Retro Overview: Kamen Rider W (2009-2010)

Hello folks, it’s time for another Retro Overview! In this case, we’ll be taking a look back at Kamen Rider W as we gear up for the finale of Kamen Rider OOO as well as the start of Kamen Rider Fourze. As always, beware that when you hit the jump, you will be bombarded by spoilers and gigantic walls of text with very little pictorial or video relief. At least I’m being nice by warning you.

Ultraman (1966) Episode 8 Review

Chandra (pictured left) and Red King (pictured right)

This episode has 4 Kaiju, Chandra, Red King, Magular, and Pigmon. They are all basic brawlers, but the fact that there are there in numbers heightens the situation facing Ultraman in this episode. This piece is very light on plot or story development and instead has a lot of battling against Kaiju, which creates a nice batch of pure action to satisfy the Ultraman in all of us.

Ultraman (1966) Episode 7 Review

The Kaiju you see here is Antlar, and sand-based creature who has giant piercers, can hide and burrow in the sand, and also has a magnetic ray that can pull metallic objects towards it to remove options of attack from opponents. This episode certainly tries to do things a little differently, as we go to a locale that has no water, although Tsuburaya Productions could have made a little bit more effort into the casting department.

Ultraman (1966) Episode 6 Review

The Kaiju that you see here for this episode is Gesura, an amphibious-like being with a predilection for cacao beans, the precursor for chocolate. Gesura doesn’t really have any special abilities other than it’s feelers which are of a poisonous nature, so you’re basically looking at another straight brawler. This episode helps hide those shortcomings however via a nice double-plot involving Gesura, diamonds, and more Hoshino, who is really proving how much of a boss he is when it comes to kid characters.

Kamen Rider (1971) Episodes 14 and 15 Review

The Kajin that you see here is CactoGaron, a Shocker cyborg from Mexico who tries to bring the same level of success that he had in his home country to Japan, only to be foiled by the new Kamen Rider Hayato Ichimonji. He does have a neat ability to pop up out of the ground and also has some neat “Mexican Roses”, but can be a bit gullible sometimes. These set of episodes bring a complete tonal shift from the stoicism of the previous 13 episodes and brings a much lighter tone to the proceedings; as such, I felt it would be best to review these both together so one could get a sense of how things change.

Retro Overview: Kamen Rider Blade (2004-2005)

Hi there folks, and welcome to a new feature of DTF, our Retro Overviews, in which we take a look at previous series as a whole, and then proceed to take them apart to make ourselves feel better. In this edition, we’ll be taking a look at Kamen Rider Blade, one of the earlier Heisei shows with a Multi-Rider flair to it. I should warn all of you right now, this pic up here is the only one you’re going to see for this essay, so those of you who do not like long walls of text separated by paragraphs will probably not get too much out of this. So with that out of the way, let’s get to it!