J-RANT #1: Gackt

Well, I'm out of toku ideas, might as well start a J-Rant here. Today's J-RANT Topic is...Gackt.

Quite Simply, Gackt, full name 神威 楽斗 Kamui Gakuto is a Japanese Visual-Kei Singer. His name literally means God's Brilliance, Music Fighter. Aha, judging from that badass name, he must be awesome.

Well, As mentioned, he's a visual-kei singer. According to wikipedia here, is a musical style in Japan where singers put on a lot of white makeup and have androgynous appearances. But anyways, Gackt is somewhere in the middle. Androgynous, but male all the same.

I first heard of Gackt from this movie.

Kamen Rider Decade. He sang the theme song, which really coincidentally just came on in my random itunes playlist.

Journey Through the Decade. When I first heard this song, I was like, 'Wow, this guy sure has nice vocals'. I immediately went to Ares and downloaded this song.

Immediately, I was taken aback with this song.

I was somewhat surprised to hear that Gackt sang this song as well, since I PREVIOUSLY heard this song, and it was awesome. Soon, I was moving on to the third song of his DECADE trilogy.

Stay the Ride Alive. One of his better songs, I may add. After that, I was hooked on the voice of Gackt.

I typed in Gackt into my Ares search and several songs came out, among them JESUS, GHOST and several more. But 1 song caught my ear before all of them.

Last Song. It reminded me of her, her smile, her beauty. I remember the tears in my eyes as I first heard this song. The emotions....well, anyways, I soon moved on to his Final Fantasy Projects.

Oh, right. I forgot to mention that Gackt is also Genesis Rhapsodos from Final Fantasy VII Collection. This guy.

His costume, here.

Genesis is the result of project G, and he was the first SOLDIER to rebel against Shinra. In case you were wondering where had you heard this before, it happened to this guy.

Sephiroth. In a way, Gackt's character, Genesis was the original Sephiroth.

The buddies are pictured here. ANYWAYS, back to the topic. He recorded 2 songs for Dirge of Cerberus. Redemption and Longing.

But eventually I moved on to what I consider his best song-Flower.

This song always sends a shiver down my spine. Now....Gackt has other projects, such as Show Your Heart and whatnot. I LOVE GACKT!!!!

My Friday Round up #1

Well.....today's Friday again. That means that another week of doing 'stuff' that 'nobody cares'.....well anyways I've decided to give a Friday Round up every week. Applaud!

~Awkward Cricket Silence, tumbleweed blows~

-Ahem........we'll begin anyways.

Monday was a mothaeffing train wreck, owing to uhhh...uhh.....forgot.....

Well, this week was lame. No nothing.

~More awkward silence~

Well I guess this week's a crappy week. Next Friday's update then!

Toku Rant #2 Marvel and Toei

Well, today's time for another toku rant. Today I'm gonna talk about the relationship between:

and

Well, first of all, many of you will point out the obvious. Marvel and Toei produces superheroes! We have spiderman, fantastic four, avengers on one side, and we have Kamen Riders and Super Sentai on the other. Did you think it stopped there? Of course not, silly!

Marvel and Toei once had a licensing agreement lasting 3 years. Basically Toei would be free to take anything from Marvel and give their own twist, likewise for Marvel. So Toei took one of the best assets from Marvel:

Supaida-man. Spiderman. Here's the opening:

At o.55, we see that spiderman has this.

A. FREAKING. GIANT. ROBOT.

But believe it or not, without

We would have no

Yes, one relationship between Toei and Marvel is that Spider-man was one of the first superheroes to get a giant robot. And yes, he got it even earlier than Super Sentai.

Speaking of which.

The second relationship between Toei and Marvel is this:

This is Captain America. Toei 'decided' to adapt Cap into Japanese format. Oh...based on the Spider-man experiences, I guess you can see where this is going...

BATTLE FEVER J.

One of the most interesting things about BFJ is that it was the first Super Sentai show to use the name Super Sentai. Before that, the 2 sentais were creations of the late Shotaro Ishinomori. By this time, Toei were somewhat out of ideas. To remedy that, they created BFJ.

So, in a convoluted way:

Without

There would be no

And without Battle Fever J, there would be no

And without Zyuranger, there would be no

Aaaaand without MMPR, there would be no

Yes.....Power Rangers Samurai came from Captain America.

By the way, without

we would have been spared of

Yes....Toku fans out there, next time you see a ridiculous mecha from sentai like this:

Which makes you want to swear and give up sentai,

Thank him.

Excelsior.

By the way, guess what Marvel took. Kamen Riders? Gorangers? Inazuman maybe? Zvatt?

They took giant robots. Wrap your head around that.

Henshin-ing ALL DAY LONG

Recently found out that my blog hasn't been updated in months.

Well, what am I doing nowadays? Basically, I've been Toku-ing. This is tokusatsu:

Alot of people don't know the fine distinction between Toku and Kiddy shows. Here's an example of a REAL Toku:

On the other hand, this is what you call a kiddy show:

It's an american remake of Kamen Rider Ryuki. Now, I know there are Toku Fans out there, screaming out that this is insane! Why remake Ryuki? Why not Faiz? Blade? Kabuto? Heck, why not make AmerGito (American Agito)?

Because this allures them:

Za 13 Riders. Ryuki. Knight. Zolda. Odin. Scissors. Ohja. Verde. Raia. Imperer. Tiger. Gai. Femme. And Ryuga. 13 riders, 13 toys. Collect them all!!

You see, Merchandising has been behind all American remakes. Look at What they did to power rangers.

For the best part of my knowledge, Super Sentai only had 1 season with a battlizer. That season was Dekaranger, and they borrowed that concept for the American. The Japanese did it for the Deus Ex Machina effect, but guess why Americans want a battlizer?

TO SELL TOYS!

The noble mission again. Why, its as if Japanese show aren't good enough without toy opportunities. But lately, the Japanese had picked up this habit.

There's been a trend nowadays as I map out the seasons of these few years:

Kamen Rider Decade: ONE deck system

Kamen Rider Double: TWO USB Drives simutaneously

Kamen Rider OOO: THREE Medals simultaneously, interchangeable

OOO however takes it a tad too far:

Basic Form- 3 medals, differing Greeeds. (OOO Gets his medals from enemies called GREEEDS.)

There were 5 Greeeds initially, but now 2 more have emerged. Kids, Cosplayers, Collect them all!

So, will this habit last, or will it just disappear? Only Time will tell.

MY HERO!

Hell yeah,Roxas for life.

Future?

THIS BLOG IS PUT UNDER HIATUS INDEFINITELY. PLEASE READ http://thegameofend.blogspot.com/ FOR NOW.

Earth Paranoids

Lately, cause of the plethora of end-of-the-world bullshit, people (yes, I'm talking about you) have become increasingly paranoid.

First there was the Fukushima I Nuke Power Plant.

Yes, I lived to see a real nuclear meltdown. But lately, people have been posting THIS on Facebook:

Blah blah blah Nuclear Meltdown Japan, blah blah blah rain, blah blah blah Thyroid Gland, radiation, blah blah blah.

Screw you guys, STOP BEING PARANOID. The Fukushima I incident is only a LEVEL 4 NUCLEAR INCIDENT. Level 4. This is what a Level 7 (Habis-semua) nuke explosion looks like.

That, My friends, Is Chernobyl. The only level 7 incident in history. Compared to this, Japan's incident is nothing. SO STOP BEING PARANOID FACHERS!