Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

I remembered watching The Outsiders on ABC-5 before it became TV-5. I remembered it was a late night program and didn't get to finish it because of college classes that started at 7:30 A.M. -- I had to get enough sleep or risk losing lots of stuff! So I did watch it but never got to finish it. Then I thought Netflix does something by bringing in some 2000s series that I haven't finished together with some new school. I currently put Ashes of Love on a halt to watch some old school Taiwanese TV series. Sometimes, when bored with what's new then why not temporarily watch old school? I did that with Super Sentai (and right now, I'm watching more new school Super Sentai until I get bored) then I might as well watch some old school TV drama then check new ones out later. There's still Vagabond later this year so maybe, I just need to watch some old school in order to to avoid getting taste fatigue with new school drama.  So far, Outsiders has been what I'd...

The final conclusion of my Decade rants. I really have to admit that somehow Shogo B'Stard probably had a stronger stomach to rewatch Kamen Rider Black RX which is a show he dislikes so much. Then I have Kamen Rider Decade which is what I'd call the black sheep of the Heisei era of Kamen Riders. It doesn't mean that I like a franchise that I won't point out what might be called as the lowest points of the franchise! The show itself ended in 31 episodes with a cliffhanger on August 30, 2009. Then fans had to wait for December 12, 2009 -- that would be the Kamen Rider W and Decade movie where the final ending was shown. Once again, bravo to the fact that Shoji Yonemura really has been causing all the decline in the series. I always felt that the World of Amazons is best described as Decade didn't know what to do anymore. Black and Black RX already had the Shocker villains showing up. Well, it's reimagining Amazon but I still bear in mind -- I didn't eve...

If there's another reason why Decade tends to bring up Saban's Mashed Rider to my head involuntarily (and the show isn't at fault) -- it's because it's the first Kamen Rider that got a TV crossover with Super Sentai. The stage shows were the start then you had Saban creating such a disaster. I still remember " A Friend in Need " in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and how it aged badly. We all have our Old Shames. However, Decade as a "successor" and "sequel" of Mashed Rider -- it still has a lot of positives such as better acting AND how it handled its crossover with Shinkenger. The crossover is ten years old. Fortunately, Ninninger VS. Kamen Rider Drive (which was a TV movie) managed to improve on the idea by reversing the situation (Ninningers landed into the world without Super Sentai instead) and adding a giant robot battle scene to top it all - something that's missing in the Decade and Shinkenger crossover. Middle, I sti...

Is it me or does Toei have a bad habit of burning out its writers? One of these writers I like to raise up is Toshiki Inoue who Shogo B'Stard terms as the "Frank Miller of Tokusatsu". He got so good and got so bad and undid himself. Though I seem to want to blame Toei more than Inoue. 2008 was the bad burnout of Inoue with Kamen Rider Kiva -- he's probably not so proud of it! Do you remember when he showed up in Kamen Rider Faiz's ending in a cameo! Kiva was where Inoue had really no idea on what to do. Later, he would later write the Kiva arc in Kamen Rider Zi-O .  Inoue went into four episodes straight. These two arcs involve the trope "Too Good To Be True" trope. The first two episodes involve Natsumi thinking she's arrived at her own world and finds out something else about it. Then we have Daiki where Inoue does something favorable by adding layers to that character who seems to be just an evil version of Herbie from Saban's Mashed Ri...

I remembered watching Kamen Rider Kabuto AFTER seeing Kamen Rider Decade. What's my reaction? I thought about how Kabuto is said to be Shoji "Patrick Star" Yonemura's one-shot wonder. I saw the whole Kabuto series and found it passable and sadly Yonemura is in the levels of Bruce Kalish and Jonathan Tzachor! But the Kabuto arc wasn't written by Patrick but by Kenji Konuta who isn't a major writer. Maybe I need to cut some slack but I still think Gordon Ramsay would probably still be a mad chef if he saw it and had translations to go along with it! I know I've read through Shogo B'Stard calling Souji Tendou an unlikable prick. There are some of my favorite shows full of them. A lot of Timeranger's characters tend to be jerks like Tatsuya or Yuuri. Kamen Rider Agito has Hojo Toru. Kabuto itself does have some kind of Hollywood feel with the Worms as a possible reference to the Harvesters in Independence Day. The series itself had some decent a...

It's known how Kamen Rider Hibiki had its controversial second half. Remember when the producer was changed from Shigenori Takatera to Shinichiro Shirakura and the writer was changed from plain boring Tyuyoshi Kida (who'd handle Kamen Rider Wizard making it another season I dislike) to Toshiki Inoue. Now you might want to brace yourself because Patrick Star is playing the drums. All that's needed is for the cast of Hibiki to play the instrumental of "Twinkle, Twinkle Patrick Star"... Yup, this song would have probably "helped" the World of Hibiki and I'm being sarcastic. Hehe! It turns out that A.R. Asumi is currently Kamen Rider Hibiki. It even has me thinking WTF as if forcing a child version of Kamen Rider Kiva wasn't enough . Is this the second time that we'd get a forced insertion of "Justin Stewart" from Power Rangers Turbo? I guess people know by now I compare Yonemura to Jonathan Tzachor and Bruce Kalish in more...

Well it's time for the first two episodes written by Yasuko Kobayashi who I believe is overrated because of Gingaman, Timeranger (her Magnum Opus IMHO), Shinkenger (which gets tons of praise) and ToQGer (which I think was the lowest point in her career BUT it won the Railroad Day award during its airing). So, how did Yasuko Kobayashi fare in her first two episodes for Decade? Granted, she's the head writer of Kamen Rider Den-O (and maybe she should've been Ryuki arc's head writer and maybe, the A.R. Ryuki characters would have had more personality than Sho Aikawa can offer) so I'd like to give my blunt opinion on the merits and demerits. So what happened to Ryotaro Nogami? He has been de-aged due to some timeline error or did I miss something? Regardless, Takeru Sato didn't reprise his role for a reason. Busy schedule? Too busy getting swordsmanship lessons? What's more interesting is that in the Kamen Rider OOO movie where Shocker took over the worl...

It's no secret that my favorite Heisei era Rider is still Kamen Rider Agito (though Kamen Rider Kuuga tends to fight with it in my head). I was thinking of how disappointing A.R. Agito is. Like really why is this world's Agito of all characters a HOMELESS VAGRANT? I really saw the Agito arc first before seeing the masterpiece that's Agito. Sorry Agito haters but I really can't accept all your over-biases against Agito. The whole Agito arc here is a mess. My whole beef here is just where's the Overlord of Darkness when you need him to reboot the world? In fact, I would gladly invite him over to the World of Agito and have the whole show reboot itself. Start that whole operation reboot and get everyone in that world to have nightmarish deaths like that happened in the finale arc of Agito! The Agito here was the original operator of the G3 operation system but became a vagrant. I really thought the whole loser image was taken way too much. Sure, Kamen Rider Den-O...

I remembered all the biases I had towards the overly depresing Kamen Rider Faiz -- something that was where you love it or you hate it with Toshiki Inoue. But after a second rewatch and I do have changing opinions on said show . Now, I guess this is where teenage Kamen Riders gone wrong. Instead of the now a man Takumi Inui -- why do we have Takumi Ogami who is a teenager defending Smart Brain high? Now it's time to play the opening intro of Saban's Mashed Rider! Yup, it reminds me of almost everything wrong with Saban's Mashed Rider. I guess you know why I purposely mispell Mashed Rider. If any Kamen Rider did teenagers right then the honor goes to Kamen Rider Fourze! Heck, there was even that April Fool's joke that Saban was localizing Kamen Rider Fourze into Power Rider Apollo. Fortunatetly, it was just a joke considering how much of an Adaptation Decay that Saban's Mashed Rider was. Now for a bit of criticism yet again. Do you remember Masato Kusaka in Ka...

It's no secret that I'm a fan of Kamen Rider Blade and I thought, "WTF happened at the World of Blade?" It's like replacing a really good sharp knife with a blunt knife that will never cut anything. Remember when Kamen Rider Blade had the BOARD which meant Board of Archaeological Research Department? Well, A.R. World of Blade has BOARD which has the Kamen Riders as employed to defeat the Undead. The original corporation was planning to unleash the Undead into the whole world. Decade's version was planning to combat the Undead. I guess my biases hit on the fact that the Alternate Reality Riders are quite not even half the men as their actual counterparts. Not that the characters in Blade are perfect. But I thought Sho Aikawa did a good job with Blade and Boukenger IMHO. But the Blade Arc in Decade is written by none other than Shoji "Patrick Star" Yonemura. Yup, it seems almost everything written by "Patrick Star" gets tainted and lacks t...

This is one area where I'm pretty mixed. Certainly, I still can't get over to WHHHHYYYY did Kamen Rider Ryuki end up having that stupid Reset Button ending that got rid of character development. Also, Shinji Kido is somewhat at the shadow of Shinji Tatsumi but there was something a bit interesting going on. I know Shinji Tatsumi is really quite wimpy in contrast to Shinji Tatsumi but there's an interesting arc in this episode. Natsumi gets wrongfully accused of a crime she didn't commit. The A.R. World has Atashi Journal in place of ORE Journal in the actual continuity of Ryuki. The interesting plot is how Natsumi gets framed by mysterious circumstances. The Atashi Journal knows about the whole Rider War. Worse, the justice system of this Alternate Reality is determined by the Rider War. I'm just reminded of the mock trials held by Cobra-La (G.I. Joe) and the Quintessons (Transformers). So, everything is determined by the Rider War? What kind of justice is that? I ...

I remembered how I often pointed out that perhaps Justin in Power Rangers Turbo is one of the biggest mistakes ever. It's not because he's a kid ranger -- it's because of how randomly placed he is. Kou in Dairanger was given proper development while Justin just ended up as a gimmick where producers hoped to capture more of the younger audience BUT. FAILED. MISERABLY. Sadly, Kamen Rider Decade would commit exactly the same mistake with the Alternate Reality Kiva arc. Yup, I'm writing this not after something after Kamen Rider Kiva had its tribute arc in Kamen Rider Zi-O . The A.R. world is a world where humans and Fangires supposedly called a truce BUT there's the Beetle Fangire. There's a child king Wataru who is in contrast to the older Wataru Kurenai. But can you imagine if ever Justin Stewart or Kou took such a high position for world peace? The whole outcome is just weird. I know there have been boy kings in history but they needed guidance from older one...

Well, after reading through Shogo B'Stard's RX-related posts -- I thought I'd do the same thing to what I love to call as the "sequel" of Saban's Mashed Rider. I remembered watching Saban's Mashed Rider and it's far worse than Black RX IMHO. Black RX is regarded as terrible due to how it capitalized on the success of Black or how it has several inconsistencies (such as Crisis Empire's origins) -- you still can't deny that in the year 2009 (ten years ago) that the Decade was born and NOT in a good way. So, let's get started, shall we? I really want to imagine it where Dex from Saban's Mashed Rider communicates with Tsukasa Kadoya saying, "Well, it's your turn to give such a sh*tty sequel to everyone!" The show takes place after Kamen Rider Kiva as evidenced by the figure of Wataru who is talking to Tsukasa. I know Kiva's not really well-liked but I'm a fan of Kiva myself. Decade? Well, I haven't had a good re...

It's no secret that while Kamen Rider Kiva is indeed the lowest point of Toshiki Inoue's career as a head writer but I'm still a fan of said series. Heck, Kiva is probably the biggest reason why I gave ToQGer a second chance a few years after that said show ended. Well, Inoue has returned to be the writer of this series and it's written with tragic infatuation over it. Okay, I would really not give too much of a high bar for him and Yasuko Kobayashi due to their burnout. Like ToQGer, Kiva is a series where the head writer is burned out yet there's a decent fanbase. Now, it's time to weigh this series and what I find to be either good or bad about it. Younger boys like older girls, right? Well, that's Sougo's story when he fell for an older woman who was a teenager when he was a child. She went by the nickname, Miss Sailor. I dunno but there are times that watching Ryusoulger reminds me of a crush I had who was five years my senior. Yu Takahashi (who g...

It's been some time since I last saw Kamen Rider Hibiki -- one was the crap dub done by TV-5 and I decided to rewatch it at my own pace. My readers know I definitely am no Hibiki fan and I have a mixed reaction. I always thought the second half was better with Toshiki Inoue becoming the new head writer though I do have an on/off dislike for Shinichiro Shirakura. Now, while the true Hibiki (Hitoshi Hidaka) didn't appear probably because the actor Shigeki Hosokawa didn't show up -- we do have some guest characters some Hibiki and NOT that stupid Alternate Reality Hibiki. We do have Tomizo Todayama (Kamen Rider Todoroki) and Kyosuke Kiriya (that irritating jerk in the second half). Thankfully, Kiriya matured in this arc and become more humble. So the show doesn't have the original hero but we have a mature Kiriya. It's also interesting that half of this arc takes place during the Heisei era (which ended on May 1, 2019) and the second half starts in the Reiwa era. T...

Real life writes plot, doesn't it? Today is May 1, 2019 and it's the dawn of the Reiwa Era in Japan. So we've had the long history of the Heisei era Riders and I'm happy to announce I've seen everything from Kamen Rider Kuuga up to Kamen Rider Build at my own pace for most of them. Then we have Zi-O which was celebrating the 20th season of the Heisei era Riders -- but now it must migrate to the Reiwa era. May 5, 2019 will begin the official migration and the title having the word Reiwa on it. So I just want to consider that it'll be the "second half" of show -- though it's not yet determined when Zi-O will air its final episode. I was really feeling so terrible with the Shirakura-Shimoyama tandem -- I just felt that Zi-O may become the Megafail of Kamen Rider. Fortunately, it's FAR from it. Kento Shimoyama though is pretty much hit or miss -- he wrote some Go-Busters episodes but Ninninger is really one of the low-tier seasons for me. Heck...