Toho is one of the most recognizable names in the tokusatsu films, most well known for their monsters like Godzilla, Mothra, and Ghidorah. While their kaiju movies are some of the most recognizble films around, alongside a whole bunch of anime movies and live-action adaptation of manga's. But besides their tokusatsu movies, did they do anything television related. Suprisingly yes, they had a couple of series created and produced in the 70's from the likes of Rainbowman and Diamond Eye, many attempted mixures of the Kyoudai hero and sentai role with middling success, now more oddities today than anything else. But around the early 2000's, in associaton with Konami (Either light your pitchforks regarding their treatment of game ip's or the latest garbage yugioh car, your choice.) Created the Chouseishin series, a franchise that was this mix of the big three toku's of Ultraman, Kamen Rider and Super sentai in hopes of emulating the success. If the fact that I had to state it to two people who had forgotten, it was not successful. After three series and a major crossover the series ended failing to match the success of any of the franchises it wanted to emulate. today we will be talking about the last entry, Chousei Kantai Sazer-X, why the last one, because going backwards is more interesting and their is no continuity so don't worry.
SYNOPSIS
495 years from the present (In this case, 2005) The earth has been taken over by the evil empire Neo-Descal, while a resistance fights against their oppressors, they are too strong to fight. In a last ditch effort to save the world's future, the resistance sends it's most powerful ships, the Meteor god warships back in time to save the plant. In the present we meet Takuto Ando, a youth who has two dreams, become an F1 Racer and impress his grandfather. As the original Descal, space pirates who came to earth in search of the cosmo capsules. Now Takuto assists those who came from the future to change and his helped by his grandfather who met the leader of the future resistance.
I'll get into the whole timey-wimey bullshit later but Sazer-X beginning's... may be some of the most uninteresting, boring, least enjoyable television I have ever seen in a long time, no joke, if I had a camera set up for reactions you could see the pure undiluted boredom of watching this show. I will note that the show gets... better, not by a whole lot but I say its starts as a trash season and becomes... below average. Much more competent villains help to give the show something to bounce off of and the introduction of the resistance leader as a 6th hero (Even though their are only 3) helps. But the story feels like they had the writer sit with the popular toku's of the time and tried to emulte those things to lesser results.
CHARACTERS
I am here to make you miss your least favorite red rangers
I feel their is an apology due to Takaharu Igasaki, I am not saying my opinion about him has changed, he still not good. But when compared to Takuto Andou, he is like an S-tier red compared to this guy. This is one of the most generic, stock shounen protagonist's I have ever seen. He's loud, stupid, has something to prove and has familial issues. And I mean when you lay eye's on him you can just hear the wangst and need to prove himself to granddad out of his voice. He get's the standard coming of age arc as he does calm down and becomes for some reason a voice of reason. But their is really no substance to him, nothing to make him stand out against the wave of other protag's like him.
And that kind of goes for the other future pilots Ad and Kane, Ad is your stoic, serious foil to the main hero as they clash over different personalities, and treats humanity like garbage for failing to protect themselves from the pirates. Which one, what do you expect people to do, even if fighting back its alien's who likely have far more advanced technology (Though we will get to the present aliens in a moment.) Anyway we get a weird twist that his home planet is the cause or the pirates existence and after moping around he gets nicer.
Meanwhile Kane, is the kooky character, in that he is extremely relaxed most of the time and enjoying the world around him, but is always willing to come and help his friends. Of the trio he is easily the least developed character. He's always willing to help his friends and the only other thing of note he is played by future Greeeeeed Ankh.
Besides these three each one has an assistant to help them, Takuto gets Remy Freede a love interest so forced and lacking in any chemistry that make me believe, even when they do the thing when this alien girl gets jealous of her and makes clear their is nothing going on between the two of them. Also because appearently this plot involving time travel is not complicated enough since she is also came from the 1960's and was taken to the future to cure an uncurable disease. (Okay, this is a writing pet peeve but why exactly is it just a terminal illness, I mean it doesn't matter since the person is going to die but just say its a cancer or heart disease, their are plenty of illnesses that are going to kill you, especially back then.) She gets the most development of the assistants though not much, she is your super tough girl who takes no nonsense.
The other assistants are Gordo for Ad, who is mostly sleeping until asked to do stuff, we get a bit about how he is married and also a hen-pecked husbands to his wife who comes back to help, he is more for comedy and that goes for Ein and Zwein, these 'robots' who assist Kane and like bathes, they really don't get much since unlike the rest they are, you know, no face to them.
The 'not' love interest, you know they are not going to fall in love because they bring it up once.
Now I want to bring up the present pirates before we talk about Shark because I feel that I need to make this clear. The first quarter as stated, is some of the worst television I have ever seen. I haven't brought it up but this a more comedic toku but it is very unfunny, I couldn't describe the humor here, just the character does their quirk like Takuto is an idiot or Kane being kooky, it never even got a chuckle. But these three idiots were another big factor in it. Even the most underwhelming villain group at least has a standout, Kyuemon was that for Zangetsu and Phoenix for the Phantoms. The three shoguns all suck in their standard generic ways, the fire ones the hot blooded idiot meant to rival our hero, their is the vain and prideful girl and then the lazy smart guy. In the first 13 episodes, these morons score no real wins against our heroes in any way.
Sadly we only have the comic relief, you have to pay for the actual competent ones.
This kills any kind of tension of the series could have, I never once felt a threat from any of these three in any form. Its like if the comic relief was the main villain and that was that. The end of the season does bring up something since their leader dies and in Blaird's case he begins to rethink their whole take over the world plan, but yeah remember, these guys win, they take over the world somehow and just go from rogue pirates (Who originally came from earth but were kicked off by Ad's ancestors, to try and make them sympathetic but will talk about this series plot twist later.) I would be laughing at these guys, yes they are still threatening in technology but I thought these guys would be a major threat, with their ancestors coming in half way.
At that they immediately show themselves to be far more threatening in the first episode by taking all of the cosmo capsules sans one and nearly killing them all in the next episode until Commander Shark shows up. They are still not the best villains, still just kind of generic bad general and dark chick. I do like how they deal with Grouza, in using the whole time traveling stuff to accidently ensure that her line is never born. Which is definitely a good use of the rules of time travel. But aside from that, they are about as standard and uninteresting as villains go, even when the king shows up and does the you've outlived your usefulness it doesn't give me much.
That being said, I do like how the shoguns do get some additional development, the big one is Blaird who calms a lot during his captivity with the Andou's and grows as a leader, more so in my opinion compared to Takuto. While the other two, feel more like they are just around since there development is less interesting in the case of Cyclone, he is just brainwashed rather than wanting to continue by his own choice.
Shark is a fine commander and by extension addition to the team. he sort of is a mix of the 6th and a mentor to the rest, he is more doing his own stuff against Jackall when he is alive in the intial part, he mostly is the good leader. Though we need to now talk about the time travel aspect and what it means to this season. So the heroes go back to change the future to a better one, you would think that means that they were also willing to possibly be erased or vanish since their lives would be changed since what brought them together would be different. Nnnnnope, even after changing the future by the current shoguns now being considered heroes, only Shark disappears and that is because he is a relative of Descal.I know it is a kid show, but time travel is such an easy thing to make convoluted because without shark, Remy isn't taken from the 60's to the future to be cured of her disease, I guess time travel just takes you off of the coil so you are not affected.
Even though when Blaird and Thundora don't get together that erases Grouza from history. And sure for both Kane and Ad they are from different planets so it make sense for them, but you think once the future changes they would be erased. But they are still around and just travel to their home planets in the present. And yeah the cosmic capsule are these special things. But why time travel, since it is its own kind of ball of yarn, why not just they are from a different galaxy and came to conquer earth, it could be less of a headache in understanding why the people from the future or changes don't happen anymore.
Besides that there is the Ando family as support characters. The grandpa is another mentor character for Takuto in that similar Last ninja parental figure that our hero wants to live up to, though he at least tries to help while Yui is the groups small child... she exists and does not much else.
AESTHETICS
As for how the series look, it is pretty decent. The main suits are rather standard if a bit generic in their design, but the color balance is decent across all the suits and the helmets do look like the animal they represent. And that goes for much for most of the enemy designs too, I do think they do a lot better, it is helped that their isn't much in terms of MOTW so we get familiar with all fo them and I wouldn't say their is a bad design here.
The big win is the giant robot designs, they all look well designed and the fights involving them are some of the better moments of the show. Toho's skill in Kaiju combat show here the best. It definetly beats a sentai that mostly sees big monster as just a part to finish on the checklist. Each robot doesn't fall into any of the pitfalls. Not being too bulky and rather mobile. It really is a shame that the show it is based around really doesn't measure up.
The soundtrack is fine, a lot of triumphant songs and cool tracks, it does have some slower sounding tracks for when it which is nice. But mostly they are overshadowed by the ending theme, though not for the song itself but the legitimately terrible video that has the characters dancing on a generic background with kids. I don't mind it, sentai has done dance endings but this... they could've done this at an event and it would look a lot better than the sunny background.
Worth mentioning is the big finale for the franchise which is a crossover between all 3 sazer series, (The casts for Sazer-X and its predecessor Justirisers show up while Gransazer gets back none of the heroes, instead supporting cast and them in-suit shows up.) The movie was mostly fine, it does require some knowledge of the past series (Guess I really should've started from the beginning then.) They also make the pirates actually threatening instead of being jokes like they were in the show. But movie is just like the show mostly fine.
CONCLUSION
Sazer-X's first impressions is one of the worst for a tokusatsu I have seen. The cast either annoyed me or left no impression, I was not laughing and villains are the worst. After the first arc it gets better, but it feels like I am watching a discount toei tokusatsu, Like the writer just saw what was popular in the genre and tried to emulate it, but only is capable of being average. If you want to see something different, then I guess you could do worse, but you could watch Garo or even Ryukendo feels a bit better for something not from the big trio.
FINAL GRADE: D
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