Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger: Episode Two

We're now two episodes into Gokaiger, and already we have some awesome fanart. This week, we get a glimpse into Captain Marvelous' past as the Gokaigers go searching for someone in black. If you'd like to see this subbed yourself, Over-Time remains both super fast and awesome. Pretty sure those guys have a hyper zecter. Anyway, on to the episode!

The Gokaigers are checking up on the Zangyack fleet and wondering about the fate of Earth. Luca (Yellow) and Joe (Blue), however, are more concerned about finding treasure, at least on the surface. Navi, their mechanical parrot, tells them to be on the lookout for a person dressed in black.

I got the impression that I might wind up finding Navi more annoying than cute, but watching this a second time around, I have to say that they're growing on me. The "flap flap" thing made me smile. Apparently, Navi once belonged to Aka Red, whose name amuses me since it translates to "Red Red".

In spite of the vagueness of the tip, the Gokaigers head out. We get a nice introduction of the show's premise before the theme song this time around.

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Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger: Episode One

At long last, Gokaiger is here! Any of you who know me know just how excited I've been about this. Thanks to the speed demons at Over Time, I was able to watch the first episode on Sunday. Now that I've had a few days to let the awesome sink in, I'm ready to review and recap! There will be plenty of gifs too, of course.





Gokaiger starts with a bang. I haven't seen a huge amount of Super Sentai, but this scene is unbelievably exciting in spite of that. The fighting is so well choreographed, and it was kind of amazing flashing from one awesome thing to another. I'm very curious about how influenced the villains are by sentai of old, and about what sort of little details they've included for devoted sentai fans.

Who else imagined some giant, all-encompassing mech here? I'm not sure how the logistics of it would work, but I wonder if we'll see anything like that later on in the series.

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Tomica Hero Rescue Force: Episode One

Last night, while I was expressing my love for Kamen Rider OOO's Akira Date, I was informed that he'd starred in another tokusatsu show: Tomica Hero Rescue Force. I did what any reasonable person would do and downloaded the show's first episode immediately.

In the world of Rescue Force, there are extreme disasters, and extreme disasters require extreme heroes. The members are Rescue Force are those heroes!

After a reminder from our heroes to play safely, and the fun but vaguely 90's esque opening theme, we meet our sartorially inclined villains. Villainous though they may be, they are also aware of the importance of fire safety. They've come into the possession of some kind of weapon that conveniently comes with illustrated instructions.

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Rewatching Kamen Rider W: Episode Four

So here's where the last episode left us: Philip is plagued by his lack of memories of his family, which gave Money the chance to get in an attack and escape. Akiko has successfully managed to find and infiltrate Million Colosseo. Now, let's see what happens next.

This is why I love you, W.

Akiko hasn't really gotten a chance to shine until this arc, and it's a lot of fun seeing her stand up for justice armed with only a slipper. I know a lot of people dislike her character, but I think she's adorable and hilarious.

Philip agrees with me!

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Rewatching Kamen Rider W: Episode Three

After the conclusion of W's opening arc, things at the Narumi Detective Agency appear to have settled down. Akiko has Shoutarou searching for and returning lost pets, something that he doesn't find to be particularly hardboiled.

Even the healing princess can be the victim of a bad screencap! Shou seems to treat Philip's interest in Wakana as a fairly new development here. He also seems to be a lot less interested in her here. I wonder if he just got caught up in Philip's enthusiasm or if he was able to keep up his hardboiled exterior until he got to see her in person.

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Rewatching Kamen Rider W: Episode Two

Oh no! When we last left our heroes, Akiko and an unconscious Philip were being carried off in the Revolgarry. What will become of them?

The first episode of W is terrific, don't get me wrong. Shoutarou is especially brilliant in it. But it was the second episode, with its twist and the way it established the dynamic between W's two halfs that really sold me on the show.

Spoilers, screencaps, and loads of gifs under the cut!

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Rewatching Kamen Rider W: Episode One

Kamen Rider W is probably my favorite Kamen Rider series of all time. I say probably only because I've watched the series from start to finish just once. There are quite a few episodes I've seen two or more times, but watching your favorite episodes over and over isn't the same thing as watching it from beginning to end all over again.

Recently, (thanks to Over-Time) I was able to watch Kamen Rider W Forever: A to Z, which takes place between episodes 44 and 45 of the show. Since the movie was in theaters at the time the show was airing, I just had to read spoilers to figure out what had happened in between. So, I'm starting W all over again, and this time, I'll watch the entire thing, movies and all, as it was originally intended. And along the way, I'll post general thoughts and things I missed the first time around.

Join me as I ride with the devil all over again~

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Juukou B-Fighter, Episode 1: "It's Insect Warriors!!"

Recently, Hinotori Fansubs began subbing Juukou B-Fighter, the show that provided the fight scene footage for the first season of Big Bad Beetleborgs. I wasn't a particularly big fan of Beetleborgs, but I watched it because it was similar to Power Rangers, and that's all I needed in those days. In spite of that, there's something about seeing where the show came from that's appealing to me. My clearest memories of it are the guy with the Jay Leno chin and the strange way in which they re-casted the main female character, so I can't do much to compare the two shows, but I was interested in seeing what it's like all the same.

On Juukou B-Fighter, Earth has been invaded by an alien race that intends to enslave humanity. A group named Earth Academia is working to create suits that will allow them to fight back against the invaders, but are struggling to get the working properly. A strange creature named Sage Guru infuses the suits with the life force of insects, and each suit chooses its master. Juuukou!

This is Sage Guru. That should give you an idea of the sort of show this is.

A short recap and gifs under the cut!

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GARO: First Impressions

Where there is light, shadows lurk and fear reigns... yet by the blade of Knights, mankind was given hope.

I've been meaning to watch GARO for a good while now. Lots of people have positive things to say about it, so that's a plus, but it was the announcement of the GARO SH Figuarts that really pushed me over the edge. Getting into a show through toys has done me well in the past, so I hope the trend continues with GARO. So far I'm 5 episodes in and really enjoying it, although it's not quite what I expected.

For those of you who haven't heard of GARO, it's an adult tokusatsu series, or a "Hyper Midnight Action Drama". It follows a young man, Kouga, who inherited the title of Makai Knight. He must fight to protect humans from demonic creatures known as Horrors. It was created by Keita Amemiya, who directed the Kamen Rider J and ZO movies, but it's not that similar to Kamen Rider once you get past the "guy henshins and fights monsters" bit.

It does, however, feature a couple Kamen Rider actors. Mika Hijii, (pictured above) who was on Kamen Rider Blade, plays the main female character. Even on Blade, there's something about her that I find inherently likable, and it's really neat to see her in a bigger role.

And Kamen Rider's resident super lawyer, Shuichi Kitaoka, makes an appearance in episode 5! Ryohei Odai mostly works as a voice actor, so I'd never seen him in anything besides Ryuki. It took me a while to figure out was him, but I was really excited once I realized it. He's one of my favorite characters in Ryuki, and it was a really fun surprise. I already know at least one other Kamen Rider actor will be showing up later, and I'm really psyched for that.

I have some thoughts the GARO episodes I've seen so far, as well as some gifs. I'll try to keep the spoilers really mild, so feel free to click if you haven't watched the show yet.

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