Akibaranger: A Good My First Super Sentai for Non-Toku Fans.

[Glamador]

For fear of going slightly off-topic, I'm only seeing Makai Senki on TV-N's website. They have a batch labeled simply "Garo 1-18 DVD" but when I dl'd the torrent it was Makai Senki.

Anyhoof, with that in mind, I'm still wondering which one people mean when they reference just "Garo" since it isn't immediately apparent that there were even 2 separate series made.

 

[Painted_Outlaw]

For fear of going slightly off-topic, I'm only seeing Makai Senki on TV-N's website. They have a batch labeled simply "Garo 1-18 DVD" but when I dl'd the torrent it was Makai Senki.

Really? I d/ld the "Garo 01-18 DVD Batch" to start watching the show and it was the first season. Sure you grabbed the right one? :eyebrow:

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You'd want to start from the bottom-upwards...


And, my folder


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[Black Fang]

Ha, you have the same Tokusatsu folder I have :laugh:

 

[Painted_Outlaw]

Funny how those things happen. :laugh:

 

[Glamador]

Mine's labeled "Kamen Rider" but I may have to pull the same trick the child of every hippie has done and have it legally changed. Will try re-downloading that batch and see if I made a mistake before.

To keep on topic though, getting someone into "toku" is a tricky business. You'll never know which kind of series someone will enjoy. I, for instance, love KR but dislike Sentai rather a lot. So how do you gauge if you should show them OOO/W, GARO, Boukenger, an anime Toku like Guyver, or what?


--EDIT--
T'was indeed my own mistake. Accidentally downloaded the same thing twice. Thanks for correcting me, I'd never have known otherwise. (Turns out I never got Maki Senkai at all, had the series backwards.)

 

[ParaParaJMo]

I personally feel that you really need to have sentai familiarity to really appreciate what is being spoofed in Akibaranger, but I suppose it can be a good gateway to the franchise since it also spoofs moe anime (which I am NOT at all fond of). But I related to the series in that kind of way. I reviewed this show on my youtube channel and the fact that I live less than 30 minutes away from Akihabara and know all the locations that were filmed gives me a special connection.

Plus, that abandoned building where

Spoiler

they meet Marusheena in the real world a second time

is now an arcade and a karaoke place. It previously used to be a store to sell figures. Plus, I regularly go to the store where Akiba Red found that figure in the first episode. THey do sell sentai mechs for $1000USD plus based on the current exchange rate. I hope they do a sequel and feature mandarake or golden age toys.

On the topic of Garo, I liked it. The story was my type and I really loved the coregraphy of the action.

 

[Hell Kaiser Andy]

TVN has a lock on both GARO series, while Over-Time mostly did the GARO movies/specials and Makai Senki.

If you want the original, you'll most likely have to go to TV-Nihon for that

GomenRider (Who also fixed up all of Agito) released the original GARO as well.

 

[big_j_ny]

GomenRider (Who also fixed up all of Agito) released the original GARO as well.

........man, I always hate being the last to find out about things :redface2:

What Andy said

 

[MattComix]

It's not inconceivable that the comedy would be a good gateway. I wouldn't want someones entire idea of tokusatsu or sentai to be defined by Akibaranger but I had an experience where I showed a group of friends some Sentai team up movies and I started with CarRanger vs. OhRanger. That seemed to work as an ice breaker so that when I got to the more straight faced stuff like MegaRanger vs. Gingaman and Gingaman vs. GOGO V. they got into it.

Tokusatsu is very stylized and I think seeing the comedy thing first can at least for some folks kind of get all their giggles out of the way and allow them to loosen up. As a result they can begin to have fun with it. So when they are shown stuff that is more dramatic then it's like "..oh damn!" Gets em when their defenses are down.

A better approach than "this is the serious cool thing that you must see to know how serious and cool it is and how it makes me serious and cool for liking it! Seriously!"

 

[Lynxara]

Akibaranger seems to go over really well with anime fans who are sort of curious about tokusatsu, but don't really know what to make of it. The Z-Cune parody is pretty dead-on, and older anime fans really get a chuckle out of Dr. Z's backstory.

Anime is very big on self-parody, so fans coming to tokusatsu through anime are perfectly capable of understanding that the straight-faced stuff isn't (and shouldn't be) like this. Usually what I see is fans go from Akibaranger to some of the shows it referenced, like Dairanger or Jetman.