Back in 2018, I saw 2 anime that would send me down a rather large rabbit hole much later: SSSS Gridman and Garo: Vanishing Line.
Those two shows are two of my favorite shows of all time. Gridman, with its wonderful characters and unmistakable “Saturday morning cartoon” vibes, and Garo, with its old school badass feeling and great familial character bonds. I loved those two shows and I still love them now. Later on, I would find out that the two were based on these things called “Tokusatsu”, and that starts the story of how I got here right now.
Like a lot of people, I grew up loving stuff like Power Rangers and Super Human Samurai Syber Squad(if you remember this, you my nigga for real). However, like a lot of my peers, I never knew they were adaptations of Japanese live action shows. So, after very much loving those two shows, This past year, I took advantage of my new-found free time to get into Tokusatsu. To date. I have watched:
- The entire Garo franchise
- Kamen Rider
- Zero-One
- Ryuki
- Decade
- Kuuga
- Blade
- Agito
- Saber
- Faiz
- Build
- Ultraman
- Z
- Orb
- Taiga
- Watching the currently airing Trigger
- Both seasons of Dogengers
Even If There Is No God or Buddha… There Is Kamen Rider
Kamen Rider can usually be summed as “Lone Karate Bugman fights evil”. Usually, a normal but exceptionally well-meaning/good-natured young man will find himself suddenly weilding great power, and resolve to protect people and/or do what’s right with it. Out of the franchises I’ve dived into this past year, Rider is the most storied, with way more shows and movies with way more runtime than Garo & Ultraman.
Watching Kamen Rider is like watching live action Shonen anime in the best way possible. Transforming heroes and villains, epic finishing moves, tons of effects, the whole shebang. The designs of the series are probably my favorite part(although I love most aspects of every show I’ve watched so far). I’ve mostly watched the early Heisei era Kamen Rider, and I really love the drama aspects. Godai’s relationships with his friends, Shouichi’s journey for his memory, Shinji’s struggle to get his fellow riders to stop fighting, Takumi warming up to his friends, Kenzaki’s relationships with his fellow riders, etc. I appreciate that they were charater dramas just as much as kickass special effects shows. That isn’t to say that shows like build/Zero-One/Saber lacked good character interactions, but they can be bogged down by the increased focus on selling toys/introducing new forms and riders. I just really like KR’s way of putting the hero against the odds. Again, it’s the most like a shonen anime out of the 3 franchises I’ve watched, and I’ve been a Shonen jump anime/manga fan for damn near my entire life, so I’m a sucker for this stuff.
Build the Future, the Light of Hope!
In a similar manner to Kamen Rider, Ultraman can usually be summed as “Young man gains the power to transform into a giant of light and fights off Kaiju”. Ultraman is a very upbeat franchise in my experience. Every protagonist is warm and kind, as well as their ultra counterparts. That isn’t to say it can’t handle dark subject matter or get serious, but the general outline of a series is not as bleak as some Kamen Rider ones. None of the Ultraman series I’ve seen have gotten as dark as KR Faiz or Ryuki, and that’s fine.
Ultraman’s average run time(25 episodes compared to the 42+ of Kamen Rider and Super Sentai) means it gets to tell more concise stories. What’s impressive here is that it doesn’t necessarily neglect characters while doing this. If anything, it’s more character driven than narrative driven. While side characters don’t necessarily turn into your best friends, they do get their fair share of focus episodes and screen time, especially in Z.
Where the franchise really stands out is its battles. Unlike all the other tokusatsu shows, the giants of light are as big as billed, and so are their enemies. Instead of just fighting in an alleyway or street, the entire city is the battleground. The ultras have an awesome rogues’ gallery of monsters who look downright awesome. 4 shows in and I haven’t seen a bad monster suit.
Where There is Light , Shadows Lurk and Fear Reigns , But by the Blade of Knights , Mankind Was Given Hope.
Garo, without question, is not just my favorite tokusatsu franchise, but one of my favorite anythings period. Everything about it just appeals to me. The aesthetic, the characters, the music, all of it. There’s a reason I’ve seen all of it before the year even ended.
Garo is a much darker series than its peers. It follows Makai Knights, swordsmen tasked with eliminating horrors, monsters that take advantage of negative human emotion to invade the earth and kill people. No matter the universe or entry, no Garo show ever forgets the oath that Makai Knights take to be “Ones who protect”.
One of the first things that comes to mind with Garo is the action. Unlike other shows, the suits(the Makai armor in this case) are usually reserved for set pieces or finishers; the actors are doing most of the fighting themselves, and they do it well. The swordplay, all the flips and kicks, etc; they just kill it every single time. I’ve never watched a boring Garo fight. Straight up.
The designs in the series are godlike. Obviously, i have to sing the praises of the Garo suit, which looks great in every show, even when it was CG in The One Who Shines in The Darkness. All the other Makai armor look great, and the horrors are always interesting to look at.
Garo handles its characters the best out of any toku I’ve watched. Most characters are given satisfactory arcs and get a good bit of screen time. But what takes the cake is that there is an entire series dedicated to them. Makai Chronicles gives a lot of the side characters their own focus episodes so that we can see more of them and learn more about them. There are even some cool meetups, like with Leo and Yuna(priests who are also knights). There are also movies about some of the Makai priests. There was also a series about a villain. Jinga, played by Kamen Rider Decade’s Masahiro Inoue, was so popular, he was not only brought back for the Fang of God movie, but also his own 12 episode series that followed his adventures after being reincarnated in the future as a Makai Knight again.
There’s No One Way To Be A Hero
Following the adventures of the local heroes of a Japanese prefecture, Dogengers is just as much of a love letter to the genre of Tokusatsu as it is one to the heroes it stars. Take all the things that make Kamen Rider,Super Sentai, and Ultraman fun, and give them an affectionate noogie. That’s Dogengers. A lot of stuff that would be played straight in a normal toku show is comically subverted here. What I loved about Dogengers, especially the first season, is that it did it all so lovingly. What’s more is that despite that humor, it had a lot of heart, with some genuinely engaging stories to tell. You’re watching a loveable cast of idiots live up to their titles as heroes against fellow idiots who happen to be villains. There’s a lot to love here.
Scarred Souls Shine like Stars
The anime spinoffs for Gridman and Garo introduced me to my love for tokusatsu formally, and watching tokusatsu made my love for those shows even stronger. It also made me even more hype for Gridman’s 2nd season, Dynazenon. If I gushed about Dynazenon, I’d never leave my desk, so I will just say that it was the best thing to come out in 2021, no disrespect to Gundam Build Divers Re:Rise, which was also godlike.
But that was my point, yeah. Watching the genre that those anime came from just gives me so much more appreciation for them. Not only did they give me great memories directly, but they put me onto a whole new genre I can enjoy. I can’t wait to rewatch them and enjoy them even more when I get the chance.