Samurai Equine

Hello there, my crowd! Welcome to my Weekly Musings: Red Edition. 

[I ❤ JAPAN] -- [I ❤ THE COLOR RED] -- [I ❤ CELESTIA]

   Feel free to leave a song request. Your song will eventually be featured in a future Weekly Musings entry!   

Do you know what an onomatopoeia is?!  Regardless, we just finished another week. Let's review, my crowd. (And get ready. It's a long one...)

 The biggest thing this week: I FINALLY solved the mystery!!  For those who forgot or are just tuning in today, I found a mysterious video in my favorites. I asked my only music afficionado that I know, my uncle, but he doesn't recognize it. So either he has forgotten (he's getting old) or it must be something that was shared to me by a fellow college classmate. However, I haven't heard from any of my college classmates in forever. They most likely forgot about me, and I'd doubt they'd miss me on YouTube since I'm not even subscribed. So, I have decided to remove the video from my favorites.

 Movies are hitting the theaters. I know Spider-Man is still in theaters near me, and it wasn't long ago The Batman just came out (kind of an odd time to come out, but why not). In the meantime, trailers are dropping left and right. Transformers BotBots looks like cringe and has a terrible name, but it looks like it might actually have a story. Star Wars is giving us an Obi-Wan focused series; and that looks cool. And I know I'm late to react to this because I stopped being a Pokémon fan a long time ago, but... With a title like "Pokémon Scarlet" (red is my favorite color) and with a fictional land based on Spain (IRL, I'm half Mexican, but close enough); it's hard for me not to pay just a little more attention than usual.  I just don't like the models they chose for the trainer characters. If this is the Pokémon version of Spain, then why do the main characters look like Japanese elementary students?

 Pipp Petals has an offical ASMR video.  Not what I was expecting while we wait for the next gen to drop, but okay~!

 And now the finale of... GRIDMAN!  Episode 35; compared to the brain damage I received from the last episode, this one seems more run of the mill. Episode 36, an emergency baby delivery episode that is also surprisingly good! Episode 37; had a good start, but they dropped the ball with mind control. Episode 38; I guess I should have predicted this. I knew Gridman and Kahn Digifer were going to have their final showdown. I didn't realize it would be through Takeshi's own frustration and incompetence, but considering the tone of this show and how they've been breaking him down as less-than the genius he thinks he is, this first part finale totally makes sense. Episode 39; and it's over. I won't say how, but at the very least, I can finally see why a show like this might give rise to SSSS Gridman.

 [ 1 / 3 ] And now, my final thoughts on Lightning Superhuman/Hyper Agent Gridman (1993)...  What can I say about this show? It came at the right time. It had potential to be so much more. It didn't last as long, but maybe that's for the best. Let's start at the beginning... Right away, this show makes an impression just on visuals alone, and anyone who saw the western adaption (Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad) can tell you the same. This show as made by Tsuburaya, the same company responsible for Ultraman. With it's remodeled miniature cities made to resemble circuit boards and technology, what we basically got was a digital world version of Ultraman. It was something new. Something experimental. It was the Tsuburaya crew letting themselves have a little bit of fun by breaking from the norm. Perhaps too much fun. The kind of fun that trumps good story telling, which is something to be very cautious of. I was not expecting the show to be so heavy on comedy. While I am use to seeing some hints of comedy here and there in any tokusatsu, it's jarring when it focuses this heavily on it. At the time the show came out, home computers with internet weren't common place, but the world was becoming increasingly aware of it and everyone was super curious about what it could do. So much so that people were all ready hearing reports, rumors and superstitions about it. The writers were banking on these misunderstandings; most of which didn't age very well. Often times, good stories and good story opportunities are squandered because the comedy became the priority. Even after watching the whole thing, there are story threads that deserved more focus than what we got. Considering this, maybe it's for the best that the show only had 39 episodes.

 [ 2 / 3 ] It's possible that the crew behind the show were out of their element if they've never written comedies before. A show like this couldn't be made today since the internet is now common place, but even back then they REALLY made huge leaps in logic to make some of these episodes. For a while, I was beginning to wonder if I had even found the right show. I am sure for little kids, a show like this could be a hit, but how in the world could this possibly inspire the much better 2018 anime SSSS Gridman? Thankfully the last two episodes answered that question for me, and maybe some of the better episodes helped as well. It's amazing how a new production could actually harness the true potential of a show many decades old, let alone the fact that people still remembered this one-shot series many years later. Still, I am sad knowing that I can whittle this show down to just the best episodes and leave the dumber ones behind. But even more then that, I am astonished at Mill Creek Entertainment. On the one hand, I owe them a big thank you for making so many Tsuburaya titles legally available for a western audience, including this. However, I cannot forgive them for taking subs from TokuHD, making little to no significant changes, and leaving us with subtitles that are RIDDLED with mistranslations. Had this been anything other than a comedy/slice-of-life show, we the audience would be sunk. Can you imagine the poor western fans who fell in love with the Gridman anime, got curious about the original live action show, and found this translation monstrosity instead? There is no excuse for this.

 [ 3 / 3 ] As it is, I cannot recommend 1993's Gridman to many. First, you'd have to have a basic understanding of Japanese to spot all the mistranslations and not be too badly affected by them. Second, I can only recommend this to hardcore fans of either Gridman, Ultraman, or tokusatsu in general. Think of it this way: When a tokusatsu title gets an official release, the fandom is suppose to embrace it knowing they don't need a different translation from anyone else. And yet, despite the official release, I honestly wish a fansub group would make sub files with a better translation, just so the audience at large has an easier time following along. Yikes! You should NEVER have to ask the fans to clean up after an official release. When the show is good, it's really good. When it's bad, it's brain-numbingly bad. As I move ahead, for once I hope the western adaption is better. I am glad Gridman's legacy will live on in better productions that I can more easily recommend. But I know as long as I live, I'll always remember those theme songs. Baby dan dan indeed!

 [ 1 / 2 ] And now... SUPERHUMAN SAMURAI SYBER SQUAD!  Sorry folks, I just couldn't help myself. While Gridman is still fresh on my mind, I wanted to get the ball rolling and start comparing.  I only watched the first episode, and as I suspected, there is a LOT to cover. Hopefully the reviews and the comparisons will go by MUCH faster next week once I get all this stuff out of the way. The main cast, let's call them Team Samurai, consists of 4 members instead of 3. From the beginning, it is established that Team Samurai are high school kids forming a rock band; where as in Gridman, the only connection to music was Naoto's father being a former rock musician in his heyday. The “junk” computer they use looks way more like your typical home computer of that era; wouldn't be surprised if there was some cross-promotion going on with a computer or electronics company. In the original show, Yuka secretly has feeling for Naoto. Their counterparts, Sam and Syd, don't seem to have any fondness for each other (right now). Instead, Tanker and Syd seem to have some unspoken feelings for each other while Sam has his eyes set on some random popular girl who is not part of Team Samurai. I doubt Amp will be developing any of the arsenal like Ippei did. Malcom is the Takeshi of this show, but instead of being distant from the main team, they all know each other quite well. Malcom is angsty and confrontational instead of shy and awkward, and he doesn't like jocks like Tanker. He isn't calling himself a genius, but he does seem rather full of himself. Haven't seen too much of the supporting characters. There's a lunch lady instead of a neighborhood officer, and we hear the voice of Sam's sister, but that's it for now.

 [ 2 / 2 ] In this first episode, Sam and Malcom are both interested in the same popular girl. In the original show, Takeshi was crushing on Yuka and it would take a while before Naoto would start crushing on her as well. Also, Malcom targets a phone line to keep Sam from calling the popular girl, scrambling the conversations into silence; very different from Takeshi attacking a hospital. Takeshi didn't attack the phone lines until episode 3, and his attack altered the conversations into angry disagreements, making the populace at large angry with each other. To match, Episode 1 of Superhuman Samurai is using stock footage from Gridman Episode 3. So far, I like the adaption's creative choices better. Sam enters the "syber" world by mistake, and Servo later abducts and merges with Sam without warning or consent! Servo seems to be mute right now. In Gridman Episode 1, the teens at least meet him formally and Gridman explains the dire situation going on, gaining Naoto's trust and letting him accept this super hero mission. Also, Gridman starts off small but grows gigantic. Here, it seems Servo just automatically starts off gigantic. Kilo Kahn seems very similar to Kahn Digifer, but Malcom is not being mind controlled or manipulated into serving him, and Malcom is not above talking back to Kilo either. The original show names the MOTW and explains their abilities before sending them out. In this episode, they didn't do that, so the abilities of this Mega Virus monster seem completely random. The first episode throws a lot of random in your face all at once, but I am marginally more invested, oddly enough. By comparison, Gridman Episode 1 is a better premiere, but it tricks you into thinking it'll be a super serious show, and Episode 3 is just the show's typical brand of comedy. Superhuman Samurai Episode 1 might be more neutral in tone, but at least I don't feel tricked and the comedy isn't (currently) trying to beat my brains in with a stick. Hate to say it, but Superhuman Samurai is winning so far!!

 NO REVICE THIS WEEK!   Considering what I'm about to watch, that's enough Kamen Rider for one week. I practically need an aspirin and comfy bed if I'm ever going be tackling more Den-O...

 And now, it's... TOKUSATSU MOVIE SPECIAL TIME!  We're back at it with ReVice Mystery 5. Who knew this fun little side story would be a 5 parter? I still wonder if it could have been wrapped up sooner... The ending was mostly kind of dull for me. The bitter girlfriend with a dead boyfriend trope has been done, so not much new here.  We didn't get to see the Riders from Gaim return for the final fight. I am confused where this series sits since I thought all Reiwa-era Riders were in their own universe divorced from the connected universe of the Heisei Riders. So either ReVice takes place in the prime Rider reality or this was just a crossover for fun with no rhyme or reason. The only thing super interesting was the after-credits scene. Maybe we'll see the Oblivian Stamp again? Doubtful, but it would be a cool little call back.

 DonBrothers meets Den-O: Arrive Elsewhere...  Well, if ever there was a reason for MOTW health insurance, it's this. I was halfway expecting this crossover when I learned that the new Red Ranger was based on the fictional Momotarou, and it happened. I was not expecting it to be 7 minutes of non-canon pointlessness, though. I was hyped for DonBrothers! Now I'm afraid we're bringing back the scream-heavy Red trope. Guess we're about to see...

 DonBrothers 01: Arriving with a DON!  Just going to say this now; nothing wrong with the Zenkaiger theme song, but this one is better. It's a little catchier, it isn't trying to emulate vintage theme songs, and it doesn't have characters randomly talking over it either. Furthermore, this show crushed all my fears and doubts right off the bat! We focus the majority of the episode on this show's Yellow Ranger (Oni Sister) as a mystery with misdirection unravels around her. I love it! Even the heavier use of CGI and green screen sets doesn't seem to bother me since the story has me so invested; it makes me feel like I am watching a jdrama more than a hero show. And if that wasn't wild enough, HOLY PROGRESSIVE POWER MOVES! They did it!! The mad lads actually did it! For the first time ever, we have a male as the Pink Ranger! JAPAN DID IT FIRST!! (Oddly enough, he is mostly CGI as a Ranger; the only CGI that isn't pleasant to look at. I have no idea why they did this when they actually do have a costume for him.) The monster from the "Meets Den-O" special makes his official appearance here; which makes sense. I don't like that the Red Ranger (Don Momotaro) can change into Zenkaiser. I know they are borrowing the gears, but I could have done without it. Thankfully, he isn't that annoying. He just gets loud/excited when he's a ranger. Other then that, he's fine. The show has real steaks with the possibility of actual death for the civilian victims. Didn't learn much about the Black Zenkaiser. We only saw the first 3 rangers so far. And I love how the gigantic fight looks like it was ripped straight out of Gridman. (How topical for me!) It's official: Once again, I am hyped! My expectations have been blown out of the water!

That's all for now, my crowd.  Take care, and dare to dream. 

Here's another deep dive into Japanese music. It's an old classic, and I love it. A little jazzy, a little city pop-ish, and a little noire. This is "Wine Red no Kokoro" by Anzen Chitai. And if you like it, look around! You might find an official (or somewhat official) English cover of the song. I don't think it's as good as the original, personally.