Toku Thread V3: "It's fun to leave it untranslated" - Takenoko-sama-tachi

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > Toku Thread V3: "It's fun to leave it untranslated" - Takenoko-sama-tachi

«‹›212 »

Justin_Brett: Oct 23, 2012; GAMERDOME put down LOSER

I liked how the Dairanger monsters felt like a unique race, that's always neat when they do it in Sentai.

# ? Feb 22, 2017 08:00

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 9, 2024 04:08

ZenMasterBullshit: Nov 2, 2011; Restaurant de Nouvelles "À Table" Proudly Presents:
A Climactic Encounter Ending on 1 Negate and a Dream

Burkion posted:

Here's the thing about Kuuga.

Kuuga is not cool. Kuuga is about a dork who loves people and is a dork about it. He's a big ole dork that entertains children and has practiced, and made business cards about, a bunch of meaningless tricks he can do. He's not exactly happy, and he's not stupid, but he is just a really nice person who doesn't care what people think about him and only wants to help people feel better.

Godai is not a cool person ever. He's sweet and nice and caring. He'll also fight if he feels like he has to, even though it goes against everything he believes in, even though it utterly tears him up inside.

The reason why this is brought up is because the Grongi are not cool. Nothing in Kuuga is 'cool'. The action scenes are downplayed, they're more down to earth and brutal, shot in a more subdued style.

Kamen Rider Amazons has far more brutal fights, but they're shot in a very cool way. They're meant to be a spectacle. Kuuga is not. Kuuga is about the cost of power, the horror of escalation, and the pain of violence- both the obvious of getting hurt, and more importantly, hurting others.

The final fight between Kuuga and the ultimate Grongi purposely eschews rider kicks and fancy choreography and flashy powers because it's not about that. It boils down to who these two people are.

Zeba is the Grongi personified. He is what every Grongi aspire to be. And what do we see him as, in the end? A psychotic, laughing blood crazed fool, who takes pleasure in beating, and being beaten, to death. His actions across the series are kept in the dark because up until the last few Grongi we aren't meant to really get how pathetic they are. He wants humanity to become like Grongi, to abandon their morality and goodness, and embrace violence. It's why Rose is so enamored with the Detective- she sees him as an ideal human to surpass the Grongi.

Zeba and Kuuga's final conflict is actually brought up super early in the series, when his sister talked about how as a child, Godai would fight bullies while crying his eyes out. He would win, and he would fight for good reasons, but it hurt him to hit another person.

Cut to the last episode, and that's exactly the conflict and how it plays out. One, a crazed murderer with no goals other than death and enjoyment, and the other, a man who just wants people to smile. One laughs while the other cries as they beat each other out of their super awesome special super forms into boring human bodies- and still keep fighting until Godai, crying his heart out, beats Zeba to death.

It's not done in a flashy way, or in a way that's meant to pump you up, because that goes against everything Kuuga has been building up. Violence is never good.

It is some times necessary. It's also why it is the most brutal and bloody fight in all of Kamen Rider barring Shin. It's meant to be sad and uncomfortable.

That doesn't mean you're going to like it. That's my problem with Kuuga, as much as it is a problem- Kuuga is not a very FUN show. It never wanted to be. Kuuga has a message and the entire show is built around that message. It's why his power ups nuke a chunk of Tokyo and why the second to last fight is mostly off screen and leaves thousands of innocent people burned to death in the wake. Why the Grongi are so ugly and vicious, being little more than bored serial killers led by a child who revels in bloodshed and slaughters his own people for not being violent enough.

I enjoy it for that reason. It's rare to find a show that dedicates itself to its message that much. And if you don't catch onto what the show is trying to do, which is easy enough, it can be weird and anti-climatic.

Kuuga is the best, and Godai is one of the few riders that feels like a real hero because boy you get to see the sacrifices he makes in spirit and in his own life to do the thing he has to do to help people.

What I'm saying is Phillip and Ankh should have stayed dead.

# ? Feb 22, 2017 08:04

Burkion: May 10, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

I loving love Kuuga a lot. I really do.

It edges Kamen Rider Black out as my second favorite Rider series of all just because while I think Black's story comes together much more coherently and easily, Black also has literally 20+ episodes you can just completely skip and miss nothing of value. Also Black has RX hanging around its neck and having watched all of RX, that's a hell of a loving stone.

V3 is my favorite, but Kuuga is much better made. V3 is my favorite just because it's this awesome blend of the ridiculous and over the top, while also very somber and serious, in a way that's never really been matched since. Kuuga is the better made series over all, if only thanks to time, and I would love to see a proper remastering of Kuuga at some point like they've said they would. Maybe for the 50th

# ? Feb 22, 2017 08:18

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

I thought your favorite Kamen Rider was Bioman

# ? Feb 22, 2017 10:04

Getsuya: Oct 2, 2013

So the first enemy in Agito is Guin?

Actually the first three enemies are Guin.

:psyduck:

Now I have the unrealistic expectation that all the enemies in this season will be references to Japanese fantasy novel series.

# ? Feb 22, 2017 13:16

John McClane: Nov 14, 2011

Slightly related but I'm the guy who loves ryuki's ending because I love to be sad about gays.

# ? Feb 22, 2017 14:57

Larryb: Oct 5, 2010

John McClane posted:

Slightly related but I'm the guy who loves ryuki's ending because I love to be sad about gays.

I kind of prefer the movie ending myself (Shinji and Ren go down fighting as a swarm of monsters consumes the world). It's a bit dark I'll admit but I've always hated endings that pretty much render the whole series pointless by hitting the Reset Button and can't think of a single show that's ever done that well.

While not one of my favorites Ryuki wasn't a terrible series (though despite having plenty of faults of its own I think Dragon Knight handled a few things better). I just wish there was a better way to watch it besides through TV-Nihon (for example, I only recently learned that the old woman who lived with Yui was actually her aunt as opposed to her grandmother like I first assumed).

Larryb fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Feb 22, 2017

# ? Feb 22, 2017 18:00

jivjov: Sep 13, 2007; But how does it taste? Yummy!; Dinosaur Gum

Golden-Josuke-Robot is now my favorite Kyuranger

# ? Feb 22, 2017 18:02

Twelve by Pies: May 4, 2012; Again a very likpatous story

Larryb posted:

Kuuga is a very different beast from pretty much every Rider show that came before or after it (though Shin kind of comes close). In fact, the actual Kamen Rider portion of the show is more secondary than anything else, usually just shoved in at the end of an episode and wrapped up in the beginning of the next (the final episode in fact is one of the only times I've seen in Tokusatsu where there are no costumed action scenes at all). It's also the only Heisei series to only feature one Kamen Rider, every show afterwards had at least two.

I honestly wouldn't mind them trying another show in that style again one day, though it's doubtful they could pull it off seeing as there's a lot more emphasis on selling toys these days (of course, that was true of the original shows back in the 70s as well, it's just become a lot more overt).

Faiz was actually similar in some ways. In most Faiz episodes, there isn't any Rider battling until the last five minutes of the show, which gets wrapped up in the five minutes of the beginning of the next episode, and then terrible drama for the majority of the episode. It had a lot more fighting towards the end, though, but the beginning and most of the middle is pretty much just drama bookended by short fights.

Ex-Aid was really good this week although I am extremely disappointed we didn't get to see Hiiro use the Mighty Action X gashat. I'm curious if the writers just didn't know how it would work and thus just wanted to make sure the situation didn't happen, or if it was a purposeful decision to keep each Rider having their own identity, so there isn't something like Faiz where belts were constantly swapped between the characters. I also enjoyed Brave turning from a generic knight character into a mage, that was great.

Gonna be real interesting to see how Super Hero Wars handles the whole "Jark Matter has taken over Earth" with the Ex-Aid characters running around. "Wait, you mean Earth actually got taken over by aliens? We've been so busy fighting Bugsters we haven't kept up with politics!"

# ? Feb 22, 2017 19:51

Larryb: Oct 5, 2010

Twelve by Pies posted:

Faiz was actually similar in some ways. In most Faiz episodes, there isn't any Rider battling until the last five minutes of the show, which gets wrapped up in the five minutes of the beginning of the next episode, and then terrible drama for the majority of the episode. It had a lot more fighting towards the end, though, but the beginning and most of the middle is pretty much just drama bookended by short fights.

True enough, but at least in Kuuga the non-Rider parts are decent and the main characters aren't all terrible people in some way or another (though to be fair, some characters in Faiz were better than others).

# ? Feb 22, 2017 20:15

Getsuya: Oct 2, 2013

I really liked what I saw of 555, though I only watched like 10 eps or so (that was my original intro to Kamen Rider). I'm actually looking forward to getting through Agito and Ryuki so I can get back to 555 and finish it. I really liked the unicorn guy plot especially.

# ? Feb 22, 2017 20:21

Burkion: May 10, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Getsuya posted:

I really liked what I saw of 555, though I only watched like 10 eps or so (that was my original intro to Kamen Rider). I'm actually looking forward to getting through Agito and Ryuki so I can get back to 555 and finish it. I really liked the unicorn guy plot especially.

As a fellow 'started with 555' person, let me just say

I apologize for the ending. I am so sorry.

# ? Feb 22, 2017 20:45

Twelve by Pies: May 4, 2012; Again a very likpatous story

Faiz was my first Rider series as well. I liked it okay enough but yeah, that ending is really bad. Rider series have had a bit of a history with the endings being bad but Faiz stands as one of the worst. Hibiki and Ryuki are really the only competition.

# ? Feb 22, 2017 21:00

Blaze Dragon: Aug 28, 2013; LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

Twelve by Pies posted:

Ex-Aid was really good this week although I am extremely disappointed we didn't get to see Hiiro use the Mighty Action X gashat. I'm curious if the writers just didn't know how it would work and thus just wanted to make sure the situation didn't happen, or if it was a purposeful decision to keep each Rider having their own identity, so there isn't something like Faiz where belts were constantly swapped between the characters. I also enjoyed Brave turning from a generic knight character into a mage, that was great.

He didn't turn into a mage. Genm said it last episode, Taddle Fantasy is a game where the player is the Demon Lord, fighting the hero.

Hiiro showed exactly what happens when you get to play as the Final Boss, but not AI controlled. Beautiful things.

# ? Feb 22, 2017 21:26

Vandar: Sep 14, 2007; Isn't That Right, Chairman?

The original Kamen Rider is finally fully subbed.

http://ukiyaseed.weebly.com/ukiyaseeds-other-blog/1971-kamen-rider-series-now-fully-subbed

I've never heard of XIG, are they any good?

# ? Feb 22, 2017 23:08

Burkion: May 10, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Dexie posted:

The original Kamen Rider is finally fully subbed.

http://ukiyaseed.weebly.com/ukiyaseeds-other-blog/1971-kamen-rider-series-now-fully-subbed

I've never heard of XIG, are they any good?

They've done a few series. Notably they've done Super 1

From what I've seen they do good work, but I know very little about them

Regardless unless these start espousing the views of Hitler and decrying the Jews, this is excellent news. Having the entire original Kamen Rider series finally subbed is fantastic and I think it's the last of the Showa Riders needed to be subbed besides the back half of Sky Rider

# ? Feb 22, 2017 23:12

Vandar: Sep 14, 2007; Isn't That Right, Chairman?

Also of important note, spoilers for the Kamen Rider Brave spin-off:

I guess I should catch up on Ex-Aid now. :stare: