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The Tokusatsudome Voting Thread!! ~SONG ATTACK~

Purple

(She/Her)
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Kamen Rider Blade easily makes the cut, while Garo gives us an exceptionally good song honed over a decade, but... Zubat just comes along and does better.
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

Izumi's Battle
(Commando Shoujo Izumi) submitted by @Johnny Unusual
So Commando Shoujo Izumi is part of this short-lived trend of badass Sukeban antiheroes fighting crimelords at school, but have I explained the whole sukeban thing yet? Basically in the 70s you had these highschool guys called bancho who had big ol' widescale interschool gang fights. It's what inspired stuff like River City Ransom, and some Jojo looks, and just yeah that whole open jacket, little hat, chewing a reed Japanese bully look. And that just kinda petered out within a decade, but because gangs, both that sort and the full on yakuza sort, and you know, also Japan in general had such a strong sexist streak, and this has never gone away, at the height of this, we also had girls forming their own gangs, and doing violent crimes while wearing their school uniforms, specifically with really long skirts to conceal their leg movements and you know, weaponry, and these DIDN'T just kinda fizzle out. These got huge, to the point where by the late 80s you'd be like walking down the street, turn a corner, see something like this, and just know absolute mortal terror.
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Taiyo Sentai Sunvulcan
(opening) submitted by @RT-55J
So if you're having a hard time keeping these straight, this was the Super Sentai show where we have this whole land sea and air thing with special forces types from the associated military branches forming their 3 part combining robot, which was, again, the first time one of these shows in particular went in for that bit, and something that caught the eye of Stan Lee which lead to a lot of interesting weird things, but not Power Rangers, yet.



NEXT BATTLE!


Rescue Fire
(Tomica Hero: Rescue Fire OP) submitted by @Vaeran
This doesn't particularly relate to Rescue Fire, but I've just randomly been watching a let's play of Firefighter F.D. 18, an obscure Konami PS2... Resident Evil-like game where you're just a fireman, going around hosing down fires, hacking through blocked off passages with an axe, and saving people... but then it still manages to have boss fights where there's a fire with a name and a health bar making big sweeping attacks and bringing in adds and such, straddling a weird line where it's like, are we just being slightly dramatic about how updrafts can cause flaming lab coats to swirl around the room or are these like, monster fires actively attacking? And it just has me that much more excited by the prospect of seeing this show sometime.

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Byun! Byun! ToQger!
(Train Sentai ToQger OP) submitted by @Hilene
I've never seen ToQger but feel ike I'd really enjoy it if I did. If only because it seems super upbeat and generally goofy on a level that makes a good chunk of the English-speaking audience get all bent out of shape all over the internet about how THIS show in the franchise aimed at 5 year olds is too kiddy for big serious grownups like them and my enjoying it would take them down a peg. And also because I keep seeing this screenshot and I'm not too proud to snicker at it.
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My votes today are hot as a flaming sun. And I could extend this pun/metaphor to how you need to vote within a day somehow but I feel like it'd be forced.
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Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
Staff member
Moderator
Taiyo Sentai Sunvulcan and Rescue Fire

EDIT: just fixed a typo, didn't change my vote
 
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Purple

(She/Her)
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Oh whoops. Fortunately not having the right song linked didn't keep it from unanimously sweeping, with a strong showing from Sunvulcan too.
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

No No Give Up
(Lady Battle Cop OP) submitted by @Kishi
This movie really is like, 90% Robocop with a big dangly earring and slightly less kissable lips, but then there's also just this random villain who is such a villain from Japanese media around the time. Just our random secret science land psycho soldier sorta dude. And it's really weird just how seemlessly that slides in.

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Double Action
(Kamen Rider Den-O) submitted by @Hilene
Den-O has come up a couple times in here. Have I mentioned Momotaros' constant shouting about his nonstop infinite climax? Naomi's absurdly fetishy PVC waitress outfit? How about Urataros' spit take gif that everyone uses without knowing this is what it's from?
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NEXT BATTLE!

Zankoku no Tenshi no Thesis
(Ichiro Kageyama cover) submitted by @Torzelbaum
Evangelion still isn't really a tokusatsu thing, but this cover does make it a whole lot easier to imagine as one. Big ol' spark showers coming off those angels, actual firepots instead of the big crosses, muppet-y Penpen... but oh damn would the kids all be '70s tokusatsu children? That would make it just unwatchable.

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Excite!
(Kamen Rider Ex-Aid OP) submitted by Purple
I've still only seen maybe like the first dozen episodes of Ex-Aid, so I'm still not over the fact that the main character totally embraces turning into offbrand Mario and hopping around to hit blocks and stuff before properly taking out the virus of the week, and then getting totally indignant about the more competent doctor whose default transformation is off-brand dragon quest ignoring all the treasure chests that get strewn about and talking like this is just some kinda regular surgical procedure he's performing.

It's really getting hard for me to narrow any of these votes down so I'm just going to let the natural momentum of being specifically all into Kamen Rider shows sway me.
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Choo-choo-chose your noms by tonight. Ideally actually tonight and not noon the next day too, I really need to fix my sleep schedule.
 

Purple

(She/Her)
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A victory for things based on things not as rooted in this medium as the rest.
Bracket

What's this!? We've finished our first two rounds of voting! You know, nominations have been really great and varied, but I feel like we don't really have enough representation of the roots of tokusatsu in that real "wow this was shot on FILM '70s vibe. So please indulge me in lending a little time in the sun to some oldschool baffling stuff.


... OK honestly we have some of the earliest super sentai stuff, Spiderman, and Godzilla all over the place, I just got recommended that and had to share the bit with "Hitler's treasure." Oh and speaking of Godzilla...

FIRST BATTLE!

Godzilla
(TNT promo edit of the Blue Öyster Cult song) submitted by @Torzelbaum
Godzilla (honestly kind of a grim disaster movie more than anything) came out in 1954, with a sequel the next year... but then that was it. Until a weird bit of international film distribution/promotion shennanigans brought about King Kong Vs. Godzilla a full decade later, after which point we wouldn't go more than 2 years without the big G having a new movie out all the way up through 1975. Then after taking a decade off, there was just a slight pause after his return, then another 4 year breather in the mid-90s (3 if you want to count the awful American one), while otherwise getting right back into that pace through 2004. His recent American outings have been a little slower but still quite steady, but to be fair, that's a longer commute.

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Credit on that.

Charge! Issei and Yoshi (Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still) submitted by @Bongo
I want to share more trivia here, but what to choose? Random Water Margin research, the true origin of the characters whose theme we're listening to? The Day the Earth Stood Still, the OAV these (partly gender swapped) versions of them come from? Or perhaps O.G. Giant Robo, which was, you know, an actual tokusatsu thing? Right. So the original Giant Robo, like... honestly basically every heroic character from Japanese media that doesn't do the young kid gets pulled into a situation thing was originally created by the very evil organization he fights against, Big Fire, and despite being a compromised prototype pretty consistently wins out over all their later attempts to improve on their original creation. Seriously, that basic setup is just EVERYWHERE.


NEXT BATTLE!

Revolution
(Kamen Rider Ryuki) submitted by @RT-55J
The Kamen Rider shows from the '70s weren't generally silly per se (in spite of the above clip collection), but they had a real Big Strong-jawed Heroes Vs. Cartoonish Nazi Stand-ins sort of thing going (the original Kamen Rider's actor was Segata Sanshiro even). Then in the 90s there was a weird reinvention effort that was pretty body horror focused, which was a bit too big a swing into darker territory. When things properly came back in 2000 though, it was with a pretty dark tone. Things were still fairly kid-friendly and toyetic but there was a real grim grounding for a while, with Kamen Rider Kuuga having like... police procedural stuff about serial killings, and one of Agito's multiple leads being a bit monstrous himself. So it's not too strange that the third Heisei series would go straight up tragic fight to the death.

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Justiφ's
(Kamen Rider 555 opening theme) submitted by @Hilene
Continuing that last bit of history, since 555 directly followed Ryuki and all, this early 2000s grimness had an edge to it that took a good bit to dull. I'm pretty sure 555 here and Blade both kept things pretty serious in tone, and Hibiki having this whole... becoming oni and taking out the more people-eat-y sort of yokai thing that alienated people and lead to drastic rewrites, and that, I think, was the end of this generally quite serious-minded run for the franchise. The next few would progressively lighten things up, at least tonally, before really hitting the perfect sorta melodrama/toyetic balance with W and mostly keeping to that going forward... at least for another good half a decade.

DAMN this is a hard one for me to vote on. Particularly this second matchup. Gonna have to go with Godzilla and Ryuki though. Big dragony times.
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I'm in sleep schedule hell, so vote by probably dawn-ish?
 

Purple

(She/Her)
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555 narrowly beats out Ryuki in a heartbreaker of a match. Godzilla and Giant Robo however continue to clash a bit, should anyone want to cast a tiebreaker.
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

Alive a Live
(Kamen Rider Ryuki OP) submitted by @RT-55J
I think I mentioned the whole mirror world deal Ryuki employs, but I don't think I made it clear just how literal that is. When people head into the battle dimension to fight eachother and various big monsters, they enter reflections, and there's some pretty cool effects where their battles can be seen from the real world reflected in the paint of cars, puddles, and shop windows. It reminds me a bit of the Resident Evil remake's invisible enemies mode.

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Kakero! Spider-Man
(Spider-Man OP) submitted by @Kishi
One thing I don't like that keeps showing up in Showa era Kamen Rider shows is we keep having big hordes of random crappy mooks, who usually tend to have rather annoying verbal ticks, dull designs, and really just feel like trash mobs. Spider-Man is pretty back about it in particular. This is actually something that finds its way into some later shows too, but they tend to be less annoying with it, and I really cant fault it too much because look when you're doing 50-ish episode shows and you have one a year,demanding that every single episode has a new monster of the week has to be ABSURDLY demanding on concept artists and costumers alike. So sometimes someone needs to mostly fight generic mooks and let people catch up, you know?



NEXT BATTLE!

Power Rangers Dino Super Charge
(opening theme) submitted by @Torzelbaum
I kinda like that one bastardized Power Rangers type themesong is still in the running. I'm still hoping the ultimate winner is something a little more authentic, but again if there's one thing Saban/Levy consistently deliver on its some real rockin' and memorable themes, and again, credit where it's due here.

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Attack Godzilla
(King of the Monsters) submitted by @Bongo
I'm also really happy to see Godzilla has so much staying power. He's always been a big part of my life. I don't think I'd be the same person without marathoning so many of his films in my youth. And again, this really is honestly quite a powerful theme, really capturing the urgeancy and intensity of this big ol' lizard just totally on the warpath and needing to be taken down by any means necessary, but still kind of working when he's in a more heroic roll almost as well.

While I'm trying to favor the stuff without so much western representation, today I think I need to go with what's relatively popular here.
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Vote by tomorrow night please. And a tiebreaker would be great.
 

Purple

(She/Her)
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Godzilla wins twice, once by coin, while Spider-Man just barely squeaks by.
Bracket

FIRST BATTLE!

Spider-Man
(opening) submitted by @Torzelbaum
If things continue like this, we might have Spider-Man facing off against himself in the semi-finals, which admittedly seems to be Spiderman's main deal these days.

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(I love how often I can just do this.)

Hayakawa's Theme (Kaiketsu Zubat) submitted by @Bongo
I guess Zubat also fights himself a lot, in a way. At least, he fights people who are almost as good at him at various things a lot. Which I guess is really less remarkable when you're the best at everything. '70s tokusatsu stuff, really not big on like... credible threats to the heroes, generally speaking.



NEXT BATTLE!

Round ZERO
(Kamen Rider Blade OP) submitted by @RT-55J
It's kinda weird how much of a similar vibe mid-90s Kamen Rider themes tend to have to mid-90s anime themes. Or maybe it isn't, but I feel like mid-2000s anime was kinda moving away from this kinda sparkley melody with grungy guitars. Is that just me? I guess the real thing to do is check if that trend holds if we back up a decade. Let's see what was Kamen Rider like in the 90s? Oh. Right.

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Green Slime
(theme) submitted by @Bongo
I haven't talked much about the actual music we're voting on but I guess that's what I'm doing with this particular match-up. This sort of thing actually does work pretty well for horror and I'm kinda surprised we haven't really seen a resurgeance of it. Like, take Mandy. There's a horror movie (I think?) just SLATHERED in this bong-water-soaked late '70s/early '80s shag carpet vibe, but the soundtrack is all very modern horror weird droning (and a little John Carpenter), no randomly bringing in like, The Doors. You know?

Anyway, I'm going Spider-Man and Round ZERO.
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Try to get votes in by, I dunno, 4 or 5 AM Eastern let's say?
 
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