100 Things I Love About Toku 1
The absolute number one thing I love about toku shows, the thing that most attaches me to the genre, I think, is this:
The shows do not care if they make sense.
That doesn't mean that they never do! Some of the best have excellent plots that leave few, if any, holes.
That doesn't stop the fact that seriously wtf those two just mind-melded to become a bug-eyed dude fighting a giant dinosaur head (for instance). (For the record, the dinosaur head had arms.) (Seriously.)
These shows will only selectively care about science, if at all (in the land of tokusatsu, Batman is not special for his ability to breathe in space. Sorry, Bruce). Things will appear to threaten our heroes for no reason other than that, well, they need to fight something. Movies produced by the same production team as the series, at the same time as the series, will be completely and utterly irreconcilable with the events of the series. Nobody but the most continuity-needy will care, because that's part of the genre.
(I'm always confused by why so many Internet Fans of these shows who got into them in part because they grew up with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers lighting up their life are So Goddamn Bothered by this, considering that MMPR: The Movie has jack-all to do with the events of the series. Not only are the events of the movie completely ignored by the series, much of it is outright replaced by a different set of events. To these Internet Fans, MMPR is giant nostalgiabomb great, including the movie, but a non-continuity movie from a different series? "OMG U GUIS PLOT HOLES EVERYWHERE WAT IS THIS *ASPLODE*" Baffles me.)
And this is before we even get to the old stuff. There are the series from the late 70s/early 80s where the production staff are still figuring out what the hell they're doing. On top of the fact that the fights are pure nonsense to begin with a lot of the time, the editing during the fight scenes makes figuring out what the hell is supposed to be happening an unwinnable game. Fun, but unwinnable. And then there are the Space Sherrif series, which have decided to cross live-action monster of the week fighting with trippy, Alice in Wonderland-type dream logic and utterly surreal visuals.
It is, to a surprising degree, an experience of its own.
(For all of you who expected my #1 favorite part of this stuff to be the sheer levels of camp: I am actually kind of just as surprised as you that this edged it out. We'll cover the camp later.)
The shows do not care if they make sense.
That doesn't mean that they never do! Some of the best have excellent plots that leave few, if any, holes.
That doesn't stop the fact that seriously wtf those two just mind-melded to become a bug-eyed dude fighting a giant dinosaur head (for instance). (For the record, the dinosaur head had arms.) (Seriously.)
These shows will only selectively care about science, if at all (in the land of tokusatsu, Batman is not special for his ability to breathe in space. Sorry, Bruce). Things will appear to threaten our heroes for no reason other than that, well, they need to fight something. Movies produced by the same production team as the series, at the same time as the series, will be completely and utterly irreconcilable with the events of the series. Nobody but the most continuity-needy will care, because that's part of the genre.
(I'm always confused by why so many Internet Fans of these shows who got into them in part because they grew up with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers lighting up their life are So Goddamn Bothered by this, considering that MMPR: The Movie has jack-all to do with the events of the series. Not only are the events of the movie completely ignored by the series, much of it is outright replaced by a different set of events. To these Internet Fans, MMPR is giant nostalgiabomb great, including the movie, but a non-continuity movie from a different series? "OMG U GUIS PLOT HOLES EVERYWHERE WAT IS THIS *ASPLODE*" Baffles me.)
And this is before we even get to the old stuff. There are the series from the late 70s/early 80s where the production staff are still figuring out what the hell they're doing. On top of the fact that the fights are pure nonsense to begin with a lot of the time, the editing during the fight scenes makes figuring out what the hell is supposed to be happening an unwinnable game. Fun, but unwinnable. And then there are the Space Sherrif series, which have decided to cross live-action monster of the week fighting with trippy, Alice in Wonderland-type dream logic and utterly surreal visuals.
It is, to a surprising degree, an experience of its own.
(For all of you who expected my #1 favorite part of this stuff to be the sheer levels of camp: I am actually kind of just as surprised as you that this edged it out. We'll cover the camp later.)