Time for a quick recap of some of the interesting happenings in tokusatsu and anime in the past couple of weeks:
- Tsuburaya’s latest Ultra Fight series, Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generation Heroes, is looking pretty interesting on a couple of fronts. First, it’s being streamed weekly on YouTube with both English subtitles and an English dub (it’s ironic that these seem much more available in dubbed format than any of the Ultraman TV series).
Secondly, it features Ultraman Ribut, who previously has only appeared in animated form in a few episodes of the Malaysian cartoon Upin & Ipin. I love how the Ultraman franchise is so willing to incorporate its more seemingly apocryphal content into the main continuity; I can’t think of any other franchise that’s so integrated.
- After a successful release of the first two Deep Sea Monster movies from Shinpei Hayashiya, SRS has announced that they also licensed the third, Deep Sea Monster Raiga vs Volcano Beast Ohga. This is quite exciting, as there’s no Japanese home video release yet, and this movie was directly inspired by US fandom (including cameos by Kaijucast’s Kyle Yount and Kaiju Gaiden’s Mark Jaramillo).
I would encourage them to translate the credits and center the subtitles this time, though.
- A new monster has been revealed for the upcoming (as of yet untitled) MonsterVerse comic that leads into Godzilla vs. Kong. They’re going with “Camazotz”, which, being a traditional deity name, suggests some stylistic continuity between this and King of the Monsters. So far the comics always seem to muddy the continuity more than clarify anything, so we’ll see if this continues the trend.
- There’s a new Chinese giant monster movie announced called Spiders, which will be confusing, especially since there’s already giant monster movies titled Spiders (2000) and Spiders 3D (2013).
- Konga is getting a Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber, but unlike their A*P*E and Yongary releases, it does not appear to be coming with an audio commentary.
- Hit science fiction/horror franchise The Promised Neverland is getting a live-action adaptation. The characters have been aged-up significantly from the source material (a 19 year-old actress for a character that’s 11?), which removes a lot of the impact, and I don’t think is a great idea.
- Ultramechatron Team Go looks like another edgy Power Rangers parody, to go down with Mighty Moshin Emo Rangers, Gigabots, Mystic Cosmic Patrol, Meet the Putties, Power/Rangers, etc. (Not that Japan has any shortage of similar Sentai parodies…)
- Gen Urobuchi has a new mecha series titled Obsolete for YouTube Premium starting in December. Presumably this means that it won’t get a physical release, but I’m not particularly familiar with YouTube Premium’s business model.
- Mappa’s Dorohedoro series has drawn my attention in a way that the manga never did, but since it was licensed by Netflix I assume we won’t see it stateside for at least a year.
- Drifting Dragons is also a Netflix acquisition, for those who want to watch a dragon-themed cooking show.
- Netflix is also producing a new Masaaki Yuasa series (Devilman Crybaby did make quite a splash), this one based on Sakyo Komatsu’s Japan Sinks. It’ll be interesting to see how Japan Sinks 2020 compares to the 1973 Submersion of Japan movie and Shinji Higuchi’s 2006 Japan Sinks adaptation. Maybe if it’s popular enough, someone will release the original movie in English?
- Funimation has licensed the Yu Yu Hakusho OVAs. I wonder if they’ll get a separate release, or if they’ll be an extra in a Blu-ray set, as with the Japanese release.
That’s a wrap for the time being; we’ll see what the upcoming weeks bring.
Maser Patrol 