Sean Akizuki's Super Sentai Blog

Coincidence or not? Ryusoulger for me is more Dragon Quest than dinosaur (and I guess Toei just decided to go with dinosaurs because of last year's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) with all the RPG elements, mythical monsters based on Western mythos (Zyuranger had plenty of them) and now Toei Animation is going to make the Dragon Quest: Your Story movie. Just a note -- the two Dragon Quest Anime series (Dai and Abel) were by Studio Pierrot and Studio Coment and NOT by Toei Ltd.  Is is really planned or just a coincidence that Toei has an upcoming movie based on Dragon Quest V ? I remembered the time when Ryusoulger was leaked to be dragon-based but Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom screened on July 13, 2018 in Japan -- did that catch Toei off-guard? They planned a dragon knight type Super Sentai but ended up releasing dinosaurs? So when did they start to shift to dinosaurs yet still keep the RPG vibes intact? I've watched every week for Ryusoulger and I'm reminded more o...

The Heisei era is ending and the Reiwa ending is about to begin on May 1, 2019. I feel the need to write yet another entry regarding the Heisei era and the innovative struggle to keep things going. The Showa era ended in 1989 and we've got some important events. Kamen Rider Black RX started in the Showa era and ended up entering into the Heisei era early on. Then we have Jiban and Turboranger which are the first true pure Heisei era Metal Hero and Super Sentai entries. Now we've got to think about the innovative struggle of the Heisei era. Turboranger was the second to the last of Hirohisa Soda's jobs as a headwriter and Jiban was the first Metal Hero written by the late Noboru Sugimura. Black RX wasn't as well-received as its highly ambitious predecessor Kamen Rider Black. Then the end of the 1980s came with the 1990s which I consider to be the best storytelling era as far as Super Sentai and some Metal Hero shows are concerned. Then the era would be heavily focuse...

Well it's time for another Ryusoulger episode. Art thou ready? Well, this episode starts to build up the relationship between the primary team and the secondary team. Dost thou remember the episode where Ryusoul Elder telleth the first three Ryusoulgers to team up with the other two? Now this one is the first part of an attempt to join with them. Koh is too enthusiastic of an idiot -- though idiot heroes aren't necessarily bad unless you've got stuff like the way Kento Shimoyama handled Takaharu, a few times Lucky gets too over-enthusiastic in Kyuranger or well Daigo Kiryu in Kyoryuger. Koh trieth to reach out both Banba and Towa but they find it "Nah!" to the idea of joining up with the Ryusoulgers. Ui's father is looking for the map that would find the temple. So it turneth out that map would lead to the temple. So who took it? Well it was Koh who was going to make a deal with the other two.  There's the competition between the two of the...

As the Reiwa era is about to enter -- I'd like to talk about a couple of shows where Toei just got overly ambitious one way or another. Here's my personal opinion and some of them may actually be true. So just read on and feel free to add your personal picks or to disagree with me... Showa era Super Sentai is what I'd call a series where innovation really either hits or miss because you gotta sell more robots and weapons, right? Well, there was a time I actually enjoyed Super Sentai for actually getting THAT ambitious. Now it's time to consider Super Sentai along with some Metal Hero and Kamen Rider shows that I thought got too ambitious and perhaps too ambitious for its own good. Dengeki Sentai Changeman This series could be considered to be a hugely ambitious series for this reason -- CGI special effects was still at its infancy. Remember all the stop-motion and sketches used from Gavan, Sharivan and Shaider? Changeman really was bound by the constraints of ...