Reviews

And the reason for it being that it's the only episode when we fans of Yuka Hirata can finally hear her voicing a character for more than two minutes, meaning that she voices the main protagonist Minai and she does it adequately considering that she isn't a professional seiyuu and that this was her first role in an anime. The only thing I sincerely don't understand is why the hell the guys of Madhouse even bothered putting her in this series in the first place. She was hot on the heels thanks to her appareance in Gekiranger in the previous year and ALL they envisioned for her was this DVD-only episode and two lines of dialogue in the first (completely disposable, personal appreciation for naked/barely clothed chicks with big guns or not) Corpse Princess series? Really? Talk about a complete waste of her and her fans' time! Watch this if you're a fan of her like me and don't bother with the main series stuff (both iterations), it's totally worthless.

Exactly, this might not be put under the Space Sheriff label but truth is that the Space SheriffMetal Heroes vibes are stronger than ever in this very good and enjoyable tokusatsu show, vibes that are confirmed once you get to know the fact that Ken's suit actor also worked in Space Sheriff Sharivan (thank you Big Nova subs for the info and the subbing work) and the writer of some of these episodes (Noboru Sugimura of Zyuranger fame) worked in several Metal Heroes shows. Cool suits, cool action, cool special effect, cool props, stuff behind the surface that again reminds me of the works of Toshiki Inoue just on a prototype level (the stuff about loans and money, the tentative love triangle between the two Bycrossers), highly recommended if you're into other Metal Heroes and the four mainline space sheriffs.

Exactly, this movie has no point whatsoever to exist except getting you to know the names of the gravure idols behind Lao Fan (Mayumi Ono) and General Miranda (Yan Yinling, I put them here so you can avoid watching this and you can directly search for their lingerie outfits online instead) and giving the last screentime to the veteran Masashi Ishibashi of JAKQ/Battle Fever J fame. All things completely wasted because this elongated episode, like most of the elongated episodes of tokusatsus sold as full on movies due to the insane japanese fetish for movies made out of series that don't need them in the first place, doesn't present anything particularly interesting that you haven't seen in the main series except for the three people I mentioned. It also makes clear that its main writer Naruhisa Arakawa has a peculiar obsession for hardcore detective and investigative stuff mutuated from the Hong Kong movies, the same obsession that nonsensically bogged down Kamen Rider Kuuga and that I have no idea how wasn't displayed in Abaranger (I guess because of a mandate by Toei to produce a Dynosaur-themed Sentai?). Other than that, it's just an useless waste of everybody's time that I don't recommend one bit. Check Mayumi Ono and Yan Yinling's sexy outfits for yourself and Ishibashi's appearances/roles in other toku series and don't bother one bit with this.

Yup, it's no mistery that I was prompted to watch this series after getting to know miss Hirata through her appearance in a Kamen Rider W episode because I found her performance very good and because I saw online her lovely 2022 playboy photo shoots in green lingerie where she mimicked the role she had in this series of the Love Warrior Mele/Misa Amane of tokusatsus and I fell in love with them (she also looks great in Dark Purple lingerie, thrice the way she already did in this series). Problem is, no matter how miss Hirata is great and no matter the presence in this series of other gravure idols like Mina Fukui herself and Mariko Okubo as well of clear-as-day references to the incalulably influential works on the Heisei Sentais and tokus in general of the Maestro Toshiki Inoue (the main writer actually collaborated with him in Kiba), Michiko Yokote definitely is not as good in the writing department as him nor as Junko Komura (the lady who was the main writer of the underrated Zyuohger) and it shows because the show gets progressively more boring the more time it passes, boredom that is not avoided by an appearance of the veteran Kenji Ohba in the role of the Red Ranger's father. Also, the small fly commenting each mecha fight is irritating on the longer period (I'd rather see Yuka on the screen WITHOUT him inbetween) and the rangers' suits are not that impressing if you ask me (they're too much reminescent of the main rider one from the crappy Kamen Rider OOO for my tastes). All in all, fun until it lasts but I'd take Zyuohger in the field of animal sentais anyday over this with no regrets, Yuka Hirata (whose animes I'll give a try in the future too) or not. I hope Gaoranger turns out to be better than this one TBH.

P. S. All the episodes by hack Yuji Kobayashi were dropped and nothing was missed. Expect me to do the same thing with other series he has written as a guest writer or as the main one (Ultraman stuff with him in the credits I'm looking at you) in their entirety in the next future with no regrets of sorts.

Yup, the main attraction of this second iteration of the Juuko B-fighter series - Kaneto Shiozawa doing one of his best works hands down as the villain Dezzle and the King of Fenarinarsa/father of Minky Momo Hiroshi Masuoka in the pants of the grand chamberlain Dord permitting - is the fact that to the three main B-Fighters were added additional four B-Fighters coming from France, China, South America and THE UNITED STATES. Yes, apparently when Haim Saban took this series and dumbed it down for american children (totally ridicolous as this, like all tokusatsus, is primarly targeted at children to begin with) transforming it into the Beetleborg Metallix abomination had problems with an original source where not only the main character's parents live in the US, not only the main lead wants to study in America as his most important life goal but AN AMERICAN CHARACTER PERFORMED BY AN AMERICAN ACTOR IS PART OF THE B-FIGHTER TEAM, which amounts to something as useless and ridicolous as an hypothetical american remake of already 100% american-stylized products like Yasuzo Masamura's Aozora Musume or Yuzo Kawashima's Yoru No Nagare. And some specifically japanese elements present in this (Rakugo, Shamisen and Anmitsu, all stuff easily understandable by browsing wikipedia and/or youtube) don't make Metallix any less useless, all the contrary. That said, on the series itself, the costumes of both B-Fighters and villains are great (I personally really like Tento for her purple color, of course), the fights are well coreographed as usual, the mechas in this have a great design even if they're a bit underutilized, the only slight problem for me is that it didn't reach Sharivan or. Solbrain level of emotional involvment, but maybe it's a personal thing. Highly recommended if you like tokusatsus and animes and you want to have good fun.

P. S. Like I mentioned in my Kamen Rider OOO review, ALL the episodes written by queen of Hacks Yasuzo Kobayashi (8, 14, 21, 40 and 46, in case you're interested) were avoided in their entirety and I genuinely think my viewing experience was improved overall. Me thinks I'll do the same for Blue Swat and another hack with the same pronoun (Yuji Kobayashi) in my impending Gekiranger watching (sincere thanks to the lovely Yuka Hirata and her amazing gravure photos in green lingerie for the suggestion they gave me) with no regrets whatsoever.

P. P. S. My sincere thanks to Metallic Fansubs and KamenScrubsSentai for the work they did to get this series known outside the Japanese realms.

And the reason for the comparison is simple: by watching this series it becomes clear-as-day that the original manga work that this series adapted was, like the comic runs I'm referring to in the title of the review, something that the original mangaka had not fully grasped in its entirety so he made stuff on the spot, stuff that is more or less entertaining to a certain degree (something that the Larry Lieber era of Thor and the Siver Age run of Silver Surfer by Stan Lee weren't, not even by an inch) but it's not particularly interesting except for showcasing the incredible talents involved, meaning the talents of the 100% certified Dramaturge and Shoujo/Sukeban girl lover Toshiki Inoue (the main writer of this series) and the amazing voice actress Megumi Ogata, the one behind the voice of the main protagonist (there are other people like Kaneto Shiozawa involved in here, but they last very few episodes). The problem is, no matter how much these people are EXTREMELY talented to begin with (which they absolutely and totally are), they can't elevate the failing source material, hence this series unfortunately has no real value whatsoever outside the showcasing of said talents and some glimpses at their previous/future work (I'm referring to the previous and future work of Toshiki Inoue in the likes of Ranma 1/2, Changerion, Cutie Honey the live and Death Note), utterly wasted for no reason whatsoever. I just hope for both Inoue and Ogata-Sensei (whose A M A Z I N G musical albums I would suggest you to listen to instead of watching this series tout court) that Toei gave them a good compensation for their work in due time, otherwise unless you're a Die-Hard Yu-Gi-Oh fan that must watch every single Yu-Gi-Oh series ever produced I wouldn't bother.

And with that I mean that this show is terrible like the formers and, like the latter, it has nothing remarkably for "adults" or even "teenagers", unless you think the concept of being for "adults" amounts to nothing more than a couple of nipple shots that you can easily find in other medias like animes. It's the same stuff of all the other tokusatsus about a superhero protecting dreams etc. Just with worse choreographed fights, worse chara (which is absolutely incredible considering the pedegree of the director), ridicolous pretentiousness upped to over 9000 thanks to the clear-as-day uberlow bugdet (couldn't Amemiya go, for a more robust budget, to the same people that produced Tekkoku Mikazuki five years before this?) and CGI effects that are as laughable as it can get. And these are the SUPPOSED tokusatsus for adults, tokusatsus that make the previous work of Amemiya himself in Choujin Sentai Jetman alone look like a slasher franchise! The only useful thing this dreck has going for it is that the suspicions the mediocre Mechanical Violator Hakaider movie and the terrible Lion G-Maru Reboot aroused in me about the Amemiya/Inoue duo (meaning that the reason for it working so well are mainly on the Inoue part and less on the Amemiya one, being the latter so pathetically weak when left to his own devices) find a confirmation. Avoid at all costs unless you want to experience a self-parody that isn't remotely funny to begin with.

Edit: apparently the script of this crap was written by the same hack (Yujii Kobayashi) who wrote the terrible, totally unprofessional and amateurish to the level of being insulting for amateurs episodes 17-20 of the unwatchable Smile Pretty Cure series and the main writer of the Sailor Moon Crystal remake fiasco, which explains a lot. Still, the faults of Amemiya in the effects and chara department are inexcusable nonetheless.

I sincerely don't get the reason for this movie to exist in the first place, since the main series already solved any possible storyline concerning the secondary rider of W without the need to add nothing more. But, as the existance of the equally useless self-reboot movie of Kamen Rider Ryuki will remind us, we know that the japanese (yes, useless DVD-only episode of Tekkoku Mikazuki spoofing Showa Tokusatsus in the most unfunny and cringey way possible, I'm looking at you) and particularly the Toei tokusatsu department REALLY like to continue producing stuff when there's no need to do it, like this or the completely unnecessary continuation of the terrible (unless you're really hard into the likes of Marvel Zombie, Blackest night or Saint Seiya: the Hades Chapter, which I'm not) Kamen Rider W (in itself, already prolonged unnecessarily with an useless ending episode that didn't add nothing of interest) summer movie by the name of Kamen Rider Eternal. Did somebody in Japan ever took the memo that sometimes LESS IS MORE? This being watched on free fansubs - still the only way we europeans on the whole can experience tokus, no matter how much the american$ rave about Bluray releases of tokus on their own soil or not on social medias - and having in it once again a whole slew of clear-as-day gravure idols in the cast doesn't mean that there's a reason to waste time on it, not a split second. Avoid safely like avoid safely the preceding summer movie and stick to the main series only, it's not worth it.

Clearly "inspired" (or, better said, spinned off from) the classic of Magical Girl shows and Shoujo in generals and my second favourite Magical Girl ever after the unbeatable life-changing experience by the name of Sailor Moon, Mahou Tsukai Sally. Why, you might ask? Because this, as Sally, it's a show mostly focused on the comedic aspect, with an healthy dose of slapstick and non-slapstick humour that is good reminder of the one found in Mahou Tsukai Sally (expected since this a Fushigi COMEDY series, but still the link is as-clear-as-day). What I don't understand by watching this series (lately subbed by GEO9875, thanks as always for your work) is what the hell happened to the company who did this, which is also the same one that spawned the entirety of the majokko genre, with their Pretty Cure franchise, and for one simple reason: here there might not be the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai fights a fan of tokus craves for made into animation, but the main protagonist is not a boring and irritating Mary Sue like Sally wasn't, the 90's anime Usagi Tsukino and her companions weren't and Ojamajo Doremi with her friends wasn't. Which is all the opposite the Pretty Cures I've got to watch to this day (three) are. What the hell happened to Toei?

Other than that, if you're a fan of Majokkos and Tokus you certainly will like this one too. It's highly recommended from me. Let's hope somebody subs Le Belle Fille Poitrine and Mysterious Nile Girl Tutsmose too next!

If you don't like the guy because of his Shoujo-inspired writing (perfectly in line with the way the father of the main Toei Tokus Shotaro Ishinomori envisioned this art, you might want to check out Machineman and Kaiketsu Zubat on that regard) move on and leave the Maestro to his fans like the very person writing this review. I have no idea how in the friggin' hell Inoue has actually got better with the age since in this movie he will make you cry, he will make you laugh and he will make you think in a matter of seconds, but that's what this movie (incredibly enough, better than the already very good Kamen Rider Faiz series) proves. Overrated, overpaid screenwriters from Hollywood with billions of academy awards under their belt and give you nothing in terms of emotional investment need to apply to this as well the masterful Avataro Sentai Donbrothers movie (!) as soon as possible.

As this series from 2016 will tell you, series that I got to know thanks to an actor (Kohei Murakami) who is known for his intimate friendship/artistic partnership with the Maestro of Tokusatsus Toshiki Inoue in Kamen Rider Faiz/555, its excellent 20th anniversary movie Paradise Regained and the latter's very good mini-prequel series by the name of murder mistery case, Cutie Honey: the Live, Avataro Sentai Donbrothers etc. Etc. Etc. A series that it's very good and entertaining from start to finish, with an inspired chara for the main mecha and the costumes (Murakami looks and acts like Medievh from the eternal Masterpiece Warcraft III, of all things. More than the guy in the Blizzard Warcraft movie proper made in the same year of this series did), well choreographed fights that don't feel like they were 100% executed in a copy-pasted form, well-executed dynamic between each member of the sentai squad and, for the Toshiki Inoue fans like me, there's even shoujo stuff that reminds of the work of the Maestro in Chojin Sentai Jetman (hell, there's even a reference to Keita Amemiya at a certain point). The only downside for some that I can see in this is the character of Misao Mondo being the kind of depressed person (and not for stylistic reasons like Wataru Kurenai from the Masterful Kamen Rider Kiva) some people might not like, but the guy has a good development during the season and it's nonetheless in line with a character like Rei Ayanami from Evangelion, for the joy of the Tokusatsu fan Hideaki Anno. All in all, highly recommended over any ridicolous attempt at carbon-copying in a bad way this formula by third parties (Tomica Hero Rescue Force I'm looking at you).

Yup, forget the peculiar identity of the previous entry in the Takara Tomy tokus by the name of Madai Senki Ryukendo, series that by being its own thing while following more or less the superhero tokusatsu standards it provided new and welcomed ideas, ideas better than those of nonsensically overrated big name IPs entries like Kamen Rider Kuuga and Kamen Rider OOO. Nope, this series is a 100% carbon-copy of the Toei Super Sentais (with whom I have NO problems of sorts, I love those series) just made worst in every possible way, meaning that the action on the screen is boring, the mecha stuff is uberboring unless you're really hard into cars and whatnot (I'm not), the costumes and props with one sole exception (the portable chainsword that can also transform into a gatling gun of sorts) are not particularly interesting to begin with (which is absolutely ridicolous if compared to the ludicrous efforts Takara Tomy themselves put into making a gazillion of robots and animals with distinct charas and different themes for their Transformers and Pokemon IPs) and some of the flaws of the Super Sentai - namely, the overpowered nature of the Red Ranger, nature that I personally still have not seen but I trust the opinion of the Maestro Toshiki Inoue as enucleated in Avataro Sentai Donbrothers in that sense - is full on display here, with R1 being extremely overpowered even with him being a new recruit of sorts while the other members of the team (as usual, particularly the women) stay there doing nothing except spouting attacks 100% uselessy ripped off from the Kamen Rider Kick (told again from the perspective of a Kamen Rider fan, as my bandai Kamen Rider Agito, Faiz and Kiva action figures will prove you). A serious disappointment considering that at the start there were some genuine ideas concerning this series being more in line with something like an interesting twist on the Metal Heroes Rescue Squad antics than a mediocre Super Sentais ripoff, but whatever. Rather watch one of the gazillion of Super Sentai shows proper from the 70's on than wasting your time on this offer by a supposed Toei competitor, it's not worth it.

Yup, this movie could have been stripped down to something like an hour and an half runtime without the unnecessary, boring scenes that do nothing other than add time over time and the result would be the exact same. Couple that with a non-existant, nonsensical plotline that makes those in superhero tokusatsus shows (series that I love with all myself but that no toku fan watches for their "plotlines") look like ancient mythological sagas of old spanning over thousand of years, dialogues repeated over and over and over with no reason whatsoever (particularly the third time you hear the one liner about the offer you can't resist it gets clear they used it as a forced marketing tool) and barebone performances by the main actors and actresses and you have one of the most overrated movies of the century if not the most overrated movie of all times. Even the action is a bit lacking, IMHO.

Check out Il Boss by Ferdinando di Leo with some of the same actors present in this one (Richard Conte and Corrado Gaipa) and you should have a far more interesting and less snooze-inducing experience overall. Hell, even Milano Calibro 9 managed the "mafia men are honorable people with morals!" (they aren't and never have been) trope better than this movie did on its own.

Of course I'm referring, respectively, to Hiroshi Watari and Machiko Soga, who do their usual great job in this series, with the former becoming the facto my favourite tokusatsu male actor ever (eat your shorts Kenji Ohba fanatics!) thanks to his incredible manly charm akin to Clint Eastwood, Duke Nukem and Han Solo rolled into one single excellent performance. Unfortunately, some elements don't make this series as good as the masterful Space Sheriff Sharivan and in particular the presence of two women fighting in the Space Sheriff suit feels more like a gimmick than how the presence of lily felt in the entirety of the Space Sheriff Sharivan Show, but whatever this is a mainstream tokusatsu show and generally in those women are not particularly active to begin with (Machiko Soga excluded, of course). Still, this is a very good series nonetheless, recommended to metal heroes and Space Sheriff aficionados alike. As an ending note, thanks to Metallic Fansubs for fansubbing this in the first place.

P. S. The episode with the people being converted into trees reminding me of Emi Shinohara's performance in the Sailor Moon R movie was AWESOME, the best episode hands down of the entire series no questions attached.

You've read it right, this is your typical - and for typical I'm referring to the second part of the Attakku No. 1 anime, not the great first 50 episodes - 70's shoujo dramatic anime (great thing in the proper hands, for example the ones of the Maestro of Tokusatsus Toshiki Inoue) with an unbelievable, uninteresting, yahwn-inducing mary sue as the main protagonist, a mary sue so mary suish that she actually gets a part in a drama without knowing anything about the original literary work to begin with (i guess because of the typical Japanese belief of old - shared equally by women and men alike - that only men are interested in studying?). Add to the mix pedestrial chara repeatedly carbon-copied from the superior in all aspects Versailles No Bara, OST that is not fit to the theme (in particular the OP ripping off hard the Flashdance one feels completely out of place, this series is about stage plays and not dancing), uber-repetitive "story" and romance elements that are not particularly well-developed and/or interesting to begin with and you have a complete failure on all fronts, failure that for what I understand is due to this being as close as possible to the (I guess terrible, what a suprise! Not) manga. A huge waste of time even considering the short lenght and discounting the fact that the viewer might be the biggest shoujo fan in existance, boring mary sues sparsely appearing here and there permitted (I'm talking about me myself and I, of course). Avoid it with no regrets.

And, of course, I'm referring to the fact that the main protagonist Den Iga/Sharivan is excellently performed by none other than the ubersweet, caring and romantic husband of this legendary Seiyuu whose personal posts on twitter convinced me to give this series a try after reading ridicoulous reviews online by people who clearly have never watched this series nor are into tokusatsus to begin with - because if you're truly into tokus it's impossible to not enjoy this series at least to some extent, tastes or not - claiming that this was a dumbed down version of Gavan, when the reality is the opposite since this is better in all regards to Gavan, including Watari himself who is a better stuntman (!!!!!) and a more charismatic lead than Kenji Ohba already was either in Gavan or in his older Sentai output. The costumes are better, the props are better (including the main mecha thing, the White base from Gundam transforming into a mechwarrior type of mech is awesome), the supporting cast and in particular the women do a better job and are more supportive, the horror angle should be up the alley to people like me myself and I who are into Warhammer 40K, the OST is better, hell even the villains are better. An improvement in all areas of the good but not excellent Gavan, a bit overrated on the internet I guess because Kenji Ohba! (he's in here too, anyway). A Masterpiece of tokus and sci-fi like Abaranger was for Sentais, which makes me question how it is Spielban - written by the same Shozo Euhara and with Watari reprising the role of the main protagonist - if this was already excellent on all fronts. Highly recommended.

Which wasn't bad but in terms of "plotline" (if you can call it that way, we're talking of tokusatsus here) it was more scattered than this time around and there was some stuff in the way that didn't made any sense (understandably so, it was the first Toei tokusatsu thing ever). Here everything is better: the action scenes from the titular protagonist as well as his suggested civil persona are more hazardous, the plotline is more gripping, skull mask evolves into a manipulative villain able to exploit people's weaknesses to his own gain while also being a real threat who would not stop to anything (including murdering entire cities) to achieve his personal goals, and so forth. Also, if you're a Kamen Rider fan like me, you will notice several elements that made its way to that IP like the prototype of henshin belt, some locations which are reminescent of those typical of the Kamen Rider - particularly the Heisei species - and other stuff like the titular character driving on the motorbike used for the intro. All in all, a very enjoyable flick that has aged better than 99% of the modern/contemporary movies from the big american corporation$ and the entirety of the Showa Kamen Rider era prior to Kamen Rider Black IMHO. I just wish the other movies in this series were available with a fansub, but whatever.

Of mixing two things that, apparently, have nothing to do one with each other, meaning the western storytelling taken from stuff like the Jonah Hex Comics by Michael Fleisher during his tenure on the character in the same era this show was produced (even the constant strapping/maiming/trapping of Hex is reproduced here) and the henshin hero antics typical of the Kamen Rider, Ultraman and Super Sentais, in particular of the latter's abortive second iteration JAKQ Dengekitai from which it is taken not only the scheme of the fights but also the crudest of the stuff like the villains trafficking in drugs and humans, children with suicide bombs, fathers taking a shotgun to kill their sons etc. (the reason why the ratings were awful and the series was cancelled, if you ask me). Flawed because, albeit this time luckily there is no ubermegaipergigacrappy Big One in sight due to Hiroshi Miyauchi already being busy in the pants of the main protagonist, the more time it passes the more it becomes clear the two halves don't mesh particularly well and you have the impression that the henshin hero part was forced by Toei on Ishinomori while he was more interested in making a fully-blown western toku with no henshin hero in sight. It also gets a bit boring the more time it passes, even discounting the fact that this is a showa era show and you must watch it accordingly to the showa standards (particularly concerning the repetition, something that plagued the Jonah Hex comics too from a certain point on). As a side note, it's interesting to note that this so-much-lauded and nonsensically overhyped "masterpiece" by a certain kind of toku aficionados (the ones who hate the Maestro Toshiki Inoue for his 70's shoujo sensibilities) apparently had the same stuff Inoue applies to his output, meaning...you guessed it, a love triangle, an innuendo of the 70's shoujo mixture of love and hate, people talking about dating and marriage. So Inoue haters love the same stuff Inoue does (even if he does it ten times better at least) and all they need to do it is the name of the granfather of the Toei tokus on it! Unbelievable.

Because that's what this is, the most generic and yawhn-inducing Dragon Ball show masquerading as a Kamen Rider one possibly ever made with nothing that make it stand out from the rest, with the only exception of the hamfisted, ridicolous attempts by its main writer - the hack behind the other ridicolous failures known as Kamen Rider Ryuki and the Sailor Moon Live action series, Yasuzo Kobayashi - to try her hand at the same stuff people like her colleague Toshiki Inoue is great at, meaning making comedy, making tear-inducing drama and making political commentary all at the same time, and failing as hard as her previously mentioned failures. Failures aggravated by the fact that the costumes, the talents and the choreographies were all spent for nothing because of the lack of abilities of the writer to provide anything remarkable to the table, except maybe again remarkable in the wrong sense and I'm referring in particular to the ridicolous, completely unbelievable tag team of the main protagonist and his pretended ultradickish sidekick Anhk. This is the last time I'll ever give any attention to the output of this lady as the main writer, and I'll consider the episodes she wrote for the stuff I still have to see - Blue Swat and B-Fighter Kabuto - more an hindrance than anything else.

Which is better than the previous series I've seen from Daiei (Akai Meiro and Tenshi No Uppercut) as well the last full-on live action shoujo series I've watched (Aries No Otometachi) and at the level of Janus No Kagami in terms of sheer entertainment. Yeah the plot and character developments don't make any sense whatsoever outside this clearly being based on a shoujo manga and not on any biography of any kind whatsoever (except if you believe the "based on real events" fluff they throw at you in the intro) but still, if you're into shoujos you will like this nonetheless, even if it has not the same emotional envolvement that you could get from a person who was influenced also by stuff like this in the writing department like the Eddie Van Halen of Tokus, the Maestro Toshiki Inoue (see the masterful Avataro Sentai Donbrothers movie on that). Good stuff that I'm happy I watched and for which I thank the fansubber geo9875, whose geowidth blog I recommend if you're interested in giving to this or other Sukeban girl series like Sukeban Deka II, Shoujo Commando Izumi and Janus No Kagami a try.

Yup, I wasn't particularly impressed the first time I watched this series years ago because I had no previous knowledge of the pits of hell that originated this franchise (I'm talking about the worst animated thing ever produced courtesy of emperor of japanese hacks Go Nagai, the 70's Cutie Honey exploitation "anime") nor of tokusatsus and not even of the main writer of this series, who turned out to be...none other than my favourite tokusatsu writer ever Toshiki Inoue. And once I wrote that I have really nothing else to say because this is another Masterpiece of his, in line with his best work in Kamen Rider Kiva, Changerion, Death Note and the almost perfect Avataro Sentai Donbrothers movie (which in twenty-minutes runtime destroys twenty years of Marvel and DC cinematic crap without even trying), with his usual, perfect style made of seamlessly mashing up shoujo writing, Disney Princess worship (this time around the due focus is all on the lovely princess Jasmine from the 100% certified Disney Classic Aladdin, I wonder when and if are we going to get Pocahontas, Ariel, Mulan and Aurora too), well choreographed fights, social commentary against the Keiretsu and corporative world colluded with parts of the government/military, psychedelic stuff and well-put sexual fanservice for the hetero men that does its job perfectly in entertaining the viewer and it's not simply a self-serving, horrible ma$t3rbati0n of the author like it was the 70's Cutie Honey or, for what it matters, anything with the direct contribution of Go Nagai in it. In a simple word, this series is Toshiki Inoue doing what you expect from Toshiki Inoue and doing it greatly, so if you're a fan of him like me - which is the whole reason behind my rewatch - you'll be thrilled from start to finish. As good as the Cutie Honey Flash remake (written by none other than Sailor Stars' main writer Ryota Yamaguchi) and with very few flaws to account for, as the Maestro says in the interview present in the package I watched. Highly recommended.

P. S. My personal "appreciation" for Go Nagai is so great that I skipped entirely the special episode (not written by Inoue anyway) because of his cameo, and I have no regrets of sorts.

Yup, this is the real deal, not the hamfisted american destruction which name is better forgotten forever nor the american equivalent of DC comics (Blue Beetle) that I never particularly cared to begin with, even with me being a DC comics fan. Very good and enjoyable metal heroes series from start to finish which in the second half takes some cues from the preceding Rescue Squad quadrilogy (I'm counting Janperson in the mix) in trying to make the villains more than the typical toku exploding monsters, succeeding more or less in the process while also giving plenty of character development/background to each B-Fighter civilian identity. What is interesting to me as a westerner, even after being used to it by other series like Chojin Sentai Jetman and Space Sheriff Gavan, is the level of blood and simulated physical violence in this as well as the presence of sparse skeletons in what is (and it's not meant as an insult or anything but as an objective fact) a series targeted mainly towards children, stuff that I guess was completely removed by the cultural fraudsters of Saban Entertainment. Cool costumes, cool finishing moves and cool mechas complete the package. Highly recommended.

P. S. Unless you're a team-up fetishist of some sort, avoid the last two episodes with a Blue Swat/Janperson team-up, even if you're a fan of one or both of those series like me (I still have not watched Blue Swat). I did it and I don't regret it in the slightest.

Yup, this is what this series mostly accounts for, meaning there's a lot of stuff the main writer already used in older series like Changerion, Choujin Sentai Jetman, Kamen Rider Agito Kiva and Faiz, Cutie Honey the Live (the latter of which is in sorely need of a rewatch), Death Note etc. Etc. Stuff that my guess is that has been used here not because of any lack of ideas but because it's clear the main writer (my third favourite superhero writer as of now after W. M. Marston and Joye Murchison and my favourite modern/contemporary superhero writer hands down) simply wanted to make a clear statement on his past accomplishments as well as his personal experience concerning the Super Sentai franchise, like an underground metal band releasing early demos in a fan package not because of a cheap ca$hgrab but because they want to give the fans something while making a statement about their personal history (think of this as a toku equivalent of the 2014 Demo Collection by the de facto split-up for good german thrashers Paradox, for example). And in that sense it works flawlessly. The only real problem is the ending, unfortunately the last 6-7 episodes are not particularly interesting or well written but I blame the stupid Toei tendency of still releasing in the contemporary era fully blown 50-episodes series when it's clear they could get away with less episodes yet they don't do it for syndication reasons (Candy Candy anyone?). Still, if you're into Toshiki Inoue, his peculiar style of perfectly mixing orthodox, Classic with a capital C Shoujo writing, subtle social commentary that gets perfectly to the point, memorable fan service and psychedelic stuff a là Hideaki Anno/Kunihiko Ikuhara and translating it into tokusatsu form and you love his previous stuff you will like this one nonetheless, particularly because as the beforementioned demos it confirms some stuff it was previously only alluded but now it's clear in full (I'm talking about the Disney Princesses/Shoujo worship me and the Maestro share). Recommended to all Inoue fans like me and, if you don't like the style of the guy, just move on and watch something by some other author, nobody forces you to watch something written by a person whose style you don't like. I rave all the times about how I don't like Black Metal, I don't listen to Black Metal tout court end of the line.

P. S. This, as a fan package/early demos compilation of a Genius, it is STILL better, more authentically artistic and more thought-provoking (words I don't usually use or like, but in this case it is adequate) than ANY current american superhero live-action gargabe in existance, from all spectrum (including "decostructionist" stuff). I leave up to you to what to make of this statement.

And you might wonder why I'm making the comparison, since this is supposedly a magical girl and not a tokusatsu. The reason is very simple: this series is not a magical girl but an animated Kamen Rider show with sprinkles of the Sentais under the disguise of a Magical girl show, something that more or less in the first half is well done and interesting until in the second half the curse of the first historical iteration of those shows (and only of those) strikes again and we're served with episodes that are one the exact same copy of the other in sequence (I know, tokus are repetitious by nature but not all at the level of the 70's Kamen Rider) until you're bored to death and you just want to go to the end to see the final confrontation. And if this show is the 70's Kamen Rider, I guess the next one (Max Heart) will be V3/JAKQ Dengekitai kind of experience, and me not being a particular fan of those (to be generous) it's not an help. I guess I'll have to look for a Kamen Rider Black of the Pretty Cure to get into this IP properly. Really disappointing I must say.

And, of course, I'm referring to Toshiki Inoue, who is not just an excellent dramaturge able to express different emotions in a matter of minutes (as varied as the ones he will be able to make you feel) a là Ayako Wakao but he's also a 100% shoujo author in vein of the greats of the genre like Ryoko Ikeda, Keiko Takemiya, Mineo Maya and the likes, people from which it is clear-as-day at this point he took several cues for his writing like he took cues for from the Disney Princesses from Snow White on until the 90's classics like Beauty and the Beast, directly quoted in this awesome show, a blast to watch from start to finish. Add to the beforementioned shoujo and disney princess worship an healthy dose of mindbending stuff a là Hideaki Anno and Kunihiko Ikuhara without the flaws of these two (namingly, their ridicolous fake pretentiousness), an equally healthy dose of self humour and welcomed fanservice in the bra and panties of actual female lewd live-action artists taking part in this, and you have another certified toku Classic/Masterpiece a là Kamen Rider Kiva that I sincerely don't understand how it was cancelled because of low ratings, it makes no sense whatsoever. As an ending note, all the actors are very good in their performances but special recognition deserves Atsushi Ogawa for his portrayal of Shogo Kuroiwa, he did an excellent job.

Highly Recommended to all tokus aficionados and not just Inoue fans like me.