Showing posts with label Tomica Hero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tomica Hero. Show all posts

Sunday, March 6, 2011

CGI Debate

Since the Giant Robos were introduced in Battle Fever J (1979), the mecha have been a combination of puppets, stop-action animation, some robotics and men in boxy robot suits. Puppets like Magi Dragon for example, using wires. Stop-action like some robots or animals. Robotics like flying jets using radio-control, which I think they used for example for the Triceratops in Zyuranger. And men in suits were used for Tyrannosaurus in Zyuranger and the beasts in Gingaman.

But beginning in 2000 with Timeranger, they started using CGI. GoGoV is the last one that used wires, stop-action and radio-control exclusively. Gingaman had some early CGI when GingaOh was formed. Timeranger used CGI for the flying jets (above). Stop-action, suit acting and radio-control were used for the V-Rex (Q-Rex).

Gaoranger was the one that used more exclusively Computer Generated Imagery for the power animals themselves, megazord formations and megazord finishers. This trend still continues to today. 'Megazord' battles are now usually CGI with suit acting with very little stop-action animation (like with the Origamis). But it is not always CGI, for example with Gao Lion, when he would bite, we would see a close-up for a puppet (scale model).

Here with Gokaiger, we see scale models, which is still used but limited.


Anyway, the debate is that they should not use CGI or do better CGI. The pictures above are from Tomica Rescue Force, where they use arguably better CGI. Fans are boards have been saying that Toei have to upgrade their software. But the Tomica series has ended and Toei has to do like 50 episodes a year, with almost zero breaks. I do agree that the CGI could be a bit more detailed.


I think the reason the CGI is not up to par and not super detailed or 'realistic' because of costs and time. But I think it can be argued that the CGI of the Megazords now are way better than the graphics used for the Ninja Megazord in the Mighty Morphin movie.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Non-Toei Tokusatsu from Japan, Thailand, and France


Aikoku Sentai Dai-Nippon (1982)
Aikoku Sentai Dai-Nippon (Patriot Squadron Great Japan) was produced by Daicon Films (now Gainax). It was a Sentai Pastiche or homage. Check out more about it at this Japanese site.

Jushi Sentai France Five (2000)
At firt glance I thought this was a fanfiction film, but actually they are four episodes in France. It was produced by Buki X-1 Productions in 2000s. It is an homage to Toei's ever-popular Super Sentai Series, which was extremely popular in France in the 1980s. This series is said to be a nod to another Sentai pastiche, Aikoku Sentai Dai-Nippon. The series has become kind of popular in Japan, with singer Akira Kushida singing an original theme for Episode 4. Prior to that point, the themes were French remixes of older Sentai theme songs (Choujin Sentai Jetman and Choudenshi Bioman) with an original French theme.

Chouseishin Series (2003-2006)
2003 was a heck of a year for Tokusatsu, there was Abaranger, Kamen Rider Faiz, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and Gransezar. The Super Star God Series were produced by Toho Company, Ltd., in association with Konami. They had three series: Gransezar, Justirizer and Sazer-X. Gransezar had lots of warriors, females in white and red, blue, orange & fuschia, males in blue, indigo, purple, red, yellow and yellow-orange; Justirizer had a girl in blue, males in red and black; Sazer-X only had males (Orange, White and Blue).

Squadron Sport Ranger ขบวนการ สปอร์ตเรนเจอร์ (2006)
It had sixteen episodes in Thailand in 2006 and was the first original tokusatsu from Thailand in a while, but it was first to look the most like Super Sentai. Many fans have asked me to mention this series. Starhunter is an alien tribe that steals all life energy on other planets, gathering the energy through medals. One medal was split into five and when Starhunter came to Earth, the Sport Ranger were formed to fight them. Red, Yellow, Green were male and Pink and Blue were female.

Wecker Signa (2007)
The third installment of the Wecker series, it is the only one where the girls are actually suited up with helmets. Their colors were pink, orange, purple and black. They made toys of both their regular forms and armored forms. This aired in Japan.

Tomica Hero: Rescue Force and Tomica Hero: Rescue Fire (2008-2010)
Broadcast on Japan's TV Aichi, the Tomica Hero series based on Takara Tomy's Tomica toy car line. Rescue Force started out April 2008 and was followed by the sequel Rescue Fire. Rescue Force is deployed to protect human lives from various disasters too extreme for normal rescue workers, started with blue, silver, black, gold were men and red and white were female. Both series had 51 episodes and a movie. In Fire, orange, silver, cyan and black were male and green is female. There was Rescue Aqua planned, I don't know if it went into production but now the project is on hold.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Tomica Hero: Rescue Aqua

For those that don't know, there is this series independent from Toei, and will have a third series starting in March. This reminds me of Gransezar, which had 3 series and then ended. We'll see what happens after this one. This one is to center around the Japanese Coast Guard.

Tomica Hero: Rescue Aqua

Wave Team
Masaki Kimura A-1/Aqua-1
Kobayashi Tōdō A-2/Aqua-2
Storm Team
Makino Hanamoto S-1/Storm-1
Chika Kamiya S-2/Storm-2

03.19.2010
トミカヒーロー レスキューアクアー
WAVE TEAM
雅紀 木村 - A-1 / Aqua-1
小林 藤堂 - A-2 / Aqua-2
STORM TEAM
牧野 花本 - S-1 / Storm-1
チカ 神谷 - S-2 / Storm-2

The series is to start out March 19, 2010.
Lots of fans are making jokes and I am like... I think it is a cool idea, they sure do have a lot to expand on with the series of rescues to do this. I always like things aquatically related, so I am agree to see how this works. Sorry, no pics as of yet.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Hero Profile: Tomica Hero Rescue Force/Fire


Broadcast on Japan's TV Aichi, the Tomica Hero series based on Takara Tomy's Tomica toy car line. Tomica Hero: Rescue Force started out April 2008 and was followed by the sequel Tomica Hero: Rescue Fire. Rescue Force is deployed to protect human lives from various disasters too extreme for normal rescue workers, started with 2 men (blue and silver) and 2 women (red and white). Then joined by another guy in black. The series had 51 episodes and a movie.

The sequel started April 4, 2009 and so far has 21 episodes. Fire-1 is male and orange; Fire-2 is male and silver; and Fire-3 is female and green---a first in any tokusatsu hero series. This series started with three heroes. The others joined later, like Fire-4 in his black suit (male) and Fire-5 in his light blue suit (male).
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