The Tokusatsudome Voting Thread!! ~SONG ATTACK~

[Purple]

I spent several hours hand-arranging the 60 nominations for this dome to ensure the maximum possible time before any two nominations from the same person went head to head and then... challonge rearranged that to basically always force it, but I think I mostly wrangled it back to how it should be, so have a bracket!
As is typical of these things, we are going to be voting every day, starting right now, with 24-hour-ish voting windows, and for the first however many days, we're going to do two of these at a time. For every song, I am going to do my best to give you a little history of it and/or the series its from, which I am aware of in the case of... honestly a much higher percentage of these than I would have guessed. Also to avoid dumb ol' byes in the bracket, the 4 extra slots have been given over to a few choice transformation jingles. I expect these to be eliminated immediately, but, you know, they're valid songs if you actually really dig one, I guess?

FIRST BATTLE!

Godzilla (TNT promo edit of the Blue Öyster Cult song) submitted by Torzelbaum

Every single one of you knows damn well who Godzilla is. The original and best kaiju, King of the Monsters, etc. Our song originates not in any of his movies but as a general fan tribute from an American rock band, and a fine job they did. More specifically, here homage is paid during one of the many many marathons of Godzilla movies on one of the various Turner cable networks that have been prone to running those my entire life, which I figure is where most of us first encountered the big G for the first time.

V

S.

Accel! Henshin!

Accel is the rival character from Kamen Rider W. An incredibly grim and serious police detective hellbent on revenge against some jerk who froze his family with weather powers... and he transforms by slapping a set of motorcycle handlebars on his crotch and revving the motor, which I just find really really funny. He can also kinda transform into a motorcycle. This is pretty much a bye for Godzilla, and hell, it isn't even really a song of a jingle.



NEXT BATTLE!

Justiφ's (Kamen Rider 555 opening theme) submitted by Hilene

To be honest, 555 falls smack dab in the middle of the big dead zone of early 2000s Kamen Rider shows I have not gotten around to yet. I know it's the one with the dialing-a-cell-phone transformations, and I believe it's one of the darker ones, with a higher than average body count, and that suit with the distinctively high eye to face ratio, but... that's about it. I'm guessing Hilene can go into way more detail though.

V

S.

Power of Love, Chroma Squad! (title theme to the obvious game) submitted by Lakupo

Chroma Squad is a big ol' love letter to the Super Sentai franchise in the form of a goofy indie TRPG, where the suit actors from a popular show get sick of nobody seeing their faces and head off to make their OWN show. With blackjack! And hookers! Wait no, that's Garo. Chroma Squad goes in more for ultra-wholesome, and has an interesting mix of scavenging for cardboard boxes and buckets to make costumes out of mixed with fighting monsters mixed with extra challenges to dramatically boost characters into flying leaps, clutch transformations, and properly timed finishing moves. Honestly I kinda wish it stuck to the TV production angle a little harder rather than mixing it with... actual attacks from random monsters of the week, but it's made with a lot of love, and a ton of in-jokes about tv-nihon, which at the time was THE place to find fansubs of this sort of thing.



Voting is open until like, January 5th, 3 AM eastern. AKA24ish hours from now.

Personally I think I've gotta go Greek Letters and Godzilla.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Godzilla
and
Power of Love, Chroma Squad!

 

[Kirin]

and he transforms by slapping a set of motorcycle handlebars on his crotch and revving the motor, which I just find really really funny

and then makes it even better by yelling “I’ve pulled it out!”

Anyway, JustiZilla, but also it’s really cool that that weird fan TRPG is a thing that exists.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

φZilla

 

[RT-55J]

Godzilla 555

 

[Purple]

Godzilla and 555 move on, totally unopposed!
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

Aiaiai Ni Utarete Bye Bye Bye (Samurai Flamenco OP 2) submitted by Kirin

I have never heard of Samurai Flamenco before, but doing some quick research, it's an anime series about some model who's way into Tokusatsu shows, and eventually just designs his own Kamen Rider style belt, finds monsters to fight, picks up the semi-obligatory Very Good Friend cop, and eventually finds a bunch of like-minded people to go full sentai team, giant robot and all, along with there being a whole magical girl squad in the mix. Sounds pretty good, and I'll have to check it out some time.

V

S.

Wild Dance Escalation (Kamen Rider Gaim vs. Baron theme) submitted by Purple

Kamen Rider Gaim, from the writer of Black Lagoon and Puella Magi Madoka Magika starts off with a bunch of street gangs having dance battles against each other, then pokemon battles as they find odd little pokeball fruit, then turns out you can power up Kamen Rider armor with those, and then it turns out people really should have questioned where the weird plants these grow on come from more, and long story short, all life on earth is destroyed in this cyclical tragic malevolent garden of eden apocalypse except for like, 4 people gaining godly powers. The one constant in all this though is one of the dozen or so Riders in the mix being the platonic ideal of The Rival, and every time they come into conflict we get this here song, sung as a duet by their actors, leading up to one of the best set piece fights I've ever seen. And for some baffling reason rather than ending the series right there there's this weird freaking epilogue where suddenly the goofy movie where they play superpowered soccer in another dimension turns out to be canon and relevant!? Gaim is weird.

NEXT BATTLE!

Mizonokuchi Solarians (Astro Fighter Sunred theme)

Sunred is an anime series riffing on tokusatsu stuff I DO know plenty about. The title character, at some point, was part of a superhero team who were collectively a real big deal, and has since recovered to become this sort of heavy drinking chainsmoking deadbeat who just wants out of the life, but his girlfriend is best friends with the leader of a theoretically evil organization with a bunch of monsters for Sunred to fight... but they're all just super nice and polite and practicing cooking skills and doing karaoke... and then getting brutally maimed by Sunred either because they insist of fighting out of some Venture Bros.-ian sense of purpose, or because he's just kind of a super toxic perpetually-angry violent dudebro who doesn't need much reason to put someone in a headlock and punch them into submission. I do like the premise a lot, but it does feel a bit "seen one episode, seen'em all." And it sadly doesn't end with Kayoko realizing she's dating a loser, dumping him, and just hooking up with Vamp instead).

V

S.

Wanderers (Garo animated movie theme) submitted by Vaeran

So that description I gave for Chroma Squad? Garo actually IS the result of a bunch of suit actors from other Tokusatsu things wanting to have their actual faces on camera and going off to make their own Kamen Rider-esque series, and... OK I can't recall any blackjack but it does strive to be a more "mature" franchise and that absolutely means general grimdark stuff and women with their breasts out. One thing that really sets it apart from other franchises in the genre is that there is only one Garo continuity, and every show/movie/whatever features the same organization dealing with the same demonic threats (and internal corruption). At one point, we got an anime series with a Spanish Inquisition sort of setting, and the big 10 year aniversary movie is a followup to that series.

I actually really had to think hard for both of these, but my personal vote is

Voting closes at 3 AM or so eastern, 1/6.

 

[Kirin]

Hard to vote against JAM Project, but I can’t deny the bops of Bye Bye Solarians

 

[Torzelbaum]

Wild Dance Escalation
and
Wanderers

 

[Vaeran]

Whoops, I missed the first day of voting. That means I get to vote twice today, right?

Anyway, put me down for Aiaiai Ni Utarete Bye Bye Bye and WANDERERS, please.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Wild Solarians

 

[Issun]

Wild Dance Escalation
and
Wanderers

 

[RT-55J]

Wandering Escalator

 

[Purple]

Much closer match ups this week, but the fruit samurai and gaudy gold wolf pull through in the end.
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

Waga Na Wa Garo (Garo season 2 OP) submitted by Vaeran

So the first season of Garo is focused entirely on Kouga Saejima, a Makai Knight with a scowl on his face 100% of the time, a really snazzy coat, and the titular gaudy golden wolf themed Garo armor. It's all monster of the week stuff while he deals with the Man Pain of having become a badass demonslayer due to training from his abusive father and how this girl he's into is doomed after a demon attack but works as bait for them. Season 2 (Makai Senki) though expands out to give a more comprehensive view of this big demon fighting organization (who ALL dress like Final Fantasy characters) of other grim stoic Makai Knights, but also Makai Priests, who can't kill demons but do get magic calligraphy brushes that do all sorts of neat stuff, and have a bunch of duties managing invisible supernatural creatures that have a real Miyazaki movie vibe to keep Makai Knight gear all charged and maintained. Easily the best season.

V

S.

Akuma Ga Kyou Mo Fue O Fuku (Kikaider OP) submitted by RT-55J

Ooh, a deep cut, nice! So stop me if you've heard this one- Cool good scientist is being forced to work for this shadowy evil organization that wants to take over the world with various animal-themed robot monsters. He secretly creates a good android to fight back and protect his family, then is immediately killed, leaving his creation to just kinda wander around doing his best. That's the basic setup to Kikaider... and honestly, replace android with cyborg and it's also Kamen Rider, and the basic gist of most other things Shotaro Ishinomori created, which I'm pretty sure everything in this dome either directly are, or at least you can trace back a line of pretty direct influence. Past that, he's got this really distinct red/blue split, like Gil from Street Fighter, and is burdened with the nasty vulnerability that the main villain can just play a flute and keep him from transforming into hero mode. Oh and there is a weird connection between Kikaider and Kamen Rider Gaim I'll probably explain later in the dome.



NEXT BATTLE!

Revolution (Kamen Rider Ryuki) submitted by RT-55J

Kamen Rider Ryuki s a particularly influencial series. While everything before it in the Kamen Rider franchise generally had pretty clear cut battle lines between unambiguously evil villains and heroes who might have inner conflicts and personal grudges but ultimately fight for what's right, Ryuki's setup involves a bunch of people unwittingly making contracts with monsters from this freaky mirror dimension, thinking they're signing up for some proper superhero-y action, but actually signing up to a battle royale tournament where they have no choice but to fight eachother to the death. It's cited as the direct inspiration for Puella Magi Madoka Magika, and obviously for some later Kamen Rider series with a similar theme, like Gaim and Geats. It's also the first one to have a cool voice come from the protagonist's transformation device announcing all the form changers and finishers and such which was absolutely a thing from then on.

V

S.

Emerjason Theme, karaoke version (Tokusatsu Gagaga) submitted by Purple

I will freely admit it. I used bonus slots just as an excuse to write some context blurbs. Tokusatsu Gagaga is a 7 episode series based on a 20 volume manga about an adult woman who is an absolute massive nerd about tokusatsu shows and her absolutely crippling anxiety over the thought of her coworkers finding out and making fun of her (I of course relate like hell to all of this except I know these are great and unabashedly push them on my peers). So we've got episodes about her trying to negotiate with a 10-year old about a rare capsule toy she wants to buy when nobody's looking, and of course an episode where she's invited out to karaoke and realizes the only songs she knows by heart are... well, stuff like in this dome, eventually realizing she can totally sing them she just has to pretend she doesn't have them as well-memorized as she does. And of course later in the series she makes friends with other adults into this rad stuff and they get to bond over it. Good times. And... yeah this is the only version of the theme song to a fake show she ends up singing along to on karaoke night.

I am once again really torn here for my personal votes, but I think I'll have to go dragons in red and blue, just because there's so little of that classy brassy sound in here and I don't want to lose a real banger to a jokey nom.

Since I fell asleep before getting this up last night, you have until... 1/8 at 12:01 eastern to vote.

 

[RT-55J]

Waga Na Wa Garo

Revolution (dnag these were both rly good)

 

[Torzelbaum]

Waga Na Wa Garo
and
Revolution

 

[Vaeran]

Waga Na Wa Garo
and
Revolution

I'll have what he's having.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Waga Na Gagaga

 

[Purple]

Waga Na Wa Garo and Revolution move on, and wow is it easier to find finisher gifs for any specific Kamen Rider than Garo even broadly.
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

W-G-X (Fuuto PI) submitted by Hilene

Fuuto PI is an anime series based on a manga acting as a sequel series to Kamen Rider W, the first Kamen Rider show in what wiki nerds sometimes call "the Neo-Heisei era" and what I call "the point where the long term story structuring and general production values get real real good." Anyway, W is an all-time classic and arguably the best on-boarding point if you want to get into watching these, but you know, there's that weird gulf between anime-and-videogames and all-other-media-from-Japan so almost none of you have but I know a ton of you watched this anime spin-off with its green haired Philip and it's astoundingly sexualized new major character gal.

V

S.

Charge! Issei and Yoshi (Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still) submitted by Bongo Bill

Giant Robo is a real tokusatsu classic. As you can kind of tell from the name it's one of the first things to ever do the whole giant robot thing, back when rather than having pilots they tended to have annoying little kids bossing them around with radio watches. Anything from that would be perfect for this dome but the theme of this match-up is anime spin-offs, and this is actually a track from the amazingly good Giant Robo OAV from the mid-90s that randomly mashed up the titular Robo with a bunch of characters from original creator Mitsuteru Yokoyama, mainly a Water Margin adaptation. So sure sometimes giant robots duke it out but mostly it's just totally out of place wuxia swamp bandits going toe to toe with supervillains... and that's the specific context for this track.



NEXT BATTLE!

Kirai*Sailor Dream (Sailor Moon, live-action version) submitted by Johnny Unusual

I think we're all familiar with Sailor Moon, but maybe not with how it fits into the greater media landscape. In the west, Sailor Moon is THE thing people think of when they hear the term "magical girl series" and I mean, yeah, I wouldn't not count it as one by any means, but you need to understand that prior to Sailor Moon magical girl shows didn't actually tend to feature big teams of girls superhero-ing it up against monsters of the week. There was a lot more stuff with just one girl using magic to solve problems in usually non-violent ways. Then here comes this weird show throwing those aesthetics in a blender with a super sentai show, and here we are.

V

S.

Mothra (Mothra) submitted by Johnny Unusual

You know, I spent a day hand-arranging brackets to avoid anyone's noms going against their other noms until at least the semi-finals but Challonge had its own ideas and I can't seem to tweak it now. Sorry about that. But anyway, Mothra! Part of Toho's big ol' pantheon of giant monsters who mostly show up as extra characters in Godzilla movies, but she's one of the most prominent of those and originally had her own movie. Actually, there's a case to be made that Mothra is more of a species than a character, since the original film covered her whole lifecycle from egg to caterpillar to moth, and other appearances cycle back through all that, most notably Godzilla Vs. Mothra, where we actually have two simultaneous caterpillars... but she's generally always agreed to be the same character, just doing some sorta phoenix thing, and just happened to be twins the one time. Speaking of twins, a key bit of Mothra's whole deal is she has these two Barbie-sized women who sing this song of worship here and will absolutely beeline for them letting nothing stand in her way if they're separated.

This is another pair of tough ones for me, but I think I'm going to go with the wind-themed pairs.

Voting for this round ends at something like 3 AM eastern, January 9th.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Giant Moth

 

[Kirin]

Giant Moon

 

[Torzelbaum]

Charge! Issei and Yoshi
and
pass

 

[Vaeran]

Charge! Issei and Yoshi and Kirai*Sailor Dream

 

[RT-55J]

W-G-X

Sailor Moon

 

[Purple]

It's a very close pair of matches, but the Experts of Justice and Sailor Scouts move on.
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

Magical Chinese Girl Paipai! (OP from said) submitted by Johnny Unusual

Wow. I have absolutely never heard of this. If only I had a full episode I could just leave playing in the background while I write the rest of this post up. Half an hour later... OK yeah. That stuff I was saying about Sailor Moon warping western impressions of what a typical magical girl show is? This here, this is a typical magical girl show. We've got a bunch of people from some sort of China themed alternate magical realm hanging out and using their reality bending powers in various ways, but it's less of a monster of the week big superhero fight sort of deal and more random comedy antics with more of a sitcom feel, not unlike the original magical girl show, Bewitched. Yes really. Yes that Bewitched. It was a pretty big hit in Japan and really did serve as the original inspiration for all the rest of this stuff.

V

S.

I am Impact! (Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon) submitted by Ludendorkk

It is hard to explain just what a magical moment it is when you're playing what feels like a relatively unambitious and low budget Ocarina of Time-alike and out of nowhere you suddenly end up summoning your giant robot friend, complete with majestic 1970s tokusatsu show style theme music (incidentally here's a link to the full version of the song), and a cool intro, and then we really mix the gameplay up rampaging across the countryside and having a pilot POV giant robot duel. Damn good times, even if the result was a tad on the janky side.



NEXT BATTLE!

Climax Jump (Kamen Rider Den-O Opening) submitted by Hilene

Kamen Rider Den-O is in the running for the most popular show in the franchise, despite kinda spacing out and forgetting to introduce any sort of real antagonist until the final dozen episodes or so. Basically the premise is that someone is sending these violent demons back in time to possess people, take on forms based on their imagination, and then mostly just smash stuff really. Our protagonist is, arguably, some kid named Ryotaro whose basic deal is that he's just so damn naturally wimpy and submissive he ends up getting possessed by 4 or 5 future demons at once who kinda run a timeshare with his body, bringing the respective strengths of being really hot blooded/talking about his non-stop climaxes as much as Bayonetta, mostly getting laid a lot, being this oldschool wandering samurai type, and being a breakdancing 10 year old with a gun. Also Sieg but nobody cares about Sieg. Anyway they all hang out on a time traveling train drinking coffee and preventing tragedies in the recent-ish past. And this is where that one spit-take gif is from. Also towards the end of the series we get a remixed version of this theme where the main four demons are singing it instead of someone with a nice pleasant voice... which I could have sworn was the version Hilene nominated and therefore I kinda need to make a quick change behind the curtain here.

V

S.

Attack Godzilla (King of the Monsters) submitted by Bongo Bill

Godzilla needs no introduction, especially since I already introduced Godzilla back when we had the BOC song. This track though is from his original appearance, back in the 50s, in more of a straight up grim horror sort of movie than the sort of multiple kaiju wrestling match appearances we're probably all more familiar with. A real bombastic string-heavy theme that does a nice job of conveying that Godzilla is here and ready to wreck everything you've got.

Both of these are honestly really hard calls for me, but apparently I'm in a sparkly city pop sorta mood so Chinese Climax it is.

Voting ends around 3 AM Eastern, 1/10 assuming I don't lose power in a forthcoming storm.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I think I must have accidentally linked Paipai at the "current time" rather than from the beginning since this jumps straight past the opening to minute three so you'll need to backtrack

Also, I got mixed up and accidentally submitted the sequel series Ipanema, which is the same premise as Paipai but with a different lead magical Chinese girl. So sorry for the conclusion (but we can include this. Both series are from the tokusatsu series Toei Fushigi Comedy Series where the premise of each one was more lighthearted comedy with special effects.

Anyway, Magical Chinese Girl Godzilla

 

[Vaeran]

I'm a simple man: I hear an Ichiro Mizuki song, I vote for it.

I am Impact! and Attack Godzilla

 

[Kirin]

Getting in a vote for Impact! Zilla! before I *also* lose power in a storm.

 

[Torzelbaum]

I am Impact!
and
Attack Godzilla!

 

[Issun]

Magical Chinese Girl Godzilla

 

[RT-55J]

Magical Kamen Rider Paipai!