I’ve had to help some people out with this recently and decided having a post up on here is way better than having to type up shit on twitter every time.
What Is Tokusatsu and Why You should Give It a Try
Tokusatsu are essentially Live-Action TV shows that make regular use of special effects, especially practical effects. An easy example of this would be rubber suits rather than CGI suits, although that’s not to say Tokusatsu shows don’t make use of CGI, especially today.
There’s not a whole lot to say about specific reasons to watch Tokusatsu, actually. At least, I don’t have a lot of words for it. If you’re the type that enjoys shonen anime, Japanese-developed video games, superhero comic books/cartoons, or even just Kung-Fu movies, you’d probably like Tokusatsu. They’re very much cut from the same cloth as a lot of other content you probably enjoy if you’re someone I linked this post to/who found their way to this blog naturally. Honestly, if you’re around my age(early-mid twenties) or older, the best sales pitch I can give you is that Tokusatsu are a great way of seeing a good version of all the shitty live-action anime adaptions we’ve had to sit through over the years. You’re tired of all that live-action slop that Netflix/Marvel/Whoever keeps throwing at you? Check out some tokusatsu series. They’re a stellar palette cleanser at worst in this scenario.
You know what you like. Do you like transformation sequences? What about cool fights with usually minimal CGI? Upstanding heroes and their quirky friends? Chances are that the answer to at least one of those was yes, and that means you’re in the right place.
What Are The Big Notable Franchises?
The ‘Big 3" of Toku as we’ll call em for now are Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, and Ultraman. These are the longest-running and most popular franchises in the genre, Rider & Sentai being owned by Toei and Ultraman by Tsuburaya.
Outside of this, we have Garo, which, when compared to the former three, is more akin to a cult classic. Don’t get me wrong, Garo is a successful franchise with multiple entries and even some anime adaptions. It’s just not as big as the three formerly mentioned.
On a similar note, Gridman is an IP that has seen a resurgence this past 5-6 years thanks to its anime spin-offs SSSS Gridman and SSSS Dynazenon. There hasn’t been a new live-action entry, but these anime are as tokusatsu as you can get without being live-action. Same can be said for Garo’s anime adaptions.
A smaller series that picked up a suprising amount of steam is Dogengers. A series about wacky local heroes, it’s been getting new seasons on the regular, with its latest finishing up not too long ago this year.
The Big 3 all have a new entry every single year. Think of them like Final Fantasy or Tales of games; each entry usually has nothing to do with the one before it, so you can always just pick the one that looks cool to you and jump in.
Garo and Gridman have multiple good jumping on points, but continuity matters. Being specific, in Garo, there are two different live action universes with their own continuities, and the anime adaptions take place in the same world at different points in history. For Gridman, SSSS Gridman takes place a good amount of time after the live-action series, and Dynazenon a bit after SSSS Gridman.
How Do I Watch(legally)?
Legally speaking, you are very limited in what and where you can find these series.
Power Rangers + Super Sentai
We are all familiar with Power Rangers. If you’ve seen Power Rangers, you’re already kinda-sorta halfway toku-pilled, my friend. Power Rangers, for the vast majority of its existence on TV, has been the action segments of Super Sentai with american actors and plotlines making up everything else. Our boy Tommy Oliver(RIP JDF!), the Green Ranger? In the OG Japanese Sentai, that’s Burai, the DragonRanger.
This is one of the easier transitions. If you’re a fan of PR, you’ll def be a fan of SS. Granted, not all the PR adaptions are 1:1, but you get the idea.
Staying on Power Rangers for a second, if you feel like having a nostalgia trip, several entire season are available officially on Youtube .
Sentai, to my knowledge, is available primarily on Shout! Factory.
Carranger (PR Turbo) Dairanger (No PR Counterpart) Gaoranger (Wild Force) Gingaman (Lost Galaxy) GoGoFive (Lightspeed Rescue) Hurricaneger (Ninja Storm) Jetman (No PR Counterpart) Kakuranger (Had some footage in MMPR season 3 & Alien Rangers) Megaranger (In Space) Ohranger (Zeo) Timeranger (Time Force) Zyuranger (MMPR)
Kamen Rider
Kamen Rider is barely here. To Toei’s credit, most Kamen Rider series have their first 2 episodes available on Youtube with subtitles. Besides that, it’s mostly Shout! factory again and Amazon randomly having Kamen Rider Agito & Crunchyroll having the W anime.
Agito on Amazon 555 on Amazon Shin Kamen Rider on Amazon
Ultraman
If you like Ultraman, you’re eating, if I’m being perfectly honest. Tsuburaya is very aggresive with making Ultraman available overseas.
Shout! / Amazon
Orb Ultraman 80 Ace Cosmos Dyna Gaia Geed Ginga Leo Max Mebius Neos Nexus R/B Taro Tiga X
Youtube
Z Z English Dub Trigger Decker Blazar
Garo
Gridman
Gridman The Hyper Agent SSSS Gridman SSSS Dynazenon
I’m Willing to Raise the Flag!
If you’re not familiar with this, the primary way to watch most tokusatsu series is to torrent the shows. You download a bittorrent client(my preferred client being Deluge) , go to The Cat Site , filter to “Live-Action - English-Translated”, search the series you want, download your torrents, and open em and download em in your client.
Torrenting is a rabbit hole, and it’s very easy to get too comfortable and end up downloading something malicious. That being said, in my 2-3 years of downloading torrents for the specific purpose of watching tokusatsu, I haven’t had anything negative happen.
Some trusted names at this point would be Over-Time, Genm Corp, EiGo, & IzuSubs. There are some other folks I missed, but those names should be the most common ones you see.
Now, if you’re willing to torrent, the biggest jump in catalog size goes to Kamen Rider and Garo, who basically have their entire libraries open to you should you be willing to raise the flag.
You can find Dogengers batches at this wonderful blog .
Which Ones Do I Recommend to Start?
For Kamen Rider, not taking torrent options into account, the one I end up recommending is Kuuga. Kuuga is the quintessential Kamen Rider experience. It’s not as flashy or complex as the things that come after, but it’s a quality story with quality characters that makes you feel inspired, which is how I think Kamen Rider should always make you feel.
Taking torrent options into account, I’d still say Kuuga, honestly. However, I would immediately follow up with Geats. For as much shit as I gave it a couple months ago when I was talking about its final arc, Geats has easily been the strongest of the Reiwa(2019-present) era, giving us a great, confident protagonist, fight scenes marvel wishes they could make, and a very solid story. Geats is definitely the best look at modern Kamen Rider.
For Sentai, you have a lot of streaming options already, but there are still some missing. The big standout would be Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, which I’m making my through ever so slowly at the time of writing. I’m way less versed in Sentai compared Rider or Ultraman, but my normal recommendation would be Timeranger or Gokaiger. I say “normal” because I love Jetman and Donbrothers, but from what I understand, they are not the typical Sentai experience. They’re great shows, but how they work is not the Sentai norm, so they may not be the best for judging if you would like the franchise at large.
Ultraman Z is my recommendation for Ultraman. It was my first Ultraman and it got me in the vortex convincingly. Ultraman, and Garo/Dogengers/Gridman too, benefit from these more standard 25 episode seasons. Sentai and Rider can feel like they’re just doing whatever sometimes because they have 44+ episodes due to being year-round. Ultraman doesn’t have that problem.
For Garo, it’s honestly just a matter of looking at that picture from the previous section and picking a universe to start with. Kouga and Ryuga’s universes have very good stories to tell. The anime all take place in the same world, but you don’t need to watch one to understand another.
Gridman is kinda similar. SSSS Gridman builds off Hyper Agent the same way Dynazenon builds off SSSS Gridman, but you could get away with watching just one or watching out of order, although you’d miss out on some things on first viewing.
Dogengers seasons build off each other and there is clear continuity, but the more laid-back nature of the show means you’re nowhere near as punished for jumping on late. Also, this series isn’t available legally at all, so you might as well start from the beginning anyway.