Hey guys, Mike/Gaijinder here. By popular demand, I’ve been convinced to become more active with front page contributions, some of which come from my own blog, Justice ACE. So, I’m going to start posting regular articles and rants and whatnot under the label of “Henshin ACE” to avoid confusion…makes sense to me at least.

Anyways, let’s get right to it:

I’m a huge fan of the Space Sheriff Series, so much that I’ve got Hiroshi Watari’s autograph hanging from my bedroom door. Like most fans, I’ve been waiting for the next big series to come along and revive the series or just something to properly revive the Metal Hero genre period. We all know Toei wants to secretly do it, just look at Kamen Rider Faiz for crying out loud. That was a cleverly disguised Metal Hero series.

A few weeks ago, we came close to getting our wish…sort of. Find out for yourself after the jump.

GMA-7, the TV Network in the Phillpines best known for ripping off of Sailor Moon, Indiana Jones, Smallville, and best known for their attempt at Lupin III TV series, announced a few months ago that they had gotten the rights from Toei to make a remake of Uchuu Keiji Shaider. Huh. It all seemed nice and whatnot…but then this happened.

Toei got wind of the outcry of negative reactions from the fans, I’m guessing it was mainly from the hardcore fans in the Philippines, those who got wind of it in Japan (coughcough2CHcoughcough), and also because of GMA’s track record with crap shows. Anyways, they just as quickly yanked the rights back, firing their very own Big Magnum at GMA-7. And there was much rejoicing.

Sadly, this didn’t mean that the series was stopped. No, in fact it’s now treated as a sequel to Shaider, now titled Zaido. Check out this promo vid.

Seems slick, huh?

…I didn’t think so either.

Sure the producers in the “Making Of” brag about the involvement of Toei and the original producers and how they want to maintain the feel of the original but in reality, the show is just a thinly disguised soap opera. GMA’s apparent trademark.

I sat through five episodes people, FIVE episodes. What did I get for all my trouble? A bad Shigi Shigi Dance, a wannabe Starship Troopers battle scene, and only one in suit fight with our main hero, Gallian. The rest of the time I had to endure a horrid soap that for some reason gets more priority than the actual plot of the show. To sum it up, we were promised a sequel to a classic and instead, we’ve gotten the Tokusatsu version of Passions.

Now I’m all for dramatic elements in my tokusatsu and yes, this is the closest we’ve gotten to a Metal Hero series since Uchuu Keiji Tamashii. However, when the drama takes up the majority of the show to the point where I nearly forget what exactly I’m watching, it’s really not worth watching.

I do hope GMA does realize that they’ve essentially given the bird to any fanbase they would have had with the way they’re going about things and hopefully attempt to fix the show before people get truly disillusioned.

Then again, if Toei really is approving of all the elements of the show, including the scripts, I think we really need to worry for both parties. The whole reason they even stepped in was probably due to Saban’s horrible job with Masked Rider (so bad in fact that Shotaro Ishinomori himself was outraged) and their not wanting a repeat. If what we’re watching now is really what passed the bar, somebody really must have stopped giving a damn…
If you think that’s the end of it, the story isn’t over just yet. Apparently, not too long ago, some “Insider” claimed that ABS CBN 2, (another network in the Philippines) was set on making remake of Hikari Sentai Maskman. There’s been no news about that for awhile but I wouldn’t be surprised if they follow through if Zaido becomes a hit.

In the end, it looks like the Metal Hero series is going to remain dormant until Toei suddenly decides that they need more money. In the words of a friend of mine, Toei really needs to get their soul back, otherwise I foresee things really going downhill. For the time being, looks like I’m just going to have to play Uchuu Keiji Tamashii over and over.

…that is if I actually owned it T_T

Till the next.