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

[kenSHIRO]

My wife, who has been watching Kamen Rider with me since Kabuto, never had much interest in Sentai, but LOVED Akibaranger. Since then she has been more open to checking out others and has been enjoying Dekaranger which is the first complete series that I have other than Gokaiger.

 

[Berty]

I brought a non-Tokusatsu friend to see one of the Garo movies in the theater with me a couple of years ago. *sniffle* She was decidedly unimpressed. I could not get her to attach to anything. She's a very critical person, so first off the fight choreography annoyed her. Second off... well, pretty much everything bored her. Heart-breaking. She's a cool person who plays videogames and is fun and interesting otherwise.

 

[Ivanhobe]

What Garo Movie Did you show your friend? if it was Red Requiem then i totally understand her reaction, but if it was either Beast Of The White Night or Kiba Gaiden then it is baffling.

 

[Vitor]

So yeah... had some friends over on the weekend and while they broke my heart saying they didn't dig on GARO.. they LOOOOOOOOVED Akibaranger.

I really do think it's a good one to start non-fans with. They get a non-serious take so they don't have to feel uncomfortable and they get a sense of what it's like to BE a fan and love this stuff.

I really don't understand how anyone who isn't a fan of Sentai or Toku in general could watch Akibaranger due to how completely dense it is with references and jokes about the franchise's legacy.

It's about as bad, if not worse than someone who's never watched Kamen Rider before watching Decade.

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

"Lock" in what sense? Because as far as I know, you can't cement a hold on a series that you are essentially willingly giving to the masses to pirate

But for all we know, that makes perfectly logical sense to them

 

[Glamador]

"Lock" in what sense? Because as far as I know, you can't cement a hold on a series that you are essentially willingly giving to the masses to pirate

But for all we know, that makes perfectly logical sense to them

Well, I took that to mean that they've done both seasons + movies so why would another subber decide to re-do all that work unless they had a BIG problem with TV-N's style? Like those pompous fellows over at GomenRider.

(Not to say GomenRider does a bad job, just they're super-antagonistic and deprecating toward "lesser" sub groups.)

 

[StaticShin27]

I think the problem with introducing someone to Toku with something like Garo is that it's not your traditional toku and doesn't carry the regular tropes and colourfulness the franchise usually consists of. Anyone who looks at live action spandex fighting heroes expects illogical situations and overall goofiness. If you're a fan, you've broken through that wall and just accepted all the instanity. Sometimes it's a matter of you either get it or you don't.

I feel like a lot of us got into Toku through nostalgia either watching American Toku or Dubs and with the way we watch subbed (or raw) stuff now, it's rekindling that childhood spirit. As with Akibaranger, it's satire filled with jokes that a lot of people can familiarize with; but like many said, there's also jokes that poke at specific shows and characters. Well hey, I was sorta fine with some references that did go over my head, why wouldn't they? It pokes fun and there's basically 2 types of people when it comes down to it,

"Haha yeah that happens, oh that's pretty cool though"
and...
"Haha yeah I can't believe I used to like this"

If you wanna get someone into Toku you'll have to test'em out and see if they'll buy into all the craziness that ensues. While the content is cool, it's also silly. Whether you like it or not, people are gonna generalize...and I'm gonna go ahead and generalize that Anime fans are more likely to see the appeal in Tokusatsu :laugh:

 

[Glamador]

I'm gonna go ahead and generalize that Anime fans are more likely to see the appeal in Tokusatsu :laugh:

It helps that anime follows quite a lot of the same tropes.

 

[Lynxara]

Well, I took that to mean that they've done both seasons + movies so why would another subber decide to re-do all that work unless they had a BIG problem with TV-N's style?

Fans who really fixate on one particular show will get a lot of pleasure out of doing their "own" version, even if someone else's already exists. If they can justify that version with, say, improved encode quality, then they're more likely to release it. Encode quality is actually something I see thrown around increasingly as the reason why someone wants to redo old TVN releases, even moreso than translation quality issues.

Whether you like it or not, people are gonna generalize...and I'm gonna go ahead and generalize that Anime fans are more likely to see the appeal in Tokusatsu :laugh:

Well, anime fans are already used to watching crazy Japanese things with subtitles, and that's really the largest barrier to get over when watching tokusatsu.

 

[Eldar]

I brought a non-Tokusatsu friend to see one of the Garo movies in the theater with me a couple of years ago. *sniffle* She was decidedly unimpressed. I could not get her to attach to anything. She's a very critical person, so first off the fight choreography annoyed her. Second off... well, pretty much everything bored her. Heart-breaking. She's a cool person who plays videogames and is fun and interesting otherwise.

If you are talking about Red Requiem that wasn't a very good movie. It's no surprise your friend wasn't impressed.