Lockdown Diaries May Digest

I miss old routines. The thing about them is, because you're so accustomed to them when they're there, you don't notice them until they stop being routines. No new movies out + time spent on work and on the podcast don't help matters here in the blog, either. But now that I've finished my short video essay series (an undertaking that I've enjoyed immensely) I finally have some time to sit back, relax, and write. It's time for a random post. I haven't done these since 2012!

I haven't written anything about Tokusatsu on this site since the early 2010s. That's an old routine that kinda faded away over time because I moved on to watching other stuff. Now that what's normal has changed, I've getting back into Tokusatsu lately, concentrating particularly on series made in the Showa era. Things were either really serious back then, or silly as hell. Enter Juspion.

If he looks familiar, that's because he's from the Metal Hero series, a franchise that includes the likes of Sky Ranger and Shaider. In fact, production wise, Juspion was the series that directly followed Shaider. Juspion isn't well known in the Philippines, but it was huge in Brazil. Something about Tokusatsu and Latin American/Spanish colonized countries seems to click for some reason.

In any case, Juspion started out as a space Tarzan planet of the week show before our crew landed on earth. The series is a little bit less surreal than its immediate predecessor, but there are some real weird episodes here, including that one time the bad guys wanted to train dolphins as mobile underwater missile launchers in order to rule the world.

have I ever lied to you guys?

So in order to enact this mammalian master plan, the bad guys recruit a dead samurai (!?) to raid the local aquarium to get dolphins. Maybe it would be better (and it would rouse less suspicion) if they sourced their dolphins from the open sea, but who thinks about those things in a children's show.

But what really takes the cake for me is episode 27, which is by far the most eighties episode I've ever seen in a Tokusatsu show from the Showa era. That, or the show's writer rewatched Saturday Night Fever and came up with this acid trip of an episode. It involves the bad guys wanting to extract the essence of youth from people and use them to raise Megabeasts (the show's version of the monster of the week). This description belies the sheer number of things going on in this one episode.

For one, the bad guys recruit three young ladies to act as idols (?) to help extract these young juices:

They're called the Cutie Girls.

The victimized young person of the week is an orphaned young boy and his sister who runs a gas station as their family business:

they seem to be the only two employees, which is weird and probably breaks all manner of child labor laws

The boy seems to be a former musician, as evidenced by his two very eighties-clothed friends, but became a corporate slave to the multinational oil cartel because he needs to raise his family. That said, his tenure as a pious son quickly ends when the Cutie Girls show up and give him an offer to go disco dancing on the bang bus:

to suit the tone of this episode, the offer is given IN DANCE FORM

Oh, and once drained of their youthful energy, the young teens TURN INTO WEREWOLVES:

I'm sure there's a metaphor for adulthood lurking in here somewhere

And the monster of the week looks like someone ejaculated a casino onto a rubber suit:

*whispers* RESORTS WORLD MANILAAAAAAA

Disco, fears of disco corrupting the youth, even commentary about the Japanese oil economy in the 1980's (Japan imported foreign oil a lot from companies such as the one above.) It certainly is a product of its time. I won't give you all the details, but rest assured our space tarzan police guy saves the day with his giant robot. Juspion. It's on youtube now for free, by the way.

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In an age where daily relief (of all sorts) is needed by most, relying on fast access to pleasure is a privilege. That said, a certain "Hub" for adult activities gave me the strangest of recommendations the other day:

shouldn't he get ALL of the hair from under that headrest? Is he even a barber 0/10 immersion broken

This is an almost one hour long video where a some guy washes the hair of a fully clothed lady... and that's it. He just washes her hair. I know people have weird kinks, and that's certainly nothing to be ashamed of, but the mere concept of it boggles my mind. I guess my perspective isn't broad enough. And it's not the only such video on the hub, either; DOZENS of videos like this exist on the site. I guess it's not unusual, you can get mathematics lessons on that site too. (Search for MathHelp and have fun).

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We end this peculiar diary entry by talking about a sequel to a beloved film. Shinichiro Ueda's One Cut of the Dead is a celebration of filmmaking and all the hiccups that come with it. This latest venture (titled One Cut of the Dead: Mission Remote) takes into account the pandemic and its effects on the filmmaking industry. Spoilers are present, so watch the film first (with English subs!) before coming back here.

The film reunites much of the original cast of the original film, back in their original roles. Our hapless director (Takayuki Hamatsu) is once again tasked with making a series, this time for a streaming service, but this time production is going to be tricky with the lockdown. But the director loves a good challenge and takes on the task with energy.

It's an interesting experiment in the emerging genre I'd like to call pandemic cinema: often framed in the unconventional mise-en-scene of a video call, at parts participative, at parts absurd and cheesy in the unique ways Japanese cinema can be.

It doesn't hold a candle to the original film, but a particular scene at the end of the film ends up making me a bit misty eyed. After their latest venture. Takayuki's daughter Mao (the plucky aspiring director from the first film) makes a speech, both hopeful and bittersweet, that embodies how I felt when a major part of what I love as a moviegoer was suddenly ripped from me, with no indication as to when I'll ever experience something like that again. It's a sobering thought.

Old routines are truly hard to shake off.