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Post by Deinonychus on Jul 23, 2021 22:41:19 GMT -5
So, while I figure out how to get the site you supplied working with my iPad Nyaa is an index of BitTorrent links. You'd need to use a BitTorrent client to download the files on a computer, but once you have them you could watch on your iPad if you wanted. VLC would work for that. Yup…learning all this as I go. Torrenting isn’t something I’ve had to explore for media I’ve been interested in since I was buying copious bootleg VHS tapes of Godzilla movies and Transformers anime from ebay back in the late 90s. As far as the subtitles on the DVDs go…they’re pretty consistently good. There were a handful of episodes during Double where you could tell it had been done by a translator who wasn’t as good as the others. During those I sometimes found the spoken Japanese more comprehensible than the subtitles…but those were rare instances. Other than a few cases where I know the translation wasn’t 100% on point (like when it would make like Double was saying “Now, time to count up your crimes.”) I have no real complaints. Cracked into the movie set by watching W & Decade Movie War 2010 (Skull is as cool as I had hoped), and then Kamen Rider The First. Loved how they updated the Showa era suits and enemies…but man, that story dragged.
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Post by triumshockwave on Jul 26, 2021 9:56:58 GMT -5
I've harvested a lot of 80's and 90's anime off Nyaa recently. It's like the Pirate Bay, but just for Asian media, and most of the stuff is actually seeded.
The First and The Next are cool, but yeah story-wise they kind of drag. The "Movie Wars" were something W & Decade started and continued through the Heisei "Phase 2" era, though they kind of dropped the "Movie War" label. They're not always the best, but they're fun, like the Super Sentai "VS" movies. I'm not sure if they're still going to be doing those. There wasn't one for Saber and Zero-One, but maybe that's pandemic related?
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Post by Deinonychus on Jul 27, 2021 10:04:21 GMT -5
Kamen Rider: The Next sort of felt like someone had a script for a Japanese horror flick and half of a Kamen Rider script written and just decided to shuffle the two together. I hadn't intended on watching many of the Showa-era movies but I decided to give Birth of the 10th, Kamen Riders All Together a whirl and work backwards if I thought that one was any good. It wasn't bad, but it was still hilariously Showa and didn't encourage me to really dig into anything much older than the ZO or J movies. Those two I'd already watched on YouTube and, honestly, I can't tell you a single thing between the two which distinguishes one from the other in my memory. I also watched Shin Kamen Rider from there and that was....that was definitely it's own unique thing. Kamen Rider G was pretty fun for being a one-off. The whole wine theme was entertaining if nothing else. I really enjoyed Kamen Rider 1. I've only watched a handful of original Kamen Rider episodes, so I didn't get the nostalgic buzz I'm sure I was supposed to with this one, but despite that, Kunihiro Fujioka has some real gavitas and screen presence, so I bought into the sentiment and intent of that movie 100%. Also, after consuming quite a bit of this stuff recently, to have a main character who's an older dude as opposed to a younger pretty-boy was kind of refreshing. I also loved how when he transformed, his Rider form was all bulky and armored and looked pretty badass. One thing that stuck out for me was at the beginning when the army of original-recipe Shocker guys runs up against a bunch of new and updated Nova Shocker guys. I was just imagining the older goons having a Venture Brothers-style conversation upon seeing the newer guys like "Hey, what the hell man! Look at those guys! They've got armor and helmets and all that cool chrome and all we get are these spandex Luchador suits. And look, they have full-on swords and all we get are these $8 Wal-Mart machetes. Geez...I bet the even get benefits. Health, dental, matching 401K..."So, now I'm starting with the Super Sentai crossovers. Not expecting too much from these simply because, despite my best efforts, I've never been able to get into Sentai or the US version. Still, Kamen Rider × Super Sentai: Super Hero Taisen was entertaining enough. I was struck by the scene at the end where the bad guy army is all lined up with the warships hovering overhead and they're facing-down the last Sentai and Rider. Then all these portals open and the heroes we were lead to believe were dead all come streaming through and line up together before everyone charges each other to start the final battle. Seems Marvel was taking notes But that scene got more and more impressive to me the more I thought about it. Those days of shooting must have been an amazing undertaking. You've got like 150-175 different Sentai dudes and 25-30 Riders all in unique costumes, plus all of the bad guys and associated goons and monsters in their unique costumes. Then there's the crew and support staff and craft services and pyro guys and everything that goes along with making a movie all in some rock quarry in Japan. Damn... But yeah...so far enjoying my new interest
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Post by triumshockwave on Jul 30, 2021 11:20:23 GMT -5
In Japan, there's a thing where idol groups will have their own TV shows. The group SMAP had one, and Kamen Rider G was a segment they did. Apparently Goro was a Kamen Rider fan, so he was super down to be a Rider even if in jest. The wine if I recall is also an in-joke for their fans because Goro is a wine guy.
It's cool to see mainstream Japanese celebrities want to collaborate because they have a connection to the franchise. GACKT did the theme for Decade because he liked the Showa stuff as a kid, likewise for TM Revolution doing the theme for Zero-One. Anna Tsuchiya did the theme for Fourze because her son was into it. Even the Heisei stuff is old enough now that the actors on the new shows watched like Kuuga or Faiz as a kid.
Regarding filming, as you watch this stuff, you'll see the same locations keep popping up. Especially that one quarry where they film a lot of big scenes, because it's one of the few places the government will let them light off all that pyro.
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Post by triumshockwave on Jul 30, 2021 11:22:13 GMT -5
Oh, and you should watch Black. It's not like the rest of the Showa stuff, it's actually pretty dope.
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Post by Deinonychus on Aug 4, 2021 16:24:24 GMT -5
The adventure continues...
Strangely enough, the day before you mentioned the thing about the quarry, I had found a site that chronicled a bunch of those shared filming locations between Kamen Rider and Super Sentai. I even stumbled onto a blog where this dude and his wife got wedding pictures taken at the quarry with an explosion behind them. That was pretty next-level right there.
I watched the first two episodes of Black on YouTube from your recommendation, and it looks like it has some potential. While it definitely doesn't feel overwhelmingly "Showa" to me, it does feel extremely 80's. That in and of itself isn't a bad thing, I've just watched way too many low-budget 80's action films from Rifftrax recently for my brain to take the whole thing as seriously as it should be taken. Still, I'll see where my DVD viewing and procurement takes me.
Just for shits and giggles I also watched a handful of episodes of Saban's Masked Rider after that. When people ask why Kamen Rider never took off in the US, this should be all the illustration they need. That is some grade-a garbage right there. I guess one of the episodes I watched (#40) was the series finale, but I watched it because the thumbnail had a bunch of other Riders in it. There wasn't much to it, but the scene where all the Riders introduce themselves and get their own names mixed up was worth it.
So, next in my journey through the movies came Kamen Rider × Super Sentai × Space Sheriff: Super Hero Taisen Z which was pretty rote, but it was neat getting a taste of some of the Metal Heroes tossed into that one. Also, watching a Kamen Rider give a "Power Ranger" a key that turns them into a "Beetle Borg" was worth the price of admission.
Heisei Rider vs. Shōwa Rider: Kamen Rider Taisen feat. Super Sentai is certainly a thing that exists. Not much about this one stood out as remarkable to me, save for the small bit during the end credits where Shotoro Hidari is looking for a lost cat and doing his awful cat imitation again.
Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider OOO & W Featuring Skull: Movie War Core was another great bit of backstory and fill-in for W featuring Skull. The OOO bit with a resurrected Nobunaga was pretty neat, and the climax was sort of a "okay, now we need to pull this all together" type deal, but it was a fun watch.
Last night was Kamen Rider W Returns : Kamen Rider Accel. This one I liked a lot. Ryu Terui really had to grow on me during the course of W, but this movie made me think he may have been underutilized. This one was more of a "hard-boiled" crime drama with some surprising beats. I know the W characters do show up here and there in later series and movies, but man, I'm going to miss those people once we finish watching the Eternal movie here in a while.
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Post by triumshockwave on Aug 4, 2021 19:04:09 GMT -5
BTW... the new Rider is powered by dinosaurs.
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Post by triumshockwave on Nov 4, 2021 13:09:19 GMT -5
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Post by Deinonychus on Nov 14, 2021 12:41:13 GMT -5
VERY close. I actually pre-ordered the W driver. Depending on my disposable income situation after the holidays, I might pick the Lost Driver up, but we’re currently watching OOO now and I think my Wife is gonna want that driver before we’re done. We also found a way to watch Revice. It seems strange watching one new episode of a Rider show a week as opposed to one after another several times a week. Especially after I blew through Agito and Amazons both in about a month.
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Post by triumshockwave on Nov 15, 2021 15:09:12 GMT -5
I got the DX OOO Driver and all of the various Core Medals back when that was the current thing. It's kind of wild how that works since all the electronics are in the hand scanner, the medals don't have batteries like Gaia Memories or Lock Seeds, or a lot of the other gadgets they've had since W. They're just passively powered by induction from the hand scanner. The Wizard Rings work the same, except they also light up which is cool.
I just threw down on the CSM Decadriver stuff.
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