That Tokusatsu Thread

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What's the difference between Ultraman Tiga/Dyna and Trigger/Decker? Which versions are better?
The former are from mid 90s and the latter are from a few years back. Tiga/Dyna/Gaia are considered some of the best Ultraman has to offer. They also have great follow up movies, particularly Superior Ultraman 8 Brothers. Trigger and Decker were meant to be homages to Tiga and Dyna respectively but they're ultimately a bit bland and far more toyetic (something not unique to them but moreso to recent series).
 
What's the difference between Ultraman Tiga/Dyna and Trigger/Decker? Which versions are better?
Trigger is kind of a mess. Decker is better. But both pale in comparison to their originals. I like Dyna more than Tiga, if only because Daigo is kind of bland for a lot of Tiga. But both really are tokusatsu at their finest.
 
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I finished Kamen Rider Faiz. It was decent, but not truly amazing. It picked up a lot after the halfway point, and all the bikes and Faiz forms were really cool, as was the Smart Brain/Ryusei School conspiracy and the true intent of the Orphenochs, but there was still tons of filler and the action was quite short and lacking -- and I'm someone who usually complains about too much violence and fighting in toku. The Mega Bloks sets are way cooler than anything in the show, which means that lots of the problems with this show could have been avoided if they had better setpieces for most of the runtime and stayed focused on the Smart Brain and Orphenoch conspiracies rather than nonsensical drama. Lots of Japanese media and robots tend to have small, easily avoidable issues like this that end up being make-or-break. This is the first Kamen Rider I've seen to the end, so that's neat, and I did enjoy it. I'll catch up on Gavv next; that looks fun.
Magazine scans showing of Gozyu Red's personal weapon and mecha combination have come out. It is wholly unremarkable, as expected.
Gozyuger looks dryer than a toast sandwich. This is another example of Japanese media being crippled by easily-avoidable issues: make the mecha into regular vehicles or coherent futuristic vehicles like 80s Sentai, not animals or weapons -- yet modern Sentai ignores that for the most part thanks to MMPR cuckoldry. The Transformers that I always see shelfwarm the most are animals, weapons, and common characters, never cool vehicles, so I don't know how they don't understand that.
 
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Gozyuger looks dryer than a toast sandwich. This is another example of Japanese media being crippled by easily-avoidable issues: make the mecha into regular vehicles or coherent futuristic vehicles like 80s Sentai, not animals or weapons -- yet modern Sentai ignores that for the most part thanks to MMPR cuckoldry. The Transformers that I always see shelfwarm the most are animals, weapons, and common characters, never cool vehicles, so I don't know how they don't understand that.
For me, its the sacrifice of any kind of design aesthetic to make the mecha more toyetic. I can still picture in my head the Dairanger mech despite only watching a handful of episodes. But I cannot tell you for the life of me what Zenkaiger's mech looks like, and I watched every episode of that series.

I have nothing to back this up, but it feels like they went from designing a mech that would make a cool toy to designing a toy with no regard as to whether it makes a good mech.
 
For me, its the sacrifice of any kind of design aesthetic to make the mecha more toyetic. I can still picture in my head the Dairanger mech despite only watching a handful of episodes. But I cannot tell you for the life of me what Zenkaiger's mech looks like, and I watched every episode of that series.

I have nothing to back this up, but it feels like they went from designing a mech that would make a cool toy to designing a toy with no regard as to whether it makes a good mech.
The problem there is Zenkaiger had no real "main" mecha. It had two default mecha, both of which were composed of some very poorly designed symmetrical docking bots that clearly sacrificed a lot to support the gimmick. Then you had Zenkaizer's Q-Rex/Dragonzord homage that could replace two of the four original mecha (because they were never designed to be more than left OR right, never both), TwokaiOh had no integration with the main mechas, and the final macguffin combined with the four original mecha as limbs. It was a complete brick, and not in a fun way either.

Dairanger, on the other hand, does benefit a bit from the fact that the mecha were transplanted into MMPR season 2. But it was also a fairly new and unique take on the formula at the time by making the red dragon the core of the mecha and the rest were pieces of armor that went onto it instead of replacing limbs. The white tiger mecha used them all the same way, but because the red dragon could stand on its own with a fully cohesive and playable robot, you never felt like it was just sat off to the side. Plus when you add in Tor (the turtle zord), everything got to play together even if it was just everything either inside or sitting on top. A lot of the toy designers in the last decade or so have forgotten that the biggest part of the play pattern is that everything should have its place by the end, and nothing should feel like it just sits to the side and wasted your mom and dad's money. That's why everyone loves the clusterfuck mecha at the end, even if it's a visual hot mess.
 
I got 3 episodes into Gavv and I didn't continue because it was clearly really, really stupid. I know this is about a gummy-powered superhero and that I'm not supposed to take it seriously, but it's still disappointing. Instead I'm watching Den-O, and it's pretty good. The sword, rod, and gun forms are really cool, and it's great whenever the DenLiner battles. It really scratches the Metal Hero itch. I appreciate that they use bikes as much as possible. The story is also surprisingly good; despite being similar to Orguss and having many more constraints, the quality is unbelievably higher. It's also a lot better than Faiz's story despite being comedic and lighthearted. Faiz was very predictable and had Death Note-tier overexplaining, but Den-O doesn't, so it's better. Lots of the "character drama" seems to have more of a purpose in Den-O so they can get to the right time.
 
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I got 3 episodes into Gavv and I didn't continue because it was clearly really, really stupid. I know this is about a gummy-powered superhero and that I'm not supposed to take it seriously, but it's still disappointing. Instead I'm watching Den-O, and it's pretty good. The sword, rod, and gun forms are really cool, and it's great whenever the DenLiner battles. It really scratches the Metal Hero itch. I appreciate that they use bikes as much as possible. The story is also surprisingly good; despite being similar to Orguss and having many more constraints, the quality is unbelievably higher. It's also a lot better than Faiz's story despite being comedic and lighthearted. Faiz was very predictable and had Death Note-tier overexplaining, but Den-O doesn't, so it's better. Lots of the "character drama" seems to have more of a purpose in Den-O so they can get to the right time.
I generally like the designs in principle until I notice the food parts.
The whole "singing dancing food" gimmick bugs me even more than the normal all-singing all-dancing crap of the modern toku.

also on the subject of the modern tokus, finally caught Gozyu's OP
I really like that bit with them and the standups as they swap to their henshin form.
further about Gyo 4 as I start getting caught up, I just about puked laughing irl at the old guy getting the BWAAAABWABWABWAAAAAA noise for being a party people in the place to be
[Over-Time] Number One Sentai Gozyuger - 04 [17D886B9].mkv_snapshot_16.24_[2025.04.14_17.43.34].webp
so is that Ueeeeeeee (Ue-i literally) or Ueeeeb (Ue-bu)
because if the moon onomatopoeia to the BWAAAABWABWABWAAAAAAAAA sound is literally WEEB that will be the funniest shit
 
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AHHHHHH MAKE MY POST GROWWWWWWWWW (so it's clearly not a double-post, just the giant form)
[Over-Time] Number One Sentai Gozyuger - 05 [1BF97902].mkv_snapshot_09.14_[2025.04.14_17.59.00].webp
[Over-Time] Number One Sentai Gozyuger - 05 [1BF97902].mkv_snapshot_09.20_[2025.04.14_17.58.54].webp
I'm increasingly liking this, but I'm a little sad this dates him to a point we _probably_ won't get a shout-out to the toku live show crew and drop some MiniDisc science
but I can easily imagine him being like THIS IS MY MIDSEASON UPGRADE and it's a guy working a soundboard off a minidisc player like the real live shows
 
AHHHHHH MAKE MY POST GROWWWWWWWWW (so it's clearly not a double-post, just the giant form)
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I'm increasingly liking this, but I'm a little sad this dates him to a point we _probably_ won't get a shout-out to the toku live show crew and drop some MiniDisc science
but I can easily imagine him being like THIS IS MY MIDSEASON UPGRADE and it's a guy working a soundboard off a minidisc player like the real live shows
I'm afraid he might end up with not much to do but so far Kinjiro is my favorite member.

 
I'm afraid he might end up with not much to do but so far Kinjiro is my favorite member.

kinjiro.mp4
I'm only half paying attention but I'm lowkey backburner hoping he goes full Aizen Makoto and is deep down big mad because THEY'RE DOING SENTAI WRONG DAMMIT and he wants them to go hard on the JAKQ styles or something

also I really love how they just roll with "also Momotaro is there and he's the PM"
edit- OH FUCK DAIZYUJIN IN A CLOAK
I was big mad about Power Rangers as a young nerdling because they were CLEARLY ripping off Voltron and I didn't know about the connections between the Daizyujin designer and Golion's (iirc he studied under the Golion dude) so don't chalk this up to memberberrys
[Over-Time] Number One Sentai Gozyuger - 06 [9F1B8082].mkv_snapshot_23.03_[2025.04.14_18.36.24].webp
DAI FUCKING ZYUJIN IN A CLOAK, SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN TO BE THE COOLEST POSSIBLE VARIANT OF ANY GIANT ROBOT
 
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I'm liking how they've really been shaking Sentai up the last few shows. I can't say each entry's worked for me, but I do appreciate how they've been really open to experimenting ever since Zenkaiger.
 
Which Kamen Rider series is a good starting point for a newbie?
start with the ZO movie
it's a standalone thing that does the basic "guy become bug guy, punches monsters" with very nice production values and is done in under an hour

if you clarified what you're looking for from KR it might help too
the older shows run more along the "melodrama of the week" type thing, the more modern stuff tends to run more ongoing weekly melodramas between the characters
 
What I'm looking for from KR? I really don't know, I just kept hearing that the franchise is more adult than Super Sentai.

Technically I'm still new to Toku besides Power Rangers. Gozyuger is the 3rd Sentai that I'm watching. I've finished LuPat which I loved and I got the final 3 episodes of BoonBoomger left to finish.

Looking at the wiki, I think I'd rather stick with Heisei Era to start.
 
What I'm looking for from KR? I really don't know, I just kept hearing that the franchise is more adult than Super Sentai.

Technically I'm still new to Toku besides Power Rangers. Gozyuger is the 3rd Sentai that I'm watching. I've finished LuPat which I loved and I got the final 3 episodes of BoonBoomger left to finish.

Looking at the wiki, I think I'd rather stick with Heisei Era to start.
What I'm looking for from KR? I really don't know, I just kept hearing that the franchise is more adult than Super Sentai.

Technically I'm still new to Toku besides Power Rangers. Gozyuger is the 3rd Sentai that I'm watching. I've finished LuPat which I loved and I got the final 3 episodes of BoonBoomger left to finish.

Looking at the wiki, I think I'd rather stick with Heisei Era to start.

KR isn't so much "more adult" as "more for the kids who want to be adult"
so you're no longer in 3-7 territory, you're now securely in the manly realm of 6-14


sounds like Faiz or Kuuga is probably your "terebi Drama but also they henshin and punch baddies" huckleberry. I prefer Kuuga, avoid a version that subtitle the crazy moonspeak (beyond the moonspeak) because you're not supposed to know when the apes are speaking ape-ese and constantly talking about how it was Earth all along
Faiz catch the HD. I'm not sure if there's a version HD that includes Busta but the HD really helps to cut down on the (thematically appropriate) GREYSCALE EVERYWHERE of the monster of the week

but you might want to try Black . It's more in the showa style NOW IS THE EPISODE WHERE PLOT HAPPENS okay back to melodrama of the week
but it's really pretty great



Also if you're new to toku in general but habla Power Rangers, Zyuranger is a pretty fun ride. It's not the BEST sentai but it's a fairly solid one. The BEST varies, maybe Jetman or Dairanger
personally I'm fond of Dekaranger, it leans hard into the cop drama cliche plots to mux them with the sentai cliche plots to make a bunch of VERY solid stuff
 
What I'm looking for from KR? I really don't know, I just kept hearing that the franchise is more adult than Super Sentai.

The storylines lean more serious and darker than Sentai does for sure, but it's still a series made to sell toys at the end of the day.

That said, if you're looking at Heisei riders to dip your toes in, I think W is a great starter point. Great plot, fun characters, and it starts off a solid series run through OOO and Fourze. Wizard is kinda meh, but Gaim is one of my personal favorites.
 
Thanks for the suggestions! I'll start with Kuuga and go from there! Thankfully I can "legally" watch the series with Shout but they are wilding in their offerings.
 
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