The Tokusatsudome Voting Thread!! ~SONG ATTACK~

[Purple]

I think I must have accidentally linked Paipai at the "current time" rather than from the beginning since this jumps straight past the opening to minute three so you'll need to backtrack

Also, I got mixed up and accidentally submitted the sequel series Ipanema, which is the same premise as Paipai but with a different lead magical Chinese girl. So sorry for the conclusion (but we can include this. Both series are from the tokusatsu series Toei Fushigi Comedy Series where the premise of each one was more lighthearted comedy with special effects.

Anyway, Magical Chinese Girl Godzilla

I fixed the problem on my end but huh, yeah. Tiny bit late to switch themes a couple hours before the vote closed but... I could still do it and let people panic and retroactively change votes if you have an alternate link?

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Eh, no worries. We'll just use the Ipanema theme for the rest

 

[Purple]

Best I could do with what's at hand. Magical Girl Godzilla moves on.
Bracket


FIRST BATTLE!

Alive a Live (Kamen Rider Ryuki OP) submitted by RT-55J

I already kinda burned through all my good Ryuki trivia, but the video here reminds me of an interesting phenomenon with Kamen Rider shows since 2000. We've got some money in the budget for CGI stuff. Sometimes it looks surprisingly good, sometimes it looks bafflingly bad, but you can pretty much guarantee we're going to burn through almost all of it in the first dozen or so episodes, mostly showing off toys that are too goofy to really feature in the show properly but we're obligated as they're in the line. So like everyone gets a giant robot or something and very quickly stops bothering to pull it out of storage. Also this song is great, just gotta say.

V

S.

Happy Birthday (Kamen Rider OOO) submitted by Purple

So... if you know me (or any of the people I've infected with the habit), and I know it's your birthday, I'm gonna hit you in the face with one of an impressive number of clips I keep on hand of this super intense guy shouting happy birthday at you. That guy is Kousei Kougami, from Kamen Rider OOO, this weird eccentric businessman who pushes the plot forward a lot and enjoys accruing the big piles of coins monsters explode into, often by providing services (like, nobody in OOO actually owns a motorcycle, they just make use of transforming vending machines, which can also dispense transforming soda-can-grasshopper-phones). He's a really intriguing character since it's super unclear really the whole way through if he's going to be the ultimate final villain or just a cool guy helping out, or some secret third thing, but it's very very clear that dude just REALLY loves celebrating birthdays. Singing songs, baking cakes, cheating and calling out anniversaries, he's all in. Anyway I didn't want to throw in way more entries to get to a nice round number so I have a couple joke noms I don't expect to advance at all in the mix.



NEXT BATTLE!

Worrier (Kiba: Dark Knight Side Story) submitted by Vaeran

Again, I respect Vaeran's choice to submit nothing but Garo music. This one is the main theme for the big movie from the end of the first season of Garo, focused on a villain who's doing your whole heroic knight falls to evil routine. The whole holy warrior turns to serve the evil he was trained to fight thing deal is kind of a thing with Garo generally. That and sexism. The latter comes up in, if I recall, the end-of-season 2 movie where there's some badass gal really annoyed at the whole Makai Knight thing being a buys club, and also at the end of season 1 where Kiba here's whole deal is wanting to wanting to sacrifice Victim Girl to serve as a vessel for the creator of all demons. And because deep in its soul Garo is such a 16-bit RPG sorta deal, the source of all evil is a city destroying sized naked woman with a big thing on her back. This is more a last couple episodes of season 1 thing than a movie-setting-those-events up thing, but search "garo messiah" if you want the visual there.

V

S.

Tokuso Sentai Dekaranger (opening theme) submitted by RT-55J

I've only actually seen one Super Sentai show through beginning to end, but fortunately for how often it's showing up in this dome, that one show happens to be Dekaranger. Like basically all of these (they do mix it up here and there), we've got 5 or 6 color coded characters, including the red hotheaded idiot who's in charge for some reason, the pink girlygirl, etc. flipping around fighting monsters and then sometimes summoning their super cheap looking robot to fight when the monster goes all big. The specific gimmick to this show is they're cops. Space cops to be specific, and kinda rookies working under the way more competent but busy Doggie Kruger, who is basically their dad. And all their villains are notorious space criminals with rap sheets like "burned down 17 planets" or "blew up 20 orphanages." Oh and while they do kill them with big finishing moves as is how the genre goes, they only do so after a trial... which is fully conducted in the 10 seconds or so it takes the narrator to explain that they are being judged by the wisest possible jury in all of space who always arrive at a verdict within that time frame. And with like one exception in the whole series that verdict is guilty and they blow the mobster of the week away with their big space bazooka while they're still looking around all confused for the source of this narration about their absurd show trial. Which is weirdly dark as hell, but also hilarious.

You know, at this point in the dome I'm just happy to be here. I guess I'm voting dragon cop?

And you know the drill. Votes in before the next time I realize when I'm about to crawl into bed that oh yeah I need to update this thread, next time dawn starts rolling around.

 

[Vaeran]

Alive a Live and Worrier

Again, I respect Vaeran's choice to submit nothing but Garo music.

Technically untrue! I have one non-Garo nom in there that hasn't come up yet. The actual theme guiding my hand was "all JAM Project and JAM Project-adjacent music." Worrier is just Hironobu Kageyama performing solo, but he's the leader of JAM so it still counts.

 

[Kirin]

Feeling the goofy side this morning, DEKA-BIRTHDAY

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Don't Happy Be Worry

 

[Issun]

Feeling the goofy side this morning, DEKA-BIRTHDAY

 

[Torzelbaum]

Alive a Live
and
Worrier

 

[RT-55J]

Alive a Live and Dekaranger

 

[Purple]

Incredibly close matches this week. My own nomination loses only because I opted to vote against it, even. Is that a first?
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

Kakero! Spider-Man (Spider-Man OP) submitted by Kishi

So, it's the late 70s, you're Marvel, you want to make some inroads into Japanese markets, and it hasn't been going well, because... well let's be real, have you ever compared Superhero comics and manga? So you license your most popular character to Toei to make a superhero show that appeals to Japanese audiences. So yeah, we keep the costume and the webs and all the weird squats, but for a civilian identity and backstory we focus on a motorcycle stunt racer named Takuya Yamashiro with an astrophysicist father, who makes contact with an alien before being killed by a vampire nazi scientist, so we've got a bit of a quest for revenge going. So following the commands of various spiders, Takuya finds his dad's alien friend in a cave, where he's been trapped and surviving by eating spiders, gives him some power-ups to become Spider-Man with, and proceeds to die and reincarnate as a spider. Oh and also he gets a giant robot. Again, standard baseline stuff for Japanese superheroes. Show's honestly a tad underwhelming if I'm really honest, but, yeah.

V

S.

Star Fleet (Star Fleet OP, Brian May cover) submitted by Bongo Bill

Western influences continue! X-Bomber was a Japanese space opera series by everyone's favorite pervy weirdo Go Nagai, adapting the look of Gerry Anderson's whole Supermarionation thing. After it was localized as Star Fleet, Brian May of Queen asked the composer of it's western theme song if it'd be cool if he could do a cover of it since he just thought it was a really great song, and it is, as is this cover.



NEXT BATTLE!

Dino Soul (Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger) submitted by Hilene

... OK I have like zero context here. @Hilene wanna set this up maybe? I do know Kyoryuger is the 37th Super Sentai show, going with a dinosaur theme (again), and this is pretty clearly from a big emotionally climactic scene where I'm just kinda speculating... someone is rescued and the team gets a major powerup after? Past that sorry I've got nothing, and feel ashamed of my quick research skills.

V

S.

Midnight (Dekaranger ED) submitted by Purple

Dekaranger again? Already? Right so here's our ending theme, sung by the quite prolific Isao Sasaki, who you probably know best from singing the opening theme to basically anything you are familiar with that came from Japan in the 1970s. Very distinctive voice. Anyway, the normal ending of Dekaranger is, after going all Judge Dredd on the alien criminal of the week and maybe having a bubble bath back at HQ, our heroes going out to a nightclub for drinks and to dance to a band populated by robots with whatever they're playing for heads... and I guess I have to figure this is actually canonical because later in the series this band actually shows up in the context of the show, dealing with space crime problems. And that's great.



It's western influences vs. western influences, and Super Sentai vs. Super Sentai today. I'm on team space.

Kind of a shame really that nobody nominated anything from Fourze, the Kamen Rider show about the school bully who grows up to be a space shuttle, but I understand.

Voting ends at late o'clock, after the day rolls over, as usual.

 

[Vaeran]

I liked all four songs a lot this time around, but I'm gonna go with Kakero! Spider-Man and Midnight.

 

[Issun]

Dinosaur Spider-Man

 

[Kirin]

The Spider-Man has some funky rhythms going on, but I can’t say no to Brian and Eddie.
Midnight Fleet

 

[Torzelbaum]

Kakero! Spider-Man
and
Dino Soul

= Dino Spider-Man

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Kakero! Spider-Man
and
Dino Soul

= Dino Spider-Man

 

[Purple]

Spider-Man moves on, but our second battle is tied as of a latecoming vote as I was writing this up!
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

Boost Up! Beet Buster (Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters) submitted by Hilene

My lack of deep Super Sentai knowledge comes around to bite me again, but doing some hasty research, the main things we seem to have going on with this one are a general Spy Thriller aesthetic, and a smaller team than usual, with just three characters as the original core group, and then two 6th Ranger types coming along to bring it up to 5 members. Anyway those latecomers have their own theme and this is it and it's pretty great!

V

S.

Gosei Sentai Dairanger (opening theme) submitted by Lakupo

Another really strong and distinct theme, from another Super Sentai show I'm not familiar with. This one, according to my hasty research had a big wuxia vibe going, with the animal style marial arts and the chi/ki/qi channeling and creatures from Chinese mythology as the basis for each robot before they combine. That big flowy dragon in the intro here is rather striking. I'm a bit annoyed at how much the wikipedia article on this one is focused on how little of this one was canibalized for Power Rangers. I guess all the ancient China theming was too much for the... weird racist attitudes that kept Saban from just bringing these shows over as is and dubbing them like a normal person would?



NEXT BATTLE!

Power Rangers Dino Super Charge (opening theme) submitted by Torzelbaum

So, sometimes, like literally just now, I am super super down on Power Rangers and its very existence. I feel that's honestly pretty justified too, since it really is the result of a weirdly influential figure in both children's entertainment and global politics stumbling across a Super Sentai show, figuring it'd do well in America, but feeling the need to cut out all the parts where we see the faces of Japanese actors, and replace them with super cheap footage of non-union American actors doing their own acrobatic stunt work... and then years later also cannibalizing Kamen Rider Black to add action scenes into some horrible misbegotten Alf clone and proceeding to sit on those localizaton rights for what like the next 25 years, only NOW allowing anyone to bring any of those shows over? That said, Saban made bank in the 80s, alongside his collaborator Shuki Levy, churning out some incredibly great themes to a ton of children's cartoons, and a lot of that translates into these cobbled together things.

V

S.

HENSHIN! Tatoba (Kamen Rider OOO) submitted by Purple

It's been a while since it came up, but to avoid having any byes in this dome, I filled in a couple gaps with particularly memorable transformation sounds. This one comes from Kamen Rider OOO, which features a gimmick of building out various suit forms with different combinations of animals for the protagonist's head hands and feet. A big deal is made of any of the proper single color/animal grouping combos, like all birds or all sea creatures, and those ones get special jingles. For some reason, the set he starts the series off with (hawk tiger grasshopper) also gets a jingle. I guess just because "oh hey, traffic light colors." So this is kind of a joke nom but also you hear this one so much in that show and it is such a little earworm.

You know what? Much as I'm happy to see some Power Rangers rep in the dome (I'd have been even happier to see like, Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills or Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog, but that'd require something listenable), the later themes really are just pale imitations of the original song, so I'm going with my belt jingle and the Spanish guitar.

Votes are due by whenever I next go to bed. And if someone wants to throw in a tiebreaker for Midnight Vs. Dinosoul, that'd be cool.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Beet OOO

 

[Kirin]

Boost Dino Super Buster

 

[Torzelbaum]

Boost Up! Beet Buster
and
Power Rangers Dino Super Charge (opening theme)

cut out all the parts where we see the faces of Japanese actors, and replace them with super cheap footage of non-union American actors doing their own acrobatic stunt work

Hey, let's be fair here. They eventually switched to non-union actors from/in New Zealand.

 

[Purple]

I thought that wasn't until Disney bought the rights to the franchise? Or was it Nickelodeon...

 

[Torzelbaum]

I thought that wasn't until Disney bought the rights to the franchise? Or was it Nickelodeon...

*checking the facts*
OK, so it was Disney who started that in 2002 but Saban continued it after buying the brand back.

 

[RT-55J]

Oops I forgot to vote yesterday. I would have gone with Spider-Man (already won) and Dino Soul (assuming that breaks the tie)

Today: Boost-Up! Power Rangers!

 

[Vaeran]

Boost Up! Beet Buster and Power Rangers Dino Super Charge, please. I really like Boost Up!

 

[Issun]

Boost Dino Super Buster

 

[Lakupo]

GOSEI SENTAI... HENSHIN!

(also Dairanger is probably one of the best of the mid-90s sentai shows, the mech fight stuff was okay, but legit the best fight choreography, including a drinking contest and drunken fist showdown with a tofu monster, it's great)

 

[Purple]

Sentai stand victorious. First matchup I think was unanimous.
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

Spider-Man (opening) submitted by Torzelbaum

Wait, didn't we already do this one? Well, kinda. Here, we're listening to the actual opening as used in the show, whereas our other entry is the 4 minute long version and I believe a recent rerecording at that. I kinda already shared all the juicy lore... well, did I mention the robot? Because yeah, he has a a robot.

V

S.

HENSHIN! Kamen Rider Wizard (Fire form) submitted by Purple

It's another of these little Henshin jingles to fill space. This time from Kamen Rider Wizard, which is a series that really fell flat for me. It's a shame because Wizard's suit is just the slickest looking thing and I do like this belt that scat sings and constantly says the magic word "PLEASE," but... the main character is just absurdly overpowered relative to the monsters of the week to a frankly absurd degree and it makes it real hard to have any tension.



NEXT BATTLE!

Rakuen no Door (Sukeban Deka) submitted by Kirin

Oh hell yes! Sukeban Deka! So, this show totally rules. We've got this badass punk girl (look up "sukeban" sometime) who gets blackmailed by the police into working for them, specifically by infiltrating various high schools to take down like, nazi teachers, using a weaponized ultra-heavy yo-yo. Hugely influential too, spawned this whole mini-genre of That Sort Of Thing for a bit and Kill la Kill leans HEAVILY on it.

V

S.

Ninja! Matenrou Kids (Ninja Sentai Kakuranger ED) submitted by Lakupo

I maintain I'm still keeping a pretty high batting average overall but Super Sentai remains largely a blindspot to me. This is the ninja themed one. Just, brightly colored ninja gi, a big doofy mascot ninja. Fighting yokai. I really do wish I had more to say. Excellent ending theme here though, dang.


That second matchup is a tough one for me but Schoolgirl Spider-Man gets it.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

 

[Vaeran]

Spider-Man (again) and Rakuen no Door

 

[Torzelbaum]

The version of the Japanese Spider-Man song that I picked also has English sub-titles.

Spider-Man (opening)
and
Ninja! Matenrou Kids

(I really liked the instrumentals of the Sukeban Deka song but the singing and lyrics just didn't do it for me.)

 

[Issun]

Spider-Man (opening)
and
Ninja! Matenrou Kids