(Where Wraithstrike Watches) The Toku Thread

Here's the thing, though.

I don't hate baseball episodes. I loved the Dairanger baseball episode because the Three Gouma Stooges are fun to watch.

But when baseball becomes the means to save the city from destruction, it goes beyond good fun to just plain stupid.

Wraithstrike said:

Here's the thing, though.

I don't hate baseball episodes. I loved the Dairanger baseball episode because the Three Gouma Stooges are fun to watch.

But when baseball becomes the means to save the city from destruction, it goes beyond good fun to just plain stupid.

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I agree, Changeman's problem was that it tried to take a ridiculous premise and treat it seriously, so it fell flat on its face. With Dairanger, they knew that anything and everything involving the stooges is going to be ridiculous, and so it gets played appropriately.

Wraithstrike said:

How does Tsurugi basing himself off an owl make him a ninja? How does he get the Hidrer troopers into the disguises? If you're going to go with an owl, at least have the fight scene take place at night, damn it!

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The inspiration he got from the owl was just the element of surprise. A night fight would have been cool, though! Toku needs more night fights. But I'm surprised you didn't like this episode, I never really thought there was anything bad about it. It might be a big old Sentai cliche today, but I think it was the first Sentai episode to do the whole "Red 'dies' and how the team copes" thing.

And because of my being a Tsurugi/Hamada fanboy, I'd like to address the baseball stuff. I think Changeman worked in Hamada's baseball past better than some other shows. (Think of Goseiger with them shoehorning in Mikiho Niwa's cheerleader past, for example.) And I always thought that the Bomball that Yuuma invents for Tsurugi to use in the first baseball episode was a nod to Goranger and Sunvulcan, with their sports ball finishers, which I think was a neat way to work that in. A lot of Changeman fans seem to get worked up over the baseball episodes, which kinda puzzles me. The Ghost Baseball one is accused of being too weird, but...it's pretty mild compared to some of the stuff the Metal Heroes of the time were doing.

I'm afraid to see your review for the Strange Candy episode. :laugh: I like that one for nostalgic reasons, but it's a lighthearted episode that I don't think flies for more modern viewers.

Changeman Episode 38: Ghost Baseball


Yes, I'm cheating. But I watched this episode twice, and the only things I found of redeeming value were Tsurugi deliberately choking the dragonball so the ghosts could hit it and the mysterious ghost in the opening.

Were there really nine guys who died of illness or accidents before they could get hit in the face by the dragonball? Maybe if they hadn't focused on hitting a wildly inaccurate pitch, they'd still be alive.

I was ok with them letting the ghosts move on without regrets, but that was phenomenally silly.

As far as the strange candy episode goes, it'll probably fall under the same heading as the cursed crayon. Not as bad as the baseball episodes, but not that good either.

There is one scene to the candy episode that makes the entire episode more than worth it in my opinion.

A thing I noted:
If we had had only this ghost baseball episode, I would have actually enjoyed it. Without telling us about the crazy pitch, or making it be the only thing that can save the day, this would have been a good episode.

That would help, I have to agree.

Episode 39: Deadly Hide and Seek.



"The space graveyard shall be your final resting place." Yeah...sure.

It's like with all the Alcatraz knock-offs, they exist to be broken out of and shock everyone. Personally, I think Ghost Giluke is really funny, because pretty much everyone has this whole "Go away Giluke, no one likes you" attitude when he shows up.

I really love the whole Ghost Guiluke thing. Toku villains are always killed off and expected to come back, but I thought they did a good job making you think Guiluke was out of the show -- Ahames gets the promotion, they change the ED credits to feature her and so on. So, I do think it's a shock when Ghost Guiluke first pops up.

I also like how Yamamoto alters his performance as Guiluke. Guiluke previously had been so loyal to the other villains that he came across almost as nice. :laugh: I mean, he stuck up for Ahames again and again, and look at how she screwed him over. Bazuu screwed him over. So, when he returns as Ghost Guiluke, he's really pissed, and he's crueler and just hates everyone, and he gets pretty brutal, and a lot of it is how Yamamoto plays it.