#Nexus always watches Sentai

[nexus-schwarz]

DonBrothers and Akibaranger got the same writers? What do you mean? Naruhisa Arakawa is Akibaranger's main writer. Inoue had nothing to do with it.

Edit: Okay, you're right that I said that, my mistake. But they were still awful.

Looking back at my DonBrothers review, I said that Akiba was bad, not that they had the same writer. I also thought Kyuu was bad in the sense that it was the Lucky show and everyone (all *11* of them >/) were dragged along for the ride and never got much to do. (Boy did DonBrothers prove me wrong on deadweight characters.)

I can tell they have different writers cause Inoue's not so, "isn't this funny?! LAUGH WITH ME 8)" as Akiba was doing.

Inoue just loves to write dramatic misunderstandings as if they were funny and/or more interesting (read: Faiz's hot potato belt "antics") than they are for far longer than they should be.

Not that he doesn't have his moments. I like the Kuuga manga (haven't gotten to the Agito stuff) and Kiva was all right if not strange on how he treats the women.

Not every writer is perfect or can make a great series all the time, but I was losing my mind when lots of people were saying DonBrothers is great and I was debating if I was watching the same show as them.

[zombieweek-g]

Zombieweek’s Projects

I’ve realized that since I’m now producing a somewhat sizeable amount of content, I should probably have it sorted in an easily accessible way, so consider this that and some form of introduction.

I’m Zombieweek, also found on certain websites as Spicyasian, I’m a solo scantalator/fansubber who primarily works on Tokusatsu media.

All of my translation work can be found under the tag #Zombieweek translations 

I also have a dedicated website for all of my TLs at-

https://zombieweek.wordpress.com/ (Everything goes up on tumblr first because there’s a hole in my brain though)

Mywork includes:

Ultraman: Darkness Heels -Lili-

A spinoff manga of the Ultraman spinoff stage show Darkness Heels, focusing on a group of evil Ultras working together as “heroes”. The Manga focuses on Lili Archive, a soldier in the Terrorist Suppression Force on the alien planet Hus, where she meets Ultraman Belial and Camearra, before becoming involved in their conflict.

You can read my TL of Darkness Heels -Lili- at Mangadex, here: https://mangadex.org/title/8309963a-ec84-4fed-b5f6-efbeeee6fa3f/darkness-heels-lili

This series is technically still active and I have the bonus chapter from volume 2 in queue, but i don’t have anything to scan it with so I’m sort of stuck on that while i shop around for a scanner to “borrow”.

Avataro Sentai Donbrothers

Toshiki Inoue’s latest masterpiece, and also the 46th entry in the Super Sentai series.

Do I even need to explain this one? Probably, but you’re better off just watching the first ep yourself and making a judgement call there.

My donbros translations are all .ass script files which need to be applied to a supported raw. For most this means using an .mkv file video in a program like VLC, and then dragging the .ass file over the playing video. 

My tls will usually go up around 6-10 hours after an episode airs live.

All of my tls are archived on https://zombieweek.wordpress.com/

My tls will always go up under my aforementioned tag, as well as under the “#donbrothers” and “#avataro sentai donbrothers” tags.

Ultraman Nexus Manga

The manga adaptation of the 2004 Ultraman show, Ultraman Nexus.

This adaptation was originally published alongside the show’s original run in the televikun magazine, and got a digital release in June of this(2022) year. The complete book was actually originally published in 2015, but up until the digital release only low quality scans existed for it.

The entire manga is essentially just an insanely condensed version of the show itself, so there isn’t really any “new” content per say, outside of the final chapter, which was only published in that 2015 release, since the original show had its last block of episodes cancelled.

This is an ongoing translation that I’ve been behind on with rl stuff, but plan to pick up again soon. This tl is on temporary hiatus while I work on a collaborative TL with a different group. https://mangadex.org/title/503ce7a9-032a-4178-812d-fd089a755fd0/ultraman-nexus

Ultraman: Another Gene - Starting from ULTRAMAN GEED

A special Manga released on tsuburya imagination this year, with a preview chapter and a oneshot.

The oneshot focuses on a character named Kanaya Nyx, who finds himself in a similar situation to the original protagonist of Ultraman Geed. However this story takes place after the events of Ultraman Geed, and features the returning protagonist from Ultraman orb, Kurenai Gai. 

Unfortunately, because the oneshot is only available on Tsuburya Imagination, which is a japan exclusive service with about a dozen layers of region specific security, I’ve only been able to translate the preview chapter of the story. 

If anyone happens to both live in japan and have a premium imagination acc and wants to see the oneshot translated you could, you know-

Or you could just read the pv chapter on mangadex: https://mangadex.org/title/72b5a5e8-9573-423e-b41f-2b75cb193a0f/ultraman-another-gene?tab=chapters

Other Translations

So like I said at first, I also go by Spicyasian on certain sites, but I was really only talking about one site in particular, one site I can’t link here, and that you can’t even access without making an account and messing with your cookies a lot.

If you happen to do that though, and happen to use that certain site, you can find some short comics I’ve translated as spicyasian, along with some stuff I’ve done in collab with some bounty holders.

My Non-Translation work

Writing

Other than Translations, I’m also a semi-active (significantly less so than my tls) writer. Like my translation work, all my writing can be found under the tag “Zombieweek Scenarios”.

There really isn’t any cohesive story that the scenarios follow, and since all my experience writing is with scripts of plays, that’s how all of them are structured. 

Tags always contain content warnings, but I’m actively trying to find a better site to host them on.

Thats it!

I’ll be updating this list as I get new projects under my belt and keeping it pinned from now on.

If you ever have any questions about what I’m tling always feel free to send an ask or dm. I’m a one person team so projects come out at whatever rate I’m able to push them out at and i tend not to update on that sort of stuff.

[biomic]

First Sentai, Rider and Ultra; and how do you feel about them now?

the first sentai question's always tricky for me bc toqger is what got me into the whole thing, but go-busters is the first one i actually watched in full while toq was still early in its run. i guess i'll go with gobus bc i think my feelings on toq are well-documented

go-busters - this is one i really need to go back to, but i loved it then and im still really fond of it now. power rangers was my only frame of reference at the time and go-busters just blew me away because it was unlike anything i was used to. im foggy on a lot of the details but im so so glad i picked it as my (sort of) first sentai

kamen rider fourze - it was a masterpiece when i first watched it and it's still a masterpiece today. just a perfect cast of characters in a fun high school setting with the clean formula of early phase 2 heisei, AKA the best plot structure rider's ever had. i watched it all the way through a second time just two or three months after i finished it bc it was so just so damn good. it doesn't seem to have a huge reputation in japan but to me it's one of the giants of tokusatsu, and a show i think EVERYONE should watch

ultraman max - max isn't the best ultra's ever been, it's not super ambitious, and i suppose i can see why some people write it off as a filler season between nexus and mebius, but i adore this show and im so glad it was my introduction to the franchise. what i didn't realize at the time is it's essentially a perfect modern ("modern" as of 2005) rendition of showa ultra. very episodic, simple characters, classic scifi concepts mixed in with a handful of wildly trippy, experimental episodes, so as an introduction to ultra it was basically a sampling of everything the series had been up to that point. that was more something the creators were forced to do, bc max was rushed into production after nexus bombed and they needed to get something out fast, but i think it worked out really well. someone who's already pretty familiar with ultraman might find it a bit middling, but for me, who was brand new to the show and watching it pre-new gen on crunchyroll, it was perfect, and i'd love to go back to it

[yeonchi]

The state of tokusatsu in the West in 2021

The events of the past few weeks have taken the Western toku fanbase by storm. Amidst the shitstorm of spergs and a-logs who think they’re being rational but are really low-key spergs, unexpected turns in events are heralding the death knell for tokusatsu fansubs (that was going to be the name of this post initially). In addition, these events have also exposed the state of tokusatsu in the West in 2021, whether it be in regards to fansubs and streaming or Shirakura and the fanbase.

An update on the current situation

This is an update to the two posts I made in the past few weeks regarding the subject.

So some Indonesian wrote a Twitter thread about tokusatsu in general and in one of those tweets, he mentions Shirakura and the recent fansub scandal in a passing manner. Another Indonesian quote retweets him and tags Shirakura and this is what he got:

A few hours later, Shirakura wrote a few tweets about the situation (which are after the break):

(Tweets 1 and 3 translated by killadelfo, tweets 2, 4 and 5 translated by me because Shirakura and other a-logs won’t do it)

Some context:

Tweet 1 - 「雉も鳴かずば打たれまい」 directly translates to "If the pheasant didn't ring, then it wouldn't have been hit". At a stretch, it sounds like victim-blaming in rape culture. Also, the “semi-official streaming site” Shirakura is referring to is TokuHD, who are currently streaming Kamen Rider Agito and 555 with abysmal subtitle translation quality (Honshin and Olfenok) and were apparently licenced by an unknown third-party (if anyone knows, please tell me and I’ll update this).

Tweet 2 - The North Wind and the Sun, one of Aesop’s fables that teaches the superiority of persuasion over force. You can read the story here if you’re too infantile to read Wikipedia.

Later on, TV-Nihon officially announced that they have decided to stop subbing Saber and Zenkaiger, softsubs or hardsubs alike, with Takenoko stating that he doesn’t want to worry about legal trouble on their team. Whether or not they will sub future series is still unknown at the moment. Nothing has come back regarding the apparent C&D from Toei, particularly as NewZect and KRDL haven’t received anything else from them apart from one email (and KRDL received theirs in 2019 apparently).

Despite this, Shirakura has expressed his gratitude for fans across the world who watch Toei’s shows, no matter how they watch them. It’s a far cry from “I believe there’s no fanbase of Kamen Rider in the west practically.”

So now, let’s dissect the whole situation, from fansubbing, streaming and official releases to Shirakura and the Western fanbase.

Fansubbing, streaming and official releases: le Happy Merchant intensifies

There was a time when TV-Nihon held a monopoly in tokusatsu fansubbing, subbing series that other people normally wouldn’t have cared about, including the Chouseishin and Tomica Hero series. They were known for their mistakes in translation and extensive use of different fonts and effects, which led to groups like Over-Time springing up over the past decade in an effort to diversify the fansubbing scene and break up TV-Nihon’s monopoly. (It’s time to #ReleaseTheFonts, TV-Nihon. Get that hashtag trending.) Though TV-Nihon seem to have this unspoken rule to not mention other sub groups on their forums, the recent C&D debacle has resulted in a truce of sorts between them.

Many tokusatsu fans outside of Japan will have known of the genre through fansubs and I am no exception. It’s very likely that for a long time, Japanese executives thought the only toku Westerners liked was Power Rangers, but in recent years, the increasing popularity of tokusatsu in the West has led to companies like Toei and Tsuburaya drawing up plans to release their series in the West. Presumably due to the two companies’ different attitudes to copyright, their IPs are being treated differently, as I will detail.

Tsuburaya - Based and redpilled For some reason, Ultraman is a franchise that very few fansub groups have cared about over the years, which makes Tsuburaya’s Western expansion that much more special.

Before 2018, Crunchyroll streamed Leo, 80, Gaia, Nexus, Max, Mebius, Ginga (S), X, Orb and Geed, but they have now been removed from the platform as Mill Creek Blu-rays, TokuHD, TokuSHOUTsu and Tsuburaya’s YouTube channel became more prolific.

Tsuburaya has been streaming the newest episodes of Ultraman weekly on their YouTube channel since 2012, presumably because their coverage on TV Tokyo and their affiliates don’t cover all of Japan. They have added Chinese subtitles to their episodes since either Geed or R/B and even though their translations of some names can be a bit autistic, they have added English subtitles to their episodes since Z following the release of Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generation Heroes with dual audio and multi-language subtitles (including English). Alongside reruns of older series, Tsuburaya releases episodes on YouTube every week, which are then available for two weeks. In addition, they also have separate channels where they publish dubs for Ultraman episodes in Mandarin, Korean and even Cantonese (official TVB Tiga-Mebius dub release when), which is pretty based if you ask me.

Tsuburaya doesn’t seem to do takedowns of their materials on YouTube, though they do claim ownership of the material posted by other channels so that ad revenue goes to them. It’s the reason why whole series of Ultraman and various compilations using footage from various episodes are still surviving on YouTube today. Cynically though, I suspect that the main reason they don’t do takedowns is because they can’t afford to following years of financial problems and their decades-long conflict with Chaiyo Productions. They probably thought that it wouldn’t be worth it.

Toei - Cringe and bluepilled Is it any wonder that the one company with the more popular series amongst a niche fanbase would be so Jewish with their copyrights? While entire series and various compilations have been taken down by Toei over the years (which they technically have the right to do), they don’t give fans (particularly outside of the US) a lot of options to support them officially, so they only dug this hole for themselves. It’s also very naive of people to presume that Toei doesn’t know about fansubs; it would be fair to say that it’s an open secret that neither Toei nor fansub groups can acknowledge for fear of legal retribution.

From 2015 to 2019, Shout! Factory have released Super Sentai series from Jetman (the first pre-Mighty Morphin series to be released in the West) to Hurricaneger, but since Power Rangers was sold from Saban to Hasbro, Shout! Factory have not regained the rights to distribute any further series and Toei hasn’t done much lobbying in that regard. However, Shout! Factory have begun streaming some Kamen Rider series from 2020 on TokuSHOUTsu (Shout! Factory TV) and Tubi (in addition to the Super Sentai series they had already licenced), namely the original series, Kuuga, Ryuki, Zero-One and the Heisei Generations FOREVER movie. Agito and 555 are streaming on TokuHD (as I mentioned before) and Amazons is streaming on Amazon Prime.

While Toei does have an official tokusatsu YouTube channel, where they stream their library of series similar to how Tsuburaya does with their YouTube channel, it is only available in Japan. In April 2020, Toei began uploading their series on Toei Tokusatsu World, a separate YouTube channel created specifically for their Western fans that immediately got taken down by copyright strikes on their own content. Aside from streaming Metal Hero series and other toku series nobody cares about, they’ve only bothered to upload the first two episodes of every Kamen Rider series on there, with no plans to follow through with the rest of the episodes (Super Sentai is only available in Asia because of the last paragraph). Apparently, the official subtitled release of the first two Kamen Rider episodes was funded by the J-LOD scheme (Japan Content LOcalisation and Distribution) established by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and that they hope that fans would provide subtitles for the rest of the episodes. The only problem is that YouTube discontinued its community captions feature last year and I have been unable to find any evidence of Toei suggesting such a thing from their fans, so I can only assume that they either weren’t transparent about it or had no intention of doing so at all. You can see why I prefer Tsuburaya’s approach better. Frankly, I think Toei should have just uploaded TV-Nihon’s releases and called it a day.

There’s a Europoor sperg on Twitter (and the TV-Nihon forums) by the name of HowlingSnail who always complains about tokusatsu series only being licensed in the US. Like him or not, you’ve got to admit that he does have a point. Even in the age of VPNs and multi-region DVD players, the entire world has to be considered when it comes to international licencing and expansion because believe it or not, the “West” isn’t made up of just the US alone. Things shouldn’t have to be like this, and yet, things are the way they are.

Around the time that TV-Nihon (apparently) got C&D’d, Western fans were pissed that The Tokusatsu Network posted news of Toei streaming Kamen Rider Drive on their Japanese-exclusive channel, rubbing salt into their wounds, while also not saying anything about the current situation with fansubs. In TokuNet’s defence, I can understand why they wouldn’t do that; on top of being based in Japan, they’ve done interviews with various actors and producers on their YouTube channel, plus their senior editor, Tom Constantine, has made cameo appearances on a few episodes and movies. So if anything, TokuNet are closer to Toei than any other news site covering tokusatsu.

In summary, Toei are complicit in enabling this shitstorm that could have been preventable if they weren’t so incompetent and out-of-touch with their Western fanbase. If more scrutiny was exercised during the negotiation of Western licencing, we probably wouldn’t have had the TokuHD disaster. If Toei were more transparent with their intentions for streaming their toku series in the West, fansub groups would be more than happy to contribute to the official subtitles and/or take their (unofficial) releases down (though I don’t necessarily agree with this practice entirely). Or maybe if Toei actually made a media release saying that it was actually them who sent the C&D’s to KRDL, NewZect and TV-Nihon, we wouldn’t have had this debacle and this post would just be me talking about the death knell for tokusatsu fansubs (which would probably be just this section of the post).

In the lack of free and easily accessible means to access media protected behind paywalls and geoblocks, people will always turn to things like “illegal” streaming sites and torrenting, particularly when they believe that multi-million dollar companies don’t deserve their hard-earned money just because they keep bugging everyone to give it all to them.

(Also, I know someone called me out in one of my linked posts where I described Toei’s attitude to copyright as “Jewish”, but fuck you, my stance doesn’t change just because a few people got their fee-fees hurt from poking their noses into other people’s business. If Toei changes their attitude and gives us a plan for international distribution, then I might soften my stance.)

Shirakura and the Western fanbase: lolcows in their own right

So it’s been established that it’s a bad idea to tag Shirakura or anyone affiliated with Toei regarding this situation with the TV-Nihon C&D (or fansubs or leaks or whatever in general) because we don’t have the full details and they probably have no idea of what’s going on. Look, I know Shirakura is worthy of criticism for some things, but this is not one of them because he is the director of planning and production at Toei - he’s not responsible for international distribution or copyright takedowns. All that these spergs on TokuTwitter have done is prove that Shirakura has no idea what is going on and made Japanese fans aware (to some extent) that spergs like them exist. The irony behind Shirakura’s actions as the producer of some Kamen Rider series and his interactions with Western fans is the reason why I lovingly coin “The Shirakura Paradox” as a phrase to describe it.

I’ve noticed that a lot of people on TokuTwitter are very paranoid and reactionary. They believe in conspiracy theories like “TV-Nihon actually got C&D’d” and “Over-Time got C&D’d as well” when 1) the notice they got wasn’t a C&D per se or even a DMCA and 2) Over-Time never got C&D’d, though they did help TV-Nihon analyse the email and decided to stop posting about their releases when they were convinced that the email was somewhat legit (because a Toei email can’t be faked due to the Sender Policy Framework, or SPF).

With regards to the “reactionary” part, the main example relating to this is twt_tokusatsu, who has been blamed for causing this debacle with fansubs because Shirakura replied to her tweets (that did NOT mention fansubs) with a joke. However, another big example is WeiWenn and Ichi of the Castranger podcast. “What?”, I hear you ask in a surprised tone, “What do they have to do with all this?” If you want to know the story behind them, take a look at my Shirakura Paradox post under “You are supposed not to know about Trinity”.

I know this debacle was two years ago and that Ichi has deserved enough blame (and apologised) for posting scans from a toy catalog targeted at distributors and not consumers, but why the hell is WeiWenn being blamed when he only mentioned “Trinity” (in verbatim) possibly referring to Agito Trinity and not Zi-O Trinity? WeiWenn has been sent death threats because entitled manbabies with gunts can never read the latest leaks about new toys. As a result, WeiWenn has deleted his Twitter account, claiming that Shirakura’s joke was the last straw (Ichi has also deleted his Twitter account as well). Anyone who blames WeiWenn (or Ichi) for somehow causing the TV-Nihon C&D’s is just as retarded, if not more, than the people who still blame twt_tokusatsu, especially when the damage has already been done and the debacle is already two years old. As such, I stand behind #RespectWeiWenn and #RespectIchi. For more information, check out this Twitter thread and the below video.

Things like this are the reason why the tokusatsu fanbase in the West is seemingly on thin ice with Toei. If you ask me, TokuTwitter as a whole deserves to be discussed and mocked on sites like 4chan and Kiwi Farms, because some individuals seem to act in a manner resembling lolcows. On top of that, I wish that tokusatsu fans in Japan would talk more about this retardation and join in the circlejerking with their Western counterparts who are more sophisticated and logical.

In conclusion, the whole debacle with Toei and TV-Nihon has been a ticking time bomb fuelled by Toei’s incompetence and lack of awareness of their Western fanbase, who are no saints either with their lolcow attitudes. Tsuburaya is pretty based with their international distribution and TV-Nihon’s typesetters should #ReleaseTheFonts.

[reversemoon255]

Ultraman Z

So I finished my first Ultra Series! It's not that I haven't tried before; I've tried watching the original series, Nexus, Geed, and R/B. I can't put my finger on it, but there's always something that puts me off from Ultra stuff, which is weird because I love a lot of their ideas. They have a united continuity that spans through the series, not just the movies. They have a reoccurring cast of both Kaiju and heroes. Each series is sequentially followed by the next. They're all issues I've had with other Tokusatsu series in the past that are well executed here.

While I find it hard to suss out what typically doesn't agree with me, I think it's the writing. Either the comedy, or the juxtaposition between that and its serious moments, or its characters. It's actually really hard to pin down. Hopefully writing my opinions on the series will help me sort out those feelings.

The Good: Where to begin? The overall plot was a good one. A handful of episodic one-offs in between story progression. We've got a parasitic entity running around, originally only sticking to one host and moving on to more important ones as the series hit its stride, eventually ending up in one of our main characters. We have Jugglus Juggler as the leader of STORAGE and his plans, the sublimation of STORAGE into another organization. It's not a lot, but it's also a 25 episode series, so it feels like the right amount considering the filler episodes.

The characters were also very fun. Haruki could be a little annoying with his repetitive dialogue, but was heroic and a good person. His small arc in the middle of the show after fighting the Red Kings ended fantastically with his meeting with his father, and was definitely an emotional highlight. Seeing Jugglus Juggler come back in a major supporting roll was cool. He definitely proved he was a good guy, despite his chaotic nature. It was also cool that, when his identity was revealed, the team still trusted him. I like Yoko. As someone not as familiar with the human characters in Ultraman as the aliens, having her be the main pilot of the robots fighting off Kaiju was cool. I know other season have had combative female characters, but it's not normally toe-to-toe with Kaiju in the way Yoko was. Also, her possession at the end of the series, while sad she couldn't participate in the final fight, added a lot of personal stakes for the characters and worked very well. Yuka was ok. She didn't leave a big impression on me, and was definitely the weakest character in my eyes. As far as I know, this was Bako's first Ultra Series appearance, but it felt like there was this huge inside joke about him that I wasn't aware of. Still, I liked him. He was probably the most consistently funny character among the cast, and was a great actor that brought a lot of depth to a more minor character.

And the action in this series was great. I've watched several of the movies from the Ultra Series, but seeing it done for a televised format was really cool. The series I have the most experience with are the original from the 70s, and Nexus which took place on a naturalistic, earthy set. As someone who does work with miniatures, the set design for the monster fights was spectacular. Leaps and bounds above what Super Sentai normally does (as blasphemous as it is for me to say). They did a great job portraying the scale, with tons of fairly well-executed effect perspective shots. The actual choreography and use of effects was great, too. The episode with Ultraman Ace in particular was a sight to behold. As long as Tsuburaya keeps putting their shows up on YouTube, I'll probably keep watching for the action alone.

The Bad: Going in the same order, while the overall plot was fine, and the episodics were ok, they were hampered by the heavy inclusion of clip shows. Out of 26 episodes, 4 of them were clip shows, meaning the total number of episodes were significantly less than at first appearance. Also, those writing issues I talked about before were still here. The humor falls a lot flatter than other Toku series, and the characters, while they had stand-out personalities, didn't go through much development over the course of the series. After the Red King arc half-way through the show, Haruki stops growing as a person, and after getting Delta Rise Claw he stops developing as a hero. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think it's because this show was so short that I feel this way. If a Red Ranger stops developing his character 10-15 episodes before the end of the series, then we would have still gone through 35-40 episodes of growth, but here it's half.

Also, I can't help but question what the budget for this series is. They have quite a number of sponsors, but they only really filmed 21 episodes if you take out the clip shows, and only a handful of costumes were new. There were only 4 new Kaiju designs, and 6 Ultras. Are the sets really that expensive? I know I'm just comparing them to Sentai and Rider, but they typically have 4x that in 2x the episodes.

Overall, I did enjoy this series. It has some of the best action I've seen in a Tokusatsu series. However, when it comes to investment in characters and humor I still prefer the other series I'm familiar with. Maybe in time, and as I watch more season, I'll gradually warm up to it more. Until then, I'm enjoying the weirdness that is Absolute Conspiracy, and eagerly await whatever's next.

[himitsusentaiblog]

Hi! Hope you are having a great day! I became very interested in Ultraman thanks to your recent post about it. I always heard about it, but never before seen it (I watch Kamen Rider and Super Sentai). I've been searching and I found a lot of the series subbed, but I can't seem to find the ones that I'm most interested to watch. Are there unavailable? I'd love to see Ultraman Dyna, Gaia, Nexas or even Ace and The Return of Ultraman from the old ones... Anyway, thanks for reading!

Thank you for your kind words and I am having a pretty awesome day! So glad to hear my posts are stoking interest in Ultraman.  It’s a great franchise and so important in the history of tokusatsu in general. But, let’s get to your search.

Ok, let’s start with the earliest series on your list.  The Return of Ultraman from 1971 and Ultraman Ace from 1972 are not available in any commercial form in the US.  However, there is hope now that the legal battle for the international rights to those shows has been resolved so keep your fingers crossed.  You can sort of watch some episodes of Ultraman Ace on youtube but it’s a very sketchy dub from Malaysia. Just check this out:

Ultraman Dyna is being fansubbed currently and the quality is really good.  Drop me a message and I’ll point you in the direction of where to find that one.  I don’t usually post links to fansubs here.

The good news is that Ultraman Gaia and Ultraman Nexus are available to watch on Crunchyroll.  You don’t even need a subscription to watch them (though without one you do have to put up with some pretty obnoxius commercial interruptions).

Ultraman Nexus is also available ok TOKU TV, which is one of the Amazon Prime Channels.  You do need both a sub to Amazon Prime and a sub to TOKU though (which is 3.99 a month on top of the Amazon Cost).  I have one just to watch the Tsuburaya shows they have that no one else does.

Of course, these are only options if you are in the United States (and possibly Canada).  If you are not, sorry for teasing ad I really don’t know what’s available in Europe or Australia.

[nexus-schwarz]

Avataro Sentai DonBrothers

Nexus' Master List of Super Sentai Nexus' Drama List

(From now on, I'm going to add my MDL profile to all of my toku posts because I'll be able to track there as well as my personal post.)

This season was actually painful to watch. And I thought Akibaranger was awful.

They're both annoying but in different ways.

If this was Inoue's last season, I'm glad, because he literally threw everything at the wall and expected it to stick.

Completely forgetting it's a Sentai, he just threw in monsters at the last minute for some of the episodes. Completely forgetting it's an anniversary season (much less as supposed sequel to one of the best seasons, Zenkaiger) where the monsters are supposed to reference past stuff, and when they are defeated, the team gets a power-up to use their powers directly instead of Zenkai's summons/power influence. Said monsters when they went giant were also supposed to reference the mechs but they kept recycling the same two suits over and over. Forgetting that they had a budget and having recolors of monster suits.

Felt stupid that they had a soulless crossover reference for the first mech before they actually got their own stuff, and then just brushed off that it never happened.

Didn't like Kiji Brother and Inu Brother's suits being CG because any fight with them was so awkward, especially with their weird proportions on both ends. Couldn't take their "dramatic battle" seriously at all when a stick of a man-bird was fighting Sonic. (Not to mention that it made the stage show awkward because they were acted out by humans.)

None of the characters were likable. And the ones that were, Kijino and Tsubasa, they ruined soon enough. When they spent 44 episodes to reveal Tsubasa as Inu Brother, I got a headache when I read the spoilers. My headcanon is that the Kaito in this show is the god from Zenkai still in Kaito's form, because he acts nothing like how he did in Zenkai and the whole series there was dimension shenanigans anyway, so I'm taking that as fact. (As well as time nonsense in this one, ugh.) Jiro could've been good but he's just so sidelined that even when his plot stuff was settled, he still wasn't relevant until the end.

I couldn't stand it being the Taro show and we're supposed to believe that he's perfect and never wrong, despite the show trying to say that he's wrong yet never punish him because everyone forgives him. And I thought Lucky was a bad protagonist...

So far King-Ohger is good, so it's at least washing this bad taste out of my mouth.

[nexus-schwarz]

Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger

Nexus' Master List of Super Sentai Nexus' Drama List

I am so happy that this show was so great compared to the drag that was DonBrothers.

I loved all of these characters, that the virtual sets allowed this fantastical world to take shape, and I hope that this is a step in the right direction that they tried and failed with DonBrothers.

There were so many callbacks to previous parts of the show that were just mysterious and/or appeared to be one way and then it was completely different without being just for shock value.

My favorite surprise was the finale having all of the dead characters coming back thanks to the movie introducing the kingdom of the dead! And even Deznarak came back to kill Kamejim himself which was so great.

While I'm sad this series is over, I'm looking forward to what BoonBoomger can bring to my Sundays.

[nexus-schwarz]

King-Ohger: Adventure Heaven

Nexus' Master List of Super Sentai Nexus' Drama List

This was such a cool movie that hinted at a lot of story beats that was answered later in the series and I wished I saw this in time with the series.

I felt a lot for Devonica for the short time she was there and hated Reiniol for realizing that he was the one that started all of this trouble in the first place (in a few ways, with what the show reveals).

Why did they have to break my heart by showing Himeno's parents... ;;^;;

[nexus-schwarz]

Red Battle! All Sentai Rally!!

Nexus' Master List of Super Sentai

So apparently I keep forgetting to add this to my list but I did watch it.

It was so cool to see all of the reds fighting together (although they were confused that Kaito wasn't red which Kaito feels better about in the ZenkaiRed special) and Super Warumono World's amazing, reference-filled design!

[nexus-schwarz]

New First Love Hero

Nexus' Master List of Super Sentai

Ugh, as if I didn't like DonBrothers enough, here's more about that mangaka that Haruka "copied" and make a JDrama adaptation of the manga...

I felt bad for that poor producer... 😔 She had a better reason to transform into the Hitosuki than the director's (very destructive and selfish) passion(tm) for the project. Didn't even really utilize the Hurricaneger theme other than the wind part but what else is new with these monsters.

[nexus-schwarz]

Kakuranger movie

Nexus' Master List of Super Sentai

This was more like an extra episode than a movie, but it had some cool effects like the miniature city.

[nexus-schwarz]

Ten Gokaiger

Nexus' Master List of Super Sentai

It took me a minute to watch this, but it was so worth the wait!

I figured when they were talking about using the Rapparatta for "good" to summon clones, it was not gonna be good. I had seen some stories like this, so I'm not surprised to see a, "become the villains to a world that refuses to be saved" plot from Gokai.

But I loved all the surprises that the movie had for me, seeing what everyone was doing in the meantime/how they split up the team, (oh poor Takamichi... Haven't seen Kiramager yet but he seems like the type to be distracted by beautiful ladies like Ahim...), and I love how Luka was both a badass like her usual self but was also a fake obvious reporter who caught the villains in the act like her actress' usual seiyuu roles.

So much fun and I'm glad that there was so much fun crossover stuff with Zenkaiger too!

[nexus-schwarz]

Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

Nexus’ Master List of Super Sentai

Man, this series was so fun and I’m gonna miss it...

I loved all the characters from day one. Even though sometimes we don’t get to see a lot of antics with everyone, there’s still stuff going on that was too fun to miss!

Magine is baby girl baby (I loved how much Reika/Kamen Rider Sabela’s actress Angela loved her so much that she wanted a hug while they were filming the crossover special but was too shy!! Someone else asked Magine’s suit actress for her... 🥺), Zyuran is an old man cool uncle ✨, Gaoon is basically a high school girl who fangirls over humans, Vroom is such a lovable fuckup, and Kaito is the best leader to bring them together! And of course we can’t forget the pirates, they were all fun.

The final boss of sorts being the capricious god that created them was very different. Instead of a god that just wants to destroy, we have a god that can’t care about the worlds he created but he also can’t destroy them. (Boo hoo, nobody cares about your problems. It’s too late!)

So I don’t know how DonBrothers is gonna fit Zenkaiser Black as being the same face as Kaito and yet being capable?? lol, can’t see it

[nexus-schwarz]

Super Hero Senki

Nexus’ Master List of Kamen Rider Nexus’ Master List of Super Sentai

WHY AM I CRYING IN THE MIDDLE OF THESE TOY COMMERICIALS

In light of a serious answer, holy shit, the fact that the new kid we meet in the movie is a young Shoutarou Ishinomori in the middle of finding his heroes aka creations is an insane concept.

And then the line from Ichigo aka Takeshi himself, that his heroes are always in childrens’ hearts for generations to come fucks me up...

It just proves that even if the man himself is gone, his passion lives on and it’s proven in this anniversary movie.

[nexus-schwarz]

Zenkaiger: ZenkaiRed Introduction!

Nexus’ Master List of Super Sentai

lol, I forgot to keep track of this one after we finished it.

It was cool that we got to see past enemies being summoned by the World monster this time around. Even the monster itself has cool references in its parts to big bads of previous seasons. I saw a chart of it once and it was nuts.