Mastodawn

Android Kikaider 01: It's kind of wild how much Mari (Bijinder) is just the best character in the show by the mid 30's despite her design when transformed being Like That and all the weird occasional baggage around being the Girl Robot the writers have. She's just got the most character stuff going on, especially compared to Ichiro (01)'s complete lack of it. Her deal with being an ex-deathbot who switched sides and got partial independence from Shadow with Ichiro's incredibly bad copy of a Conscience Circuit and now mostly just has crippling depression about her own self-worth is just really good?

Plus her actress is really good at the untransformed fight scenes. Which thank God she gets better treatment there than, say, Tackle from KR Stronger.

#tokusatsu #AndroidKikaider01 #Kikaider01

Gourd Jan 29

One incredibly funny bit of Kikaider 01 (toku) is that 01's weakness is if his solar power cell is currently not in sunlight his strength drops to 10%, Kikaider's weakness is Professor Gill's Evil Flute (TM), but the Hakaider Force is incredibly bad at just attacking at night with the flute. They always either use one or the other and are surprised when the other hero shows up and saves them or halfass the darkness angle and leave an escape.

Also 01's solar power works indoors but not in a cave, still trying to figure that one out.

#tokusatsu #Kikaider01 #Kikaider

Gourd Jan 29

Kikaider 01 Episode 5: oh god the evil flute's back

that thing was in every episode of the original series followed by some really silly way Kikaider covered up the noise to transform

At least Gill!Hakaider wearing Gill's old cape is incredible.

#tokusatsu #Kikaider #Kikaider01

Gourd Jan 22

The thing about the Android Kikaider 01 tokusatsu, is that as an immediate sequel to the original Kikaider they latched onto Hakaider, the rival, being really popular. So they made the initial villains of 01 four Hakaiders. This is both hilarious and a really bad idea in execution because:

The classic Hakaider design'd one isn't Saburo (the original Hakaider), but Professor Gill, the villain of the original Kikaider, having put his brain in Hakaider's body. So you don't have any of the style or characterization like the original Hakider. He's just a facist vibes dick, which is just... not Hakaider's vibes at all.
he doesn't act like Professor Gill either or have that voice actor, so we're not drawing in kids like that
All four Hakaider Force members (operating out of multiple Hakaider Bases that get blown up each episode seriously) fight Kikaider 01 four at a time... and do so badly they come off as incredibly pathetic compared to the original one.

The show has a similar problem in that Ichiro (01)'s backstory is given entirely in twenty seconds of narration and at least in the first few episodes he doesn't have any equivalent of the same about his robotic existence and flawed design the original Kikaider has, and they didn't give him anything else either.

The show is just largely running on vibes of "you wanted more Kikaider" without any depth to it.

#AndroidKikaider #kikaider #kikaider01 #AndroidKikaider01 #tokusatsu