Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger - Talk Up!

[Toku Prime]

I actually really like the thought of a wrap-up episode, though I wonder if it will be serious with the actors and co. talking about their experience on the show or whether it will be another parody, I'm sort of hoping for the former however. We don't really get to see backstage stuff with the actors and whatnot beyond those hobby link interviews, and those are in print.

At least a bit of both if the rumours are accurate. According to them ep 13 will have some new in-character footage, including a helmetless roll call.
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[Kivat]

I got tired of Akibaranger on the last episode. lol looks like they ended just in time. Though, the ending confused me. I couldn't tell if they were leaving room or a second season or not.

 

[kuroihikari]

At least a bit of both if the rumours are accurate. According to them ep 13 will have some new in-character footage, including a helmetless roll call.
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It'll probably be a watered down one. As flexible as Aoyagi's actress seems, I just can't see her doing those flips, split and Chinese get-up .

 

[Toku Prime]

I got tired of Akibaranger on the last episode. lol looks like they ended just in time. Though, the ending confused me. I couldn't tell if they were leaving room or a second season or not.

I must admit I didn't find the last episode very satisfying. The whole 'writer/god rewrites reality' thing was good for a couple of gags, but it ended up jumping about to the point where there wasn't much flow to the storyline. Plus the very last shot didn't feel like much of an ending. Hopefully the theory that we get an actual final scene in episode 13 will be real.

 

[Hidden Masta]

Have to admit I didn't really like the direction the show took as of episode 11. I liked it more when it was about real life nerds actually becoming Sentai. I mean episode 9 had one of the greatest moments in Sentai when Akagi broke the delusion wall and become AkibaRed for real but apparently that was all apart of the "evil" production staff's plan to change the show. That and I can never wrap my head around 4th wall breaking. At least not in live action stuff. Cartoons, comics I get but when it's an actor who in a show that he knows is a show but not that he's an actor it's like....bleh my head...But even if it didn't end the way I hoped it still had a good ending. Loved all the corny plot twists being thrown around in Episode 12. Basically summing up 35 years of Sentai in a half hour.

 

[RaiDK]

The "I hit him with the blunt edge of my sword" explanation after SHOOTING Delu-Knight was pretty golden.

 

[Hidden Masta]

My favorite was Delu Knight saying he'll go back to his fiance after the fight.

 

[Lynxara]

I don't know about that actually. There's been a lot of bickering and childishness from toei guys on twitter over the last several months.

I dunno if you follow any Japanese entertainment besides tokusatsu, but... I mean, that's Japanese staffers on Twitter in general? A lot of anime guys say all kinds of batshit stuff. I've never seen a case yet where a tweet has actually had consequences beyond dudes sniping at each other, either on Twitter or through dueling interviews. Maybe we'll get there one day, or it's happened and I'm just unaware, but for now tweets just don't seem to be taken all that seriously in business or PR terms. Fans obsess over them, but... well, fans.

The whole show's charm was supposed to be these nerds who thought they were heroes and ended up actually being heroes, and that was supposed to be great.

I don't agree with your assessment of what the show was "supposed" to be. I think the show was always angling for the ending's "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it" theme. Every time Akibaranger does something specifically to try and become official, they pave the way for the Delusion Empire to come into existence. That, in turn, leads directly to the ending and their own identities coming under assault.

The thing they discuss in Secret Base, where they decide it's better to be canceled and remembered by otaku than bastardized by Hatte Saburo, is actually an attitude some anime creators held in the early 80s. A lot of shows from that period that got canceled ended up having utterly bizarre, psychedelic endings that made them immortal in the minds of otaku. In a way, Akibaranger's ending was perfect for such hopelessly nerdy characters.

I guess the staff thought it would be too "cheesy" to have it be anything other than a TV show.

I don't know why anyone would make this assumption, when the ending the creators actually produced is extremely cheesy and is clearly written that way on purpose. Akibaranger wasn't trying to be edgy, the mode of writing it used for its ending dates back to the black existentialist satires of the 50s and 60s (Catch 22, Dr. Strangelove, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead). If anything, it's a bit dated.

I think Akibaranger's ending was pretty much what the rest of the show was written around. It's why the show starts very tame, just a bit farcical and full of goofy coincidences, then ramps up the surreal and existentialist elements throughout the series. Nobuo's romance flag sets up Yumeria's dead mom sets up the destruction of the fourth wall sets up the Delusion Empire, which reveals the high price of becoming official.

 

[Dark Kabuto]

Shouldn't Nobu know that a Sentai Robo's destruction is also a final battle troupe? :laugh:

 

[Hell Kaiser Andy]

Legs!
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