you keep putting these tokusatsu shows on my dash for months and I have less than zero context what they're about. what's the cliffnotes version to get me interested in whatever these odd looking robots or perhaps creatures are doing?
Alright I'll try my best but it might get long.
To me, the most appealing thing about them is that the suits are very much suits, they often try to use practical effects where they can and there's a lot of neat choreographed fights. There's also often sci-fi elements (which I'm a fan of). Each season of each show seems to be made with love and passion for the genre* too and I've read/seen a few interviews which support this. There's also some very talented actors and it's amazing to watch them play pretend the colorful plastic weapons are real and can hurt you (they really sell it to you if you can suspend your disbelief a little and have some fun).
*edited - I wrote labor of love but forgot it is a specific thing and might not apply very well here?
Anyway. I'll give you the basics. The three big tokusatsu shows you may often see around are: Kamen Rider and Super Sentai (both from Toei) and Ultraman (from Tsuburaya).
Screenshots from: Kamen Rider OOO (2010), Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger (2021) and Ultraman Blazar (2023)
There's others! like Dogengers (screenshot below) - but I'll try to focus on those three.
In general these shows are aimed at young audiences so you have to watch with that in mind. Also, like any superhero show, they will want to sell you merch (figures, toys, plushies, etc).
Another important thing to know is that the seasons of these shows are usually self contained, and each have their own theme, so you can pick any season that catches your eye to check out with no previous knowledge. There are crossovers events (movies and especials) and anniversary seasons which will explore and/or showcase previous content too! I personally really enjoyed Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger (2021) which is a 45th Anniversary Sentai season and I had watched only two other sentais before it.
Now, some differences! so you can tell the shows apart and also know what you will potentially have in store if you decide to watch any. I'll put a read more because this is getting long 👍
Kamen Rider and Super Sentai air all year long, for this reason, seasons usually have 45-50 episodes. All the Ultraman shows I've watched have 25 episodes per season. Meanwhile Dogengers has kept a 12 episodes per season formula so far.
Spin offs, specials and reboots have no defined number of episodes (to my knowledge).
I feel like I should mention that (especially in the case of 45-50 episodes shows) the episodes might feel a bit off sometimes? Be aware there's often release schedules with toylines involved*
From what I've noticed this usually happens past the mid-season point the closer you get to finale territory. My guess is that, generally at that point, the writing team (or writer) was trying to do things they forgot to properly set up before, tie loose ends and/or finish arcs quickly.
*Sometimes other things affect production, like COVID or an actor suddenly not being able to continue with their role.
All shows value The Power Of Love and Friendship and usually feature a team of heroes (or allies) fighting against an enemy faction. There's also, almost always, some sort of transformation device involved and in all these shows the heroes must collect some season-themed item to get power ups. The key difference between each show will be how they decide to play with these things.
Super Sentai is what Power Rangers is based on. If that tells you nothing: there's a team of heroes ("rangers"), color coded suits that are generally not too complex in design and one giant mech vs. giant monster fight per episode (on average). I've not seen too much Sentai so that's all I got for you.
Kamen Rider gives its heroes more complex suit designs and (usually) multiple forms (ascending in strength/skill). Kamen Rider's signature elements are probably: the drivers (belts), the henshins (transformation scenes) and the fact that they often have motorbikes (they gotta ride something).
Ultraman has more of a shared universe between seasons situation going on than the previous two so there's recurring lore. I won't explain that lore to keep this as short as possible. Either there's a host-alien situation (to varying degrees) or the protagonist has the ability to transform. In this show there's always an almost guaranteed Titular Ultraman vs. giant monster fight per episode.
More visuals that might help you tell them apart:
Screenshots from Ohsama Sentai King Ohger (2023)
Screenshots from Kamen Rider Ryuki (2002), Kamen Rider Den-O (2007), Kamen Rider OOO (2010), Kamen Rider Build (2017)
Screenshots from Ultraman Orb (2016), Ultraman Geed (2017) and Ultraman Blazar (2023)
I hope this was helpful! sorry it got long!
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Can I get a uhhhhhh laios with a guy/gn reader who has an equally autistic special interest in general biology and ecosystems that would 100% encompass monsters as well? Asking for a friend that just happens to be me (stg idk if I wanna smooch laios or be him tbh lmao)
an: though i haven’t written for an autistic yn, i’ll try to make it realistic. if i’d done something wrong, please tell me. i focused more on general dungeon ecology for y/n.
if marcille is studying about dungeon ecosystems while laios is more interested in monsters you would be the best of both worlds.
there’s just something thrilling about dungeon ecology, how it all interacts, every thing that fall under it and so on and so forth.
you’re a tall-man researcher, using every bit of your time to find out more about dungeons, and not just the ones in melini. it would have been good to join the magic academy, but since you don’t posses any talent for magic, you can’t enter.
it made you sad since they had a dungeon making class.
nevertheless, it won’t stomp your dreams of researching! you’ve read and copied countless of books you can get your hands on. eventually you settled in meleni where a newly discovered dungeon was found.
your room was filled with countless of journals, trinkets from dungeons and volumes of books you read many time before.
and on your first dungeon party, you were very ecstatic. too bad you had to leave because they’d only go to the easier upper floors. you wanted to head to the lowest level after all!
and that’s where you meet up with the touden party!
you will love marcille’s vast dungeon knowledge. she would love to teach you new things. much to chilchuck’s dismay, you have boosted her ego. endless praises for marcille and simply doting around her because she’s filled with knowledge.
“ah, long lifespans are so great. i’d spend all my life dedicating to dungeon ecology if i could” -y/n after every lecture apparently.
then monster facts with laios will be endless. he lent you his dungeon food guide and you surprisingly have a copy too! you took notes from the things he had written in the margin. much to chilchuck’s demise (again) both you and laios keep on talking and he can’t sleep :((
“eating monsters? can’t say i have thought about it, but do you ever think about their nutritional values? the high level of mana concentration must vary from non-dungeon born same species! This needed to be compared and studied!” -y/n when laios introduced his monster eating thoughts.
toshiro will have another person to ask about his life in the east. but he likes how you keep more time to yourself writing in the journals. he finds your drawing to be artistic. after seeing your difficulties with papers, toshiro will teach you about yotsume toji—a book binding process from his country. he’s happy to see you using it after he taught you.
though you won’t talk with namari much, you admire he strength as a dwarf. she keeps her past to herself, which you at least respect. but you’d talk about the different weapons used and other things she did as a blacksmith. her knowledge on materials is very handy. you write about the different dungeon materials on your journal along with the best weapons against monsters.
chilchuck, our lock expert, and the most unknown member of your party… you admire his knowledge on traps and have written about his experiences with various dungeon traps and ways of disarming them.
falin, she joins you as you ask questions to marcille or laios. she listens to you talk about your dungeon experiences and she tells you about her’s. you let her read the journals you made along the way.
On the day falin was eaten by the dragon, your journal wasn’t transported with you. So now, you join laios to rescue his sister and to save you journals!!
Request? Open!
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Slade: You kids are making it too complicated. Back in my day, we didn't even talk about that sort of thing.
Dick, half asleep: Yeah, because 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' was soooo much better.
Slade: All I'm saying is, a warm body is a warm body, and a nice ass is a nice ass. But kids these days have to go and call it something ridiculous.
Dick: Well, based on what you said, 'kids these days' would probably call you pansexual.
Slade: Pan--what?
Dick: It means you're equally attracted to all genders.
Slade, laying naked in bed with him after they just spent two hours having sex: What kind of faggot shit is that?
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Y'all do know you can't make Jason be NOT white without changing his whole character, right?
For other characters, yes, because their physical appearance are not that influential in their story, on how they are viewed by people, on their personality formation — you can have a black/asian/indigenous/arab/brown/latino/etc Nico and yes, the hate he gets will have a undertone of racism but at the same time nothing significant on his story, motivation or personality will need to change. This is also true for other characters: Clarisse risks repeating the "aggressive WoC" stereotype but the character itself doesn't change.
This isn't true for Jason, whose main character trait is how he is perceived by others and how he showcases himself to others based on that perception. (specially with how little effort Riordan put on him besides making him perfect-er Percy who's somehow also weaker and less important than him).
Let's not pretend a black, Arab, indigenous, Asian, Latin man, etc, in the USA would ever be treated with the universal reverence Jason gets from New Roma, you can't have the illusion of perfection and most of all, of invincibility they have about him when you see him suffering racism or xenophobia in the middle of a mission. Nothing in his life has ever gone wrong, that's his image, destined to be king, he is supposed to have no weakness on his peers eyes.
He is not trying to prove people wrong, he is trying to prove them right; he isn't worthy despite their prejudice, on the contrary, he only tried to make himself worthy to fulfill their expectations. He can't be a woman or an immigrant or have a visible disability or any other thing that strays him from a perfect ideal by western society standards, and be that same character.
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edit: thank u all i got some input!!
any chance i have any spanish-speaking followers who can check that i'm using a phrase right? it's not like a Huge Translation Project, it's just a three-word interjection within english dialogue.
(i AM very likely to have more complex spanish dialogue later in the story, but i think this fic is gonna end up at least 3 chapters..... this is, For Now, the only spanish in the first chapter. if i have longer swaths of dialogue to check later, i'll most likely see if i can scrounge up a couple bucks for a fiverr translator, bc. it seems.... rude..... to ask ppl to do that for free.)
no worries if none of the spanish speakers here are inclined to help out! if i can't find anyone to double-check i'll just assume google is correct until told otherwise LOL
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