The Official Now Playing Thread: Za Next!

So aside from watching Jyuohger every week I pretty much took a break from watching anything subtitled for most of May. Now I've got a massive backlog of ongoing toku and anime to catch up on. I'm back up to date on Amazons and Garo Makai Retsudan. Now I'm just indulging in a bit of Dynaman before I get back into Ghost. Then I'll catch up on the Gavan subs and at some point watch the Drive Saga film. Man, it was a busy month!

Dr Kain said:

I don't hate Den-O, but the series really isn't that great.

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It's probably in my top five or six Rider series, but then I love a superhero coming-of-age story and Rider does love to do series like that (they've done two more since Den-O!). There's some good stuff in Den-O if you can get past the slapstick, even though the show would probably have done better to spell them out instead of providing the pieces and expecting the audience to figure it out.

Haven't seen Amazons yet, but I hear it is a return to the Heisei form over that kiddy crap we have been getting lately.

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Visually it's more The First/Next but with the kind of CGI blood you'd expect from something like Garo. It's not really related to the original Amazon in any way aside from a few names for things.

It took me two episodes to get over the whole "woo it's not for kids" thing and I considered dropping it after episode four. My main issue is that the lead character is a walking collection of Inoue tropes - wandering around staring into the distance in a vaguely depressed way, asking lots of faux-philosophical questions about his own existance and being miserable because he can't get answers from people even though he hasn't asked them.

Thankfully in episode six the main character finally declares that he will punish the wicked and protect the weak, before charging off to fight the latest monster while the show's theme music kicks in. It took them nearly half the series to get there, but they finally remembered that he's meant to be a Kamen Rider.

We watched another batch of episodes today after helping our friends move. We're now up to episode 28 and the episodes we watched have been fun, I really love the diversity with the ranger cast and that they are trying to develop them. Unfortunately, the villains have taken a turn towards the generic as they are doing absolutely nothing right now. They haven't done anything with Hineler being a former friend of Kubota's or anything. Also, Girell has been pretty bland thus far and both Yugande and Shiborena haven't done a thing.

My favorite episodes though are the ones with the killer moth and the Antlion. I just love the episodes when characters are constantly being tossed around between various environments. As for the killer moth one, I did like seeing how the characters dealt with the concept of dying even though the viewer knows full well they are safe.

Oh, Mega Silver is kind of cool. I like the idea that he is using a prototype suit and he puts on a nice change of pace compared to the other rangers being high schoolers. The whole "You aren't allowed to be Mega Silver" aspect is getting a little stale though and for him being able to only stay transformed for 2.5 minutes, he sure seems to be able to do A LOT.

BTW, something I forgot to bring up that I found really interesting. Episode 18 of Megaranger has Kouchirou meeting the spirit of the forest, who hates humans for trying to destroy him, and he ends up having to save the boy from the monster of the week.

Power Rangers Turbo had the exact same plot but with TJ.

Is this a coincidence? Did one of the shows rip off the other? They both would have aired arond the same time, so I'm not sure.

And that's a wrap on Megaranger. Well, except for the Mega vs Car movie, which I have never seen before.

Anyway, overall, the show was really good despite a few misteps. Girell was absolutely worthless and brought nothing to the show that couldn't have been done without him. On the other hand, the Neziranger arc was freaking awesome and the highlight of the show, I just wish they had done it a lot sooner in the series. Hell, it would have made a lot more sense to have them be the cause for the Mega Voyager upgrade. The stuff with Hineler was also great, but it was under utilized as we really should have got more insight into his backstory a lot sooner too. It would have added more to the relationship between him and Shiborena instead of being a last minute reveal.

The ranger cast was done well, but once again blue and yellow got the short end of the stick. Shun had a really great episode at the beginning of the show with his mom and then when he lost his memory, but other than that, he didn't have much of a story. As for Chisato, she got a really terrible episode with her grandmother (was that the lady who played the aunt in Ryuki?) and that was about it. The majority of the development went to Miku, Kenta, and Kouichirou. I did like how they sparingly used Mega Silver, but there were a couple of situtations where it didn't make sense for him to not be around, especially since it was after Mega Voyager and Mega Winger were there.

Finally, the mech battles got really boring after a while. This show really suffered from having to have a mech battle every episode (sans the premier Neziranger episode), especially since Galaxy Mega was introduced immediately. It is easily the second weakest entry of the 90s, but when compared to the other 39 series out there, it is a pretty strong entry regardless of its shortcomings.

Eh personally I thought Megaranger was pretty awesome. My main complaint would be that the final battle with the Nejirangers feels like the climax of the series, making everything afterwards feel kind of underwhelming. It's my favourite of the late 90s series I've seen so far and it might be in my overall top ten.

Toku Prime said:

It's my favourite of the late 90s series I've seen so far and it might be in my overall top ten.

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I'd put it on my top 5. Despite the insane amount of fillers and the crappy Girell arc, the ending arc is great.

Oh, I think the show was awesome, it just isn't in my top 10 as I think Dai, Kaku, Zyu, Geki, Car, GoGoV, Aba, Jet, Time, Gokai, Ginga, and Live are better series.

Unless Toei decides to claim my video, here is my review for Shout! Factory's recent release of Ninja Sentai Kakuranger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI0uap8r7ZA

I'm watching the last 3 episodes of Kamen Rider Den-O tonight. After many episodes hating the season, things are finally starting to make sense. Unless they mess up at the very end of the season, I'll have to admit I was wrong and Den-O is actually a very good season. Its comedy tone still doesn't work very well for me, but I can see why people like Den-O.

Tomorrow, I'll take a break from toku shows and finish Fullmetal Alchemist. Not sure if I plan on finishing Go-Busters or if I'll watch something else after that. I've heard a lot of good things about Garo, I might give it a shot.

I do like the ending to Den-O, so you should enjoy it.

Dr Kain said:

I do like the ending to Den-O, so you should enjoy it.

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I've seen many people say that the "problem" with Den-O is how it ends, so I was always like "I already don't like the beginning, you're telling me the end is worse???". I usually give a lot of value to the ending arc of a toku show.

It seems those people were wrong, after all.