With the year coming to a close, join Ethan as they take a look back on some of 2023s best and worst offerings in the world of tokusatsu.
2023 was a great year for tokusatsu, seeing many new instalments of all four of the major series covered here on The Toku Source. Join me as I highlight some of the year’s firsts, worsts and all around best parts of the year.
Kamen Rider
Kamen Rider Revice Post Series Content
Revice Forward: Kamen Rider Live & Evil & Demons or, as I’ve been calling it, “Live, Evil and Demons Quest for Disneyland” focuses on Daiji, Kagero, Hiromi and the rest of Blue Bird as they deal with the world’s first mutant and the evil scientists that would misuse her powers. As someone that was mixed on Revice, I thought this was alright there’s never been a strong “which ones the real one” plot and the twist reveal left me without words. It pales in comparison, however, to Kamen Rider Juuga VS Kamen Rider Orteca. This Revice TTFC special saw George Karizaki go up against Orteca and the biggest issue with this special was that George and Orteca never seemed to have this rivalry in the show, other than in a couple of scenes after Orteca was arrested. That said, in spite of that, with cameos from Kamen Rider Drive as supporting characters, this special works and, I’ll be honest, out of all the Over Demons/Vail retools, I think I like Orteca’s Rider form the most out of all of them.
Kamen Rider Geats
Following Revice was the tricky Kamen Rider Geats and the centuries long quest to reunite Ace with his mum that saw him enter the DGP or Desire Grand Prix: a battle royal where the winner gets their wish granted and the world remade. Additionally, we saw the release of extra content like the Punkjack special, a very fun crossover movie with Kamen Rider Revice that saw the two series’ Riders face off against a number of returning figures from fellow battle royal series, Kamen Rider Ryuki (that turned 20 the year this released in Japan) and Seeker, a man with the power of Fortnite build. Overall, Geats is a series I enjoyed more than Revice but that I still have a lot of mixed feeling about. I wish it could have utilised some of the amazing opportunities and potential the ideas it set up. For more about that, I wrote an article back in September all that you can check it out here. Most recently, we got the summer movie released in a way we can enjoy it. For my thoughts on that, check it out here.
Kamen Rider Zero One Western Made Comic Book
You forgot this finished this year, didn’t you? Be honest. Written by Brandon Easton with art by Hendry Prasetya and published by StoneBot Comics and Titan Entertainment Group, this four issue comic has the pristine honour of being the first Kamen Rider comic book produced in the west since Saban’s Masked Rider’s comic adaptations and, very quickly, the Kamen Rider community as a whole realized this was not of a particularly high quality. Between the weird choice of setting it during episodes three and ten in the shows continuity, multiple characters acting out of character and an underlying feeling that the comic is embarrassed by its source material, leaving out little details like Aruto’s iconic catchphrase, it left many fans wanting better. While I could write about this mess for far far longer, we need to move on; maybe I’ll come back to this sometime in 2024.
Kamen Rider Kuuga’s Botched English Manga Release
In another first for Rider this year, we saw the release of Kamen Rider Kuuga’s manga into English, also by Titan Entertainment Group. It very quickly became apparent that this translation was not nearly as good as was shown off in previews and led to fans making their voices heard. Their voices sang loud, in the year of our lord 2023, something of this poor a quality – that even had many questioning whether it was machine translated – was not acceptable. That community moment of all of us coming together to declare that we’re not just accepting a lesser product because “at least is something we get over here in the West” was kinda beautiful and, while I hope we never have to deal with that kind of situation ever again, it’s nice knowing we will band together if needed.
Shin Kamen Rider
2023 also saw the release of the long awaited Shin Kamen Rider to Amazon Prime. Written and Directed by the legendary Hideaki Anno who, after wowing fans of the big lizard with Shin Godzilla and astounding audiences from there to Nebula M78 with Shin Ultraman, took his masterful hand to the original Kamen Rider series and produced one of, if not these best, tokusatsu projects of the year. If you like the original series, you owe it to yourself to check out. It’s prequel manga series is also still ongoing. One thing to note, you will need to search “Masked Rider” to find it on Amazon Prime.
Kamen Rider Gotchard and 2024 for Rider
With this, we come to the end of the list of Kamen Rider things that have concluded this year but the future is as bright as ever! With Gotchard going strong (be sure to come back each week for the Weekly Ride Review for what I think of each episode), the promise of Rinne becoming a Rider in her own right and Kamen Rider Legend returning, there will be a lot to watch and that’s not even counting the eventual release of the Geats X Gotchard Winter Movie and the Geats post series movie, Jyamato Awakening to physical media. Not to mention, the next series starts in September, with all the speculation that entails, so Rider fans have a lot to look forward to in the future.
Super Sentai
Avataro Sentai Donbrothers
In the world of Sentai, I believe it would be accurate to say that, when we first saw what everyone in this series would look like, nobody ever expected this series to be as amazing a wild comedic adventure it was. It was a series of a lot of firsts – first male pink, first female narrator and, of course, the first series to have CGI team mates. In addition to this ending, we also got the post series movie, Donbrothers VS Zenkaiger, uniting two of my personal favourite teams with an ending that I’m still shocked over. Incredible stuff.
20th Anniversary Movies
2023 saw the release of not one but two Super Sentai 20th Anniversary movies: Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger 20th – Unforgivingly Wild and also Ninpu Sentai Hurricaneger de Gozaru! Shushuuto 20th Anniversary (a review of which can be found here). Fans getting to see actors return and celebrate these series that they love is always a wonderful thing and, with the Dekaranger anniversary movie announced, it’s not something that will be stopping anytime soon.
Ohsama Sentai KingOhger and 2024 for Super Sentai
The currently airing season, KingOhger, is, at time of writing, entering its end game and is set to conclude early next year. It is worth noting that Sentai’s first fully bug themed team has another notable first under its belt; as well as being the first team to feature a non binary character in the form of Rita Kaniska – the team’s violet warrior – it is also the first Sentai team to be featured in Fortnite, in the form of a series of playable maps. With the possibility of a VS movie with Donbrothers, and Boonboomger on the horizon, I think the future for Super Sentai is looking pretty bright.
Ultraman
Ultraman Decker
2023 also saw the end of Ultraman Decker and its post series movie Ultraman Decker finale – Journey to Beyond. It was also the conclusion to the odd remake/reimagining of the well regarded Tiga, Dyna and Gaia trilogy. The first few episodes of Decker were the first reviews I wrote for this site so, even if I didn’t already quite like the series (spoilers for the eventual rest of that series of reviews), it’s a series that means a lot to me. I believe it’s well worth the time to sit down and check out. The main series is available on YouTube and the movie is available over on Ultraman Connection.
Ultraman: The Mystery of UltraSeven
Cowriters Kyle Higgins and Mat Groom are joined by Davide Tinto on art to continue their series of the Marvel Comics miniseries that reimagines the classic series. Following directly on from Rise of Ultraman and Trails of Ultraman, this comic focuses on Shin Hayata’s confrontation with the mysterious UltraSeven and his backstory. Like the last two that came before, it this was a great read and I can’t wait for the next one, or the announced crossover with the Marvel Comics universe proper that will be happening some time in the future.
Netflix Ultraman Season 3: Final
This year saw the conclusion of another reimaging of Ultraman: the anime adaptation of the ULTRAMAN (2011) manga. The series which reimagined Ultraman in a suit of power armour, set after the original series with Shinjiro Hayata, saw Shin’s son serving as protagonist the series and focuses on his battles and tribulations as Ultraman, fighting with the SSSP and joined eventually by reimagined versions of the other Ultra brothers as well as Ultrawoman Marie. It’s a series that I would recommend to fans old and new looking for a fresh take on Ultraman.
Ultraman Z English Dub
While the year saw many endings and beginnings, it also saw a few returning faces with Ultraman Z getting a reair on YouTube with a fancy new English dub. Ultraman Z is my absolute favourite (for personal reasons that were written about by Ultraman Connection themselves) and this dub was not only cast amazingly, with voices I’m sure you will recognise, but it really does a good job of keeping the spirit alive from the original Japanese. If you need another excuse to rewatch Z, you couldn’t ask for a better one and, if you haven’t seen Z at all, you should check this out.
Ultraman Blazar and 2024 for Ultraman
The currently airing season, Ultraman Blazar, has only a few episodes left but I think it’s safe to say this is another series a lot of people will remember. Between it mixing thing up with the Earth defense team captain being the Ultra host, to said Ultra basically being a space caveman and the whole array of new and interesting kaiju, you can be sure the Blazar recaps will continue into 2024. As well as Blazar and the Ultra that will be following him up, there’s been announced the new inbetween season show, an Ultraman Card Game, the previously mentioned crossover with Marvel and so the future for Ultraman is as light as the land it hails from.
Power Rangers
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always
Any wrap of the year would be remiss if I didn’t talk about Power Rangers. This has been a pretty big year for the franchise as it turned thirty this year and its first Netflix exclusive movie was produced to mark the occasion, bringing many beloved characters back to do battle with Robo Rita. Additionally, the movie served as a touching tribute to the Rangers that have passed, something many fans deeply appreciated.
Power Rangers Cosmic Fury
The franchise’s final instalment filmed in New Zealand, Power Rangers Cosmic Fury, also released this year and, while there are plenty of contentious topics regarding this series, I don’t feel like I’m nearly as familiar enough with Power Rangers as a whole to be the right person to address them, so I’ll leave that for someone else to talk about. Instead, I’ll focus on the first series with a main female Red in the form of Amelia, who is also the franchises first Red dinosaur based Ranger to not be based on a Tyrannosaurus, which is neat. It was also the franchise’s first time making original suits for the main team, which was met with mixed reception from fans. I think everyone can agree on, though, the foam abs did not look good in motion.
Editor’s note: They did not.
Boom Studios’ Continued Output of Power Rangers Comics and 2024 for Power Rangers
If you have been keeping an eye on The Toku Source regularly, this being here won’t be a surprise to you. Between the start of the Darkest Hour and Ranger Academy, and even the return of the Hyperforce Rangers, there’s been a lot here for Rangers fans to sink their teeth into. For a much more in depth look as to why you should be checking out what Boom Studios are doing in 2024, have a read of this. As for the future of Power Rangers, that’s a tough one. With the franchise finishing filming in New Zealand and talks of a reboot with debatable amounts of tokusatsu within it, the future for Power Rangers isn’t quite as clear as the others. Regardless of what the future holds for Power Rangers the programme, between Boom Studios’ amazing content and fan celebrations like Power Ranger Day and The Toku Source’s very own Green Ranger Day celebrations in October, the fans of the franchise will be there to keep the torch lit. May the franchise ablaze for a long time to come! Once a Ranger, always a Ranger.
Independent
While I could end the wrap up there, I would be doing you all and the following independent tokusatsu series a disservice if I didn’t take the chance to give them some spotlight. In lieu of me giving them both the full review they deserve (something to look forward to in 2024, perhaps), both the movie and series I’m about to talk about are English subbed, released over the last year, are available on YouTube and well worth your time.
Ork
Filmed on an iPhone, Ork tells the an interesting story about two people that get the power of a demonic frog and… that’s all I’m going to say about the plot! From its cinematography to the quality of the special effects and fight choreography, the fact its filmed on a phone is not something that would be clear to you without me pointing it out. After you watch this, be sure to post your thoughts using this hashtag as its the one that’s most likely to get it seen by the original creators. #オーク
Sentika F8ABA6 Jisariz
Part of the PINK no Tokusatsu project by Kamen Rider Decade’s very own Masahiro Inoue, Jisariz tells the story of an ordinary high school girl who, after dying, finds herself in other worlds. Pursued by a mysterious man, Jisariz, she questions what is happening? Why? Is there any way to end the cycle of death and rebirth in a new world for our main character? To find out, you are going to need to watch the series itself…
Here’s the first episode of the series, you can watch the rest here.
You weren’t expecting this end of year wrap up to end with homework were you? But what did you think? Is there anything from this year I missed out and should have mentioned? Let me know in the comments below. I look forward to reading them.
As throughout all of this year, I’ve been Ethan: writer, reviewer and bringer of the new year for The Toku Source, wishing you and yours a wonderful new year and I look forward to talking more toku with you all soon!
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