Taisen_Series

There have also been a few crossovers with the revival of Space Sheriff Gavan a few years back, and a Ninninger crossover with the vintage ninja-themed Metal Heroes series Jiraiya. (Ironically the Power Rangers adaptation thereof referred to Jiraiya as "Space Sheriff Skyfire.")

Kamen Sentai Gorider wasn't really a crossover per se. The "team" of that name was a gimmick in the last Taisen movie (costumes blending the design of the original Kamen Rider and the original Sentai, Gorenger), and the web special of that name was a Kamen Rider Ex-Aid miniseries bringing back classic Riders and only briefly using the title powers/costumes in the climax. It was weird, because its story didn't really have anything to do with Sentai.

 

[Samurai8472]

Kamen Rider Saber episode 3

I noticed the opening credits added Kento to the "follow us" part. It's going to get quite crowded as the season goes on.

Speaking of new additions. We not only get Kento but Ryou aka Kamen Rider buster. I think it would be interesting if we got a future Kamen Rider series where the protagonist was a father and had to handle family life being a Kamen Rider

We also get a glimpse at Tetsuo Daishinji the mechanic for the sword of logos

I like how Peter F. integrates Tinkerball and Captain Hook into its powerset, though Rintaro showed that he can use it much better than Touma. That element thing is already coming into play. Also, Buster is unbelievably strong for a non-protagonist Rider.

Alot of padding this week with the transformations forcing the episode to became a two-part cliffhanger