#media blasters

We open with our protagonist, Kouji Segawa (Yuta Mochizuki) an environmental photographer currently documenting the dwindling wild life in the mountains. He and his friend, Kana (Yuka Nomura) are set upon by three extra terrestrial beings; Garai, Zu, and Agito, who serve a giant a techno-organic monstrosity known as the Fog Mother, whose offspring devoured the Dinosaurs. Kana is selected as a sacrifice for the soon to hatch new batch, while Kouji is killed trying to protect her. He is revived deep underground, chosen by earth spirits as a warrior to protect the planet from the alien Fog, turning him into Kamen Rider J. A talking Grasshopper named Berry joins him on his quest to defeat the aliens and save Kana. Sensing the immense power of J, the Fog Mother sends Agito to kill Kouji. After a brief struggle, Agito turns into a lizardman, but Kouji assumes his J form for the first time and attacks on nearly equal footing.

Can we stop to appreciate this creature suit? It’s like a much more refined mutant from Kamen Rider Black, and the detail is simply incredible. Adding to the that is the uniqueness of this being a quadruped in the style on Anguirus.

Speaking of Black, J’s shown with fleshy bits and smoke whenever he’s damaged, leaning into the organic quality. I'm not sure how intentional it was, but even Jiro Okamoto’s body language is very much like Kotaro in the film. Another thing I really like about this fight is that J struggles. He has an idea of what he’s doing but there’s also a lot of improvisation, and by the end of the relatively short fight he’s tired. Most Rider’s have an instant grasp on their powers once they transform, but J isn’t a skilled fighter and over exerts himself in his first outing. ZO also had a similar scenario with the first Doras fight, but J struggles even more and I kinda dig that. The first battle being set in a ravine is also a nice change up from the urban decay look of ZO. The fight ultimately climaxes with J Punching out the eyeball and brains of Agito, sending him down the cliff side. Kouji continues his journey, eventually coming to a foggy forest area where he’s now confronted by Zu in an almost dreamlike arena. She quickly turns into a Wasp Woman and attacks. We end up at the ever reliable quarry. This fight is also shockingly scary. I know we point to the early Showa Riders as being wildly dangerous with the actors way too high up, but this fight is downright terrifying to watch in J. At one point they’re suspended over a cliff side and it just doesn’t stop. The camera keeps moving with them and I legit got a sinking feeling watching it.

Amemiya later commented that this is one of his three favorite shots over his career, and I completely understand why. In a last ditch effort, she sends the two of them crashing into the Fog Mother, where Zu dies. But hey, Kouji is conveniently at the third of the Fog Underlings, Garai, who seemingly kills Berry and becomes a Cobra Man. Our third fight is the most unique visually, what with it being in the Fog Mother. It becomes claustrophobic as J runs through the fleshy tunnel system with sometimes the only light coming from the glow of Garai’s repurposed LaserBlade prop-- which is probably an in-joke from Amemiya’s earliest work being on the particle effects for the Space Sheriff series.

This is inner-cut with poor Kana being besieged by the Fog Mother’s newly birthed children, dangling in a cage overhead as they nip at her. The cage breaks and she has to hang onto the rope. It’s surprisingly harrowing. But the show stopping sequence happens after Garai is defeated: the “Jumbo Formation” scene, where J exits the Fog Mother goes Ultra sized to combat her. We start with low angle shots up of J, followed by shots of his feet as he walks, the camera framed behind a treeline in the foreground. We move up to waist height, Radio Towers in the foreground, and then finally a shot of J’s head from a mountain ridge.

The entire ending sequence is undoubtedly where a good chunk of the budget went. The Fog Mother is fairly complicated and detailed for this type of production and they wrecked the hell out of it with J whaling on it.

This is also a point of contention on some level. Amemiya was reportedly vehemently against it, as was Ishinomori. Rider, particularly of this era, was much less flashy, right down do the monsters just dying and not exploding. So this Ultraman style growing felt at odds with everything else, a bit too fantastical, even more than a psychic Fetus Grasshopper in Shin. But they needed a big climax for the film and didn’t have a lot of time. Ishinomori relented on the condition that it be a one off ability granted as a gift from the earth, which is heavily implied to be the case within the film itself. He did not want J defined by just being the Rider that could grow like Ultraman. So uh, yeah, interesting to see where things went afterwards in all the anniversary films. Still, its hard to deny the spectacle of the whole thing, culminating with J delivering what was quite possibly the coolest Rider kick up to that point with an atmospheric re-entry burning foot. We get one last fake out with the Fog Mother before she’s truly killed and Kouji is finally able to rest. Kana is saved, life begins to return to the mountain, Kana and Kouji return to the normal lives, and Kouji hears Berry thank him as we transition to the end credits featuring the amazing Kokoro Tsunagu Ai.

Kamen Rider J… is an odd duck in its placement, both as a Rider film and the works of Amemiya. It feels like a compromise, something that was needed to fill a slot at the Toei Super Hero Fair, in much the same way ZO was a year prior, but without the same benefits ZO had. Don’t misunderstand, there are some amazing visuals in this, particularly some of the stunts, which I must stress Yuta Mochizuki is doing almost all of the out of suit actions. Likewise, the creature designs are on point and the overall look is what you’d expect from Amemiya, Takayuki Takeya, Nobuo Yajima, and Hiroshi Butsuda. Massive talent all around.

If nothing else J looks surprisingly great for a film made in the post bubble era, given the obvious constraints of the time. J manages to have some impeccably great visuals above even larger productions. But it also feels like like a stop gap between full on flourish. J can come off as a more kid friendly test tun for the following years Hakaider, which ended up having a lot of visual and tonal similarities to J. A number of the fights lack music or cut it midway to emphasize the punches in much the same surreal manner. I’d go as far to say J and Hakaider are more alike than J and ZO. J doesn’t have a “Falling Pipe” sound, though. The areas that are affected by the bubble and time crunch is something you’ll notice in some areas- particularly with the shockingly sparse henshin sequences of which there is only one on screen. The Hero suit itself is also a tad too close to ZO. Supposedly this was done to convey a double Rider homage, a Nigo to ZO’s Ichigo. But it does kinda feel like “Easy retool” was also on the mind of the Bandai side of things. Where the film suffers most however is the story. J is one of the most painfully sparse Rider stories I have seen. Sure, ZO had a basic story, too, but hit on all the evergreen Rider beats while still having twists to the formula and some subplot elements like Hiroshi and his mad scientist dad. That last bit also allowed for a sorta older brother dynamic with Masaru and Hiroshi, giving a through-line of interconnection between our Rider and the supporting characters. J tries to recapture that type of concise story while still doing something different, which is simply too tall an ask, especially in half the time. We don’t even really know what Kana is to Kouji. Sure, Yūta Mochizuki embodies the older brother vibe well, but the connection Kouji has to Kana is tenuous at best. The one flashback we get after the Agito fight seems to imply she’s from around the area, has empathy for the dying animals, and she just happened to cross paths with Kouji. The entire plot of J is Kouji meets Kana, Kana is kidnapped by aliens, Kouji killed by aliens, earth spirits revive him as J, 4 fights that each lead into one another, J wins and story over. I did not abridge much at all in this review. This is even more basic than your average Showa episode.

I will applaud J for at least doing something a little more esoteric by dialing up the eco warrior angle and ethereal aesthetic. But while that part is more prevalent thematically, it also doesn’t do a whole lot beyond mentioning pollution and a dying ecosystem within the mountains. Sure there’s construction equipment at one point, but that’s it. Which that point also gets muddled when that’s just a brief aside to the main antagonists who, while polluters, are also aliens. So you’re denied the evil of a very human misdeed, which to me is kinda toothless. Ishinomori gets his environmental motif in, but to what end? I guess we at least avoid the cliché of all early 90s media having some generic evil logger, or Uehara’s early draft having a Galactic EPA create J (I’m serious.) But what we have also feels like Gaia/ZO leftovers, and ZO was already using elements that didn’t make it into Shin. It’s pulling from the same well, and J hit the last drop. Apparently, Uehara had a more fleshed out story in mind, with an entire love subplot between Zu and Garai. Most of that made in into a novelization, and most of it is superfluous. But there was a proper backstory for Kana which has her as an Alien with great power. That tidbit would’ve went a ways to explain why she’s seemingly alone in the mountains with no family and is targeted by the Fog Mother. But J’s Shooting schedule was a minuscule 20 days, less than half the time they shot ZO. Amemiya wasn’t even able to maintain a cohesive team as with ZO, meaning the action and SFX scene had to be handled separate just due to time. So even a couple of minutes of backstory might’ve been pushing it. Ironically, Toei would delay J by a month so it wouldn’t be over shadowed by the Sailor Moon R movie. Wise choice, but damn, they could’ve had more time to film and maybe given us just a bit more for a real cream puff of a movie.

Still, the team got visual shorthand right. The Fog Mother looks like a cosmic industrial factory, constantly spewing smoke or fog from her maternal monolithic monochromatic menage of machinery. It contrasts beautifully with J’s heavily Green visage and says more than the actual story does. And that’s kinda J’s entire deal. The visuals are nice, the vibe is cool, they have sweet synth tracks dangerously close to Vangelis’ End Titles from Blade Runner, and… there’s not much else to it. J was meant to fill 40 some odd minutes and not be boring. They got an insane scary stunt and a fairly damn good Ultraman homage, all in under a month. Mission accomplished. The fact it ended up sandwiched between a much better Rider Film and a much more interesting indulgent project only exacerbates J as a victim of it’s overly tight production schedule. But while it’s far less ambitious and less fun to analyze compared to Shin, and not as polished as ZO, there is merit to the picture itself, especially on a technical level that is still impressive given the deadlines.

On a slight downer, this was a swansong for many involved. This was the last Rider project Ishinomori had direct involvement with; this was one of Shozo Uehara’s last works before Ohranger, this was the last time Katsushi Murakami worked on Rider; this would be the last Rider Film to see the Toei Super Hero fair, which ended just a year later in ‘95 And this was the last Toku Rider for 6 years. It’s kinda weird and a tad sad to think that for a while the end of Rider appeared to be on a visually stunning but ultimately very corporate mandate to fill out a slot in an event that wouldn’t last beyond the next year. I doubt many involved thought Rider would be away for so long after this. Surely with the Annual releases there would be another short film or V-cinema? Yet it never came. But as Ishinomori said, Rider would return when the world wanted it. But that’s a story for another time. For now, I want to get into the real meat of this review. Media Blasters Rider Elite Kollection.

Let me ask a serious question, has there been a company still in existence outside Discotek that hasn’t done something incredibly stupid with a Toku Series? I think Criterion and maybe Arrow are the only ones. Shout had a shoddy record with Sentai subs, Millcreek is… Millcreek and clearly did not run any form of QC on their Ultra Releases, Funimation screwed up a perfectly good version of Shin Godzilla for home release, there’s the Sub mess with Shin Ultraman from Cleopatra. And now we come to Media Blasters turn. Oh boy, where to start with this? Before getting into the set itself, which I surprisingly have good things to say about, we have to talk about the stuff surrounding it. Cause this was announced way too early (7-12-’21) and then the Rightstuf buyout happened which affected Media Blasters since they’re mainly a hentai company and CrunchyRoll has a puritan stick up their ass about that. Then we had the limited edition release which had a slight error with the audio being de-synched on Shin-- which to their credit they did fix with replacements. This wasn’t a Cleopatra Entertainment level screw up.

No, the big thing happened when the standard edition went up a few months later. Before, the $70 limited edition set was the only option and exclusive to MB’s store, and it originally advertised the 1994 short film “Kamen Rider World” as being an exclusive to that edition. Why, I do not know. Toei is a notoriously weird company and it simply could’ve been too expensive for anything other than a limited release. Who knows? But then it was listed on the pre-order page for the $40 standard release. Understandably, a number of people weren’t happy about that. Now, I am against exclusives gating off such things. Sometimes it can’t be helped, but generally it’s a good thing when more people have access to the thing in question. Maybe something changed so it could have a wider release, which is good.

But I think it’s very likely a not insignificant number of people made a purchasing decision on what was advertised exclusive, only to then have it in a set that’s $30 cheaper. The only thing you wouldn’t be getting on the standard release is a slip cover, and that’s not worth an entire other bluray set. But then, because people complained, it was stated that it wouldn’t be in the standard release. Which seems to be missing the fucking point. Not only that, the interview with Keita Amemiya was also removed from the standard edition and that was never meant to be an exclusive in the first place. BUT THEN it was revealed that Kamen Rider World would be included with the upcoming Kamen Rider The First And The Next set-- What the fuck are we doing here? The optics of that are bad. Regardless of whatever the reasoning may be, that appears scummy as hell. Media Blasters put out a $70 set with an exclusive feature as a selling point, turned around and advertised the standard ver. as having it too, removed it before production, retroactively made the Interview with Keita Amemiya an exclusive to the $70 set so I guess those buyers got something unique, and then bundled the original Exclusive with what is-- let’s be honest, going to be the least desired Rider release.

I’m not saying they did that on purpose, I’m not saying that they squeezed an extra $30 out of 1,000 early adopters with false advertising. I’m not saying they’re trying to sweeten the deal on a shitty movie pack that Toei probably saddled them with. But it sure would look that way to a lot of people, especially the ones that plopped $70 down. Also just how inconvenient is that gonna be for the standard edition buyer to have the ZO/J team up separate from the boxset with ZO and J? You’ve already broken the seal of exclusivity, but now there’s extra fuckery on top of it.

In any case, I’m reviewing that very $70 limited edition Kollection. Why they spell it like it’s Mortal Kombat related is anyone’s guess. Also, no, I didn’t pay $70 for this. Strictly speaking I was waiting on the standard release and then everything happened and soured my tastes, so I’m borrowing this. That said, the standard edition is, as of this writing, still on sale and $10 off MSRP. So now it’s $40 less than the limited set. Keep an eye on it, I’m guessing it’ll go on clearance eventually. Or get it by whatever means seem fit to you, I don’t care. I am taking a look at the corrected version as well. As I mentioned earlier, that was something that MB made good on.

First and foremost I want to talk about the translation. The only experience I had with MB on the Sub front was with Hakaider, and that’s pretty much the only version I’ve known given how far back they got the license. But Rider is different, we have a lot of fan subs and I was curious how they would compare. Taking a look at the J subs we can see some differing interpretations from Media Blasters and MegaAnon. Often the same gist, but different tone and slightly changed contextualization.

There are some bits that bug me, like here where the spoken dialogue is literally “Kana-Chan” I can literally hear her name being said. I understand from the context it’s being inferred to get her to run. That’s no unheard of in subs, but it still bugs me. Another example would be the meeting between Kouji and the Earth spirits where he repeats an answer back as a question “We are Spirits of the Earth (Chikūjin)” “Earth Spirits?(Chikūjin?)” the subs simply put “What?” It’s not *wrong* but again, if you sub a term as one thing and that term is immediately repeated but now subbed differently, that’s distracting. That happens a few times with terms like Onii-chan being “Mister” in one scene, then “Big Brother” which is fine, the first two kinda work as synonyms and “mister” arguably makes more sense colloquially. But then they’ll follow it in the exact same scene as “Help me.” Why are you doing it that way? That's so weird.

That being said, it’s a minor point in the grand scheme and if it really comes down to it, I prefer Media Blasters. For one thing, they sub the on screen text including the credits. That is an immediate win. I mean even massive anime companies don’t do that. Looking at you, Funimation subs for The Woman called Fujiko Mine. Secondly, they spell the names right.

Yeah, the MegaAnon subs for some reason thought Garai was called Gain. Despite it not sounding like that and, ya know, that could’ve been looked up even in 2012. Japan has a wiki. How these compare to the TV-Nihon subs on the other hand is something I’m not equipped nor interested in looking at. I can’t imagine there would be much more nuance other than possibly having different choices in very select areas and TN spelling the names right. Media Blasters J’s subs are Fine. I wish they were more consistent, but they’re fine. I will however touch briefly upon ZO compared to the WeeabooShogun version. Weeaboo’s styling places a good emphasis on character voice and making choices that not only translate the meaning, but fit the respective personas. The most obvious example is with Winspector, taking Bikel’s “Leave it to me” catchphrase and interpreting it as “fuggitaboutit” because his character has a very prominent and distinctive accent. We can argue if North-Eastern Wiseguy is the best course for that, but it is at least thinking about that angle and how it’s an aspect of the character that wouldn’t come across to a non native speaker. You get the point across while also injecting personality into the reading experience. Now, ZO does not have anything as drastic as Bikel’s Accent, but I brought Winspector up to give you an idea of how WeeabooShogun goes about their choices. It’s not just about accuracy, but tone and personality-- all the more important with things that don’t have direct translations or synonyms and you HAVE to be interpretive. It is a part of translation as much as it pisses off certain subsets. Frankly, ZO was the one I was most interested in because of this comparison, and because it’s the one I have the most experience with.

Although first thing you’ll notice is the color grading is different, with MediaBlasters on the left and WeeabooShogun the right. I expected that with J because my JPN source was the DVD release. But both of these ZO are supposed to be bluray and I was shocked at how nice the MB release looks, since the one on the right is not at all bad looking. The first impression might be to say the MB release looks even better and less washed out...cause it does. By comparison the apparent JPN Bluray looks like the brightness was kicked up. But I’m not sure which is more accurate. The thing that gives me pause is there’s an introduction in the special features for the Kamen Rider World short, and it mentions how the short used stock footage from J and the color grading didn’t match the rest of the short, but that this bluray fixes that error. I don’t know if that means it didn’t match in the theaters and the home release fixed that and it’s presented that way here-- or if MB themselves did the fix for this specific release. Which I have thoughts about that specific case-- but does it extend to the rest of the set such as this, or did they simply do a better job than Toei on corrections due to age?

Cause it must be stressed that it’s not uncommon for a number of NA releases to have better quality than the JPN versions, and some of that is the color being more accurate. But is that the case here? I honestly do not know and I don’t feel completely comfortable commenting because of it. I would need someone in the know like FortMax to explain it. I would trust her analysis in the field. The most I can say here is the MB release has darker and more moody shadows and is a lot more natural looking. It’s really noticeable on skin tones, where the JPN source I have almost has a very slight green tinge. And frankly, I would not at all doubt that Toei would take a 30 year old print and do the bare minimal. Keep in mind, they uploaded the LaserDisc version of ZO to Youtube. So yeah, Media Blasters might have given us the better more proper “As released” version with the appropriate post processing needed for a 30 year old washed out source. But I can’t say with 100% certainty.

Back to the subs, things are initally on more equal footing because text is subbed on both this and the fansubs. But I’ll give MB a leg up here. Some of the subs on the WS version disappear even as the Japanese Text lingers on screen, MB keeps it up. Additionally, MB times their subs if a character trails off or pauses in-between dialogue. That’s harder to do than just keeping the words up during those moments, but it looks better when the subs match it. The text is also larger and easier to read.

And, if you remember my ZO review, you’ll know that one of the things that bugged me was Doras’ POV did not sub the text despite containing contextual information on what was going on, it was a bizarre moment, seeing as the credits were subbed. Guess what the Media Blasters release actually does? More points to them. Otherwise most of the differences are in phrasing and it’s typically very basic stuff like “You piece of Junk” vs “You piece of crap.” Other times the sentences are simplified and often for the better. I like that MB’s subs are more concise compared to WS, which maybe get a tad overzealous and overly descriptive.

That said, there are moments I prefer Weeaboo’s, such as here. “You haven’t believed a word I’ve told you” is more natural than “You don’t believe my story.” Which comes off as a bit stiff. Heck, “You don’t believe me” would even flow better while still being to the point. And yes, like the J subs, we have instances of a character’s name being said and them putting something else other than the name. Also a character stammering, which is replicated on the WS subs but not on MB, so you’re missing a bit of nuance. But there are less moments that stick out compared to J. One major thing that might bug some people is Media Blasters uses Neonoid for the creatures names.

In Japanese it’s Neo Seimeitai and that’s usually subbed as Neo-Lifeform. I prefer that, but I can’t fully knock the use of Neonoid, it’s what Toei uses in media printings for the Complete Works and the like. Or they put a z in Neo-Organism. There is however an argument that an official Japanese English designation should be sidelined for a better sounding (and often more sensible) one. The most famous example with Toei would be the official international name “Space Cop Gavan” being made as “Space Sheriff Gavan” which sounds far better with that alliteration in English. Still, I’m rather shocked by how much I liked this version of ZO. I wasn’t sure if I was going to show some friends the WeeabooShogun version or the Media Blaster one, but I think I’m going to go with Media Blasters. I have some bits I don’t care for, but overall I think the MB reads better thanks to the conciseness and timing. The larger sub size on the MB version also makes that easier. Oh, and if you’re wondering my thoughts on Shin, much of the same. Sometimes they make weirdly wordy choices like “Subarashi” being “It’s more than we could’ve hoped for.” barely having enough time to read it. Other times it’s more concise, and they sub all the little important signs. Now let’s shift out focus to the really fun part of the boxset, the special features. This thing is loaded. First up we’ve got three audio commentaries, one for each film. Shin has Matt Burkett and Kevin Derendorf, ZO has Mike Dent and Matt Burkett, and J has Kevin Derendorf and Mike Dent.

The commentaries themselves are great, have good information, and a passionate scrappiness that you get from fans of a particular subject gushing. Almost like the audio equivalent of a Fanzine, and I think that’s wonderful. The information therein is good and has citations to various mooks, books, and print magazine interviews to back up factual statements. Additionally there’s educated speculations of contemporary events which may have partially influenced Ishinomori at the time, such as the big goings on with Genetics in the 90s. Shin’s commentary in part focuses on the misconceptions (mostly outside Japan) of the movie’s misunderstood reputation. Much like “Ohranger almost canceled Sentai” being a widely spread falsity in NA, Shin had a similar occurrence with it being too dark and violent and therefore unpopular. It wasn’t, it was a #1 hit on video and well received critically. But Toei had a shift due to the economy, and while Shin did shockingly well, the reality is Anime and things geared towards women always did better than adult oriented works. So much like I brought up regarding the end of the Toei Comedy series, they wanted that Sailor Moon money to weather a recession. And the things they were making live action would be more kid friendly, hence ZO (in theory) and more so J… also in theory. The rest of the commentary has various trivia of the actors, filming locations, etc. Loads and loads of production history. There’s no dead air, it’s very dense with information. To a lesser extent that extends to ZO and J’s commentaries which, while far more casual and gushy, are still packed with a goldmine of information on the production details. I think my favorite moment in ZO was finding out the Gold Accents on the suit was supposed to resemble blood vessels, which I never considered. Knowing that also re-contextualizes the piping on the Black Sun suit in a similar light.

J’s on the other hand name drops a lot of creatives, and as I’ve said before, it’s depressing how little is written in English about the people behind the magic. As I was taking notes for this review it became very apparent watching this commentary how that still rings true. Nobuo Yajima in particular has credits going back to Invasion of the Neptune Men. He worked on some of the earliest Sentai, and when he was working on J he was also doing Kakuranger and BlueSwat. He doesn’t have a page on the Ranger Wiki, his Rider page only lists Shin Prologue, and Metal Heroes only lists the Rescue Trilogy among his work. Same thing with Sadao Iizuka. He only has big Godzilla and Ultra Pages, which sure, that’s his biggest contributions. But he did optical effects on Kamen Rider J. Hell he did optical effects for Toei as far back as Battle Fever J and as recent as Heisei Generations Final. He helped get Amemiya onboard to work on Gavan. Zero mention on Rider, Sentai, or Metal Heroes. Want something more than me pointing at a commentary? Dude has an auto-bio Sadao Iizuka and Hajime Matsumoto. Pages 299-301 lists his major work. But it’s in Japanese, and that’s kinda the issue here, isn’t it? Damn shame. Outside all that, there's curious tidbit on the commentary that indicates that the SD Rider OVA was intended to be in this set but they couldn’t get the license. I don’t know how serious or literal that statement should be taken, but that would’ve made it like the Japanese trilogy Bluray set which has that as a bonus. There is however a contrast to all this positivity. For one thing there are no subtitles for the commentary, so you don’t have an option available if you’re hard of hearing or deaf. That’s not at all uncommon, but I felt it should be mentioned. The bigger oddity is the discrepancy between the various audio sources. This was clearly done over a service like discord. Everyone is in a different environment, has a different mic, different audio set up, etc. It’s not unwatchable or even unpleasant, you’re not getting dogs barking in the background or sirens. But it’s weird that something on a $40-70 bluray box set has commentary with the phonic finesse of a livestream. I’m not going to knock someone not having a $150+ Elgato and a full sound booth-- the simple act of being in different locations or having different set ups will not guarantee zero dichotomy and white noise. Nor would I expect a tiny company like Media Blasters to fly three nerds out to record commentary on a niche cult trilogy. I have self awareness regarding the prevalence of the things I like, and this stuff ain’t popular enough for that treatment. This is the most sensible thing to do if you’re gonna do it. It beats a dirt cave recording.

...But it’s slightly irksome to hear something with that disconnect. There’s also an instance of talking over one another on the ZO track. That only happens once, I don’t blame the commentators for that, they handle it well, it’s brief, but that also should’ve been edited out. If you told someone this was commentary for the films uploaded to patreon, it would be believable, if shocking for how informative it is. But if you told someone they were part of a licensed Bluray set, they’d say you were lying. The commentaries are great, I’m glad they’re here, they enhance the boxset for me. I respect the effort and undertaking that went into them to gather all the information presented. Hell, you might even get a deeper appreciation for some of films afterwards. It’s still a selling point. But it’s also not polished and it’s something too keep in mind as I talk about this, again, $70 set. Had the audio not varied in the way it does, I might be saying the commentaries alone are worth picking up the trilogy, even if only one or two movies appeal to you. But I also love BTS information.

Next we have The Image Galley which is damn nice. Just lots of great high quality photos that show an insane amount of detail. Some are production stills, others are more recent photos of the suits. Every little imperfection, damaged piece and sculpted details you’d never notice in the original film are clear and crisp for your viewing pleasure.

I do kinda wish it was a normal galley and not a video file slide show, particularly since the zoomed shots don’t pan the full length of the photos, just the head and torso. On the other hand, there is a nice feature I’ve not seen anywhere else, and that’s subtitles for the Posters in the image gallery. That is very much appreciated. If I can give this set it’s subbing as much onscreen text as possible. Also the Image Gallery includes Kamen Rider World material. So on the standard version, are you going to get photos of the thing that’s not included? Certainly a choice.

Amemiya and the Grasshopper. This is an original interview made for the Bluray and is apparently now exclusive. It’s a sub 20 minute sit down with the man himself. But it’s not just a simple pointing of the Camera, this has proper editing and visuals aids. When Amemiya is discussing his inspirations and involvement with Tokusatsu we get images of Ultraman, Ultraseven, panels from the Kamen Rider Manga, and of course plethora of movie clips. They went all in on this. The discussions also give very brief insights to how he became involved with varying production departments, from creature deigns and SFX, to directing. Along with anecdotes and stories, like how Makoto Tsuji once told him a childhood story of seeing a bug/man monster in the woodgrain ceiling above his bed, which Amemiya used as inspiration for one of the nightmare sequences in Shin. Another of my favorite stories is him being asked to direct ZO after already seeing the teaser in the theater when he took his daughter to see Sailor Moon. That’s great. He also goes into not liking to separate the SFX team from the main shooting team in the “Tsuburaya” style, but rather one large unit to maintain consistency on location. Even when it came to the stop motion scenes in ZO, the rest of the crew would be on hand to make sure the lighting would be right between the miniatures and the sound stage. He also notes the difficulties of not being able to transfer CGI renders to 35mm prints, so they had to film the CG off a flat monitor and treat it like a composite and heavily adjust the contrast in post. We also get some insight on J, and a key factor of why the story is the way it is was because of some blowback that ZO received for being too scary for kids. So J was made to be “far more kid friendly” and dead simple to follow. I have question about that, given J has multiple impalings and was aimed even younger than ZO’s 10+ target.

Oh, and the Bee woman battle sounds way worse when you hear how they made the wires taut with 4x4s, and a taut wires snap if they’re not relaxed slowly. I don’t want to go over every detail here, but this interview is probably the best stand alone special feature on the set. This interview is also referenced in the commentaries which makes the exclusion on the standard version all the more baffling. I guess on the plus side you’re still getting the information of the interview relayed to you even in its absence. I wish I could stop bringing it up, but between the Photo Gallery having Kamen Rider World material and the Commentaries bringing up the interview, and J’s flat out telling you to watch The World afterwards, you’re going to be constantly remind of the shit you do not have on the standard release.

A Message from Keita Amemiya This is touted as a special feature but it’s simply the last 20 seconds of the Interview in its raw form. I’m… not sure why this is here. This is still apparently on the standard release. So again, you’re getting yet another reminder.

Kamen Rider World. Look, I’m gonna be real, this wasn't worth the extra 30 This set cost. But I also get it, it’s the principle of having something in tip top quality on Bluray, to have something that you presumed would not see the light of day again outside Japan, to have a more complete feeling package. That short itself I don’t have much to say about. It’s 8 minutes long and was made for theme parks. You expecting an analysis from that? This was a cute way to to smash some pre-existing material together with original footage utilizing pre-existing suits. J fights a giant Shadow Moon. Don’t buy The First/Next set just to get this if you missed out.

You know what isn’t in this box set, though? Trailers. Shin, ZO, J. None of the trailers or teasers are part of the set. We get a snippet of ZO’s Teaser (The one that used the Black Suit) in the Amemiya interview, but that’s the closest we get. Trailers are such a common inclusion that it’s very odd not to see them. I’d say it could be a license thing with the other Toei Super Fair stuff. But Hakaider had the Toei Superhero fair trailer with Ohranger and B-Fighter, and it wouldn’t explain the lack of Shin’s trailer which wouldn’t have Sentai or Metal Hero footage anyway. I dunno, maybe that might’ve been a whole separate thing to go through, similar to how the Movies of shows aren’t included in sets. But it is a shame when nowadays we’re getting Japanese special features like the Anniversary round tables for Gavan and Black, the ‘87 This is Kamen Rider Black TV special, etc. I’ll still take the commentaries and the like as a nice consolation to something I can just look up on youtube, but it is odd.

Final Thoughts. Hmm, not done one of these in a while.

I am very split on this set. Let me be clear, a lot of this isn’t even going to be applicable because the limited set is long sold out. You have my previous movie reviews, the J review here, and my thoughts on the commentaries and photo gallery. It’s all that’s relevant for making a purchasing decision at this point. Do you want the movies and the commentaries for 30ish? I think that $10 per movie with the commentaries as a nice little bonus isn’t bad. You’d typically pay that for a barebones release. The transfers look gorgeous, you get to have them on bluray, I think ZO alone is worth having. If you only care about the main features, which is the main point, yes this set will give you that and it does it pretty goddamn well. Bonus Material is just gravy on top, even if it’s not the most polished. But there are also all the little annoying bits to consider. And not to mention what went down with the short and the interview. If you take a look at that and think “Wow, fuck giving them money.” I would not blame you one bit. I love physical media, I get wanting to support your niche interests and smaller companies. Hell, I was pleasantly surprised how many things I loved about this pack. But even if you have zero interest in the special features, it still leaves a bitter taste knowing how they handled it. Some Super Bullshit 64 went down here and I don’t want a part of that.

Had all of that been different or they at least apologized but still kept the features in place, I’d still criticize the act and have all my little issues with certain choices. But I’d have less reservations. Especially going to Japan to interview Amemiya, which is a fantastic surprise… one that you cannot get now and should have been on the standard set. If I’m being brutally honest? I’m hoping future Rider releases don’t come from Media Blasters. Hell, I wouldn’t even trust a bare bones Lady Battle Cop release from them after this. By comparison, I’d rather get a write up by Mike Dent on a Discotek release and that be the only special feature made for the set. Is it as exciting as a full on commentary? No, but unless someone screws up the font it’s a consistent experience. Is it as cool as an original 19 minute interview with a creator heavily involved with the production? No, but I know that unless an entire disc is missing, that write up will be on the copy of X I buy.

And further more, this idea of limited or early adoption fucking blows and no one should ever fall for it. Really think of the multitude of companies I brought up and how often they have fucked up or straight up lied. MillCreek released Ultra Q with a damn copyright logo in the subtitles. Ultraman, Ultraseven, Return of, Ace, Taro, and Leo all have misspellings. Mebius has poor grammar and spelling in spots. Gridman was set to be resubbed cause they knew the original was so bad, and then the DVDs came out with all the errors and shoddy bootleg quality translation in-tact as an official product. Remember when Shout bragged about “improving” the picture quality of Zero-One on Bluray cause of deinterlacing-- which is both bare minimum standard practice and something bluray players automatically do. Remember how it and Kuuga only looked like ass online because most webplayers don’t do that and they didn’t know? Don’t forget Cleopatra Media screwed up the subs on Shin Ultraman and sent out replacements which also had an issue, and then they stopped responding.

And of course this very set from Media Blasters had an audio syncing issue on Shin. Yes it got fixed, yes I will give credit for actually doing so-- which is a depressing thing to say. But it still happened on a $70 limited to 1,000 production numbered set. And if that made you hesitate, you got screwed out of two features- one of which wasn’t even supposed to be exclusive in the first place.

I said this last time I reviewed Ultra, but Tokusatsu in NA is in a weird and kinda stupid place. In some ways it reminds me of how anime was pre-toonami and into the early TOM 1.0 era. It’s a clusterfuck of niche and often expensive products still relying heavily on fan efforts, but also a lot of dumb shit happens with alarming regularity. We’re stuck with whatever we get, at least physically. (Not to say we don’t get that garbage with anything super popular and mainstream, mind you.)