Kamen Rider Kuuga and Fiveman a available for pre-order

[DannyBeane]

It looks like Shout Factory is releasing Kamen Rider Kuuga and the Sentai show Fiveman.

https://nerdist.com/article/kamen-rider-kuuga-super-sentai-fiveman-blu-ray-dvd-announce/

[lhb412]

Hell, yeah! I hope they also put out their other two streaming series (the OG series and Ryuki) on disc, too.

Maybe not the deluge of availability we've gotten of Ultraman, but a good start for Rider! Let's hope it continues.

[Benjamin Haines]

This is great news! Shout previously released two Super Sentai complete series DVD sets per year from 2015 to 2017. Once Hasbro began the process of buying the Power Rangers franchise from Saban in 2018, Shout cranked out six more Super Sentai sets until early 2019, when Hasbro’s first Power Rangers products became available and Shout suddenly stopped releasing more Super Sentai on DVD.

Whatever the reasons for that halt, it’s nice to see that Shout is now able to license more Super Sentai shows from Toei. According to the TokuSHOUTsu Twitter post linked below, Chikyu Sentai Fiveman won’t be streaming on TokuSHOUTsu, unlike the other Super Sentai shows that Shout has released. This one will just be on DVD.

https://twitter.com/tokushoutsu/status/1543432117207502848/video/1

I'll definitely be getting that and Kamen Rider Kuuga. The product page on Shout's website linked below confirms that Kuuga will have two different English subtitle tracks with the option to leave the Grongi villains unsubtitled as in the original broadcast. It will be cool to check out that version of the show after only seeing the fully-subtitled version that Shout streams on Tubi.

https://www.shoutfactory.com/product/kamen-rider-kuuga-the-complete-series

[Benjamin Haines]

Shout Factory started shipping Chikyu Sentai Fiveman this week. My set is on its way.

And they just announced their next Super Sentai DVD release on Twitter earlier today! Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger (2003-2004) is coming to DVD on November 8.

Like Fiveman, this will be offered exclusively through Shout's website for the first few months before being available from general retailers. It's already up for pre-order.
https://shoutfactory.com/product/bakury-sentai-abaranger-the-complete-series?product_id=7946

Also like Fiveman, the TokuSHOUTsu Twitter account confirmed that Abaranger will only be available on DVD, not streaming anywhere.
https://twitter.com/tokushoutsu/status/1567684148072161280?cxt=HHwWgIDR3aebxMErAAAA

Until this year, the oldest Super Sentai series that Shout had released was Chojin Sentai Jetman (1991-1992) and the newest was Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger (2002-2003). Fiveman was the series that preceded Jetman, and Abaranger was the series that followed Hurricaneger. Hopefully this means that Shout will keep alternating back and forth to expand their release line in both directions.

I'm glad that Shout is continuing these releases but it'll be a while before I get around to this one. I haven't even collected all of the '90s shows yet and I haven't watched any series past Seiju Sentai Gingaman (1998-1999). When it comes to Super Sentai shows that were produced with the knowledge that they would be adapted into Power Rangers in the US, I'm not as interested in the ones that were made after I stopped watching Power Rangers. I'm sure I'll check them out eventually but I'm more interested in seeing all of the '90s shows and what came before. Right now I'm 71 episodes into the original Himitsu Sentai Goranger (1975-1977), so I only have 13 left! I plan to watch Fiveman next.

[lhb412]

I've never gotten into Sentai. Thinking of getting the Jetman set...

Kuuga should be shipping soon!

[lhb412]

And now Shout's announced a blu-ray of Ryuki, which'll come with the alternate finale movie.

Fingers crossed that the OG series is in the works. That's just a must have for any Japanese pop culture fan.

[DannyBeane]

That's awesome! Can't wait to pick it up!

[Benjamin Haines]

Great news about Kamen Rider Ryuki! It's one of the more inspired toku series that I've watched, although I haven't yet seen the "Episode Final" movie. From what I've gathered, that movie opened in theaters on the same August 2002 weekend when episode 29 first aired on television, and yet it serves as a preemptive alternate finale to the series. The events of the movie are quite different from how the show itself plays out, but even after the show's last episode aired in January 2003, the director's cut of that "Episode Final" movie debuted on DVD in August 2003 with 20 minutes of additional scenes. That director's cut is reportedly what's included on this upcoming set.

I guess this thread is the place for all of Shout's upcoming toku releases. They also recently announced Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger (2004-2005) as their next Sentai DVD release on February 14: shoutfactory.com/product/tokusou-sentai-dekaranger-the-complete-series

[Benjamin Haines]

Shout Factory is releasing Kamen Rider Geats (2022-2023) as an 8-disc blu-ray set on April 23!

https://shoutfactory.com/products/kamen-rider-geats-the-complete-series

And all 49 episodes are already available to stream on the TokuSHOUTsu website!

https://shout-tv.com/series/kamen-rider-geats-series

[lhb412]

While I'm not exactly ready and rearing to check out this particular series (the Showa and '00s Riders are what I'm more interested in) this does make me happy because getting the most recent series seems to show a seriousness to the enterprise on Shout's part. It had been a year of radio silence from Shout on the toku front, and this announcement plus the Showa flicks that'll make up the Classic Tokusatsu Collection show a commitment to bringing stuff over. Maybe the previous year was the result of some hiccup that's been overcome?

[Benjamin Haines]

^ Same here, I'm alternating between Showa-era and 2000s Kamen Rider shows. Even though I already skipped ahead by watching Black, Black RX and Black Sun, I'm trying to watch the rest of each of them in sequence, with the payoff being when I finally watch Kamen Rider Decade (2009) after having seen every prior series! I'll proceed to the 2010s and then 2020s shows after all of that.

Shout did release Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger on DVD in February of last year. Maybe they encountered another unforeseen roadblock in their effort to keep licensing Super Sentai shows, so they spent most of 2023 trying to work that out and also exploring their other licensing options, which led them to the '60s Toei films and Kamen Rider Geats.

[lhb412]

After over a year I inactivity we have Tokushoutsu roaring back to life with their first ever simulcast of a currently running Rider series. Kamen Rider Zeztz episode one streams in just a few minutes!

Also, at LA Comic Con they'll be screening a Kamen Rider W movie, so fingers crossed they've gotten that series?

[Benjamin Haines]

What a breakthrough this is! Shout started streaming Kamen Rider Zero-One a little more than a year after it finished airing in Japan, then they started streaming Geats just six months after it finished airing in Japan, and now they're simulcasting Zeztz!

I'm sure I'm in the minority but I've been hoping that Shout would go for more Heisei-era Kamen Rider shows from the 2000s. Kuuga and Ryuki are fantastic and I've also seen all of Agito, 555 and Blade but I'd happily rewatch them if Shout started streaming them. I really wanted to watch the rest of the 21st-century Kamen Rider shows in sequence but the only ones that Shout has licensed since they started streaming Ryuki at the end of 2021 have been Geats and now Zeztz, the latest incarnations each time. I guess I should just keep watching the other Heisei-era shows on my own instead of waiting any longer for Shout, or should I skip to the present and start watching Zeztz now that Shout is streaming it? The only post-Blade content that I've seen so far has been the standalones Black Sun and Shin Kamen Rider, and I know there hasn't been any gap in annual production from the Heisei-era shows to the Reiwa-era shows, but if they're all standalone then I suppose the order in which I watch them doesn't really matter.

By the way, I did get Shout's Kuuga BRD set and I found its presentation of the English subtitles to be tremendously disappointing. It's the same translation as what's streaming but the font, placement and uniform sizing of the subtitles on the discs just looks awful by comparison, whereas Shout's streaming presentation of the subtitles for Kuuga, Ryuki and the original Kamen Rider are all top-notch. I vaguely remember reading some online complaints years ago about Shout's Zero-One BRD set having hard-coded subtitles instead of letting users toggle them on and off. Is that why the subtitles on the Kuuga set look so terrible? Maybe hard-coding the subtitles on the Zero-One set was the only way to preserve the exact visual presentation of the streaming subtitles, and if Shout responded to those complaints by making Kuuga's subtitles removable, maybe that meant sacrificing the font, placement and sizing of the streaming subtitles, which is a shame.

[lhb412]

^ apparently the text element was so prevalent in the visuals of that series that they felt hard coding was the easiest solution. It seems not everyone can be the subtitling wizards that work for Discotek/Media OCD!

I guess that also reflects on Kuuga, which is a release I own but haven't watched (I watched Kuuga on streaming during the dog-days of the pandemic).

Early Heisei is certainly my preference in licensing as well. I like that era, and while Kamen Rider W is a bit later that's also one I'm keen on seeing. Of course, getting the OG series on disc or just letting Discotek have it is essential as well.

[Benjamin Haines]

Shout's streaming subtitles for their Kamen Rider shows are totally up to Discotek's standards in terms of color, sizing and how they're placed on the screen. I haven't watched Zero-One yet but if hardcoding the subtitles on those discs meant that they looked just like they do on streaming, then I really wish Shout would have ignored the complaints and stuck with hardcoded subtitles for Kuuga and other disc releases. That's honestly why I still haven't picked up Ryuki, because I'm sure the subtitles would just have me going back to the streaming version.