Tokusatsu - Why it's rad and where to start

 

I've been reading a lot of western comics recently, and a common feeling I get as I read them is that whenever I see these larger-than-life characters on the in live-action, I'm seeing a diluted version. Spider-Man is an excellent example. Raimi's movies are eminently enjoyable camp masterpieces, but there are certain toned-down elements of the works being adapted that I'm a bit more mixed on. Things like Peter Parker's darker elements being toned way down being the biggest one. It's far from the worst offender however, as The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel demonstrate. While Peter Parker himself has a bit more of an edge, the amount of liberties taken with the source material mixed with odd examples of rigid adherence and generally weak scripting make for an overall confusing watch. And that's not even getting into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all its various characters. While I'm no big MCU detractor, and in fact appreciate how it's brought some of the source's more bizarre elements into the forefront, there's no denying just how many sanded-down edges there are all around.

Wouldn't it be great if there was an ever-expanding universe of live-action superheroes where I didn't have to worry about adaptational changes? That wore its darker elements and more zany elements on both sleeves simultaneously?

Look no further than the live action tokusatsu shows that Japan has been pumping out for over a decade. While these series are a bit of a commitment at an average length of 45 episodes, there's a lot of great content here that you might just miss out on.

These shows have a lot to offer from their unique comedic style, themes, and cool suits. Those suits are doubly cool because they're always real suits. Not to knock on CGI costumes, but it's just so satisfying to never be in doubt as to wether or not what I'm watching has any physical weight to it.

Now, I could bore you to death with an extensive history of the industry and how it developed, but that's a task unto itself. This is a recommendation. And I'm not suggesting it as an alternative to any of the big western superheroes. Think of it as a supplement and companion piece. After all, if you're enough of a trivia hound, you probably know how much DNA they already share.

Now let's start by covering the two Shotaro Ishinomori-created series you're probably going to be watching if you have any interest in this genre. I'd like to talk about Ultraman, but that's an entire topic of discussion unto itself. So without further ado... 

Kamen Rider

Kamen Rider is a series that started out with a simple premise: a college-age motorcyclist named Takeshi Hongo gets turned into a cyborg by Neo-Nazis, escapes their capture, and uses his powers to beat up said Neo-Nazis. It was weird, campy,  and a cultural phenomenon that has endured in Japan to this day. If you've seen a parody of Japanese superheroes, chances are it's a direct reference to Kamen Rider. And that's not even getting into how easy it is to find people sneaking its transformation poses into their work.

Rider is a good starter course for toku not simply because of how iconic it is, but because of the variety of content on offer. Each season, while it may reference previous ones here and there, is decidedly its own thing, with its own hero, supporting cast, and villains. The only exception to this is Kamen Rider Black RX, the maligned sequel to the fan-favorite Kamen Rider Black. The series is also organized in a notable way. There are specific eras of Kamen Rider, Showa, Heisei, and Reiwa, each roughly based off the imperial era in which a certain Rider debuted.

Showa shows are decidedly camp in an almost 60's Batman way, but only in a visual sense. While these shows can definitely get weird and crazy, their plots are told with utter sincerity, and can broach some rather surprising subject matter considering the intended age group they were made for. And when explicitly adult-oriented variants like Shin Kamen Rider emerged, it veered into straight-up horror.

Heisei shows started out continuing this trend with the premiere of Kamen Rider Kuuga, a reboot that saw its hero, Yusuke Godai, fighting a group of ancient monsters who went on surprisingly brutal killing sprees in each episode. Two years later, Kamen Rider Ryuki made the bold decision to place its cast of Riders in a battle royale, which would end up becoming the norm as the series progressed.

However, it was the premiere of the massively popular Kamen Rider Den-O in 2007, which would end up steering the series future in a new direction. Comedic and zany with marketable monster sidekicks, Den-O was still genuine and emotional, but also generally more cartoonish and family friendly. Now, its predecessors were, even at their darkest, still prone to many of these same elements, but never quite to this extent.

For reference, 2004's Kamen Rider Faiz starts out on perhaps the single bleakest first episode of any children's show I've ever seen.

While not all shows after it would be quite as comedic as Den-O, and it didn't even immediately result in an overt shift to a less serious style of storytelling. However, with the start of the Heisei era's second half, the Neo-Heisei era, things would quickly change.

From here on, Rider not only gets lighter and brighter, it also gets louder. The iconic transformations of early eras definitely weren't subdued, but with even more complex designs and an ever increasing roster, they often sound delightfully cacophonous. And this trend has generally continued into the Reiwa Era, and the most recent season, Kamen Rider Revice.

So where should you start? There's a couple paths you could take.

Ichigou

You could try the original classic Kamen Rider, or Kamen Rider Ichigou as he's commonly known. It's the first series, and easily one of the most iconic. As previously mentioned, this follows Takeshi Hongo as he fights the Neo-Nazi cabal, Shocker for thirteen episodes until the actor's broken leg required them to replace him for about a third of the series. This series establishes many of the running motifs of the series, particularly the tendency for the hero to fight evil by turning its own power against it.

Kuuga

If that vintage style just isn't your thing however, you could try out Kamen Rider Kuuga, which manages an extremely delicate balance between light and dark tones exceptionally well. The series follows Yusuke Godai and his not-boyfriend, police officer Kaoru Ichijo, as they hunt down a group of monsters whose bizarre rituals result in several family-unfriendly civilian casualties. Thankfully, Godai's new magic belt seems to be helping him do that, but it also might be turning him into something just as monstrous.

Fourze, W, and OOO

If the lighter tone of Neo-Heisei sounds up your alley, you could try the first three series of that era, W (Double), OOO, and Fourze back to back. They're all some of the strongest seasons ever produced and serve as a great vertical slice of tonality for this era.

W tells the story of Shotaro Hidari and his omniscient not-boyfriend Philip as they run a detective agency together while combining into Kamen Rider W to fight monsters. Check this one out if you're into a little light detective fiction

OOO follows Eiji Hino and his not-boyfriend Ankh, a greedy monster who grants Eiji the power to turn into a Rider in order to wipe out his fellow greedy monsters. This season is notable for being one of the most thematically dense of the entire franchise, featuring a vibrant supporting cast and a surprisingly mature mediation on both the danger and necessity of desire. And for the anime buffs out there, it's one of the many toku shows helmed by Yasuko Kobayashi, writer for the adaptations of Attack on Titan and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Fourze is, surprisingly, one of the only Kamen Rider shows about a high-school superhero, following Gentaro Kisaragi as he attempts to befriend every student and teacher at his new school, even if most of them are monsters in hiding. This is another super-lighthearted one, possibly even moreso than Den-O, but it's also scripted by Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill writer Kazuki Nakashima.

But if you're looking for a contemporary take, there is another option.

Zero-One

Kamen Rider Zero-One follows failed comedian Aruto Hiden as he is simultaneously forced into superheroics and inheriting his grandfather's robotics company in order to prevent a robot uprising. This show boasts incredibly strong action, endearing characters, and some surprising social commentary on how the working class are viewed as tools by the upper-class.

Now, there are far more starting points you could choose from. My first Rider was Ex-Aid, the video game themed season. If you're still curious, just watch a henshin compilation on youtube and watch whichever show looks the coolest, even if it's one of the more reviled shows by the fanbase.

But of course, Kamen Rider is only one series of tokusatsu juggernauts. Now it's time to talk about its sibling...

Super Sentai

Created in part because someone at Toei realized that having a team of superheroes inherently increased the amount of toys you could sell, Super Sentai is primarily known as that one show that inspired Power Rangers. Now, where to start with Rangers is a whole other ballgame entirely. This context does however give me a lot less explaining to do since you've likely at least heard of Power Rangers and understand its conceit: multicolored heroes fighting bad guys, bad guy blows up, giant robot fight.

This is adapted pretty faithfully from Sentai, as are the plots... sometimes. Sometimes you get shows like Time Force, which are adapted almost shot-for-shot and beat-for-beat from their originator, and sometimes you get RPM, which turns the largely comedic Go-Onger from a wacky vehicle-themed romp into the post-apocalypse from The Terminator because Disney was about to sell the rights to Power Rangers and probably weren't paying attention to what their showrunners were doing.

Either way, Sentai follows a similar developmental track to Rider, though with the caveat that despite being a younger series, Kamen Rider's hiatus in the 90's means that there are even more shows in Sentai. It's also generally lighter in tone than Rider, which, and I cannot emphasize this enough, is not an indictment of it whatsoever. It doesn't make it shallower, worse, or even less appreciable, it's merely a stylistic distinction. There is also a bit less plot variance in terms of setup for this franchise, most of them boil down to "evil army is attacking, here's five or so guys who can stop it," with the main variance being the team's dynamic and personalities. But make no mistake, they're not interchangeable.

So where do you start? Well that's a bit more difficult.

The Gorengers

Himitsu Sentai Gorenger (Secret Squadron Gorenger) is the first series, and helped to establish the franchise's staple elements, however, it isn't quite as highly regarded as its counterpart, Ichigou is for Kamen Rider. It's a fairly basic "save the world" story, following five survivors of a massacre on an anti-terrorism organization called EAGLE as they fight yet another Nazi-themed evil organization: the Black Cross Empire. There are definitely more interesting places to start however.

The Livemen

"My friends, why have you sold your souls to the devil?!"

Those words, sounded before the theme song of episode, eternally remind viewers of Choju Sentai Liveman (Super Beast Squadron Liveman), of the murder that kicks off the story, and of how its effects permeate the rest of the series.

The first series to feature a female blue ranger, Liveman is one of the heavier entries, following three teenage science prodigies who witness their classmates kill their friends in cold blood. Years later, when the killers return as members of an evil cult, leveling their old school grounds for good measures. Our heroes don their suits in order to fight back against them, and hopefully bring them back to their senses.

Definitely on the darker side of things, Liveman is a bit of a heavy watch compared to other entries in the series. Of course, it's not humor-averse, but the commentary here, directed at elitist Japanese education standards, is surprisingly grounded as far as these shows go.

The Megarangers

Now, maybe you're nostalgic for the Mighty Morphin' days and want some teenagers with attitude. Maybe you want me to tell you to watch Zyuranger so that you can see what it was like for the Japanese audience?

Well first off, Zyuranger wasn't about high school, it was about ancient dinosaur warriors awoken in modern Japan fighting a Satanic witch. And second, while Denji Sentai Megaranger (Electromagnetic Squadron Megaranger) is not the first example of a high-school oriented Sentai series, it is probably my personal favorite.

The series follows a high school computer club who, due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time, are forced to take up the role of superheroes after they're given experimental suits to fight invaders from another dimension. While its companion Power Rangers In Space was a space opera, Megaranger is a bit more grounded and focused on the importance of guiding younger generations towards a better tomorrow. It's further bolstered by a take on high school that's far more grounded than Mighty Morphin' ever was. If the latter was what I believed high school was going to be like for me, Megaranger is more in line with how it actually went.

The Magirangers

Mahou Sentai Magiranger (Magical Squadron Magiranger) is notable for being one of three series to be a "family Sentai." In other words, all of the primarily members are siblings, and only one of the additional members isn't related to them.

Like most of the previously mentioned series, Magiranger follows similar beats of an invading evil army, but the context behind the powers granted to the heroes, a gift from their mother before she's imprisoned by their enemies, lends a bit more emotional weight to their struggle. The series follows the Ozu family as they not only fight evil, but attempt to adjust to life without their mother and being forced to rely on each other in ways they previously hadn't needed. This is a more lighthearted one, and it's clearly cribbing off that one magic-themed book series that shall not be named, but the cast's familial chemistry is both believable and engaging, and it has what might be one of my favorite mid-season additions to a team in any of these series.

The Gokaigers

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (Pirate Squadron Gokaiger), is an anniversary season, celebrating thirty-five years of Sentai with a bit of a shakeup to the premise.

In this series, all previous Sentai teams have used up all of their power to defeat an invading alien force called the Zangyack, scattering their essence into the cosmos.

However, a group of space pirates has discovered the Ranger Keys containing said power, and returned to earth in order to track down "the Greatest Treasure in the Universe." Initially unconcerned with actively fighting the Zangyack, their journey brings them into contact with various other Sentai heroes, all of whom are played by their original actors, which is something tokusatsu tends to be very anal about. Characters are almost always tied to specific actors, this is a primarily live action genre after all. So the fact that they were able to get so many back is incredible.

And this has narrative weight to it, each cast member guiding the Gokaigers towards genuine heroism. This can be a bit intimidating, after all, it almost reeks of the overly complex lore that permeates western comics. But it's surprisingly approachable and enjoyable even if you're a Sentai neophyte.

So there, those are the best series for starting out your toku binge, at least as far as Kamen Rider and Super Sentai are concerned. Again, you should start wherever looks most interesting to you, these are obviously my picks as filtered through my own biases. But trust me, there's an entire world out there you're missing if you decide to pass these shows up. Yeah they're campy, yeah they're made for kids, but hey, at Hideaki Anno can't get enough of them, and if he can go on to create and direct some of the most influential pop culture of all time, you're probably fine.