April 2023 – Nicholas Elton Driscoll

April 28, 2023May 1, 2023

A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep, Chapter 16

Once again, by Nicholas Driscoll.

Excellent art by Sam Messerly. You can see more here.

There was some confusion at the hospital in response to our arrival. Some nurses thought that Warbell had injured the kid (his name was Murdock Gargle), and they started calling the police. But as the nurses were in mid-call, the police arrived, having been alerted to shenanigans due to a dinosaur chaotically dashing through the streets. After some chaos in which I found myself defending the dinosaur for once, the police let us off with a warning… not least of all because Warbell had managed to keep Murdock stable and safe in his mouth, his tongue acting as a stabilizing instrument protecting Murdock from injuring himself as the dinosaur bounded through the city.

Warbell couldn’t come into the hospital, and definitely couldn’t hang out in the waiting room, so the old lizard was once again left to stand in the parking lot twiddling his nonexistent thumbs. After some discussion with the doctors and police inside (I got to whip out my official dinosaur ambassador card a few times, which I’ll admit is a bit of a thrill), I walked outside to check on Warb.

“The kid is stable so far,” I said. “Looks like he will be hunky-dory.”

“I don’t know that expression,” Warb said. “So he will be okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You really acted fast back there. I barely knew what was happening and I was suddenly in the air, carried away by dinosaur claws.”

“What happened?” Warbell asked, that same intense look in his eyes that I saw in the Six Degrees of Bacon parking lot. “How did the kid get hurt?”

I sighed and scratched an itch on my nonexistent leg, then took a deep breath.

“Well, they can’t really tell me about the details, can they?” I said. “I am not related to the kid.”

Suddenly we heard an ambulance siren blurt to life and keen down the road. We watched it go in silence.

“Looks like today is a bad day,” I said. “Several emergencies.”

“Was he shot?” asked Warb. “By one of your people’s guns?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Did you hear a gunshot? I didn’t. Even a silencer makes a sound. I heard nothing. And no sniper is going to shoot a fast-food worker. The stuff he cooks would probably kill him anyway, so there’s not much reason to accelerate the process I suppose.”

Warbell turned his head towards the hospital, that fiery stare burning at the concrete walls as if by squinting hard enough he might be able to see inside.

“Why do you care so much anyway?” I asked. “It’s not like you even know the kid, right?”

Warbell didn’t look at me. I shifted my feet uneasily. A nurse walked by, coming off her smoke break (gosh, why do so many nurses smoke?), and suddenly Warbell stepped in her way, eyes flashing.

“You will tell me what happened to the boy!” Warbell commanded, voice thundering loud enough to set off a car alarm. “You will let me know every detail, for I am your king and you must do what I tell you!”

Read the next chapter.

April 27, 2023May 2, 2023

Kamen Rider Impressions, Part 8: Kamen Rider Hibiki and Kamen Rider Kabuto

Kamen Rider Hibiki Episodes 1 and 2 (2005-2006) “The Echoing Oni” and “The Howling Spider”

Wow. Just when I was getting a little familiar with the trend of mechanized heroes from covert operations teams fighting strange invading monsters, Kamen Rider Hibiki throws in a huge spanner in the works nearly as wild as Kamen Rider Amazon—but with much more poise and confidence! What a show! The first episode starts with a straight-up musical number as one of the main characters rides his bike to school, and throughout much of the action of the episode we get ongoing playful instrumental melodies that highlight what is happening on screen in a direct manner ala classic Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny cartoons. Plus the Rider mythos is turned on its head, introducing another form of mystical Rider built from Japanese folklore this time (the kanji for the Rider’s name includes the word “oni,” which can be translated as a kind of Japanese ogre), and the fighting style incorporates things like flame breath and taiko drums. And the editing! The use of interstitial calligraphy! The rapid, stylized cuts and traditional instrumentation!

The story goes that Asumu, a cheerful but stressed-out junior high kid going into high school, has a trip with his family to Kagoshima in southern Japan. While there, he encounters a drifter named Hibiki who he sees rescue a child on a ferry, and afterwards they encounter one another again on a hike and are attacked by web-slinging beastly humanoids. As it turns out, the forest-dwelling monster-men are feeding a giant spider the size of a house (a Tsuchigumo, from Japanese folklore, taking the usual spider man gig from these shows), and Asumu nearly gets snarfed before Hibiki can literally beat it down with his drumsticks and flamethrower breath.

The sense of style is off the charts with this entry. Yes, the idea of riding monsters and smashing away on their backs with drumsticks is beyond absurd, but the surreality is part and parcel with the entire ethos of this entry! The action, too, may suffer from fast cutting, but even that decision feels intentional, as part of the rhythm of the editing. I expected to be annoyed by young protagonist Asumu, who has several scenes where he is smiling at the camera and breaking the fourth wall—but he is so likable and upbeat, it’s hard to complain. The series also steps away from the power cards from previous entries, replacing them with discs that transform into miniature attack animals—and I will admit, those look so stupid. But it’s a small stupidity that can be overlooked.

I think, if I am being fair, I stumbled on an episode of this series when I first lived in Japan back in 2005-2007 and I was taken aback by the absurdity of the show. I can see why some fans might take umbrage at such a radical departure from the dark, sci-fi roots. Apparently the show suffers a drastic course correction halfway through that most fans despised, and which caused great controversy in the tokusatsu sphere at the time. Still, I love these first two episodes for being daring and wild and for bearing such a strong artistic vision!

Kamen Rider Kabuto Episodes 1 and 2 “The Strongest Man” and “The First Two-Step Transformation”

(2006-2007)

While not as stylish as Kamen Rider Hibiki, nor perhaps as inspired as the first episodes of that series appeared, Kabuto still brings more entertaining concepts and tweaks to the formula. The monster system is new, striking a pod-people vibe with invading “worms” that attack and mimic people’s appearance before transforming into bug anthropoids, then molting into a yet more powerful final form (taking on other animal traits apparently), the series also adds another anti-monster organization with a questionable past (ala Blade), this time with a whole army of rider-styled soldiers. The monster plot seems to be triggered by falling meteorites, and thus a plot point aping something like Quatermass 2, but with an added wrinkle in which the monsters possess an ability to “overclock” and move at super speed. One of the highlights of the new series is how the hyper-speed battles are depicted, with new strategies and stylization.

The rider dynamic, though, feels a little tired. Underperforming ZECT agent Arata Kagami gets his treasured chance to become a full-fledged Rider, but has his dreams stolen when mysterious lone-wolf wandering type Soujj Tendo transforms in his stead. Tendo operates with exaggerated poise and overdone cool, but it’s not really funny this time, and Kagami is kind of just lame. The Kabuto Rider suit looks bulky and powerful, though, and I like the addition of guns and multiple transformations. Artistic and sullen Hiyori Kusakabe provides an unusual female foil to the mismatched hero pair.

I am not as enthusiastic about Kabuto as some of the other series because the characters didn’t click with me as much, but I did like how the action is staged, and accidentally reading some spoilers, the series definitely has some surprising twists in the wings. I would be interested in seeing more.

Continue reading.

April 26, 2023April 28, 2023

A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep, Chapter 15

Still by Nicholas Driscoll.

Art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

Before I could even react, without a word Warbell lunged forward and scooped the kid into his mouth. Inn the delirium of the moment I yelled at the old lizard and pounded on his leg, all a panic that he was trying to eat the boy, but Warb gave me a look that stopped me in my tracks. In that one glance there was something that shocked me to silence, a fierceness and earnestness that nearly stopped my heart. Warbell held the boy tenderly with his head out so that the kid could breathe, then grabbed me with his two-fingered hands, and in the next moment we were running full speed down the street.

Final Pumpkin is not a very large city, and the traffic is usually not very busy, though many people were on the commute to their work at that time, and none of them were expecting to see a rampaging dinosaur during their morning routine. Warbell’s incredibly long legs pounded and cracked the pavement as he picked up speed and dodged cars. Most of the drivers didn’t even have the presence of mind to hit their horns. I had the presence of mind to yell and scream, though, as my feet bounced and grazed the blacktop at upwards of twenty miles an hour.

“What are you doing?” I bellowed. “Where are we going?”

And despite the very logical nature of my questions, of course Warbell did not answer. Probably because he had a dying kid in his mouth. Instead, he picked up speed, hurdling a sedan, sideswiping an SUV, then crouching into the next turn, my footwear burning against the concrete.

“Yeow!” I said with some emotion, using a few other additional choice words which I won’t repeat here.

We shot through a red light, and I wondered if it really counted as a traffic violation since Warbell isn’t really an automobile. The police seemed to think so as a patrol car pulled out behind us and started flashing and howling. By this time I realized where we were going, though, and a thrill shot up my (already much too-thrilled) spine.

“It’s pedestrian right of way, coppers!” I shouted.

In any case, Warbell didn’t stop. Instead, he took a detour through an alleyway, startling some workers on their way to the dumpster and stumbling over a garbage bin. Several stray cats shrieked and scampered away, fur flared, tails pointing skyward accusingly. Warbell just continued to barrel forward, but the police car had to detour around as the bin had blocked the alley.

As we came out the other side, Warbell crossed the street in one long stretching stride, then half-hopped over a row of shrubs into the Final Pumpkin General Hospital parking lot, where he then made a beeline (or perhaps a “t-line”?) for the emergency room entrance, the hoot of the sirens like exclamation points as we reached out destination.

Read the next chapter.

April 25, 2023

Kamen Rider Impressions, Part 7: Kamen Rider 555 and Kamen Rider Blade

Read from the beginning.

Kamen Rider 555/Faiz (2003-2004) Episodes 1 and 2 “The Start of a Trip” and “The Belt’s Power”

After Kamen Rider Ryuki, its mirror world, and the abundance of Riders of all stripes fighting one another, Kamen Rider 555 returned some sense of normalcy back to the series with fewer Riders, another evil organization trying to take over the world, and other tried-and-true tropes—but still with a relatively mature feel. I was surprised that this series starts out with a romance—which quickly turns to tragedy. We have themes of a coma, familial betrayal, death and resurrection, attempted suicide, revenge killing, consuming people’s hearts, and human beings dissolving into dust. Our initial on-focus character Takumi Inui is the reluctant type, another itinerant ala Kuuga’s professional dream-chaser, who is forced into hero duty by young hairdresser Mari Sonoda, who snaps a transformation belt (or Gear) on him. The two episodes include many antics around mistaken bags (which gets tiresome), and even a visit to that favored venue of tokusatsu—an amusement park, this time Green Land (of which there are two in Japan). While apparently later more Riders show up, in the first two episodes we only have Faiz, and he might be one of the least likable heroes yet with his surly and ungiving attitude.

As with previous Rider series, Faiz has more animal-themed enemies—this time called Orphnocs, which are meant to be the next stage in humanity. Instead of a spider man and bat man appearing first, we get a fish man (hearkening back all the way to Kamen Rider X), a centaur, and an elephant. Unfortunately, the monster suits are a bland, monochrome gray, and when the Orphnocs transform into more animalistic forms (from bipedal to quadrupedal, for example), the CGI looks terrible. Fight sequences, too, are uninspired—but I might be biased after the award-winning bootwork from Dragon Knight. I don’t like the characters very much from the first two episodes, but there is a great hook with the hapless “villain” whose life is ruined as he returns to life as a monster. Giving a monster character a detailed and sympathetic background with more pathos than the heroes in the first episodes is a bold choice that adds character here, and may have inspired a similar monster character deep-dive in Kamen Rider the First–an original film that was released the very next year after 555 ended.

Note on the title—when I saw the series was called 555, I was reminded of a chat expression used in Chinese. When you type “555” in Chinese, it represents pitiful crying, as the pronunciation for “5” is “wu” in Chinese, and so the pronunciation can be a representation of the sound of weeping. I don’t think this hidden meaning was intended, but based on the first couple episodes, “Kamen Rider Weeping” feels a little apropos!

Kamen Rider Blade (2004-2005) Episodes 1 and 2 “The Indigo Warrior” and “The Mysterious Rider”

The return of the cards! After watching the first two episodes of Kamen Rider Blade, despite a return of the overused card gimmick, I really wanted to watch more. So many of these shows are quite enjoyable right from the start, and this one has a powerful set-up with another eerie mystery, and another set of intriguing characters. This time there is an anti-monster group called BOARD that includes an elite team of Riders who are regularly sent out to fight the latest round of mysterious monsters—in this case, the Undead (they are animal-themed again, and the first one that shows up is another bat man). The main character, Kazuma Kenzaki/Kamen Rider Blade, is a rookie and still doesn’t know well what he is doing… so when his senior, Kamen Rider Garren/Sakuya Tachibana, seemingly betrays everyone and destroys BOARD while collaborating with an attack by another Undead, Kenzaki goes on a tailspin, confused and traumatized by the tragedy. Alongside the drama surrounding Board and Garren, another powerful Rider appears who was not part of BOARD and has mysterious origins—and while he fights the Undead, he also attacks Blade with fire and rage in his soul. Just in the first two episodes, we have quite the intrigue sandwich!

Special effects are much better in this iteration, with judicial use of shadows and darkness to cover up flaws in the CGI, and stylish card-play mechanics. It feels a bit like Pokemon how the Riders defeat and trap monsters in their cards. The transformation sequences also take a new form, this time with the belt buckle projecting an energy shield through which the Rider must pass to transform. These extra touches, plus an array of powerful-looking armored Rider designs and medieval-style weaponry (swords, bows) lend the new series a refreshing spark. Acting and cinematography are still rough and amateurish, though, with some unfortunate scenes and quirks—I got tired of this journalist character loudly chugging milk REAL fast. Still, the battles are hard-hitting, the monsters don’t wait for the Riders to transform, and the music rocks. But man that opening credit sequence makes it look like we are watching Kamen Boy Band.

April 24, 2023April 26, 2023

A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep, Chapter 14

By Nicholas Driscoll (obviously).

Art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to start at the beginning.

I sat on a bench in front of Six Degrees of Bacon next to a statue of a wild boar wearing a cheap plastic graduation gown. I took a sip of my hickory-smoked bacon flavored coffee and adjusted my new hat. The hat grunted and squealed whenever I touched it, but I was too tired to throw it to the ground of the parking lot and stomp the electronics to bits. And anyway, bizarrely, some part of me found the entire situation really funny.

It was a pretty small part of me, though. A big part of me resented this whole ridiculous outing. Also, I didn’t know what to make of this bizarre talking prehistoric monster in jeans. I just kept wondering if I could trust this old lizard, why he was here, if he was really going to eat all of humanity. But it seemed like a good thing that someone careful and reasonably intelligent like me was keeping a watch on him.

“You don’t have to wear the hat,” said the dinosaur after swallowing down the Heaven Bacon in two huge chomps. “It does look good on you, though.

“Thanks,” I said. “By the way, as long as we are doing this whole ambassador thing, well… what should I call you? Do you have an actual name? I don’t want to call you King T-Rex—it sounds ridiculous.”

The old lizard popped a trotter in his mouth, crunched it noisily.

“You can call me ‘your majesty’ if you like,” he said.

“Absolutely not,” I said.

The dinosaur grinned.

“I do have a name, but it’s not really an English name,” he said. “Not like Mike or Billy or Sue or something like that.”

“Well?” I said. “What is it?”

The old lizard snuffled and kind of made a deep belching wheeze, then slurped his Bacon Pho Sure. I waited.

“Are you going to tell me?” I asked again.

“I just did,” said the dinosaur. “But it changes depending on whether the name is in the subject position, or if it is in the object position in the sentence. And it changes depending on who is speaking.”

“Wait, wait, that gaseous explosion is your name?” I said.

The dinosaur speared a bacon-wrapped dumpling on one claw, then flicked it expertly into his maw.

“Only in the subject position,” he said. “In the object position in the sentence, you add this warble, and the tone of the growl is different. It kind of has a rising tone.”

And the dinosaur let out a shimmering belch-wheeze-whoop that about broke my eardrums.

“I’ll just call you Warbell, okay?” I said.

“And your name is Walter Finneson,” said Warbell. “That is the full name on all of your mail. I will call you Wal as I did before.”

“Not Wally?” I said. “Not even Walt?”

“I think ‘Wal’ suits you better.”

A number of unflattering explanations for why “wall” might ‘suit me better’ in the eyes of this ridiculous reptile bubbled up in my mind, but I brushed them aside with a long sip of bacony coffee and then stood up.

“Well, ‘Wal’ needs to get to work,” I said. “Because ‘Wal’ has better things to do than sit and make up terrible nicknames all day.”

I turned and tossed my empty cup into a pig-shaped trash can and saw the kid from the drive-through coming out the front of the restaurant with an anxious expression.

“How is the food tasting?” he asked. “I hope the Heaven Bacon doesn’t taste like asphalt. It’s supposed to be served over a fire in the main building, but—”

And here the kid choked, his hand grasping at his chest. A blotch of red appeared on his shirt, spreading rapidly, and he fell flat on the ground, twitching and screaming in pain.

Read the next chapter.

April 23, 2023April 25, 2023

Kamen Rider Impressions, Part 6: Kamen Rider Ryuki and Kamen Rider Dragon Knight

Kamen Rider Ryuki: The Complete Series + Exclusive Poster | Shout! Factory 750 × 1,000

Kamen Rider Ryuki (2002-2003) Episode 1 “The Secret Story’s Birth”

I approached Kamen Rider Ryuki with caution and suspense, as this was the Rider I was most familiar with—in a way. Kamen Rider Ryuki was later Americanized into the Emmy-award winning Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, which became a huge favorite of mine. I have such warm memories watching the entire series with my younger brother, and I still adore the theme song and some of the character work. In other words, unlike with 1995’s Masked Rider, which I rather despised and thus seeing the Japanese version was almost guaranteed to be a step up, here I was going in with a ton of nostalgia and ardor for the version I had seen in my younger years. Could I say with confidence I would enjoy the original more?

Well… Ryuki has a lot of interesting things going on. The conceit moves away from the Kuuga/Agito universe, and instead the world has mysterious warriors and monsters moving through a reflected world in the mirrors (like Alice through the Looking Glass) and attacking (or defending) people in the physical world. Main character Shinji Kido works for a sleazy news agency, but he is a newb and VERY stupid. As Kido blunders around trying to look into a series of missing person cases, he finds a strange card-device that gives him the ability to see the monsters in the mirror realm. Soon he is pulled in to a fight with a CGI spider, and a mysterious bat-themed Rider saves his hinder. In the second episode, we learn that the animal-themed monsters in the mirror world are hunting and eating people—and that the Riders can contract with them, binding themselves permanently to their chosen monster other, and gaining extra powers and weapons—which can then be summoned by special cards the Rider inserts into a machine built for the purpose. If a Rider defeats and destroys a monster (or another Rider!), they gain strength from their opponent, becoming stronger themselves—kind of like Jet Li in The One. But by the end of the second episode, we still don’t know why this bizarre system of power one-upmanship exists, or why these creatures are attacking humans.

Ryuki takes noticeable attention to dynamic camera angles and more reliance on computer graphics for special effects, with some neat sequences showing the differences between the mirror realm and the real world. From go the show features several Riders while maintaining an all new and emotionally effective air of mystery and intrigue, as we don’t know what is going on, who the heroes are, who the villains might be. The spider and bat themes show up again, but they aren’t as predictable as previous incarnations; the bat man is a Rider! However, Kido and his news agency are obnoxious, and Kido even has a dopey theme song ala Bulk and Skull from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. The acting, too, tends to be stilted, with overall poor delivery—though I could say the same about previous Rider shows. I haven’t watched Dragon Knight recently, so it will be interesting to take a peek at that show one more time and see how it stacks up against its progenitor next (see below).

Also, it must be said, I think, as cool as the cards are, they also feel like a really unfortunate concession to the toy aisle. Card games increasingly became popular in the early 2000s, so incorporating some card system probably felt essential to success, and a lucrative way to create merch and monetize, monetize, monetize. Unfortunately, card gimmicks (and the like) like this would proliferate in the Kamen Rider and Ultraman franchises both and become more and more common in the coming years.

For me, Kamen Rider Dragon Knight (an Americanized adaptation of Kamen Rider Ryuki released several years later) for many years represented peak Kamen Rider. I was already in my twenties when the show came out, but was still very into tokusatsu of whatever shape I could get my hands on, and though I was wary of Americanized versions of tokusatsu media (since they tend to simplify narratives at best, and present chopped-up incoherent garbage at worst), when I watched Dragon Knight with my little brother, I fell in love. Compared to other tokusatsu programming in the West, Dragon Knight had a much more mature tone, dealing with death and complex character motivations and situations. Unlike many tokusatsu in the West, it also had a fully serialized story instead of an episodic structure. It also has truly impressive fight choreography, especially from Matt Mullins, a martial artist/performer who provides electrifying combat sequences that are far better than anything in the first couple episodes in the original Ryuki—the fights and stunts were so good, they won the show a Daytime Emmy for best stuntwork, which was the first award of its kind ever given.

Heck, even watching the show now, I still felt a tingle of excitement jitter up my spine from the fancy bootwork on display. Mullins is a bulky, tall, muscular chunk of cool who can dance in the air as he rocks the spandex and rubber off enemy monsters.

The story of the first two episodes in many ways improves on the already intriguing premise from Ryuki. Replacing dumbhead hero Kido is Kit Taylor, eighteen-year-old foster-kid and screw-up whose father has disappeared… but continues to communicate with him through a series of visions. Kit is resourceful and kind, but deeply troubled, and far more sympathetic and interesting than Kido. When he is tossed out on his tush upon turning 18 by his foster parents, he returns to his dad’s old home and finds a strange device—an advent deck that allows him to see strange robotic monsters that emerge from a mirror realm. Soon he is pulled into the fight alongside a Terminator-esque warrior who can transform into a bat-themed Kamen Rider, and this hero tries to warn Kit away from using the deck to become a Rider himself. However, Kit listens to his ghostly father’s words and uses the deck to make a contract with a dragon that follows him through the mirrors, changing into Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, and by the end of the second episode he is throwing fists with a third antagonistic crab-themed Rider and more goons.

Just like Ryuki, Dragon Knight possesses a fantastic sense of mystery and danger. Instead of the monsters eating people, the focus of the danger is more on Riders “venting” one another in knock-down, drag-out fisticuffs. The low-rent news service from Ryuki is replaced by a young lady working on supernatural news in her spare time who discovers Kit and befriends him—the supporting characters are not the strongest point of the show with some cringe-worthy jokes and acting, but they are far from the worst the genre has to offer. Dragon Knight also sometimes doesn’t tie together sequences from the original with new scenes filmed for Dragon Knight so well, as the seams occasionally show a bit, and the abbreviated combat sequences taken from Ryuki can feel more rushed and less coherent. Even with that said, though, Dragon Knight excels with stylish new transformations and maybe the best tokusatsu theme song ever devised (outside of the original Power Rangers jam)—I love singing along to Cage9’s stellar triumphant vocals and screaming guitars. Man… I love this show.

Continue reading.

April 22, 2023April 25, 2023

Kamen Rider Impressions, Part 5: Kamen Rider Kuuga and Kamen Rider Agito

Kamen Rider Kuuga (2000-2001) Episode 1: “Revival” and episode 2 “Transformation”

After over ten years with no new Kamen Rider TV series in Japan, finally in the year 2000 Kamen Rider Kuuga arrives with fresh ideas and a tweaked, modern style. It still has some familiar tropes (with a version of the spider-man creature appearing first, the bat man creature appearing next), but it still feels sparkly new—this time leaning into the more fantasy feel from Black with its ghostly villains, and the sort of mythical-temple background from Amazon. The story starts at an archeological dig in Japan where a Egyptian-style stone temple structure has been found. Something goes awry, and a tomb-like box breaks open, unleashing a monster that kills everyone in the dig. When a weird belt inscribed with unreadable glyphs is placed into the hands of the archeology crew’s compadres for closer inspection, the monster spider man comes knocking, apparently in search of the belt. Our hero, happy-go-lucky “professional dream chaser” Yusuke Godai puts on the belt and transforms into Kamen Rider Kuuga. After that, a lengthy and astonishing fight sequence ensues—leading to more and more questions and intrigue. The second episode introduces Kuuga’s fully transformed body (initially Godai changes into a weaker white form with smaller cranial horns, but when fully riled, he can become red and peak amped), and we are shown an buzzed new changing sequence in which Godai’s body shifts piece by piece while he is engaged in combat. As with the original Kamen Rider, the bat man that appears in the second episode has serious vampire vibes.

What a rebirth of the show! While some of the special effects don’t hit so well for me (the primitive CGI that crops up looks worse to my eye compared to the analog effects in Black on occasion), the ambition here is legendary. The action set pieces include a police car smashing through the front doors of a building, broken glass scattered all over, and a long fight dangling from a helicopter! The fisticuffs aren’t over in a flash, and even when the baddie is vanquished, it’s not clear whether he survived, which adds suspense. The lore includes an invented language represented in both writing and in speech, and the series apparently has two versions—one wherein the monsters’ foreign tongue is translated via subs, and one in which it’s not. What a spectacular idea! The version I saw on Tubi included subtitles for the spoken monster-talk, which removes some of the mystery, but at least in the first two episodes I didn’t think it was a huge loss. Plus, the horror theme is back! Blood! Monsters emerging from the dirt with hands reaching out zombie-style! A broken sarcophagus and long-standing death curse ala classic mummy tales! Yet at the same time, we get humor, we get likable characters joshing with one another, we get fun AND chills AND good action. This feels like an Honest Abe attempt to entertain. It feels like the whole kebab—and the Kuuga design looks solid, with sweet horns! On the down side, the acting can be weak, and the camera work feels pedestrian. Godai is one cheesy character, which can be a charm—but he also gets awful lines about wanting to make sure everyone can smile (a refrain later taken up by Ultraman Trigger in 2021 and the protagonist’s oft-repeated signature “smile, smile” phrase). The actor who played Godai, Jo Odagiri, infamously has spoken unfavorably of tokusatsu and his time working on Kuuga, and has since become a huge name in Japan. All that said, and regardless of his (apparent) negative feelings and unpolished acting, Kuuga seems to have overflowing style and exciting ideas.

Kind of boring end song, though.

Kamen Rider Agito (2001-2002) Episode 1 “A Warrior’s Awakening” and episode 2 “Blue Storm”

The thirtieth anniversary Kamen Rider show, Kamen Rider Agito (sometimes written as ΑGITΩ) takes place in the same universe as Kuuga, though with new mysteries and an infusion of new ideas—and a continuation of the previous show’s mixture of goofy acting and dark themes. The contrast feels even stronger in the first episode here.

A lot happens in the opening episodes. After a sea storm, a strange device washes up on the beach. It seems alien in origin, and has a complex locking device that requires supercomputers to decode. At the same time, an anti-monster team has assembled, with a human-made robo-suited agent code-named Kamen Rider G3 (piloted by a dude named Makoto Hikawa). Meanwhile, members of a particular family begin turning up dead, somehow fused into trees—their flesh combined with the wood, their arms dangling in the open to signal their presence. Shouichi Tsugami, a young man who has lost his memories, has psychic attacks when the tree-related murders occur, and then a panther-man attacks yet another victim and faces off against G3, who rushes to the scene. When G3 proves ineffective in battling the strange menace, and Hikawa is nearly killed, a mysterious Rider appears who is strong enough to defeat the menace.

The first episode sews together so many ideas that the narrative feels slightly overstuffed, and the introduction of some of the plot threads can be delivered with a bit too much convenient, unrealistic dialogue. The biggest weakness of the first episode is the poor writing and acting, but the new menace (it’s NOT another spider man) and the layers of mystery add a lot of narrative momentum and suspense.

The second episode polishes much of the strengths from the first, adding further wrinkles to the mystery around the family targeted by the panther-men (now called “Unknown”), and ending on a frantic cliffhanger that really had me salivating to go on to see what happens next. We also get more character development (which seems an important element for this version of the Rider), and hints at further supernatural powers operating in this world—including a creepy photograph and characters with psychic abilities (perhaps channeling Ringu, which had recently become a phenomenon; the American version would release in 2002).

A scene that stuck out to me—I know it doesn’t really reflect on the quality of the series in any way, but I want to write about this, because it’s my article—is when Tsugami’s adoptive family is puzzling over the man’s forgotten past, and it is suggested (due to his predilection for cooking particular dishes) that he might be from the Kansai area (Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto). Tsugami responds by sarcastically speaking in Kansai dialect, which the translator renders as “Gawsh, ya think so?”—basically treating the dialect as dumb-hick language, which is pretty insulting, given Kansai includes some of the biggest and most culturally significant cities of Japan. But at least they tried!

Continue reading.

April 21, 2023April 25, 2023

A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep, Chapter 13

By Nicholas Driscoll.

Art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

We decided on Six Degrees of Bacon, a restaurant specializing in innovative bacon-related dishes, and I biked on down with the lizard jogging at my side. The name of the restaurant comes from its six signature dishes from six “schools” of cooking. So, for example, they have Best Wurst Bacon, which is a German dish, as well as Bacon Pho Sure, a Vietnamese bacon breakfast soup. If you try all six of the signature dishes on your scratch-and-sniff Bacon Report Card (each item has a corresponding pig sticker that goes on the card), you get a special graduation hat. It’s pink, of course, with a pig-tail instead of the usual string tassel.

“I want to get the hat,” said the tyrannosaurus as we walked up to the drive-in window. “Get me all six signature dishes.”

“One of the six dishes is an entire pig cooked on a skewer,” I said. “Wrapped in three flavors of bacon. It’s called the Heaven Bacon.”

“I think I can eat an entire pig,” he said.

“Ah, yeah, I suppose you can,” I said, and I took out my dinosaur ambassador card. “King T-Rex” gets special discounts after all.

The kid at the drive-through window in his pig-ear hat didn’t look too surprised to see a man in his pajamas on a bike in the street, but then he noticed Rexy and his jaw dropped.

“Can we get an order of all six degrees?” I asked. “He wants the hat.”

The old lizard smiled down at the kid.

“You want a Heaven Bacon for breakfast?” asked the kid. “I can’t sell that through the drive-up window.”

“I can walk inside,” I said. “I understand an enterprising individual can get a “wee wee wee wee all the way home” box even for the full Heaven Bacon, right?”

“It’s more like a crate,” said the kid.

“Just skip the crate,” I said. “Roll the pig out on the sidewalk. It would be easier for the dinosaur here to eat it that way.”

The old lizard nodded, and the kid nodded back blankly.

“I need to check with my manager quick,” he burbled.

“Alright,” I said. “Go for it.”

“What are you ordering?” the dinosaur asked me as the kid babbled excitedly with a baffled-looking Hispanic dude wearing the manager badge.

“Nothing,” I said. “Lost my appetite when I nearly got ate myself.”

“Yeah, I almost lost my appetite, too,” said the dinosaur. “But we all need to eat, you know.”

I was thinking darkly that I should get a bonus for enduring insults to my tastiness when the kid came back.

“Alright, we can wheel out the Heaven Bacon for you,” he said. “Do you want footloose trotters on the side?”

I looked at the dinosaur expectantly and raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know what those are,” he said.

“Pig trotters,” said the kid. “Uh, that means pig feet. You can get them in six different flavors—salt, BBQ, Szechuan spicy, teriyaki, blue cheese, or cracked pepper. Small, medium, large. The art on the box is really cute. It’s dancing pigs dressed up in funny costumes.”

“I want a large of each flavor,” said the dinosaur.

“Wow,” said the kid.

I wondered just how far the royal food budget was going to take us.

We then had a brief conversation about drinks, but I convinced the old lizard and the kid that even the super jumbo Whole Hog size drink would only just dampen the tip of the dinosaur’s tongue. When the rex asked me if I wanted something to drink myself, I finally relented and got myself a hickory smoked bacon flavored coffee.

“About the hat,” said the kid. “Uh, we definitely don’t carry your size, I’m afraid, Mr. Dinosaur, sir.”

“Oh,” said the tyrannosaurus. “It’s not for me. I want my ambassador to wear it as part of his official uniform.”

I made a note to demand that insult bonus system from Mayor Pilky next I saw her. Maybe the price of a full Six Degrees.

I glanced at the dinosaur and his irritating smile.

Two of them. The price of two “Six Degrees” sets.

Read the next chapter.

April 20, 2023April 25, 2023

Kamen Rider Impressions, Part 4: Saban’s Masked Rider

I am writing my impressions of all the Kamen Rider TV shows released in Japan and the USA–and I might try to fit in the Taiwan ones, too, if I can find them. Today I am looking at Saban’s adaptation of Kamen Rider Black RX, which it kind of sort of adapted two times…

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 3 “A Friend in Need” Parts 1-3 (1995)

These episodes were my first encounter with Kamen Rider (or Masked Rider, as he is called here)—I would have been fourteen years old at the time, and I was still watching me some Power Rangers and enjoying it despite its decidedly younger target audience. I remember being pretty excited by the entrance of this mysterious bug-themed warrior from another planet. The episode trio of episodes was intended as a backdoor pilot for Saban’s Masked Rider series, which would mostly be an Americanized version of Kamen Rider Black RX. Coming in to watch the show now, in 2023, with the various revelations about behind-the-scenes drama during filming of Power Rangers, and with the tragic recent passing of Tommy/Jason David Frank, the show was hard to watch for more than just its technical limitations. Of course, the actual quality of the show—or rather lack thereof—is far more apparent to me now, in comparison to the Japanese originals (which weren’t always of sterling quality themselves, but I digress).

The story goes that the Power Rangers’ assistant robot, Alpha 5, becomes privy to some kind of disturbance on his home planet of Edenoi. Ai-yi-yi, what do we do?! Four of the Power Rangers are dispatched to the planet to investigate what was happening (with ominous declarations that they won’t have their full powers so far from home—a warning that comes to nothing in the show, as it has little to no impact on the events that play out). Kimberly, the Pink Ranger, remains behind on Earth because she has a case of the flu. The four rangers who go to Edenoi soon run into Prince Dex/Masked Rider and his friends—who immediately attack the rangers without allowing them to explain why they are visiting (really paints Dex as a massive jerk). As it turns out, the baddies from Kamen Rider Black RX have been renamed and repurposed (the leader is now Count Dregon instead of Jark, which… is an improvement, actually), and stock footage of their conversations in their floating robo-base are dubbed over with new chit-chat about how the villains are targeting Edenoi and attempting to defeat Dex and take his Masked Rider powers. Predictably, the rangers eventually team up with Dex and defeat some of Dregon’s goons. Meanwhile, back on Earth, evil conqueror couple Rita and Lord Zedd send a goofy new monster to attack Angel Grove while the rangers are off traipsing the galaxy—a repainted version of a mecha-monster called Ikazuchi from the Toei Super Sentai series Dairanger, now called Repelletor. Surprisingly, Dex does not return with the rangers to help fight Repelletor, and the rangers defeat the monster on their own—right before ominous news that Dregon is now inexplicably planning to attack Earth, and we get a quick throwaway shot of Dex being sent by his father to prevent Dregon’s attack, and done.

I have a lot of fondness for the old Power Rangers shows, particularly the ones with the original rangers, but watching the stitched-together quality of the show now after viewing a string of original Toei action adventures really shows how shoddy Saban’s work was. While Toei’s plots could often prove highly shallow, they were more coherent in style and content than what we have here, with the varying visual quality and forced reworking of special effects. The far greater kiddification level of the show is also obvious next to the often much darker Toei shows—with the constant snarky one-liners really sticking out in the American show. Snark is not nearly as common in Japan, so it can be downright distracting. It was also striking just how MUCH Jason David Frank had become the star of the show, as he is the leader of the team by this point, and his character also narrates with martial arts and life advice over the end credits. Seeing his youthful enthusiasm and charm (and admittedly cheesy acting) really makes me miss the guy.

Still, nostalgia has its place, and I yet found enjoyment tripping through memory lane. My favorite part might have been comic relief “bullies” Bulk and Skull with their ludicrous comedy routine and over-the-top music cues. Coming from my more adult perspective, they seem to be conjuring some Three Stooges energy in their slapstick antics, and I heartily approve.

But I am dreading watching Masked Rider next…

Masked Rider (1995-1996) “Escape from Edenoi” part 1 and 2

Masked Rider immediately destroys the backdoor setup from Power Rangers, and so even before it gets started, the show seems determined to annoy its fans. While the “A Friend in Need” episodes of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers season 3 were not stellar storytelling, they still told a story, they still had some intriguing ties to Power Ranger lore, they still had the beloved Alpha 5 claiming citizenship with Edenoi and thus making him related to Prince Dex and the power of the Masked Rider. These story threads added a layer of intrigue for fans to glom onto going in to the new series, as fans in the West were pretty unfamiliar with the bug hero. The whole purpose of a backdoor pilot is to set up those threads, those roots, to stabilize and structure and add flavor and sauce to your new show. If you create the backdoor pilot, set up the expectations of your fans for cross-show craziness, and then cut those expectations off immediately when the show proper is released, probably your viewership is going to feel cheated, robbed, spurned by the entertainment gods.

That’s definitely how I felt when I went in to watch Masked Rider “Escape from Edenoi” parts one and two back in 1995. The beginning is similar to the Power Rangers setup, with Edenoi under attack by Count Dregon and his dark armies. We get a little background this time (Dregon is Dex’s uncle, he was banished, he came back and conquered, he is now or is planning to harvest soldiers from earth), and we also get a much-hated addition in the form of Ferbus—basically Masked Rider’s version of Snarf from Thundercats. A duck-billed troublemaker with the voice from Hades, Ferbus follows Dex to earth, and adds “hilarity” by giving Dex’s adoptive father the sniffles. Dex is adopted by an interracial family after he crash lands in their flower garden, and said family is shockingly unphased when Dex reveals he is an alien. But one of the strangest choices of the show is its lack of action, as the first episode is missing even one decent fight sequence. Maybe if the creators didn’t feel the need to retool the premise and snip out the Rangers, we would have been able to shorten things up a bit and weave in a few punches and kicks.

The second episode wrapping up the story is, if anything, even worse than the first. While the first episode creates a sense of tension with the arrival of Destructosphere, a monster created with an impressive combination of T-1000 style computer effects and a truly grisly and effective monster suit, the second episode squanders the build-up by having Dex face-off against the monster and defeat him within the first few minutes of the second part. (The reason Destructosphere looks so impressive compared to other monsters in the series is because his footage came from a movie called Kamen Rider ZO—which also explains why Dex couldn’t fight him for long, given the logistics of attempting to paste together scenes of the Kamen Rider RX suit fighting a monster from a different story!) But nothing really gels in this episode. Dex goes around somehow creating talking vehicles with his mind (and then is confused when the machines he just created can talk–shouldn’t he know what he made?); “Maggots” (the foot soldiers of the show) replace Destructosphere and have a food fight until Dex defeats them with antics like imitating a bullfighter (this is an alien?); and the final monster that appears (a beetle tank) is boring, simply showing up to be defeated easily by Dex and his team. The comedy is awful, the action is limp, the drama is weak, everything is nonsensical—it seems painfully clear why this series never went anywhere with audiences.

Continue reading.

April 19, 2023April 22, 2023

A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep, Chapter 12

By Nicholas Driscoll, NOT a super genius.

Art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

Now on the one hand, I didn’t really have much of an appetite for breakfast after having just been eaten myself by the tyrannosaurus who was staying in my garage. But on the other hand, it is also very difficult to say “no” to a tyrannosaurus after he has just demonstrated that he is fully capable of swallowing you whole.

“Don’t ever do that again,” I said, starting to put on my pants. “You asked to eat a breakfast WITH me, not eat a breakfast OF me.”

“I wasn’t asking,” said the tyrannosaurus. “I was commanding. Also, your right leg. It’s fake. Why?”

Charlie was peering out the window of his house at me with a horrified expression. I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have wanted to see him on the lawn in his underwear, either. I hastily buttoned my trousers.

“I lost my right leg,” I said. “And I never found it again.”

“What do you mean?” said the tyrannosaurus.

“Maybe I cut it off myself,” I said. “Maybe a dinosaur ate it with a side of BBQ sauce. Maybe Charlie borrowed my leg and never gave it back. Who knows? Let’s get breakfast.”

“I command that you tell me what happened to your leg,” the tyrannosaurus said.

That was enough for one morning. Sometimes a time comes in life when you have to stand up for yourself, or else the next time you get bullied you won’t have one leg left to stand on. This was one of those times, almost literally.

“It is none of your business!” I exclaimed. “You may be the king of the dinosaurs and you may be living in my garage and I may be your official ambassador, but we aren’t close buddies and I don’t owe you an explanation of every private story from my life! So zip it and go eat a drumstick at the local Chicken Chunks Restaurant if you are that interested in legs all of a sudden!”

The dinosaur looked at me with an expression of lizardly contemplation. Well, I don’t know what the emotion was really. I can’t read dinosaur feelings well, and from what I was learning, dinosaurs don’t have much of a variety of facial expressions.

“I respect you,” said the tyrannosaurus. “I expected that you would do everything I said after I almost ate you alive.”

“I am stubborn,” I said. “Also, there has to be a law against trying to eat someone like that.”

“I think you will find that there is no law against a tyrannosaurus chomping on a human being. Especially if that tyrannosaurus happens to be the king of the local lands. Peasant.”

The tyrannosaurus gave me some kind of incredibly patronizing grin, and those enormous ivories glimmered in the morning sunlight. I wondered about the feasibility of locking up a socially inept extinct monster in the local hoosegow.

“Shall we go eat breakfast now?” asked the dinosaur.

“Okay,” I sighed.

Some fights just aren’t worth it.

Read the next chapter.