What's Tokusatsu?
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So this is tokuastsu.
![Dv5ub.jpg]()
And this is tokuastsu.
![jlITJAU.jpg]()
Even this is tokuastsu.
![vtMcbXo.jpg]()
However, this is what most fans know today as tokuastsu or just 'toku' for short; Kamen Rider, Super Sentai and Metal Heroes.
![gPKVI.jpg]()
Kamen Rider started out first in 1971 and the group of shows lasting from that time till 1989 (the heroes from then referred to as the Showa Riders) mostly involved regular guys getting turned into cyborgs due to evil COBRA-esque organizations hellbent on taking over the world. Only the Riders with their super-charged motorcycles could stop them and the various monsters of the week from getting their way. In 2000, Kamen Rider began anew. Unlike the Showa Riders, these 'Heisei Riders' had pretty much no connection to each other and only met in non-canon material. They still kept the trait however of their powers (non-cybernetic this time) having connections to the very evil they were trying to face. This lasted until about 2009 in which the movies of the series Kamen Rider Decade began to connect both eras together canonically and the following shows afterwards (dubbed by some as the 'neo-Heisei' era) can be said to share the same universe, something promoted by the Movie Wars crossover films.
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The current series at the moment is Kamen Rider Gaim. Set in a fictional Japanese location known as Zawame, the story begins with various youth groups in the city banding together as dance crews called Beat Riders. However, while they once used their dance skills to settle disputes between them, that now has been swapped for the Inves Game in which the two parties summon small monsters from somewhere using fruit-themed padlocks known as Lockseeds.
![aoHiOud.jpg]()
As it turns out, the Lockseeds have more then just the ability to summon these Inves as when set in a buckle called the Sengoku Driver, it allows the bearer to summon a suit of armor and weapon. This is what happens to former Team Gaim member Kota Kazuraba who stumbles over both items just in time to fend off an attack from an Inves that's both man-sized and extremely dangerous. Kota's use of the Driver to become 'Armored Rider Gaim' sets off an arms race between other Beat Rider teams in order to gain their own Armored Rider representative, with Zawame soon having more Riders then you can shake a stick at. As Kota and the other Riders begin to fight amongst themselves with this new power, they'll slowly grow to discover that there's more to the Lockseeds and Inves that meets the eye and that this knowledge may already be in the hands of the Yggdrasill Corporation, the city's megacorp which might already have an Armored Rider or two to send at the upstart Beat Rider teams.
![CHg4g.jpg]()
The other major half of modern toku is Super Sentai, AKA the shows Power Rangers gets most of their fighting footage from. Starting in 1975 with Himitsu Sentai Goranger, the various shows within the franchise have grown to offer a more teamwork-based counterpart to the loner Kamen Rider with teams of three to five (with an extra teammate or two joining in later during the series) fighting in helmets and spandex against monsters sent from various evil powers seeking to conquer or destroy the planet, often having to fight the monsters twice as after it's initial defeat, it grows so the group can permanently defeat it with a giant mecha.
![IPnWc9P.jpg]()
The current group in play at the moment is Ressha Sentai Tokkyuger. The series begins with a young man named Raito waking up one day on a train full of crying children. He's eventually pulled into another train by four others whom he recognizes as his childhood friends. However, he and they (having woken up in the second train) have no real memories other then parts of their childhood and their first names. It turns out the train all five are on is the Rainbow Line, a special train powered by imagination and thus can only be seen by those that have a lot of it. The train Raito woke up on belongs to the Shadow Line, an evil counterpart run by four steampunk-dressed villains who plan to take over every town with a Shadow Line station in order to bring enough darkness to the planet to allow their Emperor to cross over (a staple Super Sentai plot). Now in order to stop the Shadow Line and have any sort of hope of finding out what happened to their memories, the five must pool their imaginations together as the Express Sentai, Tokkyger (or ToQger for short). Something interesting to note about this series is that it's one of two Super Sentai shows to have a crossover with the current Kamen Rider series at the time, the other pairing being Kamen Rider Decade and Samurai Sentai Shinkenger.
![pVl8Qhw.jpg]()
If you remember VR Troopers or Big Bad Beetleborgs, then you've seen footage from the Metal Heroes franchise, the shows within tending to involve humans or aliens using metal armor to fight villains. While not as big as either Kamen Rider or Super Sentai, it's been making a comeback recently in the last few years based around the first Metal Heroes, the Space Sheriffs. The first, Space Sheriff Gavan, returned for a teamup with the Super Sentai group Gokaiger and then later in his own movie where he passed on the title to a younger heir. Now a pair of movies will be made to install new faces in the other two Space Sheriffs' boots, Sharivan and Shaider.
Is there any toku I may have missed? Feel free to talk about it here alongside what I've already mentioned. And if you wanna see if Gaim or Tokkyger are worth watching, take a look at the videos below.
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Wikipedia wrote:Tokusatsu (特撮) is a Japanese term that applies to any live-action film or television drama that features considerable use of special effects (tokusatsu literally translates as "special filming" in Japanese).
Tokusatsu entertainment often deals with science fiction, fantasy or horror, but movies and television shows in other genres can sometimes count as tokusatsu as well. The most popular types of tokusatsu include kaiju monster movies like the Godzilla and Gamera film series; superhero TV serials such as the Kamen Rider and Metal Hero series; and mecha dramas like Giant Robo. Some tokusatsu television programs combine several of these subgenres, for example the Ultraman and Super Sentai series. Tokusatsu is one of the most popular forms of Japanese entertainment, but most tokusatsu movies and television programs are not widely known outside Asia.
So this is tokuastsu.
And this is tokuastsu.
Even this is tokuastsu.
However, this is what most fans know today as tokuastsu or just 'toku' for short; Kamen Rider, Super Sentai and Metal Heroes.
Kamen Rider started out first in 1971 and the group of shows lasting from that time till 1989 (the heroes from then referred to as the Showa Riders) mostly involved regular guys getting turned into cyborgs due to evil COBRA-esque organizations hellbent on taking over the world. Only the Riders with their super-charged motorcycles could stop them and the various monsters of the week from getting their way. In 2000, Kamen Rider began anew. Unlike the Showa Riders, these 'Heisei Riders' had pretty much no connection to each other and only met in non-canon material. They still kept the trait however of their powers (non-cybernetic this time) having connections to the very evil they were trying to face. This lasted until about 2009 in which the movies of the series Kamen Rider Decade began to connect both eras together canonically and the following shows afterwards (dubbed by some as the 'neo-Heisei' era) can be said to share the same universe, something promoted by the Movie Wars crossover films.
The current series at the moment is Kamen Rider Gaim. Set in a fictional Japanese location known as Zawame, the story begins with various youth groups in the city banding together as dance crews called Beat Riders. However, while they once used their dance skills to settle disputes between them, that now has been swapped for the Inves Game in which the two parties summon small monsters from somewhere using fruit-themed padlocks known as Lockseeds.
As it turns out, the Lockseeds have more then just the ability to summon these Inves as when set in a buckle called the Sengoku Driver, it allows the bearer to summon a suit of armor and weapon. This is what happens to former Team Gaim member Kota Kazuraba who stumbles over both items just in time to fend off an attack from an Inves that's both man-sized and extremely dangerous. Kota's use of the Driver to become 'Armored Rider Gaim' sets off an arms race between other Beat Rider teams in order to gain their own Armored Rider representative, with Zawame soon having more Riders then you can shake a stick at. As Kota and the other Riders begin to fight amongst themselves with this new power, they'll slowly grow to discover that there's more to the Lockseeds and Inves that meets the eye and that this knowledge may already be in the hands of the Yggdrasill Corporation, the city's megacorp which might already have an Armored Rider or two to send at the upstart Beat Rider teams.
The other major half of modern toku is Super Sentai, AKA the shows Power Rangers gets most of their fighting footage from. Starting in 1975 with Himitsu Sentai Goranger, the various shows within the franchise have grown to offer a more teamwork-based counterpart to the loner Kamen Rider with teams of three to five (with an extra teammate or two joining in later during the series) fighting in helmets and spandex against monsters sent from various evil powers seeking to conquer or destroy the planet, often having to fight the monsters twice as after it's initial defeat, it grows so the group can permanently defeat it with a giant mecha.
The current group in play at the moment is Ressha Sentai Tokkyuger. The series begins with a young man named Raito waking up one day on a train full of crying children. He's eventually pulled into another train by four others whom he recognizes as his childhood friends. However, he and they (having woken up in the second train) have no real memories other then parts of their childhood and their first names. It turns out the train all five are on is the Rainbow Line, a special train powered by imagination and thus can only be seen by those that have a lot of it. The train Raito woke up on belongs to the Shadow Line, an evil counterpart run by four steampunk-dressed villains who plan to take over every town with a Shadow Line station in order to bring enough darkness to the planet to allow their Emperor to cross over (a staple Super Sentai plot). Now in order to stop the Shadow Line and have any sort of hope of finding out what happened to their memories, the five must pool their imaginations together as the Express Sentai, Tokkyger (or ToQger for short). Something interesting to note about this series is that it's one of two Super Sentai shows to have a crossover with the current Kamen Rider series at the time, the other pairing being Kamen Rider Decade and Samurai Sentai Shinkenger.
If you remember VR Troopers or Big Bad Beetleborgs, then you've seen footage from the Metal Heroes franchise, the shows within tending to involve humans or aliens using metal armor to fight villains. While not as big as either Kamen Rider or Super Sentai, it's been making a comeback recently in the last few years based around the first Metal Heroes, the Space Sheriffs. The first, Space Sheriff Gavan, returned for a teamup with the Super Sentai group Gokaiger and then later in his own movie where he passed on the title to a younger heir. Now a pair of movies will be made to install new faces in the other two Space Sheriffs' boots, Sharivan and Shaider.
Is there any toku I may have missed? Feel free to talk about it here alongside what I've already mentioned. And if you wanna see if Gaim or Tokkyger are worth watching, take a look at the videos below.
