The Tokusatsudome Voting Thread!! ~SONG ATTACK~

[RT-55J]

Spider-Man and Sukeban Deka

 

[Purple]

Spider-Man is a total lock, with Sukeban Deka also winning by a wide margin.
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

Pacific Rim (main theme) submitted by Kirin

Oh such cruel fate that this goes up against one of my real noms this early! Pacific Rim is a movie from Guillermo del Toro where there's a constant stream of attacks by kaiju, to which humanity responds by building big stompy mecha, powered by character development. It's all CGI, but at least an effort was made to animate it all like it's people in big rubber suits. It's also one of my favorite movies.

V

S.

Next Level (Kamen Rider Kabuto OP) submitted by Purple

I think I've mentioned this, but Kamen Rider W was a bit of a landmark series in terms of firmly establishing a new pattern of planning out each series in the franchise with a properly planned story arc over the course of the series. Kabuto came before that point, and it's kinda wild how far off the rails it gets. We set up an obvious protagonist, then at the last minute of the first episode, his transformation item just gets snatched up by this freaking weirdo with some sort of god complex who's then just the main character, somehow. There's all this heavy foreshadowing of a time travel that gets completely abandoned. Somehow it ends up turning into some combination find the ancient martial arts master for training plot mixed with a cooking contest despite the main character's signature dish being a boiled potato seasoned with nothing. And I rather like the theme song.



NEXT BATTLE!

Ike! Godman (opening theme) submitted by Kishi

Sometimes when you're watching older Toho stuff, like most Godzilla movies if I'm honest, you really start to get bored with all the grounded plot stuff and you just want to skip ahead to the bit where people in awkward rubber suits just kinda wail on each other for like 5 straight minutes. Well, Godman really does cut things down like that. Just little short segments skipping right to the fights and screw having any sort of plot or context really. I have to respect the simplicity.

V

S.

Green Slime (theme) submitted by Bongo Bill

Everything about Green Slime is honestly really interesting, except for the movie itself. It had a really complicated production history involving people from several different countries. It was the movie for the original pilot of MST3k, and it has a really distinctive theme song, and it's the inspiration for the rather neat little game The Awful Green Things from Outer Space in Dragon magazine way back when. I also kinda have to wonder if it directly inspired the whole Space Mutants franchise in early Simpsons.

I'm genuinely really torn up here but I think personally I have to vote for Slime Level

I don't envy the rest of you also having to make this call by roughly 24 hours from now, but here we are.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Kamen Slime

 

[Vaeran]

Pacific Rim and Green Slime

 

[Kirin]

Pacific Slime

 

[Torzelbaum]

Pacific Rim and Green Slime

 

[RT-55J]

Kamen Slime

 

[Purple]

Green Slime sweeps it, but the first match is tied.
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

Savior in the Dark (Garo OP) submitted by Vaeran

Oh no! More Garo! Only in the sense that I still need to share fun facts. I think this was the season 1 opening... and I guess I haven't really described the main gimmick of the series have I? So, the main character (and every other Makai Knight) can summon this gaudy as hell wolf themed armor which is more or less totally indestructible, which helps a lot with fighting demons ("horrors" if you prefer), but there's a time limit on it of... I want to say 99 seconds? And going over that causes the wearer to go all berserk and everyone has a bad time. You know, if we feel like remembering that's a thing. Usually we don't. Especially at the end of the second season where there is a single fight scene that spans like 3 episodes and everyone's fine. The 5th live action series though got real stubborn about it and left a clock onscreen at all times to keep themselves honest.

V

S.

SWAT on Dekaranger submitted by RT-55J

We really ended up with a shocking amount of Dekaranger too, didn't we. This one has a fun story behind it though. As established, this is the one where the team are space cops, working for a space cop dog, living in his dog shaped HQ, with their little robot dog mascot, Murphy. Anyway somewhere in the back half of the show I want to say, the team gets sent off to get SWAT training from some scary hardass, who has a scarier robot dog named Clarence. And I want to make it clear to you that the names of these robot dogs in this show for young Japanese children are ABSOLUTELY a Robocop reference. There's also an episode where they infiltrate some underground fight club and the guy running it is just straight up named Tyler Durden. Anyway when they get their SWAT power up they end up flanking the criminal of the week with their huge assault rifles and honestly it's a tad upsetting watching them storm a place all militarized style. Oddly dark sense of humor for a kids' show in general.



NEXT BATTLE!

Round ZERO (Kamen Rider Blade OP) submitted by RT-55J

I've never seen Kamen Rider Blade, but I do like this opening enough I'd have been tempted to submit it if nobody else did. Let me just check the wiki for some plot details and uh... wow? "It began 10,000 years ago when God created the Undead in the form of the a stone slab called the Monolith, to kill each other in the Battle Fight, with the winner granted a wish to alter the world." That's some good backstory. But yeah, 52 species created and tossed into a battle royale, then this gets kicked up again because archeologists poked a thing and unsealed them. Big ol' playing card gimmick, one Rider for every suit. I really need to get back to marathoning all of these.

VS.

Anything Goes! (Kamen Rider OOO OP, long version) submitted by Purple

So, Kamen Rider OOO (rhymes with goes) is my favorite show of the bunch, and one of my favorite shows just broadly. Quick plot summary: Way back when some people got bored and created some animal themed living embodiments of the concept of greed by making boxed sets of magic coins and destroying one so there's never quite a complete set. Time passes, they get loose, mostly start making monsters to do some selfish thing and generate lesser coins they can power up with. The bird themed one kinda doesn't reincarnate right and is just a floating Golbez hand, and slaps one of them Kamen Rider belts on the nearest homeless guy (who is later revealed to be totally broken by the trauma of being unable to save a little girl in a missile attack back when he was a photojournalist, which is KIND OF A DARK BACKSTORY for this sort of thing) who agrees to help collect magic coins for him in exchange for getting to do the big hero thing and you know, kill all these rampaging monsters. Handy then also possesses a comatose detective and uses his body to be very fashionable and deep throat popsicles all day. Goes to some really interesting places later I'd rather not spoil too. And for some reason, the soundtrack is just full on ska.

Really really strong field tonight. I'm going with GarOOO myself.

Votes due next time I'm going to bed. And if someone wants to break the tie between Pacific Rim and Kabuto, that'd be swell.

 

[Vaeran]

Garo ~SAVIOR IN THE DARK~ and Round ZERO. I love insistent capitalization.

 

[Kirin]

Anything Goes In the Dark!

 

[Torzelbaum]

Savior in the Dark
and
Round ZERO

 

[RT-55J]

ZERO SWAT

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Really really strong field tonight. I'm going with GarOOO myself.

 

[Purple]

Was up late last night waiting to see if anyone was going to break that tie for the previous round and also this new tie for this round, and I was going to get it done when I woke up, but this ice storm had other ideas so uh... extra time for someone to maybe vote and give me 3 clear winners to post tonight?

 

[Bongo]

Although I haven't had a chance to listen to today's, I'll break yesterday's tie by voting for Pacific Rim and Godman.

 

[Purple]

I'll take it!

OOO vs. Blade is still too close to call, but Garo easily moves on and Pacific Rim finally breaks that tie.

FIRST BATTLE!

Busters Ready Go! (Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters OP) submitted by Hilene

Hey, we mentioned Go-Busters earlier. The secondary characters had an amazing theme, and it had this whole spy stuff theme. Here's the long cut of the main theme. It's got a pretty gnarly guitar solo in there so don't go assuming you've heard everything it has going on too early.

V

S.

Hayakawa's Theme (Kaiketsu Zubat) submitted by Bongo Bill

OK so if you've never heard of Zubat, let's get it out of your system. The most garbagey garbage Pokemon is named after this show, presumably as part of some untranslatable pun. I wanna talk about the real thing, so let me just lay out the plot of every episode: Our hero strolls into town in his cowboy hat, strumming this song. He makes friends with someone, who is getting pushed around by someone with a distinct mask, who has a henchman who has trained to become the absolute best in the world at [thing], which he demonstrates by doing some over the top spectacular display. Then our hero smirks at this, and effortlessly proceeds to top that trick in a way that may involve totally disregarding physics. Then his new friend is killed in a bombing, he dons the superhero costume hidden in his guitar and pulls out his flying car and has a big fight. It turns out this masked bomber isn't the one who killed his original friend in the pilot though, so he gets back on his horse and continues his journey. It is ASTOUNDINGLY formulaic, but the formula works, damn it.



NEXT BATTLE!

Izumi's Battle (Commando Shoujo Izumi) submitted by Johnny Unusual

OK, I think I mentioned Sukeban Deka (the yo-yo show) and how it spawned this whole mini-genre for a while of delinquent school girls fighting nazis or whatever as side gigs. One of those shows is Commando Shoujo Izumi, whose title character's signature weapon is apparently a... let me double check this... bazooka. But apparently only for the first 5 episodes and then there's a weird tone shift and it becomes more grounded. Which is a shame. But yeah, bazooka.

V

S.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (full version) submitted by Torzelbaum

Ah, here it is. The elephant in the room. The themesong to the original hacked up reconstituted Super Sentai slurry that serves as the only window 99% of people in North America have on any of these things. But, damn, what a memorable theme song it is. Personally I prefer the standard length version, with its incredibly succinct built in backstory hooks. "After 10,000 years I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!" is some first-rate storytelling efficiency, I have to say.

I'm going with heavy arms and cowboy.

Vote for your choices in the time frame for voting. Also Blade vs. OOO remains tied if someone wants to resolve that. I had a long day AND need to get up early.

 

[Kirin]

I'm going with heavy arms and cowboy.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Commando Shoujo Izubat

 

[Torzelbaum]

Busters Ready Go!
and
MMPR

 

[Vaeran]

Busters Ready Go! and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

 

[Torzelbaum]

The elephant in the room.

Or is it a mastodon?

Personally I prefer the standard length version, with its incredibly succinct built in backstory hooks. "After 10,000 years I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!" is some first-rate storytelling efficiency, I have to say.

That is pretty good but it is missing one of my favorite parts:

"No one will ever take them down
The power lies on their si-i-ide!"

(Unfortunately I couldn't quite find the in episode version that had those lyrics so I had to fall back on the full version - which is saddled with that not so great second verse.)

 

[RT-55J]

Busters Ready Go! and Izumi's Battle

 

[Issun]

Hayakawa and Izumi

 

[Purple]

Impressive numbers on the Sentai shows, but Zubat and Izumi manage to top them.

FIRST BATTLE!

Mahou Sentai Magiranger (opening) submitted by Johnny Unusual

Sailor Moon is a magical girl show that kinda bites the style of Super Sentai with the whole team of 5 characters fighting monsters of the week, and then later we've got Magiranger here, a sentai show just going all in on the magic wands and... do these qualify as brooms? Broomercycles?

V

S.

Flight (Xenogears) submitted by Issun

So, my approach to this Thunderdome was to have a really open door policy on anything that even comes close, and this one kinda tests the limits. While I've always loved this song, Xenogears is a not at all live-action videogame, primarily paying homage to Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is an anime series, deconstructing other anime with giant robot stuff, which, sure, traces roots back to some manga, some of which also had live action adaptations. So, we're a bit far afield is what I'm saying.



NEXT BATTLE!

Byun! Byun! ToQger! (Train Sentai ToQger OP) submitted by Hilene

I continue to apologize for only knowing the barest surface level details about damn near every Super Sentai show. If you'd nominated stuff from Don Bros. we'd be in a different boat. Anyway ToQger is The Train One. I've heard it's a lot of fun. We've got an interesting color mix on the team's outfits. And they uh... have a giant robot made of trains. With a big ol' steam whistle and signal light shield. And having to scan tickets to get on board.

V

S.

Forever Mizonokuchi (Sunred ending theme) submitted by Bongo Bill

I've talked about Sunred right? Cartoon about a dirtbag ex superhero beating up a perfectly nice and friendly evil organization all the time? I'm a lot cooler on it as a whole than most people here, but the ending theme here is pretty adorable what with how they keep going around getting random crowds of people to sing and/or dance along with it for the credit sequences.



THE STILL RAGING BATTLE! (Tiebreaker please?)

Round ZERO (Kamen Rider Blade OP) submitted by RT-55J

I've never seen Kamen Rider Blade, but I do like this opening enough I'd have been tempted to submit it if nobody else did. Let me just check the wiki for some plot details and uh... wow? "It began 10,000 years ago when God created the Undead in the form of the a stone slab called the Monolith, to kill each other in the Battle Fight, with the winner granted a wish to alter the world." That's some good backstory. But yeah, 52 species created and tossed into a battle royale, then this gets kicked up again because archeologists poked a thing and unsealed them. Big ol' playing card gimmick, one Rider for every suit. I really need to get back to marathoning all of these.

VS.

Anything Goes! (Kamen Rider OOO OP, long version) submitted by Purple

So, Kamen Rider OOO (rhymes with goes) is my favorite show of the bunch, and one of my favorite shows just broadly. Quick plot summary: Way back when some people got bored and created some animal themed living embodiments of the concept of greed by making boxed sets of magic coins and destroying one so there's never quite a complete set. Time passes, they get loose, mostly start making monsters to do some selfish thing and generate lesser coins they can power up with. The bird themed one kinda doesn't reincarnate right and is just a floating Golbez hand, and slaps one of them Kamen Rider belts on the nearest homeless guy (who is later revealed to be totally broken by the trauma of being unable to save a little girl in a missile attack back when he was a photojournalist, which is KIND OF A DARK BACKSTORY for this sort of thing) who agrees to help collect magic coins for him in exchange for getting to do the big hero thing and you know, kill all these rampaging monsters. Handy then also possesses a comatose detective and uses his body to be very fashionable and deep throat popsicles all day. Goes to some really interesting places later I'd rather not spoil too. And for some reason, the soundtrack is just full on ska.

My vote goes to Train Magic.

Probably tabulating in 24 hours, get those votes in, etc. Sure are a lot of people who nominated and have yet to vote once come to think.

 

[Kirin]

The Xeno track is great of course, but in the spirit of the dome I’ll go with Mahou Sensei Forever

 

[Torzelbaum]

THE STILL RAGING BATTLE! (Tiebreaker please?)

I've made my choice and don't plan to change so I have to ask - is there some reason why you haven't resorted to a (power) coin flip to resolve ties after the tiebreaker period?

Sure are a lot of people who nominated and have yet to vote once come to think.

I also noticed that you're not @ing people who have an entry in the matches. That is a fairly standard practice in domes to get people's attention.

 

[Purple]

High stress and never-run-one-of-these jitters! I should start doing both.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Mahou Sentai Magiranger
and
Byun! Byun! ToQger!

 

[Johnny Unusual]

My vote goes to Train Magic.

 

[RT-55J]

Magiranger Mizonokuchi