Kamen Rider/toku is awesome

[annhell]

Naturally, I have to add more stuff to this thread.

Until I stumbled on some write-ups on wiki pages, I never realised untl recently that the names of the Kamen Rider Club members in Fourze were referenced from past riders:

Kengo is named after Kamen Rider 1, also known as Hongo(u) Takeshi. うたほしけんご（Utahoshi Kengo） is an anagram of ほんごうたけし (Hongo's name in hiragana script).

Jojima Yuki is named after Riderman, also known as Joji Yuki (結城 丈二).

Kazashiro Miu is named after Kamen Rider V3, also known as Kazami Shiro (風見 志郎); かざしろみう（Miu's name）is an anagram of かざみしろう (Kazami's name in hiragana script).

JK is named after Kamen Rider X, also known as Keisuke Jin (神 敬介), by using his initials.

Daimonji Shun is named after Kamen Rider 2, also known as Hayato Ichimonji (一文字 隼人); by combining the kanji 一 and 人 in Ichimonji's name, to get the kanji 大 in Daimonji's name, 大文字 隼.

Nozama Tomoko is named after Kamen Rider Amazon; Nozama" is "Amazon" backwards.


And...maybe this ain't a new speculation, but I will not be surprised if Sarina Sonada turns out to be the Scoprion Zodiart.

[Gomess]

I will not be surprised if Sarina Sonada turns out to be the Scoprion Zodiart.

Sa ri na So nada...

Sa... So... ri...

What tipped you off? =p

You could even go so far as to rearrange her name into "Na-na- Sasori da!" ("Wh-wha- It's a scorpion!")

EDIT: Her name's Sonoda, not Sonada. "Sasori nanoda?!" ("Isn't that a scorpion?!")

...The thing about the protagonists' names, though, is what does it actually mean? They just seem like references for references' sake, 'cos it's the 40th anniversary. And that... is kinda meh, to be honest. Sky Rider and Decade did the overt callbacks already, let's get over it. Anagram names really aren't clever, 'cos they don't actually mean anything on more than one level. Unless it turns out JK is an amphibious cyborg with an overbearing father?

[BWprowl]

And...maybe this ain't a new speculation, but I will not be surprised if Sarina Sonada turns out to be the Scoprion Zodiart.

Aaaaaand...it looks like you were right! I totally got where you were coming from after ep 12, but they do a pretty good job of throwing out an effective red herring in the principal in episode 13 (though now I'm stuck wondering what that guy's deal *really* is).

It's a good development though, as it means Sonoda can actually have an interesting role, moving forward. I was afraid she was to be forever relegated to comic-relief shenanigans with Suspenders-Sensei. Also, good to see they aren't conveniently forgetting about the kids who became Zodiarts in the past, and actually doing interesting stuff with them. Okay, so switches as apparently-addictive drug stand-ins isn't the most original angle in the world (not to mention yet another thing to throw on the already-large 'Ripped off from Gaia-Memory' pile), but at least it's something. I'm genuinely interested in where Miura's going to be when all this is over.

Also, Fourze's fighting style has come into its own lately. I expressed concerns over Gentaro not showing his abilities off enough in the past, but he's been switch-swapping and form-changing like a champ over the last few episodes. I still think there're too many damn switches (and do we really expect to see stuff like Beat and Water more than a couple times? And Stealth kinda renders Smoke pretty pointless, in comparison), but at least he's *using* switches a lot, and more than one at a time, most times. And I thought Gatling was cool as hell. >_>

[BWprowl]

So I’ve been getting into Super Sentai as of late. Started watching Jetman, and I’m about eight episodes in so far and I’m reeeeaaally liking it (Sorry Gomess, I tried DaiRanger, and while the fighting and martial arts were terrific, the characters just had no personalities and I could not get into it). I dig the less-than-ideal aspects of a lot of the characters (with the notable exception of Gai, who they seem way to focused on making look like the biggest douchebag ever, when you just KNOW it’s so they can soften him up later). Ako in particular appeals a lot; she’s just so different from other Toku heroes/team members I’ve encountered before. I dig that her first question upon being recruited onto the team was basically ‘How much does being a Ranger pay?’. I like the jets a lot too, a pity the combined mecha is very clearly a stack of boxes. But whatevs, this is the early 90’s, I can’t fault them for not being on the level of the effects I’ve seen these days. I’ll compensate by going on to watch Shinkenger after I’m done with this one, since that series apparently caught the appeal of a lot of the same people who dug Kamen Rider W at the same time, so it may be up my alley. After that, dunno, Gokaiger seems too awesome to ignore for too long, and Carranger sounds like a hoot the more I read about it.

S’yeah, while we wait for Fourze to continue on its merry way (looks like Meteor’ll make his grand entrance in the next episode!), anyone wanna talk about its sister ship? Six, I know you have mild Sentai/Ranger enthusiasm, you got anything?

[Gomess]

Heyyy, Dairanger's characters are just *subtle*! You gotta stick with it. Or have grown up on it. Later Super Sentai does admittedly rely much more on overt quirks and stereotypes. That's partly why I've gone off it.

Jetman is rightly considered one of the best Super Sentai ever. Very fulfilling watch.

Carranger is bloody awful. Maybe it gets better, but the first couple eps were just *so* stupid and asinine and- lolol broken record Gomess- full of misogyny. Do tell me if it gets better. I like the idea of a self-parodying Super Sentai.

[Onslaught Six]

Is Carranger the one that became Turbo? The one that was a hilarious parody of Sentai tropes and then became this uber-serious show in America?

Ha.

My experience with raw sentai is actually pretty limited--I've seen quite a few eps of Zyuranger but that's because of obvious nostalgia factor and stuff. Plus Burai is a fucking badass.

Allmighty Unicron and I were watching through RPM when it was premiering though! Then it went to season break and we fell off the wagon. I remember it starting very strongly though!

I saw one episode of PRSamurai and it looks..bad, even if I really like the suit designs (to the point where I almost want to buy the toys). Isn't it like...four seasons behind the sentai now?

[BWprowl]

Allmighty Unicron and I were watching through RPM when it was premiering though! Then it went to season break and we fell off the wagon. I remember it starting very strongly though!

I've had RPM downloaded on my computer for a while now since I heard It Was Good, but haven't taken the time to watch it. INTERESTING: The source on that one, Go-Onger was another car-based series that was a parody of Sentai that got turned into an uber-serious show in America. Except this time it actually worked out well, apparently.

I saw one episode of PRSamurai and it looks..bad, even if I really like the suit designs (to the point where I almost want to buy the toys). Isn't it like...four seasons behind the sentai now?

Eh, more like two. PRSamurai apparently premiered like the day after Goseiger (the series after PRS's source-sentai, Shinkenger) ended, and Japan's currently a bit more than halfway through the series after THAT, Gokaiger. Don't know if Goseiger'll get localized once they're done with PRS. Bandai of America would probably dig the amount of merchandising available in that show though. From the little I've seen of it, it looks horribly bland, and apparently didn't make as big of a splash as its predecessor did or its successor has. Gokaiger could be a real localizing nightmare for BoA/Saban, but could turn into an awesome Power Rangers tribute series if they did it right (not to mention the amount of merchandise, new and old, that they could sell over here if they pulled it off).

Oh, and because I wanted an excuse to post this:

[Onslaught Six]

Doesn't transform. Isn't ungodly huge. No Dragonzord. Pass!

[Gomess]

Nice to see the original decals in "super srs" format, though. No doofy lightning bolt logos.

[BWprowl]

Okay, so word on the street is that Bandai and/or Saban wants to try Kamen Rider in the west again. Thoughts? Masked Rider was forgotten and probably best left that way, and Kamen Rider Dragon Knight didn’t really make much of an impact to begin with (though I hear that it was a much better/more faithful handling of the property; I’ll watch Ryuuki one of these days, then maybe watch a little of Dragon Knight to compare), so how could they make it work this time?

I think one issue with bringing KR over here is that Power Rangers is just too goddamn saturated and ingrained in the Western consciousness, it can’t really maintain that ‘sister series’ mentality that it has over in Japan. Kids (and adults) over here will take one look at a KR adaptation and immediately label it a ‘Power Rangers rip-off’, regardless of the legitimate origins of the source material. So that’s a hard hurdle to overcome to begin with.

One way to overcome that might depend on what series they end up localizing. For instance, if they went with Decade, they could air the Shinkenger cross-over episodes, and promote it as a spin-off/tie-in to Power Rangers, which might make it seem more legitimate. Decade could be an interesting choice for a localization, actually, downplaying the ‘anniversary show’ angle and playing up the ‘traveling through different worlds, discovering new heroes’ angle. They could even gauge reaction to the other Riders as they appeared in the series, and use that as a measuring stick for what series to adapt next. Not to mention sell a bunch of collectable cards to kids. On the other marketing hand, there’s no escaping the fact that Decade is friggin’ pink, and while Japan’s sensibilities may allow that to work (and I think it looks cool too, hey), I know American marketers get wary and wound up about things like that.

I think Den-O could also work as source material. The way it works is kinda like PR if each of the members fought one at a time, and it’s light-hearted enough that it could catch on with the tots. Plus, with all the movies, there’s enough footage to go off of that they could keep it running for a *long* time if it actually caught on.

So yeah, anyone else got any thoughts? KR being brought over to my home turf and how it would be handled just interests me, izzall.