#toku asks

[tokutziu]

i will boop you

B O O P

[backupmiyuko]

questions 1, 2, 5, and 8

Wow didn’t think i’d get this far. *clears throat*

1: how did i get into Toku. Well, it was a mixture of watching “history of power rangers” and searching tv tropes. My first attempts at watching stuff were Gaim and Liveman.

But for how Properly: i’d tried for years to watch a show in full and really sink my teeth in and pretty much failed to finish anything but Liveman which even then took years, or in Rider’s case failed utterly to finish, and then my ex ghosted me as a friend, and i was stuck at work feeling bored, and lonely one day waiting for my ride, i was thinking about how i enjoyed reading about people’s reactions to ex aid. -along with it being in my thoughts for various reasons <like it’s insert songs > as it had recently ended, and i’d enjoyed ex aid 1-8. It had also seemed like a good way to try and make friends. So I Went and Binged Ex-Aid 8-45 <and Dr Pacman > over the course of that labour day weekend. Worth it.

And then a year later while streaming and being out of stuff in english To Stream i pulled another friend in with OOO and we binged through it, and Fourze. Finished Gaim too that way.

2: what was the first show i watched:

Well since i partially answered above: Gaim and Liveman were my first attempts at their respective franchises, Liveman took me about 3? Years on my own, plus i’d both skipped a few eps and had to speed up the last few eps due to having work the next day (it is still one of my fav sentai and i have watched it multiple times since, please watch it). Gaim i don’t know how many eps i got through but put off due to wanting to use it for exercise. Yeah that didn’t work.

Now for Ultra: Ultraman Orb. Fun fact i hadn’t realized it was only 25 episodes because usually the toku i’d encountered or looked into -and Doctor who, were all Much longer. until literally ep 18. So: “man how are they going to top this we’re only half way”. *checks* “huh where’s the rest” “oh shit”

i like Orb. It’s a fun little show.

Other Toku:

Garo: season 1. Tried to do a halloween watch and didn’t finish. Tried again later and couldn’t get into it-and then when in a situ where i could’ve. Had to miss most of the season.

I have however finished the first season of the Ryuga timeline. Started slow but really did pick up, thanks @flaim-ita looking forward to more goldstorm.

Other toku in geneal: Kaiketsu Zubat.

I’d seen clips and photosets because of how insane Zubat was and had been curious, and then Toei’s youtube put the first two episodes up. And: the first episode of Kaiketsu Zubat is Insane. You do not understand if you have not seen it.

5: favorite main hero:

For Rider: Tendou. Ultra: Riku. Other: Ken Hayakawa, and Taisei High School Heroes. <and i haven’t finished it but Mako Dogengers high school

Sentai: the Liveman Trio but for Red’s in general. -yeah probably Yusuke from Liveman if i’m being honest when i think about it, but Momoi Taro has been up there. i just am waiting to see if it’s recency bias talking or not.

8: favourite series:

Kabuto for Rider. Donbrothers right now if it sticks the landing for Sentai, Gokaiger or Jetman if not.

Geed for Ultra. and for Other Toku: Kaiketsu Zubat.

[tokujenny]

My extremely oversimplified theory of Kaiju is that they can all be categorized into one of four categories: Lizard, Monkey, Robot and Minor Eldritch Horror (Meh, for short)

Examples:

[calmasyoghurt]

Oh btw I forgot to say something. During my local pride a few weeks ago I met an old friend of mine that I hadn't talked to in a few years. I asked him if he had been to jo stockholm last year because I thought I remembered seeing him in the queue, he confirmed he had.

I told him I had met Bojan and started going through my phone to show the selfie I got with him. Instead I found this iconic pic

He was like "haha, talk valentina! btw that was my flag :)".

And I just looked at him like :0. You mean that you're half the reason this, one of my fave pics of bojan, exists? Simply iconic

[mo-ok]

20 pressing toku questions 🤖👽😈

send through a number as an ask 😌

Favourite transforming robo?

Favourite combining robo?

Top 3 individual mecha?

Favourite carrier mecha? Do you even LIKE carrier mecha??

Most memorable combining/transforming sequence?

Show with your favourite robo line up?

Favourite robot/android character?

Favourite alien/non-human character?

Most memorable prop/puppet character?

Skirts on suits, good or bad?

Lips on helmets, good or bad?

Best suit power up?

Top 3 finishing moves?

Favourite monster category? (mechanical/alien/creature/etc)

Show with the best monster designs?

Show with your favourite line up of villain generals?

Tell me about a monster of the week you think is neat

Villain you were saddest to see die?

Villain you couldn't wait to see die?

Favourite hero/villain rivalry?

[red-riveria]

Wozniak Sentai O-Hayoranger

They're Super Sentai power rangers now. More info under the cut

Their theme is video game genres. Scott is a platformer, Jeb is sports, Rex is a fighting game, Terry a farming sim, Target's a puzzle game and Jerry is a racing game. Their weapons reflect what game genre they're assigned to.

Scott is the red ranger who REALLY doesn't want to be a red ranger.

Terry has the only braincell most of the time and that's why he's the blue ranger.

Jerry is their 6th and doesn't show up until later. His color is silver.

Their yell for roll call is Hey All.

[ink-au-askblog]

Introducing Kan and Toku, The Co-Directors of Multiatre!

Although they'd rather deny it. They care for each other quite a bit. They are a duo, never to be separated, after all.

[eliasdrid]

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!

[missmako-chan]

16 for fandom asks?

16. a tiny detail in canon that you want more people to appreciate

I have not seen anybody talk about Genba just straight up turning to the audience to say something

Like this man is Not beating the fourth wall breaker allegations, I need to see him do this in fics

[angele-darliing]

Shaved ice doodle

[asknarashikari]

https://x.com/_captain_duck/status/1848360575711281384?s=46&t=r5cQ-fyChNi-Dn-w3MjHHg

The toku-BL pipeline goes both ways

[tokutziu]

I love your pfp so much it’s so cute (I love your artstyle too)

Boop! 🐾

Awww thanks!!

[backupmiyuko]

weirdest thing you've seen in tokusatsu?

Well there’s a lot of weird stuff in toku, i just tend to enjoy it, yk

Dark Kitchen my beloved, Over half of Donbrothers.

Though for bad weird heisei: Zyuranger, the episode with the monkey people. Which was so weird i dropped it my first attempt at the show.

And then we hit the showa era, which is more of a catch all weird.

Half of Ultraseven tbh, it Was the late sixties after all, but for a few examples:

Alien Wild trapping everyone in what looked like the world’s shittiest slow moving rave through photography because he needed their youth.

That time Dan Moroboshi was stuck wandering through the snow and being tormented by what i can only call thanks to my friend @zyngacat “evil elves on the shelves”. <while everyone else on the defense team were at risk of dying from the cold.

[skajador]

19 for the toku questions? :0

19. if you could go back and change one show, what would you change?

I'd have Miho/Kamen Rider Femme be an actual part of Ryuki for a significant period of time. GIVE HER AN ACTUAL STORY AND ARC IT WOULD BE SO INTERESTING.........

society if we'd let Yasuko Kobayashi have a crack at writing Miho instead of having her be trapped in a shitty inoue movie

[zakurincho]

missing blue bird hours

[couldtransitionsaveher]

GIGAN from GODZILLA

JUSTIFICATION:

"Woke up with a realization that she is transfem, she has a chainsaw end of argument." - @ask-cloverfield

Reminder: Submissions are always open!