This is MJ. Welcome to Henshin Reflection, Heart
and Soul, a little mini -series where I'm asking
one big question. Can Tokusatsu survive the toy
sales cycle? In Episode 1, I talked about why
I started thinking about this. Super Sentai might
actually be ending after 50 years. The Metal
Heroes series is stated to take its time slot
on TV Asahi with a Space Sheriff Kavan reboot,
if you can believe that, and new seasons of Power
Rangers are on pause. Meanwhile, Kamen Rider
and Ultraman keep expanding. It's strange, and
it made me wonder if too much focus on selling
toys might be draining the heart of these shows.
At least some of them. Before I dive into that,
though, I want to look back at how I got hooked
in the first place. First with Power Rangers,
then with Super Sentai, and how those stories
grabbed me long before I ever thought about toy
sales or ratings. Before I knew what Super Sentai
was, and Tokusatsu was in general, I didn't know
what it was. I only knew Power Rangers, and that
was my first exposure. Um, but, uh, eventually
after I saw Power Rangers, I was checking out
a podcast and I heard about new ongoing stuff
from Japan that you could find straight from
Japan. And I started watching Gokaiger and Gokaiger
was amazing. From the first episode, the action
was so not even intense. It was so flashy and
so dramatic and so memorable that it really hit
me hard. And I... Just fell in love with all
the flash, all the energy and excitement that
you get from like a Power Rangers fight was amplified.
I don't remember. I'm pretty sure they transformed
right away. Like the Gokaiders stop on Earth.
They're getting curry and something, I don't
know, a Zagnac Empire thing crashes through the
ceiling, I think, and ruins their meal. And they
go see people suffering. Marvelous has to pretend
that he's just mad because their mill got ruined
and then they have this amazing fight where they're
throwing weapons to each other and they're jumping
all over the scene and just really making a show
of it. And it was extremely enjoyable. And there
are plenty of fights in the series that stick
in my mind and I can recall. I'm thinking about
Joe using like... It was probably only five swords
at the same time, but still, he was using five
swords at the same time. Gokai Blue. And that's
amazing. I think about Dawn when somebody thought
he was, I think it was Damaris, who was a general
of the Zagnac Empire, thought he was, Dawn or
Doc, he's called both, they thought he was some
great warrior, and he was like the only of the
Gokaigers left, and he... fought, I think he
either wore Marvelous's coat or he had a green
one made just like it. And like, I don't even
remember all the plot significance around that,
but like even just his regular fighting style
where he's zany and all over the place and falling
over almost has like this weird drunken, it's
not really drunken boxing, but like this weird
manic, like Jar Jar Binks almost energy where
he's like accidentally making things happen in
his fighting. It's just, it's kind of incredible.
And like, it was just a Just like a really awesome,
like the Gokaidus themselves are compelling in
and of themselves. And they're very fun to watch.
And then they interacted with all these Super
Sentai heroes from the past. Most of whom I,
or none of whom I knew. I knew some of the suits
from them being in adaptations of Power Ranger
seasons. And that was kind of nostalgic and kind
of nice for me. But like I didn't need to know
the history of Super Sentai because... the Gokaigers
were telling their own story in a context of
a world with all of the previous 34 Super Sentai
and this Legend War or whatever it was called.
And it was enough for me. And it was really enjoyable.
And honestly, it had me very interested in watching
for the next few years, which I did. And it kind
of opened the door. I think Gokaiger was running
while Oz was running. towards the end of O's,
and I didn't watch O's. I watched Forze instead
as my first modern Kamen Rider. I'd watched,
I think, all of Kamen Rider Black before then,
like the first third of the original Kamen Rider.
So, you know, that's part of my history too.
So anyway, they did a really good job. It was
very skillful storytelling, and it's a lot of
self -contained storytelling, and then meaningful
connections were made when they needed to be
made between the current cast and past. crew
members, past rangers, I guess past Super Sentai
members, and that was really effectively done.
But again, before I saw any tokusatsu, well,
that I knew of, before I saw Gokaiger, and before
I saw, or I knew what a henshin hero was, or
I knew, heard the word henshin, which in Gokaiger
they say Gokai chain, so there's no henshin in
there, I... saw Power Rangers when I was I think
like five years old and it really blew me away
and before then I'd watch things like things
like um the Batman cartoon the Superman cartoon
a little bit the Ghostbusters cartoon DuckTales
um like Dark yeah Darkwing Duck um Captain Planet
trying to think of all the like action superhero
type cartoons I watched uh watched a lot of superhero
stuff like uh the I was going to say the Raimi
Batman movies. That would be interesting. But
the Tim Burton Batman movies with Michael Keaton,
I enjoyed those and I watched those. I think
one of them came out in, like, 89 and the other
was 90 -something. So I'd seen both of those
before I saw Power Rangers. But, like, still,
there was something very special about Power
Rangers. There was something kind of, I don't
know, manic about it. The energy was very high
and I had a weird kind of like love -hate relationship
with it. I wanted them to just grow big or to
get the Megazord and like stomp on a monster
and then as it's coming up, slash it down again.
So I had the kind of like, I don't know what
that is, but like the, you know, catching, you
know, I've heard of it called, I've heard of
it referred to as fridge thoughts. It's, you
know, you don't think about it until you're at
the fridge, but in the moment you're watching
it and you just... enjoy it you're along for
the ride you don't think about the gaps in logic
but you know it's funny because uh saban and
his writing crew put together zordon's rules
that you never escalate a fight which allows
for them to fight a monster at street level and
then once it's grown big to fight it in the megazord
and there's other other rules um that he had
that made that all work out but i don't know
just like the spectacle of seeing these giant
monsters which I'd seen like King Kong versus
Godzilla and like a couple, like, you know, in
passing I'd seen Godzilla movies and things like
that. And here we have these, you know, teenagers
fighting Godzilla and King Kong and whatever
else, you know, they are literally fighting,
you know, the giant golden monkey of Goldar.
And I think at the first episode, and then there's
like a giant Cyclops or something that just the
Red Ranger is fighting against. And then eventually
they, they do the Megazord. I believe I watched
it not long ago. I believe their first Megazord
battle is with the, is with the giant Goldar.
which I don't know why that didn't keep happening
in Zyuranger, but then it sure didn't happen
in Power Rangers. It was a very different thing.
It was very sticky in my mind. And while I love
things like Spider -Man, the animated series,
and I valued it a little bit more than Power
Rangers, I don't know, something about all the
stuff with Tommy, the evil Green Ranger stuff,
Green with Evil, that whole saga. like really
hooked me. And I kept watching and watching and
watching Power Rangers. And I looked back and
it was just, there was like, I don't know. What
was it? Was it 25 years or more of continuous
Power Rangers presence on TV every single year?
Even though like, you know, they went from being
owned by Saban to being owned to Disney to being
owned by Saban again. I think there was a little
break between Super, between Samurai and RPM.
I think. I think RPM was 18 and Samurai was 19.
If I'm remembering correctly, maybe I'm not.
I don't know. Anyway, but I watched a lot and
like almost continuously for, I don't know, maybe
like 8 to 10 years. I watched MMPR through In
Space and Lost Galaxy for sure. I didn't really
watch the ninja one, the first ninja one. And
then I came back for Dino Thunder because of
Tommy. But I did watch Jungle Fury before. uh
the ninja one which i think it was jungle fury
and then no not jungle free i mean i watched
wild force i didn't watch jungle fury or um which
that's kung fu and then i didn't watch the uh
it's based on hurricane or whatever that one's
called um or mystic force i didn't i didn't watch
mystic force either but then i came back like
i said for for tommy and um dino thunder and
i don't know he was like a really cool really
pivotal character for me um And just the depth
of the story of Green with Evil really hooked
me. But overall, Power Rangers just hooked me.
And I didn't keep trying to watch Spider -Man
or Batman the Animated Series or anything like
that. I had Power Rangers, so I could watch them
and other things. And I got involved with other
stuff. But it sure left a lasting impression,
even to the point that I remembered Master Rider
from Season 3. of uh power rangers i remembered
master writer from there and like his appearance
there was awesome and um i vaguely remembered
the master writer show that was a standalone
spin -off whatever and uh i actually when i watched
all uh like the first seven or eight seasons
of power rangers like uh seven or uh no like
about 14 years ago i watched it all in like rapid
succession i was so impressed by season three
episode one and two um where they go to Edenway
and meet Dex, the master writer. I was so shocked.
It was called A Friend in Need. That's what it's
called. I was so shocked by how good that was
that I thought, man, I don't remember a master
writer being this good. And I checked it out
and it sure wasn't that good. So, you know, your
mileage definitely varies with certain things.
But still, like the iconic look of Black RX was
burned in my mind. And when I found out that
that was a thing, then I had to watch Black.
Because, of course, there's Black and Black RX.
They're sequels to each other. Sort of, they're
going to connect, right? But that's actually
how I got into the Japanese stuff. I watched
A Friend in Need and had to see more of Black
Rx. Then I realized there was a Black, which
somehow led me to the original Kamen Rider as
well. Kamen Rider only had about 30 English subbed
episodes at the time, while Black and Black Rx
had been both fully subtitled, so I checked out
Black and was absolutely amazed by it. Gokaiger
was coming along, so I decided to check it out
when it started, and I've been calling myself
a Tokusatsu fan ever since. To be more accurate,
I'm a fan of Henshin Heroes, since I'm not super
into Godzilla or any of the giant stuff. It's
okay, it's not that great. But anyway, so I'm
a fan of Henshin Heroes, but that's a discussion
for another time. So that's how I got hooked.
The energy, the spectacle, the stories that pulled
me in long before I even knew what tokusatsu
was. But once I started digging deeper, listening
to podcasts and hearing people talk about the
business side of things, I began to notice something
else. That's where we'll pick up next time. Check
out the trailer for my book. If you enjoyed this,
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