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InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Zone Fighter Episode 11 – Kanippatsu Gojira-no Sakebi!

March 4, 2012By

Zone Fighter Episode 11 – Kanippatsu Gojira-no Sakebi!

aka In the Twinkling of An Eye: The Roar of Godzilla! aka In a Hair’s Breadth: The Roar of Godzilla!

1973
March of Godzilla 2012
Written by Kazuhisa Hattori
Directed by Jun Fukuda

Godzilla is back! And Gigan shows up to get murdered! Zone Fighter makes up for the lame monsters of the previous episode by giving us what we want, classic Toho monsters pounding the crap out of each other. And more Zone Fighter murderous monster rampage.

Godzilla grows increasingly bored in these lopsided fights, he now only does them for LOL fight moves.

Another thing you learn thanks to Zone Fighter is that car racing in Japan at the time featured cars covered in taped on tarp for some reason. I have no idea why. Even all the windows (back window and sides) are covered, and the passenger side of the front window is also covered. All you get is the driver’s side windshield and an open passenger side window. And you wear goggles while test driving despite having a windshield.

The washing machine is off-center again…

If you are still Zone Fighter confused, check out the Zone Fighter Splash Page to get educated on the world of Zone Fighter.

Word to your mother
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Zone Fighter Episode 10 – Zettaizetsumei! Zoonfaitaa

March 3, 2012By

Zone Fighter Episode 10 – Zettaizetsumei! Zoonfaitaa

aka Zone Fighter Annihilated! aka Zone Fighter Destroyed!

1973
March of Godzilla 2012
Written by Motoo Nagai
Directed by Akiyasu Kikuchi

The title promises Zone Fighter destroyed? We can only hope… Because this isn’t anywhere near the last episode, so we know he didn’t die. Unfortunately, Zone Fighter is only destroyed by a mix of the Japanese Energy Crisis and bland ratings. What we do get are two monsters, a goofy gimmick, and Zone Fighter attempting to be creative. Which sort of works, but not well enough.

The dangers of cell phone radiation can’t be overstressed!

We got Shipudoro (& Tyler too!), a monster so lame that Zone Fighter doesn’t even bother to murder him. There is also Shadorah, who is connected to Zone Fighter in an intimate way. But that doesn’t stop him from getting brutally killed, as the crazed Zone Fighter continues to collect the scalps of anything that passes his way. If you are confused by anything in the Zone Fighter universe, check out the Zone Fighter Splash Page so all your questions can be answered.

Y-M-C-A!

The Garogas send a big orb to menace Zone Fighter, which he just shoots and it blows up. Of course it is all a trick as we’ll see later, but for now let’s continue with the story. The Zone family is suspicious but ignores what happens until Hikaru notices his shadow is now all wobbly and weird.

I’m not the Transformer Repungus, stop asking!

No time for doctor examinations, a monster is attacking the city! It’s Shipudoro, who is like a weirdo octopus.

InBad, Movie Reviews

Zebraman 2 (Review)

December 25, 2011By

Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City

aka Zeburaman: Zebura Shiti no gyakushu aka ゼブラーマン　ゼブラシティの逆襲

2010
Directed by Takashi Miike
Written by Kankuro Kudo

Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City is Miike’s followup to the 2004 film Zebraman, and like Zebraman before it, the sequel takes what could have been a straight story about a guy dressing up as a tokusatsu hero to find himself and takes it in unexpected directions. Zebraman 2 goes far beyond its predecessor, and has so many things going on it that you will be blown away by the result. Miike takes inspiration from the black and white stripes of the zebra and spins it into a yarn about the duality of man, good and evil, but sets it in a futuristic dystopia with fascist imagery and an MTV sensibility. The film is just frakking crazy. And brilliant. Brilliantly crazy.

Miike has a lot of fun inverting color schemes while still keeping up the black and white dichotomy. Governor Aihara Kouzo dresses in an all-black version of Alex the droog’s costume from A Clockwork Orange, his footsoldiers wear mostly black (with a stylized white zebra face on their masks – both showing their zebra origins and showing where George Lucas got the design for General Grievous!) as they stomp their way through town. In contrast, the hospital that serves the victims of the Zebra Police is the White Horse at white horse, all white, everyone dresses in white. Zebraman becomes whiter and whiter, beginning with his hair, while ZebraQueen becomes increasingly blacker in costume as the film commences, even commenting on how she wants more black. As their powers develop and they become more of a threat to each other, the characters are threatened with becoming more striped, a sign of weakness as they strive for their more purified forms.

The video direction is great, the pop star videos of ZebraQueen are indistinguishable from the stuff that should be playing on MTV (if garbage like Jersey Shore and Teen Mom wasn’t polluting the airwaves and forcing us to retreat to YouTube to watch actual videos!) Zebraman 2 is like a hyperactive music video at times. The songs aide you in throwing you right into the crazy world of the future, making you just as disoriented as Ichikawa as he wakes up in a world he doesn’t know. The violent imagery of the video matches the violence he encounters in the street.

Shinichi Ichikawa (Show Aikawa) – Our hero awakens years later with no memory of being Zebraman nor any idea of where he is. Can he find the power to become Zebraman again?
Zebraman (Show Aikawa) – I guess so because Zebraman is in the Roll Call. Now he’s more white, and ready to fight crime and stop AIDS. Seriously.
Yui Aihara/ZebraQueen (Riisa Naka) – ZebraQueen, also known as Zebra Q, is the daughter of the governor of Zebra City and a Christina Aguilera-ish pop superstar. Just imagine if Lady Gaga bought a bunch of zebra items and Nazi costumes on sale at Ross that weekend and turned it into a music video. ZebraQueen is the evil version of Zebraman, and because the duality of man is a plot point, she’s a woman.
Kohei Asano (Masahiro Inoue) – Why, Asano from the previous film is all grown up as a Japanese Idol guy and changed his family name! And he runs the White Horse hospital to take care of victims of Zebra Time. And he’s just a nurse, not a real doctor. Masahiro Inoue has the lead role in the series Kamen Rider Decade
Junpei Ichiba (Naoki Tanaka) – A resistance guy who also played Zebraman in the revival tv series that happened and came up for the idea in the final episode. Wants to lead an army against the Zebra Time troopers, but the injured people he’s training couldn’t defeat a stuffed zebra.
Aihara Kouzo (Guadalcanal Taka) – governor Aihara Kouzo was in charge of cleaing up the school from the last film, and also responsible for treating Ichikawa over his stress that lead to Ichikawa awakening in 2025 Zebra City
Sumire (Mei Nagano) – She’s an Alien Girl who is the last batch of alien goo left in Zebra City. Thus, she’s been a target for years by the Governor. She’s 25, by the way.

Zebraman
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Zebraman (Review)

December 24, 2011By

Zebraman

aka Zeburaman aka ゼブラーマン

2004
Directed by Takashi Miike
Written by Kankuro Kudo

If you know anything about cult cinema, you know Takashi Miike is awesome. Miike is always firing with all cylinders, and even on his weaker efforts he never does a half-assed job or sleepwalks through a film. Miike hops genres like Q*bert down a pyramid, able to make the most disgustingly violent film you’ve ever seen and follow that up with a kiddie flick. Zebraman is a love letter to tokusatsu heroes, particularly those from the 70s and 80s on Japanese television. Miike takes a fictitious hero and series and turn it into much more than just a simple tokusatsu film. It becomes a tale of finding yourself, of destiny, of belief, and about doing what’s right because you’re a hero. And it also has a guy riding a flying zebra while battling a giant goo monster. Zebraman takes these conventions and has fun with them, turning some deadly serious and others into more ridiculous fare than they’re treated by the real tokusatsu shows.

The fun with Zebraman is how all these different conventions and story bits add up to create a good story, despite the difference in tone and style. It’s a testament to Miike’s talent that he can take so many differently shaped parts and put together the puzzle with no missing pieces. My biggest fault with Zebraman is that the sequel outshines it at every turn. But I’ll worry about that when the review of the sequel goes up. For now, let’s learn about the man, the myth, the hero, Zebraman!

Shinichi Ichikawa (Show Aikawa) – Mild-mannered teacher who lets his wife and children walk all over him. Has no respect at home, so he retreats into his costume of Zebraman.
Zebraman (Show Aikawa) – Old 1970’s tokusatsu hero that Ichikawa was a fan of, tothe point where he made a Zebraman costume when he was grown and wears it to feel good about himself. Ichikawa then starts getting involved in incidents that match aspects of the old show as things develop.
Shinpei Asano (Naoki Yasukochi) – New student in a wheelchair that becomes Ichikawa’s new friend due to their common love of Zebraman. Becomes a surrogate son to Ichikawa.
Kana Asano (Kyoka Suzuki) – A nurse who is Shinpei’s mother and becomes a surrogate partner to Shinichi Ichikawa, and also becomes Zebra Nurse in his fantasies. Kyoka Suzuki is somewhere in Godzilla vs. Biollante
Kazuki (Yoshimasa Mishima) – Shinichi Ichikawa’s son who has no respect for his father. But once dad starts showing some heroics and saves him from alien goo possession, things will change between father and son.
Goo aliens (Yoshimasa Mishima) – Crazy aliens that are using the plot of the original Zebraman tv show to take over the planet. Their goo gets into people and corrupts them. They also can form the goo into monsters of increasing size.

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Zone Fighter Episode 09 – Oe! Reddosupaidaa-no Himitsu

April 22, 2011By

Zone Fighter Episode 09 – Oe! Reddosupaidaa-no Himitsu

aka Search for the Secret of the Red Spider! aka Find the Secret of the Red Spider!

1973
Directed by Kengo Furusawa
Written by Juro Shimamoto

Zone Fighter is back and he’s on a murder spree! Zone Fighter and the rest of the Zone Family have come to kill innocent animals that the Garoga have infected. Curing them is not an option, only MUUUURDER!

We at TarsTarkas.NET do not condone murder, especially of innocent animals. We however do condone the murder of the Zone Family, and are officially Team Garoga! Now, if you’re reading these in chronological order, we’ve skipped a few. That’s entirely the fault of the disks, because technology is dumb. What happened in those missing two episodes? Probably nothing important. In any event, if you are confused as to who’s-who in the Zone Fighter universe, check out the Zone Fighter Splash Page for all your questions to be answered.

Hikaru Sakimori (aka Zone Fighter) still hasn’t bothered to kill all the Garoga, and instead is just sitting around Earth chasing Garoga signals. Lazy, lazy Zone.

Holy crap, a foot long red spider! Flying in the air on it’s web or something. It’s Creepies all over again! The spider floats to a truck just sitting at the side of the road…

Garoga agents! Hikaru gets into a big fight with them. The Zone Fighter theme plays, it’s all very Zone-ish. But Hikaru hasn’t bothered to turn into Zone Fighter, because he’s lazy, and although he’s kicking their butts, Zone realizes he needs to transform to sell more toys.

The Zone Family gets a signal and transform to go help. The Garoga attack with black and white candy cane weapons! Weapons they are too dumb to use properly and soon the Zone Family have grabbed their candy canes and are killing them with their own weapons.

The Garoga goons taunt that their spider is evil, and then run away. Why you would yell that as a taunt I have no idea, as it’s stupid! Way to spoil your plans, Team Garoga. We’re no longer Team Garoga, as both teams are stupid.

But the Zone family doesn’t bother to stop or attack the spider RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM and instead they go back home to ask Grandpa Zone what is up. Okay, that’s so stupid we’re back on Team Garoga!

Zone Figther King Ghidorah Episode 6
InTelevision Reviews

Zone Fighter Episode 06 – Kingugidora-no Gyakushuu!

April 9, 2011By

Zone Fighter Episode 06 – Kingugidora-no Gyakushuu!

aka King Ghidorah’s Counterattack!

1973

Directed by Jun Fukuda
Written by Juro Shimamoto and Akira Ishikari

We don’t need no stinking…subtitles? This episode has subtitles??? OMG OMG OMG! Looks like somewhere, somehow, I picked up a copy of Episode 6 that was fansubbed! Now we will know what is going on….and how boring it is! WoooOOOOooOOOOO!!!!111 Oh…and it’s a VHS rip of someone who took the DVD and transferred it to VHS for reasons unknown, so enjoy the terrible screencaps! If I had to suffer through them, so will you. MuHAHAHAHA! Evil Tars has spoken. And these screencaps will just get stolen by those thieving bastards at the Godzilla Wiki anyway, like many other images from TarsTarkas.NET.

Catch up with Zone Fighter on the Zone Fighter Splash Page.

Meteor Man Zone, why is your theme song talking about smashing Garoga’s ambitions? Why not just kill them? They are evil, and you have no qualms about murdering all their enslaved monsters…

So the scientists from last weeks episode were inventing a Blue-Green system to reduce CO2 and radiation emissions in the air, making this show pre-Al Gore awesome. But, of course, the Garoga are in league with evil billionaire conservative businessmen and their Global Warming denialism, so they send King Ghidorah to wipe out the Blue-Green System. BOOOOO!!!!!

I am not sure why in the last episode they kept making reference to blue-green while firing weapons at King Ghidorah that made me think it was the weapons that were called that, but, whatever, these shows don’t really have that much internal consistency in the first place!

Remember, last we saw Zone Fighter, he had lured King Ghidorah into space because that is totally a good plan to lure a space monster into space to fight there. Zone Fighter has the power to speak in the vacuum of space!

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