Sunday, February 21, 2010

Angels, according to the Japanese

How would you describe an angel? You probably will think about a holy humanoid creature with wings, a messenger from God, sometimes bearing a halo on top, and wearing basic cloth/medieval style clothing. Angels are sometimes portrayed as having holy powers and weapons.

Well, forget about those. In 2010, angels need cards to henshin and use their powers. They wear helmets and spandex, and each are color coded. The use cards to summon weapons. Oh, did I mention they also have a robot? And who are they fighting? Aliens. Oh course, they appeared in Japan only. LOL. Yeah, that's basically the description of 2010 Super Sentai, GoSeiger. Really, the story is that they're angels (which is somewhat ironic considering GoSei Pink is a gravure idol... LOL).


Well, their henshin sequence is kinda neat, with wings and lights from heaven... LOL.
So what's the story? Well, apparently angels have been protecting earth. But now we have aliens trying to conquer earth. Obviously to minimize any resistance, they damaged the angels' headquarters. Fortunately, there are 5 angels in-training that are on earth for their training. Without access/help from HQ, these 5 young angels are earth's only hope to fight the aliens.

As I suspected, the cards made everything corny. Again, ONORE DIKEIDO!!! Following Kamen Rider's trend of using cards, GoSeiger is the first Sentai that focus on the cards. In fact, they focus too much on the cards. Everything the GoSeigers do require cards, from henshin, summoning weapons, summoning guns, anything. Even in the first episode, it's already shown that this card business can backfire, where they were attacked while trying to put their cards into their changers. LOL. It's unfortunate that this is the decision TOEI made to ensure toys sales. Super Sentai have been great lately, with Go-Onger and Shinkenger. I hope GoSeiger can continue the trend. I don't know if I would get used to the cards though.

Kamen Rider W, My Impression So Far

Kamen Rider W started with a weird premise, where 2 guys henshin into 1 rider. In the beginning, I smell yaoi-ness aplenty. I even made this video:

Fast forward, Kamen Rider W is actually a pretty decent show. No yaoi-ness I could see. Even better, it feels really like a detective J-Dorama, with tokusatsu mixed in. I really love the show. Funny and entertaining.

But then guess who showed up. A new Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider Accel, Ryu Terui. Not only the design is a stark contrast from W (he looks like a cheap toy design, unlike W's smooth design), he can transform. Yup, another transformrider, the bad trend started by Decade. ONORE DIKEIDO!!! Really, I just hate this Transformers Riders stuff. It's just weird (Kuuga's head being flipped, firing arrow from Kiva's crotch, etc). Kamen Rider is supposed to be "human," not Transformers. Well, Kamen Rider Accel can transform into a motorcycle. Well, okay, the transformation isn't as weird as the other Riders in Decade, but I still think it's fishy. Well, guess what, in episode 22, Accel gets a new weapon, the Gunner A. It's a tank, and Accel in his motorcycle form can combine with it. That sounds fine, until you see how they combined. Watch this video I made:

Yeah, you be the judge.
What were the producers and director thinking? That's just bad design. I mean come on, really? I hope they don't do that often in future episodes.

Edit: Youtube suspended my account for unknown reason. If there was a TOS violation, usually they simply disabled/deleted the video and gave me a warning. Now, my account just went poof. I'm uploading the video to metacafe.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

GoSeiger preview


Wait, that dragon looks very familiar. Re-using Dairanger props? LOL. I dunno about the cards. Obviously it's a way to sell toys and collectibles. I mean come on, do angels use cards? LOL. Cards usually don't flow well in battles. There will be a lot more awkward freezes where the suit actors showing the cards mid-battle (we know that from the various Kamen Rider shows that use cards). Other than that, hopefully it's going to be another great sentai. The series have been very top quality lately (Go-Onger, then Shinkenger).