Welcome…to Tachibana Racing Club

"Tackle lays down on the job"

Super Hero Retsuden keeps getting better and better. Whilst I still think that it’s too much to expect cameos from Skull Man or Suipadaman (especially the latter!) the fact that Tackle makes an appearance and is a playable character  is several hundred kinds of awesomeness.

"What? Lifetime membership to Tachibana Racing Club you say?"

Meanwhile, speaking of Skull Man, I updated 日々冒険 not five minutes ago with brief comments about the first episode of the 2007 Skull Man anime and the 2006 adaptation of Ishinomori’s 009-1 featuring idol, actress and Godzilla movie franchise veteran Shaku Yumiko.

In other news, this morning I have spent most of time re-watching Kuuga, the original Kamen Rider and Faizu…I’ve warmed a lot to Kuuga simply because of Yuusuke the 2nd in DCD; the original Rider series is still a classic, like a cross between The Man from UNCLE and Godzilla – pure genius, especially with Hong Kong subs; Faizu is still just a boring as ever. It’s like everything Andrew Cartmel tried to do with the last series of Seventh Doctor era Doctor Who…but wrong. My wife gave it a more favourable review due to its pacing being so much like that of a standard drama. I, however, disliked it immensely due to its pacing being so much like that of a standard drama.

And now I’m off to watch DCD!

FICTION: Do Kaizo Ningen Dream of Electric Grasshoppers? [Kamen Rider]

Title: Do Kaizo Ningen Dream of Electric Grasshoppers?
Era/Series: Kamen Rider, Super Hero Retsuden
Pairing/Characters: Shocker Rider
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Length: 319 words
Disclaimer: All characters created by Ishinomori Shōtarō and owned by Ishinomori Pro, Toei and Bandai
Summary: Original series with slight deviation: one of the six Shocker Riders summoned to defeat Ichigo reflects upon his fate.
Fandom Friday: 01 // for more info, visit here.
Pimp: If you like this, you might want to consider buying Sophistry. (^_^);

Read it here.

Semaru…Shokkaa

Damn you, Super Hero Retsuden.

Things were going so well between us. I used to be able to just pick up the joypad, turn the Dreamcast on and then swap discs when I got bored after a level. It was nothing serious.

Then you pulled a damn Shocker Rider level and, not only that, you made me actually care about the character I was playing!

『本物ライダーだ!』

I now really want to see a story featuring one of the Shocker Riders vs. moral angst/guilt/identity crisis. I don’t care if a lot of this kind of stuff is covered in Ichigo’s origin, I want someone to deal with these issues in regards to the Shocker Riders!

Of course, having inspired all this in me, the game then goes and refuses to make Shocker Rider a selectable character from the main menu screen.

Damn you, Super Hero Retsuden, damn you.

ALSO: Why is tokupedia so rubbish?

Kamen Rider DCD #7 (SPOILERS)

[SPOILER (spoilr) n.

1. One who seizes spoils or booty.

2. Something that causes spoilage.

3. The contents of this post.]

First off, is it just me or has Gackt’s opening theme beefed up from its previous incarnation? From episode #6 onward it seems a bit more guitar driven in the chorus.

This episode was a bit slower in pace than previous episodes, which comes as something of a surprise to me considering how many Riders are present in Ryuki and how many fights there are. The actual cast of Ryuki – or at least Shinji and Ren – reveal some interesting dynamics in terms of this world’s variance but, for the most part, it is Yuusuke and new ‘Ryuki World’ character, Kamen Rider Abyss who drive forward the story.

The final fight between Abyss and DCD and Ryuki is something of a disappointment, Ryuki’s Final Form Ride being far too much like the pet dragon he summons in the series for it to really make any kind of impact. Fair enough, it’s important to keep the style of the original in the manifestations of these forms, but this one made it seem a bit like they were stuck for ideas.

Abyss, who looks startling like The Rock Musical BLEACH‘s Tsuchiya Yuichi (sans Ichimaru Gin wig) is the real star though and, through a series of manipulations and unexpected twists reveals himself to be the arc’s villain, which we were aware of, but more importantly, also reveals that he is a not a native of ‘Ryuki’s World’. It’s kind of interesting that, whilst this is obviously true of the source material, it should come as such a big surprise within the narrative.

"fox-face"

Despite abstaining from spoilers myself, I gather he has some connection to the next arc/world based around Kamen Rider Blade but, having never seen an episode of that series, I can’t really comment.

And that about sums it up really. In many ways, this episode is a set up the following arc, I’m guessing, but I really feel I should again reiterate how Yuusuke drives this story forward. It’s through his sense of justice, even when the odds are against him (and poor Natsumi!), that Decade manages to resolve the situation that Abyss has engineered. There’s a nice comparison between Shinji and Ren as a team and Tsukasa and Yuusuke that really works and goes a long way to rehabilitating Kamen Rider Ryuki not as a Rider show but at least as a tokusatsu show, in my eyes at least – you can’t really ask for more than that, I feel.

"this picture will be the icon of a thousand LJ users by this time tomorrow"

Meanwhile in Super Hero Retsuden…

"YOU! I wanna take you to a gay bar!"

Super Hero Retsuden

Having got the game as a freebie in Akiba last November, I finally sat down, removed the Capcom vs. SNK disc from my beloved Dreamcast and fired up Super Hero Retsuden. Having done thus, I have to say there really isn’t much to say.

The game covers high-points in the runs of several Ishinomori helmed tokusatsu series, the most significant (and arguably well known) being Kamen Rider and Himitsu Sentai GoRanger. The game doesn’t really have massive amounts of playability. If, like me, you have cobbled together some understanding of Japanese from tokusatsu/anime/very patient Japanese friends and Chinese study then you sit there reading on screen dialogue and then face down a series of famous villains plus goons on a grid until they are dead, after which point you save and progress.

60hz + blurry camera = WTF

What recommends this game is the crossover potential. Like DCD, the premise is flimsy and elicits a squee when it pans out on screen, even in the Super Deformed art style of the game.

For this reason – and the promise of unlocking Stronger – I’m going to continue to play through the game because, let’s face it, who doesn’t want to see a Henshin Ninja Arashi and Kamen Rider Stronger team up?

My only disappointment is the fact that neither Skull Man or Tackle appear to be in it…and even though he isn’t an Ishinomori character, I would have loved to have seen Spider-Man turn up in this.

Speaking of whom: Watch the Japanese Spider-Man TV Series on Marvel.com.