It's coming...!

There are only a few days until the (expected) release of the first episode of the (New) Guardian Force Roboman. In anticipation of this, over the next few days I'll be overhauling the Bibliography page to include links, where applicable, to download or buy the products listed.

Check back in a couple of days!

Kamen Rider Decade Episodes 10-11

Kamen Rider Decade title card

KAMEN RIDER DECADE

555's World

Episode 10: 555 High School's Phantom Thief

Original airdate: March 29th, 2009

Episode 11: 555 Faces, 1 Treasure

Original airdate: April 5th, 2009

Written by: Aikawa Shou

These episodes try to cram so much in that the 555 story is relatively pointless. It has a basic, tired plot, and very little background is offered - why do Orphenochs attack humans? What is Smart Brain, and why is there a school named for it? Why were there belts floating around, to fight Orphenochs, which no-one was using? How did Takumi get the 555 Gear, and why did he use it to fight other Orphenochs? I don't know, and don't really care.

Kamen Rider Diend's Final Attack Ride

But we do get a lot of interesting stuff. The sea cucumber guy from Blade's World returns, and is revealed to be Kamen Rider Diend. Not only does he apparently know Tsukasa from their past, but even Narutaki is intimidated by him (for no clear reason, since they seem to have pretty much the same power). And he's quite endearing... or is at least supposed to be. He keeps saying he just wants treasure and for people to keep out of his way, but displays a horrendously convoluted plan to obtain the treasure which inevitably and necessarily leads to him helping people.

Kamen Rider Diend (middle), summons Kamen Rider Kabuki (1, left) and Kamen Rider Rey (1, right) to fight  Decade

His powers are exciting, as where Tsukasa can transform into previous Kamen Riders, Diend can summon them to help him - and not their new, (2) versions, but the originals. His Final Attack Ride, however, is a bit freaky; it involves creating a tunnel of "digitised" Kamen Ride cards, and it isn't pleasant for the (1) Riders; having already summoned Kabuki and Rey to help, they are turned into their card forms - and they scream. 

Kamen Rider Diend uses the Kiva Arrow (1) to fight Kamen Rider Ryuga (1)
and Dragblacker, summoned by Narutaki

He can also use other Riders' Final Form Rides, too - and again, he can apply it to the (1)s, as shown by turning Kamen Rider Kiva (1) into the Kiva Arrow. This is all very interesting. Same powers as Narutaki? Knows Tsukasa? Knows who Kivaala is and calls her out on it? Which reminds me, why has Natsumi not said or done anything about seeing Kivaala and Narutaki conspiring together?!

Kamen Rider 555 (2)'s Final Form Ride, the 555 Blaster

Tsukasa and Natsumi act so woodenly that they ruin the drama and excitement. Diend is clearly a threat, but Tsukasa's acting "angry" is so absurd that I couldn't take the threat seriously. I want to keep watching, but have switched to rooting quite heavily for Diend, hoping he defeats Decade soundly. The only good thing involving Decade here is that we learn Tsukasa's weird photos are due to him and not a mechanical fault in the camera, as evidenced by fine photos being developed after the camera's use by a resident of 555's World.

Kamen Rider Decade Episodes 08-09

Kamen Rider Decade title card

KAMEN RIDER DECADE

Blade's World

Episode 08: Welcome to the Blade Restaurant

Original airdate: March 15th, 2009

Episode 09: Blade Blade

Original airdate: March 22nd, 2009

Written by: Yonemura Shouji

So... many... Riders! Tsukasa and Co. find themselves in a strange world, where Riders are the top employees of a company called BOARD, which takes government contracts to protect the world from monsters called Undead - just like the Paradoxa Undead the team encountered in Ryuki's World. BOARD ranks its members like playing cards, with the 'Aces' at the top and 'twos' at the bottom; they are paid and treated accordingly, and must constantly struggle to maintain or improve their level.

Kamen Rider Chalice (2) - one of the best designs so far!

When Kazuma - aka. Blade (2) - risks losing a mission in order to protect a lower-level worker, he is heavily-demoted - and both Tsukasa and the other worker are promoted above him, with the other worker becoming Kamen Rider Leangle (2). This causes a few problems, with Kazuma becoming a sooky jerk and not accepting his place, and Leangle also becoming a jerk and suddenly treating his former very caring superior very, very cruelly.

Kamen Rider Todoriki (1), with his guitar-sword of awesome

And then Kamen Rider Chalice (2) appears and puts everyone in their place, scared off only when a Rider from the original Hibiki's world appears - Kamen Rider Todoriki (1)! He fights off all the Riders, and we see a figure watching him in the distance. However, Chalice later returns and defeats the Riders, taking their henshin devices, and forming an alliance with Paradoxa Undead. It falls to Tsukasa and Blade (2) to team-up, with Blade (2) learning a few lessons from Tsukasa... even if Tsukasa wasn't teachiing him intentionally...

... and that's the great thing about these two episodes. We have two instances of Tuusuke / Kuuga (2) getting all excited about lessons Tsukasa is supposedly teaching Blade (2), only to have Tsukasa look really awkward and then play along, like it had been his plan from the start. Given how poorly-executed the main plots of the episodes are, this is one of few great things to take away from the episodes.

Kamen Rider Blade (2)'s very obvious Final Form Ride, the Blade Blade

It also has the figure who presumably summoned  Todoriki (and who wasn't Narutaki!) asking Tsukasa if he has yet eaten sea cucumbers, which is the start of a very long-running mystery within the series. Best of all, it has the most obvious Final Form Ride ever - the Blade Blade!

But it also has something terrible. Mid-way through episode eight,, Natsumi stumbles across Narutaki and Kivaala having a cryptic conversation. She challenges them, accusing them of being in cahoots,  but she never says anything to anyone else about it. That's just bizarre, and wholly out-of-character, and never explained.

... and the blackout is over! Now what?

If you visited this website in the past twenty-four hours, you would have seen the following:

This site as it appeared during the January 18th, 2012 blackout

I decided to black out this blog on Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 (US EST) to support the protest against the SOPA and PIPA legislation under consideration in the United States. As the message on the blog explained:

Visitors, this blog has been blacked out in protest against the SOPA and PIPA legislation currently under consideration in the United States, which poses a substantial and material threat to the Internet as many of us have come to appreciate it. Please visit Google's homepage for information about why you should and how you can oppose this legislation. This blog will return to normal at midnight on Thursday, January 19th, 2012, US EST (4pm Thursday, January 19th, 2012, AEDST).

During this period, many other websites - including Wikipedia, Google, Wordpress and Reddit, as well as thousands of others - were blacked out to varying degrees to work towards this common cause. At one stage, more than 250,000 tweets per hour were posted on the topic via Twitter, and Google News provided links to thousands of articles on the issue. 

But now what?

Well, the first bit of good news is that a number of key supporters of the legislation have backed away from it in response to these protests. The second bit of good news is that this event clearly established the capacity of the World Wide Web community to be a constructive, concerted force for change (for better or worse).

There's also bad news, though.

My key concern is what seems to be a very widespread misunderstanding of the legislation. Having read the bills, and extensive commentary on the bills, my understanding is that with the exception of a few clumsily-constructed clauses, the bill covers websites not based in the U.S., since websites based in the U.S. are already covered by extensive legislation, as shown by the U.S. ICE domain seizures on the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend in 2010.

So all this talk of sites like Wikipedia, Reddit and Google being closed down is quite inaccurate. Now, those websites would have a clear obligation under the law not to link to websites based outside the U.S. which violate the bills, but are otherwise not subject to them. Instead, they are subject to roughly equivalent existing laws, such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Simply put, if a website in the U.S. infringes copyright (within reason - obvious criminal efforts are another story) they would, even now, be required to remove any infringing content on notification by the copyright holder. Websites already do this, and this remains unchanged.

But if a website not in the U.S. infringes copyright, then websites that are based in the U.S. will be required to remove links to those websites, payment processors (such as PayPal or credit card companies) to stop providing services to the site, ad companies to stop serving ads on or to the site, and in the case of search engines to remove the sites from their indices, and U.S. ISPs would be required to block access to those sites, within five days.

This is simply because the U.S. can't impose its laws on people outside of their country - so since they can't make people remove content, they have instead established a way for the U.S. not to have access to the content. Which is about as reasonable as the DMCA.

So why, then, am I opposed to this? Mainly because the legislation does not require a website owner to be notified of any of this. So in theory a company or the U.S. government could feel that a website based in another country has violated this legislation, require all U.S.-based services to sever ties with it (including blocking all U.S. web users from seeing the site), and the owner need never be told.

Someone in a country other than the U.S. could maintain a website which in no way violates the laws of their own country, and suddenly have it blocked from the majority of Internet users. This can not only have an enormous economic impact, as there are many web businesses which are based outside the U.S. but still get the majority of their income from U.S. customers, but it also limits the access of Americans to information. You can visit a website which may very well infringe on U.S. copyright laws without infringing on copyright yourself.

It also concerns me because it limits globalisation. I could, for example, be given permission by an Australian company to stream some of their content. But then an American  company could license the content, and all of a sudden my website could be completely blocked in the U.S. because I am apparently infringing on that company's copyright. A fun example of this came during the blackout, where the U.S. Supreme Court made changes to the U.S. copyright law which meant items previously in the public domain in the U.S. are now copyrighted again - so I could have established a site in good faith with content considered public domain in the U.S., and all of a sudden I'm now infringing on that law... and my site is blocked for all U.S. users.

Then there's the slippery slope argument. Once the infrastructure is in place to block some content, it is easier for others to get other content blocked  And it suggests to countries such as Australia that its proposed Internet censorship legislation could be acceptable.

So no matter not, we now need to keep asserting our opposition to any such legislation. Even if SOPA and PIPA go away, similar legislation could emerge later, in the U.S. or elsewhere.

Learn more:

Wikipedia

Google News

Twitter: #sopastrike

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

Directed by: George A. Romero

Written by: George A. Romero & John A. Russo

Rating: 3 / 5

I have a bit of a hit-and-miss relationship with horror films. I tend to be quite selective, and of the ones I finally settle down to watch, about forty percent give me the willies, and the rest are a yawn fest.

This, oddly, qualified as both. Certain elements scared the heck out of me, but those frights wore off too quickly to keep up my enthusiasm, so I'd soon be bored.

What tends to work best with me when it comes to horror is hopelessness. I am especially a fan of East Asian horror, which tends to deal with monsters or forces that are (nearly) unstoppable. When hope rises and is then crushed, or when there is no hope from the very beginning, I tend to get the heeby-jeebies but good - regardless of which side emerges at the end of the film.

This had several elements that frightened me: the ghouls' persistence was one of them. They just kept coming, no matter what abuse they took. That triggered so many types of dread. But then we learned how to kill them, and saw how laid back the search and destroy groups were about doing it - they very suddenly didn't seem like a threat. As long as I slept with a bat next to my bed, I'd be fine.

What I did like was the story. We got a very simple explanation of how the ghouls came to be - so many other films introduce very complex histories for the menace being dealt with, but the complexity is rarely as effective as the simple explanation we got here. The explanation was to satisfy the viewer; people in the world of the film probably couldn't care less about what caused the ghouls, as long as they know what to do about them. So often characters waste half a movie finding out what is behind the threat, which usually does them no good (and makes me feel like I've wasted half an hour).

I'm quite keen to see the other films in the franchise, and to consider other zombie films (zombies have never really appealed to me, with the exception of Marvel Comics' 1970s Tales of the Zombie series).

Super Sentai "Ones"

This is adapted from icysnowdrop's meme. While icysnowdrop originally did it for Kamen Rider, I've chosen instead to do it for Super Sentai, with which I am much more familiar. :-) In preparing these answers, I have considered only the series that I have seen, even if a topic can be covered without having seen the series (such as best theme song).

The one which was your first:
GoGo Sentai Boukenger

I don't even recall exactly how I discovered it, so I don't know what other details I can include here.

The one with the best (opening) theme song:
Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger and Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger (tie)

I love almost every Super Sentai theme song, for largely the same reasons, so to decide on this I had to think of the ones that will get me sitting or standing up straight and singing along. I also am very fond of the Hurricaneger OP cast version during the closing credits of the movie, because seeing the bad guys dancing and Kuwaga Raijer trying to get Kabuto Raijer to have some fun was hilarious.

The one with the best (ending) theme song:
GoGo Sentai Boukenger and Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger (tie)

For much the same reasons as above. Clips of Psychic Lover performing the Boukenger ED live make my heart beat like crazy... but what's not to love about the Goukaiger ED, which features every sentai team ever?

The one that made you laugh the most:
Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger

There are a few close runners-up, but Goukaiger has had me laughing out loud many times, mostly (but not always) thanks to Gai, Don and Luka. 

The one that made you cry the most:
Mirai Sentai Timeranger and Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger

Timeranger wins for the volume of tears, absolutely. There were several tear-jerking moments in that series, and I cared so much for all the characters that even comparatively little issues would have me very upset on their behalf. But Goukaiger leaves me crying more frequently, often at things that normally wouldn't set me off...

The one that most surprised you:
Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger

Hands down. So many times I have expected the series to go one way, and it has gone another. Usually, but not always, for the better. I continue to have hopes for where the series will go, but have given up having expectations, because I know this show will beat me.

The one that didn't meet your expectations:
None

All Super Sentai series have met my expectations. And then some, usually.

The one with the best relationship:
Well...

... that depends on how you define a "relationship". Ones I quite love are Yuuri and Tatsuya (Timeranger), Domon and Honami (Timeranger), Tsue Tsue and Yabaiba (Gaoranger), Ban and Hoji (Dekaranger), Sakura and Satoru (Boukenger), and Marvelous and Navi (Goukaiger). 

The one with the best fight scenes/action:
Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger

It isn't even a contest. There is such variety, and it fits whatever music is playing so perfectly, it is just plain amazing. However, Shinkenger and Hurricaneger's fight scenes suited the characters a bit better - Goukaiger meets archetypal expectations, Shinkenger and Hurricaneger met individual expectations.

The one with the best suit design/transformation scenes:
Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger

It's just epic. I almost had a heart attack when I saw it recreated in Goukaiger.

The one that you compare all the others to:
Mirai Sentai Timeranger

It is my favourite for a range of reasons, and as my favourite it serves as my benchmark. However, I compare like with like, as well - so Goukaiger, for example, gets compared to Boukenger a lot, due to various similarities. But, at the end of the day, it does usually come down to "Do I like X more or less than Timeranger?"

Kamen Rider Decade Episodes 06-07

Kamen Rider Decade title card

KAMEN RIDER DECADE
Ryuki's World
Episode 06: Battle Trial: Ryuki World
Original airdate: March 1st, 2009

Episode 07: The Real Criminal's Super Trick
Original airdate: March 8th, 2009
Written by: Aikawa Shou

How can anyone not like an episode which pits Kamen Rider Knight's Trick Vent against Kamen Rider Decade's Attack Ride Illusion? A whole gaggle of Decades and Knights fighting each other! Great!

These episodes put an interesting spin on the very complicated story of Ryuki. In this world, Rider Battles are fought by people involved in criminal trials, with the last Rider standing deciding the fate of the defendant. That is a very scary thought - it reminds me of a horror story I saw on TV, where a man on death row was released into the bush, pursued by hunters, and told he could go free if he survived a certain amount of time. Between things like that and Battle Royale, I can see things like this happening.

Kamen Rider Abyss, a new Rider, who would have fit in perfectly in Kamen Rider Ryuki

But enter Ryuki (2) who, in his civilian form, has been investigating issues surrounding the trial system for the Atashi Journal (a pun on Ore Journal from Kamen Rider Ryuki, which also means the "I" journal or "Me" journal). It seems the paper's editor-in-chief also has some unconventional ideas, leading to her murder... which is pinned on Natsumi!

So of course Ryuki (2), Decade, Yuusuke (Kuuga (2)) and Knight (2) must team-up to find out who is truly behind it all. And as this goes on, Natsumi is beamed out of prison by Narutaki, who reminds her that Decade is a devil who will destroy all the worlds. He offers to team up with her, but she refuses. (And never tells her friends...)

Kamen Rider Abyss' awesome shark contract monster

Finally, someone asks Kivaara what she's doing. Yuusuke questions why she is there and how long she plans to follow them, but Grandpa Hikari dismisses any concerns Yuusuke may have, effectively saying "the more the merrier". The episode also has some great humour: at one point, Grandpa Hikari is trying to catch a chicken, and Kivaara helps by biting it. Later, the gang eats a chicken stew, and Yuusuke asks Tsukasa if he thinks it is the same chicken; Tsukasa shrugs. Later, when due to a complicated plot point Tsukasa goes back in time, he manages to save the chicken from its fate, leaving Grandpa Hikari to wonder how Tsukasa knew what he was going to do...

Kamen Rider Ryuki (2)'s Final Form Ride: Dragredder!

But the best part? In this episode, Narutaki introduces multiple alien elements all at once. We get Kamen Rider Abyss (who is an entirely new Kamen Rider, not just new to Ryuki's World), who also happens to be the Paradoxa Undead (the Undead being the bad guys from Kamen Rider Blade). Abyss would have fit perfectly in Kamen Rider Ryuki! It probably comes as no surprise that Ryuki (2)'s Final Form Ride transforms him into his contract monster, Dragredder, but Abyss' shark contract monster is ten times as awesome!

The special effects were done brilliantly, fiitting perfectly with the original Kamen Rider Ryuki. Amazing stuff!