Like most people, my age, my first experience with the genre of Tokusatsu came from an inescapable cultural touchstone of the early nineties: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Being of a very young age, I was decidedly right in the target demographic for this sort of television. Martial Artists in spandex beating down henchmen and monsters in rubber suits, followed by giant mech battles against more enormous monsters in rubber suits. Add a dash of a growing storyline over the course of 5 years, and you end up with lifelong fans… well some of us at least. I can’t forget Big Bad Beetleborgs, which actually pulled much of its suits from the Metal Hero series, as well as VR Troopers (also the Metal Hero Series), and Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad *sic, a repurposed Gridman, which we’ll talk about when we look at Shin Ultraman.

Like many things in life, people tend to “grow out” of certain forms of entertainment, often in one’s “angsty teen” years there is a tendency to eschew all forms of entertainment that were enjoyed as a child. Often this abandonment is a form of posturing for peers, even if there is a deep-seated admiration for the product.

By the mid-aughts, I was one such teen, leaving behind things like Pokemon and Power Rangers. Instead, I was focusing on Video Games like Halo and Gears of War. By my Freshman year of Highschool, I was discussing Power Rangers at length with my best friend, and by the midpoint of Highschool, I began a journey that would lead me back to Tokusatsu, via unofficial subs of Super Sentai, and Gundam.

Knowing of Super Sentai’s existence since the PR: Dino Thunder episode that references the origin of Power Rangers, I didn’t go out of my way to watch any of the shows until I settled on Megaranger as my first Sentai.

The basis for the best Power Rangers Series, in Space, Denji Sentai Megaranger showed me how the Japanese Tokusatsu Series is far darker and more mature than their American counterparts… for the most part. Yes, there is plenty of series that go for the hyper-kawaii aesthetics, etc. but at its core Tokusatsu media deals with heavier topics with real stakes (e.g. Gojira, and MANY many more).

Additionally, I had been watching a lot of Gundam (I’m a huge mecha-fan too), and the particular place I’d been… “acquiring” them from also had a whole set of Kamen Rider shows available as well.

If you’re at least as old as me, you may remember a very shortlived “spin-off” of Power Rangers: Masked Rider. Using footage from Kamen Rider Black RX, and some ill-advised family-friendly sitcom aspects, Saban’s Masked Rider was the first attempt at bringing Kamen Rider to the West.

The original show is good, but Masked Rider was NOT. and the next attempt to bring Kamen Rider westward would be Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, an adaptation of Kamen Rider Ryuki. This show would too be less than successful.

I ended up watching a bit of Kamen Rider Wizard, and Kamen Rider Double but for the longest time, that was all.

Eventually, I saw that Shout! ended up adding a “TokuSHOUTsu” channel to Pluto.tv, and was able to watch a single episode of Kamen Rider (1972)… and initially it did not stick. The show was significantly older than the others, and I was originally turned off by its cheesiness… until one of my favorite creatives convinced me to love it.

I LOVE the work of Hideo Kojima, and in my renewed zeal of creating my own art, I took the advice to study your inspirations. To see into the mind of Kojima, I picked up a copy of “The Creative Gene” written by Kojima himself. In one particular chapter, Kojima discussed his love of Kamen Rider… the Manga. Written by Shotaro Ishinomori, the creator of Kamen Rider the series, the Manga follows a similar basis as the show but has a significantly darker tone. This is where I finally got hooked on the original series.

In the last 6 months, I went through a bit of a binge on a particular series that I regrettably, had skipped out for many years…

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Yes, even for someone that would claim themselves to be an Anime fan and even a bit of an “Old-taku”, I had never sat down to watch NGE or its associated media. Of course, I did hear the theme “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis” many times, and I could recognize the series by single images… I have flashbacks of walking around my local “Media Play” and seeing boxes with Rei’s face on them, but never actually getting around to looking at them any further.

That changed when I began to binge the series on Netflix. I’ll spare the existential bits here, but suffice it to say, I loved the series as a whole, and it really sparked my interest in giant monster fights. I ended up even more intrigued by Hideaki Anno and his works, including the infamous Daicon IV animation with Twilight by ELO.

The most recent works of his outside Evangelion are all reimaginings of classic Tokusatsu properties all falling under a loose anthology, the “Shin” series.

Meaning true in Japanese, “Shin” is the prefix used for a collection of works that Anno and Shinji Higuchi have created together to celebrate Tokusatsu works, as well as some of the final Evangelion films.

In this series are three primary films that focus on the most famous Tokusatsu properties in Japan: Shin Godzilla (2016), Shin Ultraman (2022), and Shin Kamen Rider (2023).

These three titles will be explored in a series of reviews under the title “Toku Review,” in which I will review each film respectively, and touch upon my own thoughts, as well as critical receptions.

This winding path from Power Rangers, to Evangelion may seem a bit scattered at first, but in the end, it all comes together. If it weren’t for the domino effect of a few past events, there is a good chance I never would have seen any of these three films… All of which I’ve just watched in the last week, in fact, it’s been closer to 5 days.

So, please stay tuned as the bits and pieces will connect, I just wanted to provide a bit of background before I start to espouse the qualities of these films.

We’ll be taking a look at the first film in the Anthology, the reimagining of one of the earliest and most recognizable franchises in Tokusatsu canon; 2016’s Shin Godzilla!