Reviews

Of mixing two things that, apparently, have nothing to do one with each other, meaning the western storytelling taken from stuff like the Jonah Hex Comics by Michael Fleisher during his tenure on the character in the same era this show was produced (even the constant strapping/maiming/trapping of Hex is reproduced here) and the henshin hero antics typical of the Kamen Rider, Ultraman and Super Sentais, in particular of the latter's abortive second iteration JAKQ Dengekitai from which it is taken not only the scheme of the fights but also the crudest of the stuff like the villains trafficking in drugs and humans, children with suicide bombs, fathers taking a shotgun to kill their sons etc. (the reason why the ratings were awful and the series was cancelled, if you ask me). Flawed because, albeit this time luckily there is no ubermegaipergigacrappy Big One in sight due to Hiroshi Miyauchi already being busy in the pants of the main protagonist, the more time it passes the more it becomes clear the two halves don't mesh particularly well and you have the impression that the henshin hero part was forced by Toei on Ishinomori while he was more interested in making a fully-blown western toku with no henshin hero in sight. It also gets a bit boring the more time it passes, even discounting the fact that this is a showa era show and you must watch it accordingly to the showa standards (particularly concerning the repetition, something that plagued the Jonah Hex comics too from a certain point on). As a side note, it's interesting to note that this so-much-lauded and nonsensically overhyped "masterpiece" by a certain kind of toku aficionados (the ones who hate the Maestro Toshiki Inoue for his 70's shoujo sensibilities) apparently had the same stuff Inoue applies to his output, meaning...you guessed it, a love triangle, an innuendo of the 70's shoujo mixture of love and hate, people talking about dating and marriage. So Inoue haters love the same stuff Inoue does (even if he does it ten times better at least) and all they need to do it is the name of the granfather of the Toei tokus on it! Unbelievable.

Because that's what this is, the most generic and yawhn-inducing Dragonball show masquerading as a Kamen Rider one possibly ever made with nothing that make it stand out from the rest, with the only exception of the hamfisted, ridicolous attempts by its main writer - the hack behind the other ridicolous failures known as Kamen Rider Ryuki and the Sailor Moon Live action series, Yasuzo Kobayashi - to try her hand at the same stuff people like her colleague Toshiki Inoue is great at, meaning making comedy, making tear-inducing drama and making political commentary all at the same time, and failing as hard as her previously mentioned failures. Failures aggravated by the fact that the costumes, the talents and the choreographies were all spent for nothing because of the lack of abilities of the writer to provide anything remarkable to the table, except maybe again remarkable in the wrong sense and I'm referring in particular to the ridicolous, completely unbelievable tag team of the main protagonist and his pretended ultradickish sidekick Anhk. This is the last time I'll ever give any attention to the output of this lady as the main writer, and I'll consider the episodes she wrote for the stuff I still have to see - Blue Swat and B-Fighter Kabuto - more an hindrance than anything else.

Which is better than the previous series I've seen from Daiei (Akai Meiro and Tenshi No Uppercut) as well the last full-on live action shoujo series I've watched (Aries No Otometachi) and at the level of Janus No Kagami in terms of sheer entertainment. Yeah the plot and character developments don't make any sense whatsoever outside this clearly being based on a shoujo manga and not on any biography of any kind whatsoever (except if you believe the "based on real events" fluff they throw at you in the intro) but still, if you're into shoujos you will like this nonetheless, even if it has not the same emotional envolvement that you could get from a person who was influenced also by stuff like this in the writing department like the Eddie Van Halen of Tokus, the Maestro Toshiki Inoue (see the masterful Avataro Sentai Donbrothers movie on that). Good stuff that I'm happy I watched and for which I thank the fansubber geo9875, whose geowidth blog I recommend if you're interested in giving to this or other Sukeban girl series like Sukeban Deka II, Shoujo Commando Izumi and Janus No Kagami a try.

Yup, I wasn't particularly impressed the first time I watched this series years ago because I had no previous knowledge of the pits of hell that originated this franchise (I'm talking about the worst animated thing ever produced courtesy of emperor of japanese hacks Go Nagai, the 70's Cutie Honey exploitation "anime") nor of tokusatsus and not even of the main writer of this series, who turned out to be...none other than my favourite tokusatsu writer ever Toshiki Inoue. And once I wrote that I have really nothing else to say because this is another Masterpiece of his, in line with his best work in Kamen Rider Kiva, Changerion, Death Note and the almost perfect Avataro Sentai Donbrothers movie (which in twenty-minutes runtime destroys twenty years of Marvel and DC cinematic crap without even trying), with his usual, perfect style made of seamlessly mashing up shoujo writing, Disney Princess worship (this time around the due focus is all on the lovely princess Jasmine from the 100% certified Disney Classic Aladdin, I wonder when and if are we going to get Pocahontas, Ariel, Mulan and Aurora too), well choreographed fights, social commentary against the Keiretsu and corporative world colluded with parts of the government/military, psychedelic stuff and well-put sexual fanservice for the hetero men that does its job perfectly in entertaining the viewer and it's not simply a self-serving, horrible ma$t3rbati0n of the author like it was the 70's Cutie Honey or, for what it matters, anything with the direct contribution of Go Nagai in it. In a simple word, this series is Toshiki Inoue doing what you expect from Toshiki Inoue and doing it greatly, so if you're a fan of him like me - which is the whole reason behind my rewatch - you'll be thrilled from start to finish. As good as the Cutie Honey Flash remake (written by none other than Sailor Stars' main writer Ryota Yamaguchi) and with very few flaws to account for, as the Maestro says in the interview present in the package I watched. Highly recommended.

P. S. My personal "appreciation" for Go Nagai is so great that I skipped entirely the special episode (not written by Inoue anyway) because of his cameo, and I have no regrets of sorts.

Yup, this is the real deal, not the hamfisted american destruction which name is better forgotten forever nor the american equivalent of DC comics (Blue Beetle) that I never particularly cared to begin with, even with me being a DC comics fan. Very good and enjoyable metal heroes series from start to finish which in the second half takes some cues from the preceding Rescue Squad quadrilogy (I'm counting Janperson in the mix) in trying to make the villains more than the typical toku exploding monsters, succeeding more or less in the process while also giving plenty of character development/background to each B-Fighter civilian identity. What is interesting to me as a westerner, even after being used to it by other series like Chojin Sentai Jetman and Space Sheriff Gavan, is the level of blood and simulated physical violence in this as well as the presence of sparse skeletons in what is (and it's not meant as an insult or anything but as an objective fact) a series targeted mainly towards children, stuff that I guess was completely removed by the cultural fraudsters of Saban Entertainment. Cool costumes, cool finishing moves and cool mechas complete the package. Highly recommended.

P. S. Unless you're a team-up fetishist of some sort, avoid the last two episodes with a Blue Swat/Janperson team-up, even if you're a fan of one or both of those series like me (I still have not watched Blue Swat). I did it and I don't regret it in the slightest.

Yup, this is what this series mostly accounts for, meaning there's a lot of stuff the main writer already used in older series like Changerion, Choujin Sentai Jetman, Kamen Rider Agito Kiva and Faiz, Cutie Honey the Live (the latter of which is in sorely need of a rewatch), Death Note etc. Etc. Stuff that my guess is that has been used here not because of any lack of ideas but because it's clear the main writer (my third favourite superhero writer as of now after W. M. Marston and Joye Murchison and my favourite modern/contemporary superhero writer hands down) simply wanted to make a clear statement on his past accomplishments as well as his personal experience concerning the Super Sentai franchise, like an underground metal band releasing early demos in a fan package not because of a cheap ca$hgrab but because they want to give the fans something while making a statement about their personal history (think of this as a toku equivalent of the 2014 Demo Collection by the de facto split-up for good german thrashers Paradox, for example). And in that sense it works flawlessly. The only real problem is the ending, unfortunately the last 6-7 episodes are not particularly interesting or well written but I blame the stupid Toei tendency of still releasing in the contemporary era fully blown 50-episodes series when it's clear they could get away with less episodes yet they don't do it for syndication reasons (Candy Candy anyone?). Still, if you're into Toshiki Inoue, his peculiar style of perfectly mixing orthodox, Classic with a capital C Shoujo writing, subtle social commentary that gets perfectly to the point, memorable fan service and psychedelic stuff a là Hideaki Anno/Kunihiko Ikuhara and translating it into tokusatsu form and you love his previous stuff you will like this one nonetheless, particularly because as the beforementioned demos it confirms some stuff it was previously only alluded but now it's clear in full (I'm talking about the Disney Princesses/Shoujo worship me and the Maestro share). Recommended to all Inoue fans like me and, if you don't like the style of the guy, just move on and watch something by some other author, nobody forces you to watch something written by a person whose style you don't like. I rave all the times about how I don't like Black Metal, I don't listen to Black Metal tout court end of the line.

P. S. This, as a fan package/early demos compilation of a Genius, it is STILL better, more authentically artistic and more thought-provoking (words I don't usually use or like, but in this case it is adequate) than ANY current american superhero live-action gargabe in existance, from all spectrum (including "decostructionist" stuff). I leave up to you to what to make of this statement.

And you might wonder why I'm making the comparison, since this is supposedly a magical girl and not a tokusatsu. The reason is very simple: this series is not a magical girl but an animated Kamen Rider show with sprinkles of the Sentais under the disguise of a Magical girl show, something that more or less in the first half is well done and interesting until in the second half the curse of the first historical iteration of those shows (and only of those) strikes again and we're served with episodes that are one the exact same copy of the other in sequence (I know, tokus are repetitious by nature but not all at the level of the 70's Kamen Rider) until you're bored to death and you just want to go to the end to see the final confrontation. And if this show is the 70's Kamen Rider, I guess the next one (Max Heart) will be V3/JAKQ Dengekitai kind of experience, and me not being a particular fan of those (to be generous) it's not an help. I guess I'll have to look for a Kamen Rider Black of the Pretty Cure to get into this IP properly. Really disappointing I must say.

And, of course, I'm referring to Toshiki Inoue, who is not just an excellent dramaturge able to express different emotions in a matter of minutes (as varied as the ones he will be able to make you feel) a là Ayako Wakao but he's also a 100% shoujo author in vein of the greats of the genre like Ryoko Ikeda, Keiko Takemiya, Mineo Maya and the likes, people from which it is clear-as-day at this point he took several cues for his writing like he took cues for from the Disney Princesses from Snow White on until the 90's classics like Beauty and the Beast, directly quoted in this awesome show, a blast to watch from start to finish. Add to the beforementioned shoujo and disney princess worship an healthy dose of mindbending stuff a là Hideaki Anno and Kunihiko Ikuhara without the flaws of these two (namingly, their ridicolous fake pretentiousness), an equally healthy dose of self humour and welcomed fanservice in the bra and panties of actual female lewd live-action artists taking part in this, and you have another certified toku Classic/Masterpiece a là Kamen Rider Kiva that I sincerely don't understand how it was cancelled because of low ratings, it makes no sense whatsoever. As an ending note, all the actors are very good in their performances but special recognition deserves Atsushi Ogawa for his portrayal of Shogo Kuroiwa, he did an excellent job.

Highly Recommended to all tokus aficionados and not just Inoue fans like me.

Which might be the best thing I've seen of the lady (barring her best in the second female prisoner scorpio movie) since the small part she had in Yasuzo Masumura's Daichi no komoriuta, which is not exactly a 100% praise since I'm not particularly a fan of hers in terms of acting skills while I adore her Enka records. In this she plays the role of the protagonist Sae going through a series of misadventures a là Zatoichi with the supporting cast of two guys who just happen to be there every single time and, every single time, they end helping her. Interesting enough, if you're not 100% into Meiko Kaji as an actress (her best still being the second Female Prisoner Scorpio movie IMHO) but more into Yuji Ohno as a composer you might be interested in the fact that the maestro clearly took inspiration from his work in his Rupan Sansei series for the score he did for this one, as clear nods to the former will prove you. All in all, a nice and entertaining past time that I recommend if you're the people I mentioned. As always, thanks to Geo9875 for the subbing of this series, which you can find on his geowidth blog with all the stuff he has subbed to this day.

And with that I mean the fact that, like it happened with the Spiderman Toku and the Avengers Toku going by the name of Battle Fever J, once again an IP that some people like myself never liked in the first place - in this instance, the useless Harry Potter movies - are translated into something even haters of said IP can fully enjoy, de facto trumping the original sources in every regards (it's no secret this Sentai was spawned by the success of the Harry Potter movies in Japan). It's also a nice reminder that, once again, the Sentais - barring the awful exception of the Big One from JAKQ Dengekitai, one of the worst sentai characters ever put on screen period - are better at giving the idea of a superhero team than the american mainstream products like the JSA, JLA and the Avengers (where you can always bet there's a member destroying the artificial need for said team to exist in the first place) because the connection between each member feels real and believable (in this case they're all siblings), maybe not at the same level of the 90's Sailor Moon but still very real and believable nonetheless. Also, having started this series because I wanted to see Machiko Soga's cameo in the role of an heavenly saint while I'm waiting for a Celestine The Living Saint from Warhammer 40K action figure to be delivered to me (courtesy of JoyToy), I'm very happy for her cameo in this series and in the linked movie, which is better and more sensical than the awful Abaranger movie by a mile even if Abaranger was better as a series on the whole. I also appreciated the fact that, as it will become clear towards the end, somebody apparently took notes from the underrated work Toshiki Inoue previously did with Choujin Sentai Jetman. As an ending note, this completely demolishes any reason to watch the american clone, this is the real thing and you don't need anything else to enjoy it because there's nothing difficult for a westerner to understand. Highly recommended.

This is a really good sequel to the original Red Alert 2, highly enjoyable in every sense of the term even if it's not particularly difficult, at least if played at medium difficulty like I did. It perfectly recaptures the cheesiness of that one, meaning like in Red Alert 2 don't expect any meaningful plotline or grittyness of any kind (?) because you won't find them like you didn't find them in the original Westwood games. What you will find here in turn are improvements to the formula of those, in particular concerning the addition of water-based mechanics and a new awesome faction that even the developers must have seen as such themselves because it has the most interesting toys of all the three, particularly the awesome sukeban girl/psychic pilot of mechas (Tekkoku Mikazuki I'm looking at you)/commander Yuriko Omega. And, being myself an Otaku, I have no problems with it whatsoever. Oh, did I mention the high-quality videos sporting beautiful ladies in sexy attires? Those are a superipergigawelcome addition too. All in all, highly recommended, especially if you're an old Red Alert 2 fan and you've never tried it before because of the DRM stuff when it was originally released (in short, if you're like me).

P. S. This applies to the equally good expansion DLC, far more entertaining and well written - particularly the solo missions focused on Yuriko Omega - than stuff like SC Brood War and The Frozen Throne by a mile (change in the attire of the lovely Eva McKenna permitted).

Like the title says, this is another good series from one of the most underrated toku writers from the toku fandoms in conjunction with the talented director who made Chojin Sentai Jetman. If I had to give it a proper description it would be a mixture of Big mecha fights from the 70's, Evangelion (NOT copy-pasted like it happened with the terrible Raxhephon anime) sans the pretention and overdepressive for the sake of depressiveness tones but with messages that this time stick with the viewer, Ghost in The Shell and toku costumed fights, with well-written and directed drama the kind of which I'm already used from the main writer at this point. Very good stuff that is easily watchable in half a day, since it is only made of six episodes. All in all, as recommended as Chojin Sentai Jetman and the Kamen Rider series I've previously watched with Inoue as the main writer.

Yup, this is another very good series from a screenwriter who could give some interesting ideas to overrated people in hollywood business on how to take a material from all spectrums and budget (from the most humble and low-cost to the most serious and filled to the brim with money) and make it impactful, provided of course you have a talent behind the camera screen like the director of this series. And the way is...to inject a lot of stuff taken from classic with a capital C anime shoujos like Versailles No Bara, Candy Candy, Mahou Tsukai Sally, The first Disney Princess movies etc. Etc. Etc., stuff that not only is directly quoted in the series by scenes, music and characters (for example Gai being mostly an impression of Terry from Candy Candy) but apparently people like me love with all themselves so it's a plus. The only real "problem" of this series in respect to my previous experience with Kamen Rider Kiva is the typical tokusatsu tendency to lose a bit of steam towards the end, something Kiva managed to avoid IMHO but unfortunately it didn't happen here, but again it's not a problem of anyone involved in the production of this series (not just the writer) but simply a tendency of all tokusatus series in general. All in all, highly recommended.

And, of course, with that I mean that the improvements mainly to the graphical engine resulted in a story that was more contrived that the original one, gameplay that is not as polished as the original game and towards the end it is clear that the developers had lost any idea on how to keep the story fresh because there's an embarazzing number of reuses not only of the same bosses but also of the same locations, and when I say the same I mean the exact same locations with some slight changes. Also, as a golden age lover (like I said in my Freedom Force review, it's my favourite period in mainstream superhero comics of all times), I don't get why the hell the developers could not make a fully-flegded sequel mostly based around WW2 and nazi-kicking stuff instead of limiting it to some underused scenario and characters like they did with the original game (100% based on Silver Age comics and not 70's or 90's ones), particularly seeing how the introductory videos to each of the new characters show you the fact that somebody at Irrational Games actually read said comics and wanted to gather to fans of the period like me. I'm ok with the Dark Phoenix saga (its overuse as a source of videogame storytelling permitted), but the Dark Phoenix saga is from the friggin' 80's, not the 40's. Maybe it was because of fear of possible less sales due to them being far more focused on said period? Otherwise it makes no sense. It's still fun until it lasts and luckily there are still no signs of crappy, dated beyond repair decostructionism a là Watchmen and/or TDKR to be found here, but the disappointment - more or less at the same level of the one I felt for the luckluster All-Star Squadron series by Roy Thomas - for the fact that this could have been so much more remains. Me thinks I'll better stick to reading proper Golden Age superhero comics reprints if I want Golden Age superhero comics in the current era and nothing else.

P. S. Law best girl of this expansion (Eve is not really that present, this time) no questions attached.

With this near masterpiece of a tokusatsu series (currently my favourite Kamen Rider ever) that takes the seeds of what was present in the terribly underrated Kamen Rider Agito and the fan favourite Kamen Rider Faiz to their expected conclusions, meaning that finally the clear-as-day shoujo influences of Toshiki Inoue - influences spanning from the Disney Princesses movies to more contemporary affairs like Cutie Honey Flash and Ojamajo Doremi - take the due center of the attention and they become integral part of the storyline. And, of course, men like me, whose favourite animated genre of all times is precisely Shoujo, can't do nothing but love it with all themselves. Add to the mix great looking Kamen Rider suits and music, atmospheres and costumes influenced by the Castelvania games as well as the Visual Key/symphonic power metal movement that in the same year this series was made spawned awesome bands like Versailles, Tears of Tragedy, Schonberg, Liv Moon, Ancient Myth etc. Etc. Etc. As well as stuff reminescent of the confrontations between my beloved Saint Seiya favourites Pisces Aphrodite and Andromeda Shun towards the end and you have a serious contender for one of the best Kamen Rider iterations ever produced and one of my favourite tokus period, destroying not only all the lamentations of the Inoue haters amongst the Kamen Rider fandom with ease but also the awful legacy of his father Masaru Igami (the inept writer of the uberboring original Kamen Rider and its unwatchable on all fronts sequel V3). I can't legitimately wait to watch his Sentai by the name of Jetman!

Why I say this, you might ask? Well, because like Shin Kamen Rider this is a remake of a first iteration - the original 1954 Gojira movie - just with stuff added from your typical later period Hideaki Anno gallery of depressed main male character as an outdated depiction of him (the protagonist being a 100% regurgitation of Shinji Ikari from Evangelion), garbled statements that don't mean nothing outside showing how Anno is cool (the whole stuff about the military), a bunch of fake religious innuendos taken from Ultraman and on and on and on. Stuff that I imagine being present already in the previous Shin Gojira movie (that I have not watched) like they were present in the awful Shin Kamen rider, so I guess that's where the influence came from. This said, since I don't particularly like later Hideaki Anno, my enjoyment of the whole thing was sufficient but not much else, even if I'm used to tokus being remakes of previous iterations (take my favourite Toku Superhero IP Ultraman as an example). I'd rather rewatch the original 1954 movie than watching this disappointing (disappointing because I had no idea the worst tendencies of Hideaki Anno had such an impact on the japanese entertainment industry) affair again.

P. S. I sincerely don't get all people raving that this shows the creativity of the Japanese Vs. The current comatose state of Hollywood. This is as creatively discouraging as an MCU movie IMHO.

Are you tired to death of supposed "homages to the past" by the big corporations of the american mainstream superhero industry that in reality don't homage nothing but they simply repeat at nauseam the same decostructionist stuff of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns by people who try to mimick Alan Moore and Frank Miller as much as possible (I'm talking about overrated turds like Justice League: The New Frontier, All-Star Superman, The Grant Morrison Batman Run, The Geoff Johns schlocky comics, Kingdom Come Etc. Etc. Etc.)? Well, I have a news for you! This game beats the crap out of any of these "homages" because it simply takes the Silver Age atmospheres and writing 100% as they were without trying to add nothing under the surface and it's really really fun, albeit it's not the most difficult strategy game ever (there is no King Arthas level crazyness in here) but what matters is that it's fun, and at the end of the day I'd take this over The Frozen Throne anyday, anytime. The only real negative I see is the tendency of your party to be stuck because they don't do what you tell them to do, but again minor complaint not a big one.

All in all, highly recommended to all superheroes and Silver Age aficionados. I can't wait to see how they homaged my favourite period of all times (the golden age) in the following chapter!

I don't understand why people rave so much about this series in the first place. Yes, the main male lead is a very good actor, yes the first part is mildly entertaining - albeit not entertaining as the first Legal High season - and it flows generally well, but the second part gets uberconvoluted, repetitious and boring in the incredible span of TWO EPISODES that I watched during the morning time after sleeping yet they induced me into a sleeping coma nonetheless. After watching a 50-episodes long tokusatsu that didn't bore me once, two episodes of the second half of this J-Drama were enough to put me to sleep. If you're interested in giving Masato Sakai a try get the first season - not the dreadful second one - of Legal High and it should suffice.

I sincerely don't understand why this game, during the years, has been acclaimed as the sort of classic FPS masterpiece that in reality it isn't. It's because of Cate Archer alone? Yes, she's a great, sexy character and a study case for how to write strong, charismatic female leads, the humour is at first genuinely funny and the story, albeit a bit predictable, is interesting enough. The problem is, gameplay wise, this game is a mess. It wants to be a mash-up of stealth and FPS and, most of the times, it is mediocre-average at both. The stealth is, de facto, mostly impossible due to the cameras having the most inconsistent field of view ever (sometimes they can spot you from 5 kilometers away, sometimes they don't see you when you're standing right next to them) and the enemies being all - and I mean all - the typical Shogo: Mobile Armor Division stuff of hitscanning thugs that can spot and kill you from miles and miles of distance with one single shot of a Kalashnikov (the kind of which I never saw even when playing Duke Nukem 3D at its maximum difficulty years and years ago), which in turn not only makes the attempts at having a full-on stealth approach a là Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory worthless but it also makes extremely frustrating the driving sections because you always have to stop driving in order to kill said thugs as otherwise it's you who is going to be killed. Also, I might add that 1) the gadget selection is cute, but most of them serves nothing and 2) the ending streak of final bosses because reasens reeks of a void of ideas from a mile. On a last note, the level design is good generally speaking, but sometimes it's a bit confusing and the OST is good too.

If you want the best from the FPS era of Monolith productions get the first F. E. A. R. - which is leaps and bounds better than this - and you'll be better served overall, Cate Archer or not.

Because this is what this thing is, an episode from the main series stretched out to a 44-minutes runtime because again the fetish for TV movies taken from main series of the japanese producers is a real thing hence they felt the need to do this. Clear influences from Dragonball Z are full on display - the alien female villain particularly is "inspired" by C-18 from that anime - and, while not being great on itself, it is at least watchable and not a 100% complete waste of time, more than it can be said for the Tiga Vs. Dyna useless movie. Give it a go if you have it with the main package, but it's not something that will stick with you for very long TBH.

After watching this "movie" I reiterate that I don't understand the bitterness of people towards stuff like Kamen Rider Ryuki Vs. Agito, which was short and did what it had to do in 10-15 minutes maximum. This is the same exact thing just stretched out to a fully-blown movie clocking around one hour (!) in which Ultraman Tiga appears for ten minutes towards the end doing absolutely nothing of impact. Why? What was the reason for this thing to be so long? Just make a ten minutes commercial featuring the two Ultramen and get done with it, no need to spend so much money and waste so much time of the viewer to begin with. Stick to the main series - in itself very good, no questions attached - and don't bother with this one to begin with.

This is more or less what this series accounts, meaning a typical 80's Sukeban series in vein of Sukeban Deka and the Likes just with a stronger focus on the soap opera element than in other cases. And it's not bad at all,all the contrary it's pretty entertaining through and through even if the gimmick of this series (meaning the fact that people can't distinguish between the protagonist and her Sukeban Alter Ego) in some episodes gets a bit muddled and ridicolous. But I guess it's to be expected since none of these Sukeban Series, for how entertaining they might be, are no masterpieces to begin with. If you're interested in giving a try, as with the previous Sukeban series I've reviewed go to Geo9875 dreamwith blog and download the fansub of this.

Meaning the official Warhammer 40K RTS with the actual Warhammer 40K license. The version I'm giving this a rating is not the bugfest that is the vanilla one - the one with the honour of introducing me to my current favourite faction of the IP, the adepta sororitas, as well as the dark eldars - which I didn't really play that much back in the day since I became bored pretty quickly with it but to the version with the Unification Mod added, which adds a lot of content to the base game for all factions that makes it updated to the current Warhammer 40K Lore (for example, amongst the soulstorm mods it's the only one with the amazing looking Paragon Warsuit and Canoness Morgenn Vahl in it) and, with the unification campaign extended mod, it even throws the possibility of playing new factions in the conquest of the Kaurava system like Tyranids, two branchs of the Inquisition, Chaos Deamons etc. Etc. Good stuff that it just feels good to do, even if there are some minor setbacks and in particular the fact that the fortresses of the new factions are limited to boring defense missions against waves of enemies which are a bit nonsensical IMHO (I'm not a fan of defense missions in RTS unfortunately). For the rest, I have nothing bad to say to the unification mod, all the contrary it elevates the base experience - which, to be honest, was clearly done by people with zero knowledge about the Warhammer 40K lore in a rushed way to capitalize on the good reputation Dark Crusade gained amongst the RTS fans, me included - to a really enjoyable thing overall. I can't wait for the upcoming release of version 7.0 to see what the unification mod has in mind!

Oh and I don't care what the naysayers say, the cover art of the DVD of this game - the last Dawn of War iteration ever produced to my knowledge - is supercool. Adepta Sororitas on a purple background = instant love.

Because let's be honest, even of toku series that I've previously watched and enjoyed the quality of the spinoff movies has ranged from acceptable to terrible, with the Abaranger extended episode presented as a movie particularly falling in the latter line and with the first Kamen Rider Ryuki one being an exception to this general trend because it fixed the awful ending of the main series. This, on the other hand, it's really cool and well done, with an interesting story and a well done execution except for the usual Toei trademark of reusing scenes copy-and-pasted from the previous episodes, which at this point I'm accustomed to and I don't take into consideration in the final rating since I skip it alltogether.

With that I mean, of course, the fact that big TV companies like Toei, Nippon TV, Fujii, etc. Etc. Apparently REALLY like to make movies out of their tv series, and not just out of animes and tokusatsus. The problem is that for animes and less for tokusatsu the result ending can be very well done or at least entertaining, in this case this movie - made out in reference to a single, clear-as-day filler episode based on the Terminator from the original series - just doesn't work, it's mindnumbingly boring (something that even the filler from which it originated wasn't) and, aside for some names taken from the series albeit with completely different relations between them, there's nothing connecting this to the main series. Why they even bothered? Why they bothered paying money to Rolling Stones to use Satisfaction? No idea. A complete waste of time casted upon the viewer and the fansubber (the same of the original series, who I thank for his/her work) because Toei. Avoid with no remorse whatsoever.