Mother's Basement Discussion

How Akira Toriyama Changed The World

Geoff talks about the legacy of Akira Toriyama; how in spite of how influential most people know he was, he was honestly even more influential than most people give him credit for.

A fitting tribute to a legend taken too early.

EDIT in spite of my best efforts I cannot get the video to embed properly. You can watch it at the link above.

Edited by Grahf on Mar 17th 2024 at 11:19:07 AM

Geoff just uploaded his whole series on the cult movies as one video on his second channel:

The Ones to Watch for the Spring anime season has just dropped.

Goddammit this looks like a really solid season. Definitely gonna take a look at Jellyfish and Astro Note at least.

Edited by Lyendith on Apr 16th 2024 at 10:37:35 AM

I am very surprised that Blue Archive even made it in as an honorable mention.

He did a video about Bravern as well a couple days ago in Basement Life.

Thumbnail is fanart done by the character designer. Will make perfect sense when you’ve seen the show.

Why is the censor bleep so much louder than the rest of the audio goddamn

the loudness of the censor is equal to the level of the curse.

Then why isn't Sukuna really loud?

Because he hasn't used the loud profanity curse since the Heian era.

I'm also surprised he called Go, Go, Loser Ranger! a series for Sentai fans, since it always sounded like the exact opposite to me.

If its because the Sentai analogs are villains. I should point out that Disgaea also cast sentai analoges in antagonistic (thought not quite villainous roles) and that didn't stop them from being an Affectionate Parody.

Niji 6 is closer to a villainous sentai take that isn't made for sentai fans (its actually a Pun on Rainbow 6 Siege)

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 21st 2024 at 11:34:54 AM

Sentai genre fan doesn't mean only liking the Sentain Team. You gotta love the villains too or you'd get bored of the show.

I read Go, Go, Loser Ranger! and I wouldn't recommend it for any Sentai fan. It's a very shallow attempt at parody Sentai, basically just go for the low hanging fruit jokes. Not helping is the fact that many modern Sentai already satired the hell out of their own series so Go, Go, Loser Ranger! just seem like late for the party and only tell the most basic parody idea about Sentai. Not helping is that Negi writing style isn't a good fit for writing action heavy series.

I respect Negi as an artist for doing something so different for his previous work, but it kind of sounds like The Boys with less gross, disturbing sex.

How would you say his writing style doesn't fit, exactly?

Edited by MisterTambourineMan on Apr 22nd 2024 at 12:22:42 PM

His writing is better for writing conversations and small talks but when it's time for action, the flow of the actions doesn't feel very natural, plus the choreography also very bland. Not helping is that the actions also get interrupted a lot by the characters monologing. The thing about Sentai is that the actions sequences usually very bombastic and over the top which is something that the manga failed to capture in my opinion.

The Red Ranger Isekai does it far better, IMO.

If your main complaint about the manga is regarding its pacing and choreography, that sounds like exactly the kind of thing an anime adaptation can fix, right?

Could be but I still wouldn't recommended it for Sentai fans because beside the premier, the series doesn't actually do anything else with the Sentai franchise. Like if you just replace the Dragon Rangers with the Not!Avenger or Not!Justice League and nothing about the story would change. Really at it core, the series is just a story of "heroes but they gone bad".

Edited by BattleRaizer on Apr 23rd 2024 at 5:09:35 PM

It has good satire. Probably my favorite bit is how the evil sentai have a boatload of weapons and cool effects, most of which are useless.

Turns out these weapons are more so for marketing to sell toys by advertising them in the mock battles they have with the aliens. They do indeed have real weapons that they keep hidden in case they actually want to kill someone.

And all throughout I was just laughing because its definitely a rib at sentai/Power Rangers consumerism in how they constantly throw power-ups at the heroes nonstop just so they can shove a bunch of new toys for the kids watching.

It kind if reminds me of a Japanese version of The Boys (show).

Edited by slimcoder on Apr 23rd 2024 at 4:13:08 AM

Given that "The Boys but with less gross disturbing sex" is what the widely lauded Amazon version of The Boys is this sounds like a pretty strong endorsement

TBF this is a Japanese work and Sentai is the most predominant form of superhero there (and one invented in Japan itself no less). You could easily replace the dragon guys with something like the Crime Syndicate or the Justice Lords, but it would change the cultural framework a lot.

I'm not saying western capes aren't popular in Japan, I'm saying they prolly wouldn't be the first point of reference for a Japanese creator that is currently living in Japan if they wanted to make a superhero pastiche, not would they be likely to be one for the domestic target audience (either boys or more likely men that grew up with toku).

Perhaps the show is good - I haven't seen it myself - but wouldn't you say it's a show for people who hate superheroes?

No, not at all.

The comics are inarguably written by and for someone who hates superheroes, but the show isn't. It's a show that acknowledges and hates the worst that superheroes can be (both as a commodity in our universe and in their universe), but it doesn't hate them, it uses them to make satirical points about corporate greed.

What Larkman said, the show is much less meanspirited then the comic and much more interested in societal commentary. I wouldn't call it particularly anti-superhero.

This situation seems the same, the anime doesn't seem "anti-Sentai" as much as critical of the industry itself.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Apr 23rd 2024 at 10:34:10 AM