Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Although "Metal Kaiser" Is Kind of a Generic Name

Filed under "darnit censorship":



Metal Kaiser is a Japanese-produced, Chinese-language tokusatsu series that Tsuburaya Productions, creators of Ultraman, were trying to use to break into the Chinese market.

But because Chinese television apparently has wildly fluctuating censorship against violence (that is, changes happen extremely rapidly and can be harsh), the show was banned before it ever came out, and apparently the ban hurt Tsuburaya's finances rather badly.

Now, I've watched some fair amount of one of China's homegrown tokusatsu series, Armor Heroes, and I can say it's cheesy and hilarious; this already has some bits in it that I also find funny just in this trailer. I don't know how well a story that's apparently essentially "Ultraman powered by ancient Chinese mythology" would work when written for the same audience.

But Ultraman in general (or rather, the formula it follows, especially in the particular context of how it's followed in Ultraman) is one of my ten or so favorite things in all the world, so I can't imagine I wouldn't actually like it.

Especially since the Metal Kaiser costume is one of the most beautiful tokusatsu protagonist costumes ever created.

(Use of the "China is hilarious too" and "Japan is hilarious" tags is primarily for the sake of inter-post continuity.)

-Signing off.

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