Poll, which toku shows do you watch?

[Joosche]

All of the above with no preferences. But this season I'm much more willing to watch KR Wizard because of the cast that is great.

[Ashki]

I find that Kamen Rider and the other toku shows tend to be more refreshing than most sentai (Akiba excluded). After so many decades of the same tropes being rehashed and the same formulas, I tend to feel as though Super Sentai is being treated like an American romance novel - Once you write the first one, you change names and places and reprint it under another banch of the same publishing company (Harlequin is notorious for this) to double your profits.

I love Super Sentai, don't get me wrong, but it's the rice that comes with my meal - you eat it up but it will always be the side an never the main course. Go Buster kind of changed things up a bit, but not enough to match the more creative storylines in Kamen Rider or Akibaranger (which uses the tired old tropes in such refreshing new ways). Sentai needs another good shakeup series so that the writers can see just how much we need something more revolutionary than the same stories with different casts.

That said, there are about six Super Sentai series I'm partway on and I've seen every Hisei ep except Kuuga (waiting on the TVN subs) and Hibiki (not a Rider series except in name). I think that says something...

[Miyagishin]

Toku is such a huge genre, I try and watch everything!

Why?

Well I don't think its fare to pass off a show without giving it a chance. This entails watching 1-3 episodes in, Then deciding if it does anything you. Personally some series don't really do much for me so I skip them. There's so much to go back and watch that I'm always watching a toku show. Possibly too much to watch...

Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, can be so different one from the next, Off the top of my head there are 20+ kamen rider series and 35+ sentai series, not including the American remakes, the Japanese redubs, movies, and even specials!

Garo was an amazing series to stumble upon, now it might be one of my favorites, It's very adult in its content too, which is a nice change of pace.

CutieHoney is something not to pass up either, I even own the live action movie.

Akibaranger has humor I don't understand or don't find funny, but I really enjoy the story, the world of delusions is a very cool concept.

Ultraman has so many series, and some of them are jaw dropping good, if you watch toku, there is something here for everyone.

Godzilla should be considered toku, Zone Fighters is on my radar of things to watch soon. I have a feeling with the movie coming out more people will be jumping on this bandwagon.

These are just a few, The fact is there is so much more to watch besides just the few I've mentioned above. I think if you enjoy one type of toku, the chances you will enjoy another type are extremely high.

This a great topic, I hope it inspires people to watch more Tokusatsu!

[TNT]

I have watched some sentai, however time is always in a much to short supply. Comparing sentai to power rangers there is just not enough difference for me to justify investing my time there. I have nothing to compare kamen rider to which despite having been around since kabuto does manage to feel a bit fresher. (may or may not have to do with me skipping a season due to lack of interest after the first few EPs.)
So Ultimately I come here for kamen rider. Thanks to your dubbing of garo I have now just been introduced to Garo. Garo looks interesting but since its not a mainstay for me yet I have voted for just kamen rider.

[Glamador]

Unlike some, I can say that even though I have a box in the garage *full* of MMPR stuff (a dozen megazords, RP weapons, the works) I definitely did NOT get into tokusatsu via the PR label. I always love PR more for the toys than the show, which was always pretty abysmal quality. And no matter how hard I try Super Sentai just DOES NOT click with me. The roll-calling, the clunky mechs, the disjointed fight choreography, the roll-calling, the silly team-up attacks that are just them holding a big cannon, the roll-calling...I just don't like it.

Short version: Went to Japan, visited every. single. shop. in Akiba looking for Gundams and anime stuff and ended up seeing a LOT of Rider and Saint Seiya toys around. Caught a KR movie (don't know which one yet) in passing on a stream channel, decided to watch some. About 2 years after that I actually followed through with that (OOO DVDs from eBay that a friend impulse-bought without researching).

So yeah. I'll watch anything as long as I enjoy it. Love GARO, love Masked Rider, quickly growing to love Ultraman. But Rider is the biggie and Sentai isn't on the map. So that's my vote.

[Kamen Rider Gumo]

I've just started watching my first KR series, Wizard, and so far I like it. I'm curious as to if the other ones are much the same? Sort of...kiddish?

The problem with Kamen Rider these days is that Den-O was a success. Since then, OOO, Fourze and Wizard have tried to emulate its rampant silliness....and I detest that. (It can be argued that Decade was kinda silly, but it was an anniversary show and it can be excused

If you're looking for a decidedly non-kiddish Kamen Rider series, I can point out several.

Kabuto, the first series I watched and still my favorite, is fairly dark and depressing at several moments. There are comedy elements, but it's a very serious show that delves deeply into the lives and hearts of the characters.

Agito is probably the darkest, most depressing toku show I've seen outside of the original GARO. Haven't seen much of Kuuga, but I know it's not as "kiddish" as Kamen Rider got post-Decade.

Blade, Ryuki and Faiz are all nice and dark with plenty of drama and even character death (and cases where living was a bigger curse then death would have been).

In short, I HIGHLY recommend them.

[takenoko]

So as a follow-up question. For those of you who only watch certain types, how open would you guys be to trying something different? Or maybe you've tried the other stuff and didn't like it?

I remember someone saying that they didn't like Ultraman, but I'd still recommend stuff like Nexus or Seven X to them, since they don't follow the typical Ultraman formula, for example.

[TNT]

Define different. I will try anything as long as it seems relevant to my interest. Anything in the SF or fantasy or humpr is fair game.
Id probably even watch an ep of Japanese idols just for novelties sake and then drop it immediately after watching since I've grown tired of talent shows. :/



I am still clinging to hope that you'll one day have the manpower to do winspector.

[Glamador]

Toku is kind of a wide bracket. I'm "open" to anything, but if it doesn't interest me in 1-2 episodes well...there are a lot of other things to watch. Like those 8 movies and 3 KR series I haven't finished yet.

Since you mention Ultraman though, I have a humble request. *PLEASE SUB MORE ULTRAMAN*. I've only seen clips, mostly, and a bit of Ultraseven X but what I've seen of the fight scenes alone is intriguing enough to want to watch it just for those (at least 1 or 2 series worth).

Really, as long as there's no roll-calling or lip-service teamwork I'll give it a go. A suggestion however, for those like me that have too much to watch and too little time; while you guys are subbing, pick out some (non-spoiler!) clips that represent a kind of "hot minute" for the series. Then post it as an embedded video in the blog posts for a new series, just for the first couple of episodes.

If you could host them on Youtube (they're so uppity about copyright these days) then that site's popularity might even get you guys some more fans as a bonus just from random related-video passersby.

[redfarmer]

I originally started coming to TV-Nihon for Sentai fansubs. I'd been watching old episodes of Power Rangers reliving my childhood and decided I wanted to see the Sentai too. Got hooked on the Sentai. Decided to eventually check out KR too. This was around the beginning of Fourze (I'm a recent KR convert) and found out I loved KR as well. Since then, I've checked out Garo and a few other shows. I've turned into a tokusatsu addict...it's replaced anime as my favorite form of Japanese fiction. There are some series I like less than others (Goseiger for instance) but I've yet to find anything I absolutely hate yet.

I'm still hoping someone decides to finally do complete subs on Metal Heroes. After watching the Gavin movie I feel this is a huge blind spot in my tokusatsu fandom.

[redfarmer]

A suggestion however, for those like me that have too much to watch and too little time; while you guys are subbing, pick out some (non-spoiler!) clips that represent a kind of "hot minute" for the series. Then post it as an embedded video in the blog posts for a new series, just for the first couple of episodes.

If you could host them on Youtube (they're so uppity about copyright these days) then that site's popularity might even get you guys some more fans as a bonus just from random related-video passersby.

Why not the trailers? Granted Toei sometimes does horrible trailers (I had no idea what to expect out of Go-busters or Kyouryuuger until they actually started airing) but they give you a general idea of the theme of the show in a minute or less.

I like Sentai too, but in the way I enjoy a nice vanilla ice cream. It'll always be there, and I enjoy it because I know what to expect.

It makes a lot of sense now why you were so passionate over Go-busters and Akibaranger last year: both were sentai shows that definitely broke the usual sentai formula. It was a shame that one turned into a huge hit in Japan while the other was a flop.

I'm curious: I know you started translating for TV-Nihon halfway through Faiz. Was Faiz your first KR? It would make sense since KR in general back in those days tended to completely throw convention out the window.

[takenoko]

My favorite thing is to be surprised, so I generally don't watch trailers. As such I don't translate those trailers. I'd be fine if other people in the group wanted to work on them, but I have no interest in them.

Yeah, Faiz was our first Rider series. It's also the only Rider series which I have have almost no input on.

[RyuShinEX]

All of it. Somehow I just like the whole genre.

Here's hoping that tv-nihon might continue to sub more ultraman/metal hero series - even the old ones.

[Netto no Zen-Aki]

The first Toku I watched was Dekaranger, and I've been hooked ever since. I've also been watching Kamen Rider since Kabuto.

Two series that use similar formulas but do it in such a way that you can try to predict what will come next, but something will change it. A really good example is the recent Wizard episode.

Other than that, I went with all Toku since I have seen Ryukendo, Rescue Force and Rescue Fire as well: all good shows for what they are. And just to be a good fan, I've watched them all with TV-Nihon subs LOL.

This reminds me, I need to update my profile here to show the shows I watched.

[Spacewolf]

Watch them all but I am here for Garo