Tokkyuu Shirei Solbrain (特救指令ソルブレイン), or simply Solbrain, is exactly the kind of Metal Hero show I was expecting and I enjoyed the heck out of it. It’s the kind of show I expected Winspector to be but didn’t get but it still defied some of my expectations. We kick off with a seeming alien invasion […]
Category Archives: TV and Movie Reviews
Kamen Rider The Ride Review
The Ride Review with Ethan: Kamen Rider Gavv Episodes 33-40
Snacks are served up, Riders. Ethan returns to bring you some overdue Gavv goodness. This [...]
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17
Sep
Sep
Power Rangers
RUMOUR: Power Rangers Reboot in the works at Disney, Toei Not Involved (+3 Things I Want From the Reboot)
Let’s address those Power Rangers Reboot rumours and, while we’re at it, take a look [...]
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20
May
May
Super Sentai
No.1 Sentai Gozyuger: S.H. Figuarts Gozyu Wolf Revealed
With No.1 Sentai Gozyuger in full swing, it’s time for Bandai to reveal their yearly [...]
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20
May
May
Message From Planet C Super Sentai
The Final Message from Planet C: A Nogizaka46 Primer ft. Boonboomger’s Sakurai Reika
By the time you read this, Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger will have drawn to a close, [...]
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20
May
May
Super Sentai
Super Sentai 50th Anniversary Exhibition Announced
An ‘All Super Sentai Exhibition’ will tour nationwide across Japan, starting in August 2025! We’ve [...]
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20
May
May
Chojin Bibyun (超神ビビューン) is an odd series. Though it’s a direct sequel to Akumaizer 3 in which the heroes gain brand new powers as well as human identities, there is a HUGE disconnect between the two. The relation to Akumaizer 3 isn’t even mentioned until the very end of the episode, and even then it […]
Robot 8-Chan (ロボットはっちゃん) is the very first of the Toei Fushigi Comedy Series and was aired between 1981 and 1982. It shows. I really need to stop randomly picking these shows because I feel I’ve been hoodwinked into reviewing too many of these bizarre anarchic Toei shows and the only person I can blame is […]
Lightspeed Electroid Albegas (光速電神アルベガス) has a pretty interesting history for a series a lot of people have probably never heard of. A 1983 anime series that found audiences in Latin America, Spain and Italy as well as Japan, Albegas was intended to be the third instalment in the original Voltron: Defender of the Universe series. […]
The Kagestar (ザ・カゲスター), or simply Kagestar, is a 1976 circus of bizarre ideas and the tropeiest of toku tropes and I actually kind of dig it for that. There’s some interesting stuff here but let me start with the costumes. Kagestar and Bellestar’s costumes are whack. Those big googley anime eyes? Whack. The Evel Knievel […]
Azumaizer 3 (アクマイザー3) is another Shotaro Ishinomori classic that modern Kamen Rider fans may already be a little familiar with. Though the trio were eventually reimagined as villains for 2012’s Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Wizard & Fourze: Movie War Ultimatum (which also featured Poitrine), in the original 1975 version they were of course heroes. […]
Tōshō Daimos (闘将ダイモス), or simply Daimos, is the third instalment of the Robot Romance Trilogy that followed Combattler V and Voltes V. Unfortunately, none of them are about romancing robots and are just super robot shows with romantic subplots, as was the style at the time. In this particular case, the survivors of the planet […]
Seiun Kamen Mashinman or Nebula Mask Machineman (星雲仮面マシンマン) is another offering from tokusatsu godfather, Shotaro Ishinomori. Broadcast on Nippon TV in 1984, Machineman ran for 36 episodes. The series follows Planet Ivy resident, Nick, after he arrives on Earth in his spaceship. Nick is visiting Earth to complete his university thesis – studying humans – […]
If you were a Toei produced ninja in the Showa Era you had a car; that’s just the way things were! Ninja Captor was really one of the forerunners of that trope, airing in 1976/77, which carried into future ninja series like Jiraiya and Ninja Sentai Kakuranger (alright, it’s a cat bus rather than a […]
Although Toei have listed this series on their channel as simply Message from Space, it’s important to note that this isn’t the 1978 space opera film starring Vic Morrow and Sonny Chiba which at the time was the most expensive Japanese film ever made. Instead this is Message from Space: Galactic Wars (宇宙からのメッセージ·銀河大戦), it’s 1979 […]