Sean Akizuki's Fantasy Critic

In the Showa era, there was the mysterious villain known as the Great Leader. Either this guy frequently changed forms, used extensions of himself or just used decoys at the end of most Kamen Rider series. As I'm trying to watch more of the Showa era (and I prefer the Heisei era) there's always this "Great Leader" guy I keep hearing about. Just remember, this is a fan theory and nothing more. Toei hasn't released any official word about this one. Also note that just because the late Naya Goro voiced him doesn't automatically make him the Great Leader. With my rather limited knowledge of Kamen Rider's Showa era from Kamen Rider Black RX, there's some hints that Grand Lord Crisis is the Great Leader. Maybe, he's not Gorgom's founder since Kamen Rider Black was supposedly separate from the rest of Showa but Black RX created a retroactive continuity for that. The 10 other Kamen Riders of the Showa era were seen training for the final battle with...

No writer is ever exempted from hitting Burnout Ville. Lynn was responsible for revolutionizing Power Rangers during his time with Haim Saban. But like many before him like Hirohisa Soda, Toshiki Inoue, Junki Takegami and Yasuko Kobayashi he's no different. After watching more episodes of Power Rangers Dino Charge I just feel like, "That's it, I'm dropping it! Maybe I'll still end up picking up Kyoryuger at the end of the day or neither!" What can't be denied is that it may have been foolish to rejoice Judd Lynn was back. Who knows he may have been burnt out. The scenario may be just like people were rejoicing with Toshiki Inoue, Junki Takegami and Yasuko Kobayashi only to see their favorite writers needed a nice long break. Inoue's writing of Kiva may have not clicked with everyone but I'm a fan of it. Takegami's Go-onger may be considered the least of his achievements as a head writer. Kobayashi working with ToQGer only made a good concept...

It's no secret that Toei and Saban both worked together to create Power Rangers. Localizing for an American audience is no easy task. Don't believe me? Do a side by side comparison between Timeranger and Power Rangers Time Force. Compare the seriousness of Power Rangers Time Force with the much more serious Kamen Rider Faiz when it comes to the issue of racism. After watching Winspector (and currently Solbrain), it's a much bigger challenge to localize them than GoGoFive. GoGoFive isn't that serious compared to the Rescue Police. After watching Metalder and some bits of Spielban, I can't watch VR Troopers the same way anymore. Metalder had a real plot going on that VR Troopers can't beat. If Toei and Saban decided to localize Rescue Police, it could come out pretty mediocre. Anybody can argue that there are good Power Rangers seasons, sometimes Power Rangers can do some things better (but not most of the time IMO) but I usually stick to the Japanese. It's...

Why I never call myself a die-hard Kamen Rider fan either is because of the strange truth that I usually prefer mostly old school Super Sentai (but I can enjoy new school series depending on the situation) while I prefer mostly new school Kamen Rider . I guess it's just preference or that Kamen Rider tends to feel more "mature" for me. So what's it like taking another super old school Kamen Rider? I always have to give myself some slack considering it's the 70s. Kamen Rider Amazon  has good choreography in the midst of old hat special effects. Sometimes, I even ask myself, "How much of the old school Kamen Rider willing to watch before I'm tempted to sleep through it ?" I admit every time it's some super old school Kamen Rider from the Showa era, I immediately develop this bias due to the generation gap. Then again, watching either super new school Super Sentai or super old school Kamen Rider can also be entertaining. My only fear might be a...

Power Rangers Time Force introduced some plots that makes it a little more if not much more different than Timeranger except with time travel. Time Force was a pretty balanced season while Timeranger was a well-written atypical serious Super Sentai season or the Agito of Super Sentai. I'd like to think what if certain plots in Time Force were actually taken from Timeranger. Here's how I think it'd go. The whole love triangle across time I always found the whole love triangle across time to be something that gets me WTFed with Time Force. So Jen supposedly loses Alex and then she falls in love with his ancestor Wes. How screwed up can that get? So let's think about what if that happened in Timeranger. Let's just think what if we had a Tatsuya/Ryuya/Yuuri love triangle going on. Let's just say that Don Dolnero escaped and supposedly killed Ryuya in an attempt to rearrest him. Plot twist would be that Ryuya allowed himself to be injured knowing that Don Doln...

While playing Megaman X and Megaman 5, here's something I've noticed. Vile does look like a revamped version of the Darkman robot. While the Darkman Robot's personality hasn't been defined but I can't deny Vile does seem to be a reference to Darkman. Remember that Megaman X was released before Megaman 7 was created as a prequel game to "bridge" both Classic Megaman and Megaman X. There were a total of four Darkman robots. The third Darkman is colored purple, while the fourth Darkman robot has a nearly similar design to Vile himself, minus the head. The third Darkman Robot jumps over and fires shots. Vile does the same in Megaman X. Final Darkman might even be a close prototype to Vile. Here's something interesting before your fight with the Final Darkman. In Megaman 5, the Final Darkman greatly injures Megaman. Protoman shows up and reveals the imposter, gives Megaman a full life boost and the battle begins. In Megaman X, a darker version happen...

What I find funny in my preferences with Tokusatsu is that I end up preferring new school Kamen Rider (from the Heisei era) while I usually prefer 80s-2010 old school Super Sentai. I grew up with watching Kamen Rider Black as my first Kamen Rider. I saw Black RX on Cable TV which I didn't really understand what was being spoken. Fortunately, I saw Black RX with subs later on in my life. What shocked me (or not) was that before Kamen Rider Black, there were actually other Kamen Riders before him. I feel that generation gap. I tried watching a few episodes of the first Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider V3, Kamen Rider Stronger and I watched Kamen Rider Amazon from start to end. That's just it and I haven't met the 1,000 episode challenge of Cake Boss. The first Kamen Rider was so 1971 and Kamen Rider Amazon was so 1975. Kamen Rider also went on hiatus after Kamen Rider Super-1 for six years and after Kamen Rider Black RX, no new series was developed until Kamen Rider Kuuga. I gu...