Yeonchi

Official Tumblr page of the Yeonchi Network. Main interests include Doctor Who, tokusatsu, the Yui Hirasawa Waifu Network, Sea Princesses and Koei Warriors games. I don't take naysayers lightly.

[yeonchi]

Rainbow Bubblegem Season 1 Review Part 3: Episodes 15-21

Episode 15: A Long Day

Purple wakes up and is late for school. The other princesses are late as well and they are caught by Mr Snivel, who punishes them to clean the toilets after school. Just as they are about to however, a nutricula jellyfish Blob Monster appears. It jumps up to the front of the school clock, then Purple fires a shot at it and it is defeated… or so she thinks, as it is revealed that her attack embedded the Blob into the clock. The nutricula, also known as the immortal jellyfish, has the ability to age backwards and revert to an earlier stage of life, making it functionally immortal. Hence, this Blob Monster has the ability to turn back time.

After the girls finish cleaning the toilets, Purple feels something strange as time rewinds to the start of the day. As Purple tries to get to school on time, she feels something oddly familiar as if she had experienced it before. They end up late and they have to clean the toilets once again. Purple says that this has already happened; when Green points out that it was likely a dream she mistook for reality, Purple points out that this is the point when the Blob would have appeared, at which point time suddenly rewinds again, skipping the battle for some reason.

Purple realises that they are stuck in a time loop and she gradually convinces the others of it. The Blob passes everyone (when it should technically be still embedded in the clock) and the girls chase it outside. Purple fires another portal at the Blob and time rewinds again.

This time around, everyone remembers what happened and they get to school just in time, saving them from Snivel’s punishment and allowing them to catch the Blob just as it appears. Orange jams her Magic Umbrella between the clock hands, which forces them back and apparently buys them 20 minutes (time does not work that way). Blue hits the bell which seems to disorient the Blob before Purple unleashes her Clean Bubble, defeating it and restoring time to normal. The next day, Purple manages to get up on time for school.

Does anyone think Mr Snivel’s character would work better if he was the principal rather than a teacher? He seems to do many other things aside from being a teacher, especially from this episode onwards (and yes, I know there are teachers out there who go above and beyond in their duties). Plus, he was waiting out the front of the school in the hope of catching the girls being late. You have a homegroup class, for Blob’s sake.

Riffs:

1:08: Orange: “My beautiful, fresh muffins!”

1:25:

Purple: “Why is the light still red? Why won’t it turn green?” Green: “It’s been red for precisely 21 minutes.” Why haven’t you pressed the beg button? (This riff doesn’t work in Korea because they don’t have beg buttons.)

2:34: Purple: “If only I could go back in time somehow…”

Episode 16: Bluetok Star

A new app Bluetok, which seems to work more like Instagram, is the rage at school. After seeing their school’s current Bluetok Star with a new phone, the princesses save for Green decide to join the contest so they can win a new phone. Purple’s flip phone, which happens to be the same model as Mr Snivel’s, becomes the laughingstock of the school because it’s the only model her dad would let her buy.

(In the Chinese dub, the whole craze is framed as a popularity contest organised by the school, while in that and the Indonesian dubs, the principal has his first speaking appearance several episodes earlier than the Korean/English dub and they changed the skin colour of last year’s BlueTok star, Danny, from black to white. Whoops.)

So the girls and Mr Snivel take as many pics as they can for the gram, but a sudden newcomer named Bill comes from behind to take first place. Seeing this, Red decides to post a photo in her mermaid form, which makes her first place, and Purple, Orange and Blue accuse her of cheating. Deciding that the rules need to be equal for the contest to be fair, the three decide to take photos of themselves in their mermaid forms.

Purple and Mr Snivel end up taking each other’s phones when the former bumps into the latter, and he becomes desperate to get it back. Snivel manages to get his phone back when a mandarin fish Blob Monster attacks and takes the girls’ Changers. Purple manages to get them back and they morph. The Blob’s attacks are too fast and long-reaching for them, so Blue uses Orange as a shield before sending a Bubble Punch through a portal, allowing Purple to defeat it in its tracks.

Purple manages to swap her phone back as she realises that they put Snivel in danger because of the contest. They get a Bubblegem piece each as Orange shows them something on Snivel’s phone. It’s revealed that Purple ended up getting second place, but because “Bill” is actually a photoshopped Mr Snivel, he is disqualified and Purple wins the contest. Spoiler alert, Purple never uses the new phone she won, instead still continuing to use her current phone.

It’s a fun filler episode, but there’s a message I want to deliver with this. In a world that’s becoming more authoritarian towards children growing up in current year than others who grew up years ago, with social media bans for under-16s and bans on the use of mobile phones/smart devices in schools, I want to say to the children of today, “Enjoy it now while you still can.”

Riffs:

1:08: Red: “That phone’s an antique. How do you still have a flip phone?” Silly Red, don’t you know that foldables are all the rage right now? Actually, Android flip phones with physical keypads are a thing, not to mention dumb/feature phones that use 4G LTE. You just have to know where to look. With how common smartphones are these days, flip phones like that are novelties now.

2:18: Snivel: “Stupid GSM reception!”

9:30: You know, with the realisation that Purple was taking her mermaid pics with Snivel’s phone this whole time, I sure hope they took care of them before they gave his phone back to him.

Episode 17: The Strange Art Room

We’ve got another two-parter incoming, but this episode is a prelude to it which actually makes it a three-parter.

During a presentation about marine animals in science class, Purple talks about her fish servants and Mr Snivel punishes her with taking all the art supplies back to the art room. On the way, two girls tell Purple about how there have been monsters and ghosts in the art room lately. Purple is weirdly excited about this and decides to hide in the cupboard so she can see the ghost for herself.

While falling asleep inside the cupboard, a wall-eyed clone of Purple with a tail materialises from a drawing as Blue invites her to play soccer with her. Purple leaps out, thinking it’s a Blob, and tackles the clone as Pink Star activates his Time Stop, causing it to disappear in a yellow light. The others arrive and they follow the yellow light into a closet, where another mermaid princess is drawing; this is Yellow Gold, the Clam/Seashell Princess with her Secret Guardian fairy Shylam (shy lamb). Her signature ability is Sketch Up, where she uses her Magic Brush to materialise drawings into reality, but if anyone (apart from the drawing’s intended user) touches them, they will disappear.

The girls ask Yellow to materialise their drawings; wall-eyed clones of themselves for Blue and Purple, a parasol for Red, and a muffin pushtrolley for Orange; Green refuses, saying that the Bubblegem’s magic shouldn’t be used for such nonsense. As they leave, Yellow tries to warn the girls about her ability’s condition, but they’re too excited to listen to her. Sure enough, their ignorance of it leads to negative consequences; Blue and Purple’s clones end up breaking a window and they are punished for it, Orange’s muffins fall to the ground and Red ends up getting sunburnt. The girls confront Yellow over this, but she is too shy to respond to them and she walks out; Shylam tells them what Yellow was trying to say, leading the girls to conclude that they didn’t hear her earlier.

Shylam is sad that other people have misunderstood Yellow again, but she tells her that she wants to be alone. As the girls pass by Green, wondering if Yellow even warned them earlier, to which Green says that she did hear her- okay, how did you even hear her, Green? You were like halfway out the door when she said that (see 4:06).

A dumbo octopus Blob Monster appears in the art room. After taking Yellow’s Bubblegem from the necklace housing her Catcher (facepalm), it camouflages itself, steals Orange’s Magic Umbrella and pulls objects out of drawings to throw at the girls. The Blob tries to take the other Catcher weapons as well, but when it fails, it ties them up with an ink rope. Yellow comes in, picks up her necklace and splashes some paint on the Blob to negate its camouflage. She then morphs into her Bubblegem Warrior form, Ribbon Yellow, and quickly defeats the Blob with her Line Bubble, making it the fourth Blob Monster to be defeated by someone other than Purple.

Yellow sees one of her drawings ruined in the battle and runs away crying. The others except Purple conclude that Yellow just doesn’t like them, but when Purple sees the ruined drawing and realises that it is of Yellow with the others, she believes that Yellow doesn’t dislike them after all.

Now with Yellow’s Bubblegem in her possession, Black Dia begins preparing for another nefarious scheme…

Riffs:

0:28: Snivel: “Purple, this is a science classroom, not storytime!” “What is this, The Onion?”

1:08: Purple: “So neat! Who knew school was so fun?” Yep, she’s possessed.

2:57: Shylam: “She has unique magic. She can bring any drawing to life!” “And best of all, it’s not AI!”

7:12: Green: “I heard her. You were all too excited to listen.” “I never did, actually. I’m just being contrarian.”

Episode 18: The Princesses in The Drawing

Purple tries to get Yellow to say hello to her and the girls, but they can’t hear her and the others think she’s unfriendly. Black Dia empowers a smile crab Blob Monster with Yellow’s Bubblegem and has it trap the princesses in a drawing.

In the art room, Yellow is drawing as she tells Shylam that there’s no point clearing up the misunderstanding because no one needs her to be their friend. Meanwhile, Purple tries to get the others to see Yellow with her to no avail. The Blob is detected and the girls morph; rushing into the art room, Shylam tells the girls that Yellow seemingly disappeared into her drawing. As they wonder where in the drawing she could be, the drawing glows and expands itself, transporting the girls inside it.

The girls are entranced by all the objects in the environment around them. Red spots a yellow ball leaping in the background before it crashes into them. The girls play with it thinking it’s a puppy; as they touch the objects in the environment, they hear compliments being said about them and the ball reacts to those thoughts.

A crab disguised as a cone approaches them and the ball reacts negatively; it’s revealed to be the Blob Monster, who takes the Catchers as it makes its way up towards the door, destroying the steps and making them disappear on the drawing.

Meanwhile, the Secret Guardian fairies are wondering what to do. Shylam suggests that they tear it up, but as they attempt to do so, Jellyfin thinks that it might trap the princesses forever. As the drawing is gradually erased, Pink Star picks up a brush and the fairies attempt to redraw the erased steps; it doesn’t seem to go right for them, but luckily for the girls, this gives Blue, Purple and Green something to hang on to. Blue manages to get back onto the steps in pursuit of the Blob, but is ultimately unsuccessful as it escapes with all the Catchers, destroying the door with it and trapping the princesses.

Riffs:

1:56: Green: “Why are you always so loud in the library?” “Mrs Dawes is going to kick us both out because of you!”

5:00: Green: “Careful, guys. Don’t touch anything.” She said after touching something.

6:51: Green: “I said not to touch anything… One brain cell nowhere to be found.” Green would be great on RiffTrax.

Episode 19: The Yellow Ball’s Identity

The girls try to find a way to get out of the drawing but they don’t know where to start. The yellow ball sniffs out a grey box with a ribbon on it and gives it to the girls; Purple takes off the ribbon and they hear negative comments about Yellow from the other students. As the box flies up and begins reforming the door, Green realises that they might be inside Yellow’s subconscious mind and the girls split up to search for more boxes like it.

Back in reality, the Guardians try to seek Leo’s help; when they fail to catch his attention (not sure if Shylam could use her Time Stop here), Pink Star uses Chacha to get to him. The indigo princess (who has appeared a few more times since episode 9) sees this and senses something wrong. She is about to head into the art room when Leo heads in with the Guardians; they are confronted by the Blob Monster, who traps them in spit bubbles.

As the girls gather up the boxes, they listen to Yellow’s thoughts and learn that she not only experiences negativity from the others at school, but from her parents at home as they disapprove of her drawing. The girls even hear what they said to Yellow earlier (mostly Red and Blue), which leads them to realise that Yellow was trying to avoid getting hurt and that they weren’t very nice to her either. The girls apologise to Yellow and the ball jumps on the boxes, creating a new door.

The Blob Monster begins to tear the drawing upon seeing the door reform. As the environment inside begins to collapse, Blue takes the girls up to the final step. Back outside, the lights in the room go off and the indigo princess confronts the Blob. This is Indigo Keen, the princess of what was the Abyssal Kingdom, and she morphs into her Bubblegem Warrior form, Luna(tic) Indigo. Her Catcher is transformed from a ring on her left hand and her weapon is the Shadow Stick, a cane which she wields in her left hand like a fencing sword. Her abilities are based on stealth, with her signature Shadow Bubble ability enabling her to hide and move in the shadows. Her Shadow Stick can also perform the Shadow Pin, freezing an enemy in place by striking their shadow. Indigo uses this attack to defeat the Blob Monster, stopping it from destroying the drawing. The total count is now five.

The girls reach the door but they are unable to open it. Orange realises that the ball will disappear if they leave the drawing; when the girls agree to take it with them, the ball flies into the sky and reveals that it was Yellow all along. Yellow draws a handle on the door, which opens and allows the girls to leave. Yellow hesitates to come out because she doesn’t feel like she belongs in the scary world outside, but the girls allow her to confide in them and she agrees to leave with them. Outside, the girls find Leo and the Guardians. They also recover their Catchers as well, thinking that it was Leo who got them back for them.

Queen Whitegold is informed by Indigo of the preceding events and she casts a spell that will prevent Black Dia from using the Bubblegem’s power on the Blobs, despite already being weakened from sealing Black Dia and the deus ex machina in episode 11.

This three-parter is the best story of the first season, not only introducing a new character and providing character development for them, but also doing the same for the rest of the girls as well. Why didn’t this story yield them Bubblegem pieces? There’s some darker connotations towards the end of the story that “if you know, you know”, but I’ll save that explanation for when I talk about the characters at the end. Indigo’s first full fight is great too.

Riffs:

2:05: Pink Star: “I was totally betting on Chacha being right there!”

Episode 20: Singing My Song

This is another one of those mismatched title read episodes. The original title of the episode and the English title narration says “Singing My Dream”. Frankly, it’s a better title.

Ms Annie’s class is given ambition worksheets to fill out their dreams, but Purple can’t figure out what to write. She asks her friends and they say that they want to be queen for varying reasons, which frustrates Purple because she doesn’t know what she is good at. She sees a poster for a show called “Find Your Dreams” and they head there to find someone playing rock-and-roll; much to Purple’s surprise, it’s actually Ms Annie herself.

The girls learn that Ms Annie had a dream to be a singer, but she says that she still has a long way to go. Seeing her lack of style, Red offers to give Ms Annie a new look and the other girls help her prepare the stage. Purple tries to help out but ends up getting in the way, much to everyone’s chagrin. Ms Annie finds Purple and she tells her that her friends are good at something and they know what to be, but the only one who doesn’t know is her; Ms Annie tells Purple to find something she loves to do, then she’ll be able to follow her dream that way.

Later, Purple begins to notice the instruments being dragged away and pulled under the sand; this is revealed to be the work of a giant clam Blob Monster. The girls morph and they manage to make it cough up the drums. While attacking the Blob from above, Purple’s wand gets grabbed, but she manages to keep a hold of it as the Blob is knocked out on a rock. Purple goes into the Blob’s mouth and tries to get Ms Annie’s guitar back; she is forced to let go and get out when the Blob regains consciousness, but it sneezes everything back out.

After the Blob is defeated, the girls discover that everything has been ruined. Ms Annie is still grateful that the girls could help her with her performance. Purple realises that they can use what the Blob sneezed out to make their own instruments, which helps her realise that she is persistent and she never gives up. As Ms Annie (who now eerily looks like Sunset Shimmer) and the girls perform with their improvised instruments, Purple muses that while she doesn’t know what her dream is yet, her favourite thing is being with her friends.

Riffs:

0:45: Orange: “Well, my mom and dad said I have to be queen when I grow up.” “I don’t actually have a dream of my own because I’ve never thought about it.”

3:05: How does so much paint get spilled onto Blue and her jacket’s only lightly soiled?

3:20: Red: “You're ruining the quiche!”

3:33:

11:10:

Episode 21: Secret Guardians at Risk

Purple’s dad learns of her earlier adventure to the Abyssal Kingdom in episodes 10-11 and he is disappointed in both her and Pink Star (to put it lightly). It’s then that Pink Star receives an immediate summons to Whitegold’s castle along with the other Secret Guardians… and then four of them end up participating in the events of this episode.

Purple, Red, Green and Orange are on a field trip to the beach where the class is collecting marine specimens to observe. The girls are still unsure on what the deus ex machina that saved them back then was, while their Guardians are complaining about how their princesses are getting into trouble and them getting blamed for it as a result. They hear someone coming and they quickly act lifeless, at which point they are found and taken by Mr Snivel.

Snivel shows off his findings to the class, much to the horror of the princesses. Purple tries to grab Pink Star but Snivel snatches him back. It’s then that Black Dia decides to send out a goblin shark Blob Monster to take the girls’ Bubblegems again. Honestly, why are all of Black Dia’s plans some form of “Get me those Bubblegems”? You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Without Blue or Yellow to help them, the girls have to find a way to rescue their guardians without using Time Stop. As Green prepares to distract Snivel, the Blob Monster attacks. Snivel comes out into the corridor and just as they worry about Snivel seeing them morph, time stops somehow and the girls get Snivel out of the way before they morph. Pink Star sees the girls struggling against the Blob Monster’s speed and power and manages to free himself, but he is too weak to quickly get to Purple.

Red, Orange and Green are gradually knocked out by the Blob’s attacks, leaving only Purple able to stand just as she is knocked towards Pink Star. The Blob takes Purple’s Bubblegem and Pink Star tries to stop it from being taken to no avail. Pink Star leaps onto the Blob’s eye and disorients it until it manages to shake him off. Purple brings Pink Star back to her and charges at the Blob, sliding past it before turning around and defeating it. Purple and Pink Star reconcile before the others go to rescue their Guardians while time is still stopped. As they wonder who triggered the Time Stop, it’s revealed to have been Indigo’s Guardian, Prickle.

At Whitegold’s castle, Whitegold tells the Guardians that her magic has been used up and she must sleep to recover her strength. She gives her remaining power to the Guardians in the form of a one-time deus ex machina. Pink Star notes that Whitegold’s power split up into seven even though there are six princesses; he looks around and sees Indigo and Prickle before returning…

Riffs:

4:30: Snivel: “I’ll shock the world! Who knows, I might get a Nobel Prize!”

[yeonchi]

As we all know, the Latin American Spanish dub of Sea Princesses Season 2 is not available on Amazon Prime whereas the English and Brazilian Portuguese dubs are. This has led to it becoming lost media, with the main source of full episodes being really shitty 144p/3gp phone camera recordings from rebulerarbd09.

(The same user has made some cutout figurines of the characters, God knows how they did it but I presume it comes from screencaps of their recordings, plus they uploaded a flipthrough of a couple Sea Princesses magazines which I haven't been able to find any info about online, most of the images in them I've already seen in other media and the magazines appear to be ripped in a few places but I'd still be interested to know about them, also Fabio Yabu if you're reading this please post your Sea Princesses artwork online or send them to me, you have my email.)

A Liamasterink renaissance fan has been working on restoring the Season 2 LATAM dub using whatever surviving audio remains online, with the ultimate goal of getting Amazon to release the missing dub on Prime Video. IIRC there was a petition on change.org about this some years ago (it's gone now however), but now this fan is getting people to send messages directly to Amazon, and apparently from the responses they're getting back, it seems that negotiations for the rights to that season are in place… or so they think.

Distribution rights are a complicated thing. When the Sea Princesses animated series was being produced, the distribution rights were shared between the production companies; Neptuno Films in Spain and Portugual, Flamma Films in Brazil and Latin America, and Southern Star in Australia and the rest of the world. Things have changed over the years; Southern Star went through several acquisitions and is now a part of Banijay, Neptuno Films was liquidated and dissolved in 2017, and Flamma Films is still active, but there's very little mention of Sea Princesses on their website.

My theory is that Flamma sold their share of the distribution rights to Banijay, but we still don't know what happened with Neptuno's share. The reason I say that is because the English, Brazilian Portuguese and Latin American Spanish (Season 1, anyway) dubs are on Amazon Prime, but not the Castilian Spanish dub. While I know that not every dub is available on every platform (sadly), if those three dubs were able to be released on Amazon Prime (presumably at the same time), it doesn't make sense why only Season 1 of the Latin American Spanish dub is available and not Season 2. Questions that need to be asked have been asked, but we may never get any answers from them.

I wish the renaissance fandom luck with restoring the Season 2 LATAM dub and getting an official release on Amazon Prime. It took years for me to revive the memory of this series and ultimately, I was only able to do it because the English dub was released on Amazon Prime. Unfortunately, this will be a harder prospect because although there is nothing for Banijay/Amazon to lose by releasing the Season 2 LATAM dub, there isn't much for them to gain either, and there's also the possibility that something happened that led to only the Season 1 LATAM dub being released (plus, we all know how Banijay have been treating the series on YouTube). Things might be more complicated than you or I know, and we might never know everything about them.

[yeonchi]

The Return of Juspion Review

Original title: O Regresso de Jaspion

Release year: 2020

Transcripts and translation available on Google Drive

IN MEMORIAM - Hikaru Kurosaki (Juspion)

1962-2026

Brazil is a country that has embraced tokusatsu before Power Rangers was a thing, in no small part due to the Japanese diaspora that began settling there from the early 20th century. National Kid was the first tokusatsu series to be broadcast on Brazilian TV in 1964, and in the following years other series would be broadcast, including those from the Ultraman, Super Sentai, Metal Hero and Kamen Rider franchises, marking a beloved memory for Brazilians.

Until most recently, the Metal Hero franchise has become obscure since its discontinuation in 1999. Following a short-lived revival of the Space Sheriffs in the 2010s, the Metal Hero franchise made a comeback in 2026 with Super Space Sheriff Gavan Infinity, part of the new Project R.E.D. series succeeding Super Sentai. The revival of the Space Sheriffs makes other Metal Hero series feel like they're being left in the dust, that is with the exception of one particular series.

Welcome, my friends, to the Fabio Yabu Extravaganza. In memory of Hikaru Kurosaki, this is the return of the Megabeast Investigator Juspion.

Megabeast Investigator Juspion was a Metal Hero series originally broadcast in 1985, following the Space Sheriff trilogy, featuring its title character fighting against the Megabeast Empire led by Satan Gorth and his son, Mad Gallant. The series was translated to English by the sub group Megabeast Empire and their subs were used in the Discotek release of the series in 2019... which is unfortunately out of print, however the series is also available for streaming on Crunchyroll. Despite falling into obscurity in Japan, it would be exported to Brazil and broadcast on TV Manchete in 1988 alongside Dengeki Sentai Changeman. Juspion became such a phenomenon in Brazil that a comeback graphic novel was published 35 years after, and I'm translating and reviewing it 40 years after the series ended. Even before this graphic novel came out, elements from Juspion did make a return in the 2017 Space Squad movie, Gavan vs. Dekaranger, which featured the return of Mad Gallant and a brief appearance from Satan Gorth.

Why the sudden interest in this graphic novel practically unheard outside of Brazil? Because I'm doing some preludes in preparation for the Combo Rangers Retrospective, which I'm sure a lot of Brazilians have also known and loved, and the revival of the Metal Hero series seems like an appropriate time to talk about it (plus I found some scans for it so I thought, why not?). Plus, my fascination for the Combo Rangers came as a result of my work reviving and reviewing the Sea Princesses books and animated series which was also created by Fabio Yabu, hence the (unofficial) overarching series title Fabio Yabu Extravaganza.

The Return of Juspion was written by Fabio Yabu and illustrated by Michel Borges, who previously worked on the 2013-17 Combo Rangers Universe graphic novel trilogy (which I also translated and reviewed), and published by JBC in partnership with Sato Company, which holds the rights of the series in Brazil, and Toei- wait, Toei? So, does that mean it's an officially-sanctioned sequel? If so, then that means I'm allowed to say that it's canon to the series! It was originally announced during the Anime Friends event in July 2018 for a release later in the year, but due to delays resulting from Toei requiring approval for numerous things (typical Japanese companies istg), it ended up being released in October 2020, during the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Its original release was intended to celebrate the 110th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil and the 30th anniversary of Juspion being broadcast in Brazil, which in turn was 18 months to the 30th anniversary of the release of unrelated Belgian techno-pop anthem, Pump Up the Jam.

Something to note before I start recapping the story. When Juspion was broadcast in Brazil, they changed the spellings and names of characters and terminologies, and these localised names and terms are used in the raws and therefore, the transcripts. Like no kidding, some of the localised names, like Jaspion, Satan Goss and MacGaren, sound like how Philomena Cunk would probably pronounce the original names. Juspion's finisher is named the Cosmic Laser, and considering that the Plasma Blazer Sword is named the Spadium Laser, I have to wonder - why name your finisher attack the same as your weapon? For the translation and review, I'll be using the English names for them, whether based on the subs by Megabeast Empire (which I binged in preparation for this), the Metal Hero Wiki or just me TV-Nihoning it because the "official" names on the wiki are autistic af. With all that out of the way, let's get into it.

In order for people who may not have watched Juspion to understand this story, I will need to recount parts of it throughout this review. I binged the whole series in preparation but I'll try to keep the recounts short so I can keep the review going.

The story begins with a recap of the original series' final battle. Satan Gorth had molted into his monstrous form, Super Satan Gorth, and turned all of Tokyo into a forest. Having defeated Brima, Gyoru and Mad Gallant and gathered the five children who were struck by the light, Juspion faced off against Super Satan Gorth after his adoptive father, Ejin, was killed by him as he bought Juspion time to find the baby within the light. The five children came together and the Golden Bird's power formed into a golden sword for Daileon, but even that wasn't enough to defeat Super Satan Gorth because the baby hadn't been found yet. That was until Super Satan Gorth's power caused the earth to shake, revealing the baby within a golden egg.

BGM: 熱風野郎ジャスピオン

The baby's crying paralysed Super Satan Gorth, allowing Juspion to gain the upper hand and kill him with the Daileon Cosmic Harley, eliminating Gilmaza and the rest of his minions and returning Tokyo to normal. After the battle, Juspion adopted the baby, who he named Tarzan (short for Galactic Tarzan, Juspion's alternate title if you can call it that) and left Earth in Daileon for Ejin's planet with Anri and Miya.

Before the pages turn from colour to black-and-white, please enjoy the classic Juspion opening sequence.

Many years later on Planet Beegee, a crowd of aliens are drinking at a bar when Juspion comes in. All the aliens begin attacking him and a fight ensues.

Alien Owner: *BLAM* Stupid Juspion! Free drinks to anyone who can bring me his head! Juspion: Easy, guys. I’m just here to ask some questions! Has anyone seen the Joker?

As the fight goes on, Anri speaks to Juspion from aboard Daileon.

Alien Owner: What do you think you’re doing here?! My bar is legally licenced! Anri: Juspion, he’s right! You can’t just wreck private property like that, it’s against the… Juspion: Oh, Anri, this is why I don’t work with the Space Police! How am I supposed to get into bar fights if I'm a space policeman?

Exasperated, Anri calls Tarzan at the Space Police, who informs her that they can no longer turn a blind eye to Juspion, who has been causing trouble all over the galaxy for months.

So yeah, the baby revealed by the Golden Bird grew up and joined the Space Police. You know, it honestly baffles me that everyone else in this story has clearly aged since the end of the original series except for Juspion and Anri. Anri I can understand because she's an android, but Juspion looks like he's barely aged a day, particularly given how much time has passed since the end of the original series.

Juspion gets the upper hand on the owner of the bar and tries to get him to talk about the New Galactic Bible, but the owner was prepared for him as he unleashes a couple of hidden buzzsaws. Juspion transforms and the owner gets away onto a mecha of his own, which is soon defeated with the Plasma Blazer Sword. The owner finally tells Juspion what he knows; a stone was found on Planet Dodo saying that a false saviour will be revealed, Satan Gorth will return and not even the Golden Bird will be able to stop him this time.

We started off this graphic novel with a tribute to the end of the series and now we're paying tribute to the beginning of it, with the visits to the bar on Planet Beegee and now to Planet Dodo, the exact same places that Juspion visited in the first few episodes of the series before going to Earth.

On the way to Planet Dodo, Tarzan tells Juspion to go back to Ejin's planet and that he needs to finish his report for Commander K.O., whose request for Juspion to join the Space Police keeps being rejected because he claims that he works better alone (with Anri, anyway). Arriving on Dodo, Juspion and Anri are shot at by alien snipers, but Anri manages to deflect them thanks to a force field she acquired in her last upgrade.

Juspion: How many snipers are your sensors detecting? Anri: Six of them! Juspion: Well then… Let’s run away!

Thanks to his coordination with Anri, Juspion deals with the snipers using his skills of misdirection. The two of them prepare to confront their leader, who is revealed to be... Koko.

Koko, like Juspion, was an orphaned boy whose parents were killed when their spaceship crashed on Planet Dodo. While Juspion was adopted by the hermit Ejin, Koko was adopted by the Megabeast Namagerath. When Daileon almost crashed on Dodo in the third episode of the series, Juspion and his party encountered Namagerath, who was shot by a poisoned arrow on the orders of the city's unnamed leader, who is named Kleon in this graphic novel. Defying the leader's orders to have Namagerath killed, Juspion crossed the Windy Plains to obtain the Fruit of Life, which cured Namagerath only for him to be rendered berserk by Satan Gorth's power. However, Juspion fended off the berserk Namagerath and turned him back to normal.

Instead of greeting Juspion however, Koko points a gun at him. Juspion teleports away with Anri but he ends up taking Koko with him. They end up falling into Namagerath's hand and Juspion summons the Battle Giant Daileon to fight him.

BGM: 超惑星戦斗母艦ダイレオン

Juspion tries to get Namagerath to stop, to the point where he has to unleash the Daileon Beam on him. However, Namagerath begins draining Daileon's energy and its systems begin to fail. Juspion jumps out and Koko runs to give Namagerath the Fruit of Life to heal him. Koko explains that Namagerath just wanted to help, only agreeing to damage Daileon so that Juspion couldn't leave Dodo. Just as things couldn't get more confusing for Juspion, Anri arrives with the leader Kleon, who wants Juspion to hear what she has to say. Um, I have one question with that - WHY DID YOU ATTACK HIM?! We kind of find out the reason later, but all that ends up doing is making allies into villains who unknowingly facilitate the real villains' plans.

Anyway, Kleon, who has dedicated herself to studying the Galactic Bible following Ejin's death, informs Juspion that a few months ago, she discovered a stone containing the new prophecy mentioned earlier, and that the false saviour is a warrior wearing silver, resembling Juspion.

Juspion agrees to cooperate, but Kleon has her guards hold him at gunpoint. Anri comes to Juspion's defense, which is revealed to be a distraction as Miya arrives in the Garbin Tank to take them away. And that's the end of Planet Dodo's involvement for this story.

Kleon doesn't pursue Juspion because he can't leave Dodo anyway without Daileon. With the Space Police being contacted by Kleon, Tarzan gets in contact with Juspion's party, and Anri has Tarzan transport Juspion to the Space Police base. Juspion warmly greets his adopted son, who states that he couldn't teleport Anri and Miya otherwise he'd get caught. Juspion tells Tarzan that sometimes rules are meant to be broken, then Tarzan proceeds to cry about not being a nepo baby.

Juspion: Oh, come on, Tarzan, sometimes we need to break the rules to… Tarzan: “Break the rules”?! Do you have any idea how much of a burden it is to have been raised by you? Oh, I’m sure your resume must open doors for you, right? “The baby struck by the light”…? People expect me to be like you, but my power is useless! I spend all day at work just carrying things here and there! Juspion: Yeah! And meanwhile, your daddy’s takin’ care of all the monsters!

Tarzan then explains to Juspion why the Earth is no longer under the jurisdiction of the Space Police.

Tarzan: Ugh… Dad, I never wanted to tell you this, but do you know why Earth is no longer under our jurisdiction? Juspion: Er, because it’s so far away? Tarzan: No! It’s because of you! Everyone knows you saved the Earth, but your time there had consequences! Earthlings would rather face their monsters alone… …than have some space adventurer destroying their cities! They'd rather make their own heroes, with Riders and Sentai, and they'd rather destroy their own cities, with their armaments, vehicles and Megazords!

We then get a few vaguely-detailed portraits of the Space Police's officers, trained by Commander K.O. himself, representing some rather familiar faces that came before Juspion, who calls them all amateurs. Tarzan gets frustrated at his dad for not taking anything seriously and tells him to call the professionals once he's done with his investigation. As Tarzan sends Juspion down to Earth, he tells him that he does take his work seriously and that his power is very cool. Once Juspion is gone, Commander K.O. comes in and- HOLD IT!

Are you telling me... Commander K.O. is KENJI OHBA?! Holy crap, I'm fanboying and I'm not even a fan of Showa toku series!

Yes, based on the inclusion of the Space Police, the portraits of Juspion's "predecessors" the Space Sheriffs, and this revelation regarding Commander K.O., I'm inclined to believe- no, I firmly believe that this graphic novel also acts as a pseudo-tribute to the Space Sheriffs. I feel that the creators of this wanted to include Gavan and the Space Sheriffs in some way and Toei told them that they could as long as they didn't go into detail about them or use their actual names - this graphic novel is about Juspion, after all, hence Gavan aka Retsu Ichijouji is named Commander K.O. here. It's not helped by his character bio in the appendix making reference to Gavan.

Well, you know what? If this graphic novel was sanctioned by Toei then that means it's canon to the series, and if the graphic novel considers Juspion in the same canon as the Space Sheriffs (like the Kamen Riders and Super Sentai with their VS and Taisen movies), then I'm going to do what the creators couldn't. At the time when this graphic novel would take place (I'll get to that soon), Retsu was the commander of the Space Police (Galactic Federation Police Force) as shown in Super Hero Taisen Z. As such, in the translation, I renamed Commander K.O. to Commander Retsu, and I hereby declare it canon. *bangs gavel* Court adjourned.

Anyway, Juspion lands in Tokyo, noting that this doesn't look like the Earth he knew and that people are looking at their "little boxes". He is also alarmed to see a billboard of Gilmaza promoting Satan Gorth - "BEARING THE LIGHT OF THE FUTURE". Yes, a billboard in Portuguese in the heart of Tokyo. Are you sure he didn't land in Sao Paulo by mistake?

Earlier back on Dodo, Juspion guesses that five years have passed for him but Anri says that it's actually been 31.1 Earth years. Given that the original series took place in 1985-86, it can be deduced that this story takes place in 2017, and going by release dates, this would be just before the start of the Space Squad movie series. Given that this graphic novel celebrates 30 years of the series being broadcast in Brazil, you can argue that this takes place in 2019-20.

Juspion is confused whether the woman on the billboard is Gilza or Gilmaza. Gilza, the younger of the two sisters, is known as the Galactic Witch and was brought in by Satan Gorth to resurrect Mad Gallant after his first death. In one confrontation Gilza managed to steal Juspion's soul but he managed to get it back thanks to the help of Anri and Miya. In her final confrontation amidst the search for the five children, Gilza became haunted by a vision of a baby, perhaps foreshadowing Satan Gorth's eventual defeat, and this led to her being killed by Juspion. Following that, the older sister Gilmaza, known as the Spectre Queen of the Dark Galaxy, came to Earth to avenge her sister's defeat. Prior to that, she had caused chaos on several planets, spiralling one planet into crime and tricking two forces on another into nuclear war. She also led a group of five space ninjas in battle representing each of the five elements, though they were defeated in succession by Juspion.

Juspion is confronted by a policeman pointing a gun at him, having detected him to be an alien.

Policeman: Police! Juspion: Huh? Policeman: *SHACK* Hold it right there! My sensors indicate that you are alien! Identify yourself! Juspion: Hello, Mr Policeman! Your sensor is really good! Where can I get one of those?

The policeman asks Juspion to identify himself and when he does, he starts shooting at him. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know Juspion accidentally ended up in the USA. Typical police shooting innocent bystanders. The policeman calls for backup, but help arrives in the form of... Boomerang, who deflects the bullets and knocks out the policeman with his boomerangs. Juspion greets Boomerang as he asks him what he is doing back on Earth. Boomerang confirms to Juspion that this is the Tokyo he once knew, but when Juspion asks him what happened...

Boomerang: Isn’t it obvious, Juspion? You left.

Boomerang was a quasi-regular ally of Juspion, particularly during his first few episodes on Earth. His brother was an Interpol officer who was recruited into Mad Gallant's organisation hoping to destroy it from within, but his identity was exposed and he was killed, leading to Boomerang swearing revenge against Mad Gallant. It was also through Boomerang and his brother that Juspion was able to meet Rotto and Sachi, two siblings from Planet Sky who were recruited into Mad Gallant's organisation as spies but decided to desert after seeing him for who he was. After escaping Mad Gallant, Rotto and Sachi would settle on a remote farm, appearing a couple more times until they went to stay with Nanbara's family, after which they are never seen again. Presumably Juspion took them back to their home planet after Satan Gorth's defeat. They're not featured in this graphic novel, but I just wanted to give them an honourable mention.

Eventually, Boomerang realised that he wasn't strong enough to avenge his brother's death and left Japan to train himself, later returning briefly after being recruited as an investigator for the International Federation (not sure why he couldn't have joined Interpol, but anyway) before leaving again to help other people around the world corrupted by Satan Gorth. Boomerang was played by Hiroshi Watari, who played Den Iga/Sharivan in the Space Sheriff trilogy before going on to play Yousuke Jou in Dimensional Warrior Spielban (the series that aired the year after, ironically named Jaspion 2 in Brazil). According to Watari's letter in the graphic novel's appendix, the character of Boomerang was created to pad out episodes in the portion of the series he was in due to scheduling conflicts owing to Hikaru Kurosaki's theatre commitments around the time those episodes were being filmed. Interesting insight, isn't it?

Boomerang explains to Juspion that after Satan Gorth's death, Japan, having rebuilt itself after its post-war occupation by the US, found itself in a complicated situation once again. Japan gained a reputation for being the "Land of Monsters", causing many people, including scientists, teachers and investors, to flee, and rich nations to turn their backs on them, not wanting to invest in a country that could be destroyed at any moment. Countries around the world signed an intergalactic treaty, expelling aliens from Earth, closing their borders to the rest of outer space and withdrawing from the Space Police. Xenophobia rose in Japan and the resurrected Gilmaza began amassing a group of followers, the negative energy generated energising her and allowing her to extend her influence through the mainstream media, proclaiming that Satan Gorth will save them.

Boomerang: According to Gilmaza, Japan was a much better place before her time here - which isn’t entirely untrue, I must say…!

Juspion: This is crazy! How can they believe Gilmaza? Boomerang: It’s not that hard to understand why. Our world forces us to make difficult choices. We used to call people like her conspiracy theorists and all sorts of names. Now, we're waking up and realising that they had a point all along.

Boomerang takes Juspion through a network of quantum tunnels to his hideout, and it's here where we're introduced to his small resistance unit, consisting of Kenichirou Nanbara, Aigerman and Tiger Joe.

Kenichirou Nanbara and his children, Kanoko and Kenta, are part of the original series' story arc revolving around the Golden Bird. Nanbara had, by chance, captured a photo of a bird which was revealed to be the Golden Bird, the guardian bird of the galaxy that was prophesied to be the downfall of Satan Gorth. Mad Gallant offered a lot of money to Nanbara for the whereabouts of the Golden Bird, but his refusal to accept that deal led to him and his family being targeted by Mad Gallant and his forces. Funnily enough, the Brazilian version of the series, and therefore the transcript of this graphic novel, calls Nanbara a "Professor" when he was never addressed as such in the original. He was just a photographer who had come by the Golden Bird by chance. That's it.

Aigerman, who appeared in episode 28 of the original series, was an android hired by Mad Gallant to deal with Juspion and Daileon. Having studied and analysed all of Juspion and Daileon's battles, Aigerman piloted his Megabeast Aiger against them and was able to overpower him thanks to it. However, Juspion did the unexpected and invaded Aiger's cockpit, defeating Aigerman before going back into Daileon and destroying Aiger. For mysterious reasons, he was rebuilt and now serves as a member of the resistance, helping them access government systems and concealing their activities.

Tiger Joe (known in the Brazilian version as John Tiger) befriended Juspion when he and Ejin were staying on his planet in his childhood. After Juspion left, Joe had become an infamous bounty hunter who had a reputation for never letting his targets escape him. Eventually, he became sick of killing people for money and abandoned his weapons, settling on Earth and running an orphanage in Japan. When Tiger Joe was reunited with Juspion in episode 41 of the original series, he was found by Gilmaza who convinced him to take up his weapons and fight Juspion to the death. Juspion agreed to fight him so as to save him from Gilmaza's influence, which he eventually did. Joe went back to running the orphanage, but years later he took up arms once again following Gilmaza's resurrection.

After Juspion is reunited with this ragtag group of allies, Boomerang explains to everyone his plan, which boils down to killing Gilmaza. Nanbara disapproves of this, theorising that this would only serve to increase the negative energy on Earth, which is already at boiling point, and bring back Satan Gorth. Juspion tries to calm the two down, but when he asks Boomerang what happened to him, he snaps at Juspion and throttles him.

Boomerang: What happened to me?! WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?! Nanbara: Calm down, Boomerang!! Boomerang: I watched my country and my friends die while you went back to Ejin’s planet! It’s easy for you to put on your armour and play the hero… But did you ever think about those you left behind? Nanbara: Boomerang! That’s enough! Boomerang: Why?! Nanbara: I already lost Kanoko! I can’t lose you too.

You might think this is an out-of-character moment for Boomerang, but rest assured...

In the Megabeast Empire Temple, Commander Takahashi interrupts Gilmaza's meditation to report that Juspion has been spotted. We see the effects of whatever Gilmaza has done to Takahashi, as he becomes paranoid over the possibility of him forgetting the name of one of his daughters, but Gilmaza reminds him of it.

Gilmaza: Continue to serve me, and your daughters will remain a part of your memories and your life. And this timeline.

Gilmaza then goes to report this news to Mad Gallant, performing the signature castanet dance that she was known for on the original series. It's here that we learn that the prophecy found on Planet Dodo was presumably Gilmaza's doing, as she admires how humans did a great job spreading fear and hatred without much intervention from herself, making them easier to manipulate.

Gilmaza: Like you, I’ve been to Hell, and nothing compares to this… Earth is Satan Gorth’s dream come true! The true Megabeast Empire! Our time is coming, my lord, because… Juspion is already here!

Back at the Space Police, Commander Retsu is angry at Tarzan for nearly causing an intergalactic incident sending Juspion to Earth.

Commander Retsu: The Galactic Federation’s relationship with Earth is already delicate… We can’t even send our top sheriffs there, and you sent Juspion?! Just what were you thinking?! Do you know what will happen if we interfere in the internal affairs of Earth's heroes? The Toei cartel will put sanctions on our Space Sheriffs!

Anri tries to explain to Retsu about Satan Gorth's potential return and Tarzan tells him that Juspion is still their best option and he needs to trust him. Exasperated, Retsu admits that he turned a blind eye to Tarzan helping Juspion in secret because he hoped that the latter would join them.

Commander Retsu: Tarzan, I’ve been to Earth! It’s not Juspion I don’t trust… …it’s humanity!

Back on Earth, Juspion learns from Nanbara that the five children struck by the light have disappeared, including Kanoko. He also learns that the government had experimented on them after he left Earth.

Nanbara: After the battle against Satan Gorth, the five were taken by the government of the time… …because they believed that the Golden Bird was part of some ‘earthly force’, linked to other mythological beings. Their plan was to create a paramilitary team to make Japan a world power again! But they weren’t able to learn much from them. After many tests, the children were released and returned to their normal lives!

Kanoko and the other children went missing three years prior to the events of this graphic novel. Juspion asks Nanbara if it was the government, but he says that Aigerman hasn't found anything suspicious - the five just vanished, as if they never existed. Juspion reassures Nanbara that he will find Kanoko and the other children before they meet with Boomerang to discuss his plan, which he wants to execute before the negative energy around Earth reaches boiling point. Boomerang's plan boils down to... invading the temple and killing Gilmaza.

Juspion suggests that they capture Gilmaza and hand her over to the Space Police, if only so Tarzan doesn't have to get fired. Nanbara gives Juspion and Boomerang their gear before they are transported right to the front of the Megabeast Empire Temple. While they're being transported, Juspion tries to have a little heart-to-heart with Boomerang.

Juspion: You know, Boomerang, I hope that when all this is over, we’ll be friends again. I know I wasn’t the best of friends and I haven’t contacted you for years… …but time passes differently when you’re traveling through the galaxy, you know! I mean, it's not like you went out of your way to contact me or anything when you were overseas. Look, don’t take it personally, okay? Besides, humans usually live much shorter lives than I do! Believe me, with what little life you have left, it’s not worth it holding all that resentment in your heart. I mean, out of my predecessors, one's dead, another's not in the best of health... you're the only one of them left, man. What goes around comes around, Boomerang. You should know that better than anyone. I mean, can you imagine being my predecessor, taking a break for a year, coming back for me and then being my successor the next year?

Anyway, they get inside the temple, where Juspion sees statues of the Megabeasts he fought on display. Boomerang knocks out the cameras with his boomerangs, and in the process he knocks Juspion's pulse monitor out as well. It's then that the two are attacked by a wolf-like Megabeast - the combined form of Brima and Gyoru. While Boomerang heads off to find Gilmaza, Juspion fights Brima and Gyoru, splitting them from their combined form. They get back up and they begin draining Juspion's energy, which sates their hunger. Ikki arrives and begins fighting the two over Juspion, before Boomerang returns and slices their throats open with his boomerang.

As Juspion continued to serve as an obstacle to Mad Gallant's plans, particularly with the reveal of Satan Gorth's weakness, the Golden Bird, Mad Gallant called in four evil warriors from across the galaxy to serve as the Megabeast Empire's Four Divine Generals, namely the cyborg Ikki, the android Zanba, the psychic Brima and the illusionist Gyoru. Ikki and Zanba were defeated within a few episodes of their first appearances, while Brima and Gyoru went on to serve as Mad Gallant's faithful assistants. Of note, Zanba, a captain of the Machine Empire, was the one who killed Juspion's parents, Gary and Anna, when they got in the way of them slaughtering wildlife across the galaxy. Ironically, Zanba is the only one of the Four Divine Generals who doesn't appear in this graphic novel because, as explained in the appendix, "perhaps androids cannot be resurrected," but let's face it, they didn't want to find a fourth ally to fight Zanba, even if he's merely reconstructed with a hatred for Juspion.

Boomerang returns, bringing in tow Gilmaza and... Mad Gallant. Gilmaza had brought back Mad Gallant and three of the Four Divine Generals, but it left them with an insatiable hunger that not even human beings or the inhabitants of Planet Gyodai could offer. While Juspion did offer Brima and Gyoru some sustenance, they aim to feed on a being with unlimited energy - the Golden Bird. With the Golden Bird's power, they would be able to revive Satan Gorth and all the enemies that Juspion defeated.

Mad Gallant proceeds to siphon Juspion's energy into himself, but Gilmaza reminds him that they still need him alive because they need the Golden Bird's bearer to summon it. He then has Boomerang take him away.

Boomerang: You made a big mistake coming back, Juspion! You shouldn’t have come back. I would have solved everything myself! I would have saved everyone… Juspion: It can’t be… Boomerang: …even Kanoko.

It's revealed that Mad Gallant has the five children, including Kanoko, held in stasis pods.

Mad Gallant is the son of Satan Gorth and the main villain during Juspion's time on Earth. A lot of his plans revolve around manipulating humans, but a significant amount of them also involve him kidnapping children or taking children hostage for leverage against Juspion. Honestly, Mad Gallant involves children in his plots so much that I gradually believed that taking children hostage was his default stratagem, and it seems like he's done it again here. Mad Gallant was killed by Juspion over halfway through the series, then was resurrected by Gilza, and at the end of his climactic final battle with Juspion, he even briefly turned into a giant Satan Gorth before dying.

In the last third of the series, the quest for the Golden Bird is expanded. While travelling through space, Juspion is hit by a bright light and five children, including Kanoko, along with the baby inside the Golden Egg, are hit by the same light as well. They mark the elements that would bring the Golden Bird to life and smite Satan Gorth. For the remainder of the series, Juspion's quest was to find the rest of the children, namely Kumiko, Daisaku (Daisuke in the dub), Hiroshi and Mika. When each of the five were brought in contact with a piece of the Galactic Bible, it revealed a part of the Golden Bird in their hands. But now, with the five now-grownup children in the hands of the resurrected Mad Gallant, all he needed was Juspion to summon the Golden Bird.

Tiger Joe bursts in and fights Boomerang, revealing that he had somehow been convinced by Gilmaza's words (he had tried to attack the temple once before but was apparently tortured by Gilmaza for weeks), but Boomerang tells Joe that he wouldn't understand because he isn't human.

Boomerang: Japan was a great country! But it all changed when Juspion arrived! Tiger Joe: Have you gone mad, Boomerang?! Juspion is a hero! Boomerang: I lost my brother! My family!! All the deaths! All the horror! This needs to end! Tiger Joe: But not like this! I used to be a bounty hunter, Boomerang! I’ve seen my share of death and terror! But I’ve changed! Thanks to Juspion, who taught me to be good, generous… Tiger Joe: …and to summon the Iron Wolf!!!

Tiger Joe takes Juspion on Iron Wolf and they escape the base to meet with Nanbara and Aigerman; Nanbara had his suspicions of Boomerang and had taken precautions. This comes just as predicted to Mad Gallant and Gilmaza, the former taking the Plasma Blazer Sword that Juspion left behind and transforming into a new silver form.

Juspion falls unconscious as he is brought back to Nanbara, who uses a defibrillator to reenergise his armour. In limbo, he is met by none other than Ejin, who tells him that he still has a lot to do.

Juspion: Ejin, I feel like I’ve disappointed everyone! Even Tarzan thinks I don’t take anything seriously! Ejin: Juspion, do you know what the biggest mistake a hermit can make is? Juspion: No, what is it? Ejin: Being a hermit. I lived to see such comic failures as Marville, All Star Batman & Robin and Spiderman: One More Day. I regret reading every single page of them.

Ejin confronts Juspion about him living in isolation (despite having Anri, Miya and Tarzan) and tells him that no one needs to carry the burden of being a hero alone.

Juspion: But the Galactic Bible said that… Ejin: Juspion, are you really going to let an ancient stone define your life? Like I let it define mine? Juspion: What?! What do you mean?! Ejin: Go! Be the hope! Be Juspion!! *WHAWSH*

Juspion is thrusted back into the world of the living, regaining consciousness after nearly three days. He tells Nanbara about Kanoko and the children and about how Mad Gallant is using them to summon the Golden Bird. Aigerman tells him that his plans, whatever they are, are practically bound to fail as he doesn't have his sword or Daileon and his Metal Tech Suit is still re-energising and it could take days to fully recover, but Juspion tells him that he can't just do nothing. Tiger Joe shows Juspion a message from Gilmaza and Mad Gallant being repeated on every TV channel (for 3 days?), promising humanity freedom under the truth of Satan Gorth, and not-so subtly challenging Juspion to a showdown at the Megabeast Empire Temple.

BGM: 流星の戦士

Boomerang is tasked with guarding Gilmaza while Mad Gallant takes Brima, Gyoru and Ikki to confront Juspion, who is also with Aigerman and Tiger Joe. Brima, Gyoru and Ikki overpower Aigerman and Tiger Joe while Mad Gallant has another showdown with Juspion. He manages to catch Juspion in a headlock, when who else should show up but Anri and Miya. In a flashback, Anri kicked Gilmaza into Ejin knows where before confronting Boomerang, telling him that nothing justifies what he did and that she still believes there is a good man inside him.

Sure enough, thanks to Boomerang, Kanoko and the rest of the children are freed and Anri tells them to get to work summoning the Golden Bird. Juspion is stabbed through the chest with his own sword. As he falls to his knees and the pages briefly turn to colour, the Golden Bird flies to him.

Juspion: Come on, boy…

It's time.

BGM: おれが正義だ ! ジャスピオン

Juspion: Mad Gallant! I will never let you destroy the peace on Earth! This is a dream that cannot end, and I swear, I swear…! I will not fail!!!

The Golden Bird fully repairs Juspion and empowers him. Mad Gallant proclaims that the Golden Bird's power belongs to him, but Juspion tells him that the Golden Bird belongs to everyone as he shines the Bird's light on everyone, including Mad Gallant, Brima and Gyoru, fully reviving them. The hatred of humanity is also dissipated as it turns into light in their hearts around the world.

Mad Gallant: Curse you Juspion, what are you doing…?! Juspion: Humans sense bad things, and they have reasons for it, Mad Gallant! …There’s more injustice in this world than in any other in the galaxy, so it’s natural that its inhabitants feel fear and anger! But unlike you, humans are capable of nurturing other feelings! They are capable of loving, forgiving, and seeking forgiveness! As long as there is love and compassion in this world, the Golden Bird will live in each of its inhabitants! That is the nature of humanity! That is the true strength of the Earth! This beautiful planet will never become the Megabeast Empire! Earth will become an empire of love, hope, and freedom!

BGM: パワフルファイター・ジャスピオン

With Mad Gallant fully revived, Juspion takes his sword back and they fight, the pages going back to black-and-white.

Mad Gallant: You really think you can beat me, Juspion?! I’ve been waiting for this fight for a long time! *THAMP* You’re nothing but a damned worm, while I am the son of the great Satan Gorth! *TSASH* Juspion: And I am the son of Ejin! *PSHAM* A simple man who raised me, trained me, and taught me everything I know! Mad Gallant: Curse you! If I am the heir of evil, it’s because I deserved it! Juspion: Deep down, I pity you, Mad Gallant! *UHNSH* Juspion: Didn’t anyone teach you that greatness comes from within?! Mad Gallant: Fool! Soon I myself will become a powerful Satan Gorth! *CLAHN* *BWRUN* Juspion: Perhaps we’re not so different after all. But, unlike you, I chose the path of light! Mad Gallant: And I was chosen by the darkness! *SAHNG* Mad Gallant: And that’s where I’m sending you! Juspion: Thank you, but I already know my place! Plasma Blazer Sword!! *TWYRN WYRN* Cosmic… *TWFUOK* Harley!! *TWFUOK* *TABRUHNN*

Juspion kills Mad Gallant, which causes Satan Gorth to stir. Brima and Gyoru combine into their wolf-like Megabeast form, and Satan Gorth's dark power enlarges them.

Satan Gorth possesses the dark power to enrage MegaBeasts and make them go berserk!

BGM: 超惑星戦斗母艦ダイレオン

With Commander Retsu's permission, Anri has Tarzan deploy the Battle Giant Daileon to Earth. Juspion fights the combined Megabeast, hitting it with the Daileon Beam before finishing it with the Daileon Cosmic Crash.

But the battle isn't over yet. Satan Gorth emerges from the depths of hell and Juspion avoids getting Daileon's energy sucked away by him. He asks Anri what he should do.

Juspion: What do I do, then, Anri? Anri: Go to Hell! Juspion: Hey, there’s no need for that, alright? *VVAHMM* Anri: No, you idiot, I meant literally! Send him back where he came from before he regains his full power! Juspion: Great idea!

BGM: 熱風野郎ジャスピオン

With a new attack, the Daileon Justice Punch, Juspion punches Satan Gorth back into Hell, but he unleashes his tentacles and attempts to pull Daileon in with him. To close the rift and prevent Satan Gorth from escaping Hell again, Juspion has no choice but to activate Daileon's self-destruct. He farewells Anri, Miya and Tarzan, but Commander Retsu tells Tarzan to go and use his power.

BGM: 銀河のターザン

Satan Gorth is defeated once again and the rift into Hell is sealed, but Tarzan managed to take Juspion back to the world above in a ball, perhaps similar to the Golden Egg that Tarzan was found in when he was a baby. Juspion introduces Tarzan to everyone and Nanbara is reunited with Kanoko.

Anri: What will we do now, Juspion? Juspion: Good question, Anri. We have a lot of work ahead of us… …and something tells me that the threat of Satan Gorth isn’t over yet. As long as there is negative energy in the universe, he will always return! But for now, it’s time to celebrate. We have people to reunite with, new friends to make. I don’t know what the future holds for us, but one thing is certain: from now on… …we will fight together!

What's interesting about this final page is that Juspion and his allies are on the ground while Commander Retsu is in the sky, with the shadows of what are likely other Metal Heroes behind him. After recent events in the toku world, it feels more poignant than when this graphic novel was originally released.

It's sad that the ending is only one page and that it uses a version of the ending that was dropped after 12 episodes, so I'm going to put it here. If this were an actual movie there'd be an original song after it.

After the credits, Tarzan meets with Commander Retsu as he presents to him the blueprints for a new Daileon constructed by the Space Police, incorporating elements created by Ejin.

Tarzan: Do you think he’ll like them? Commander Retsu: I don’t know if he’ll like them… …but he’ll certainly need them.

Following this, there is a full-on 30-page appendix featuring an overview of all the characters, Juspion's arsenal and the production of this graphic novel, then we go into a full-blown article from Ricardo Cruz talking about how Juspion, a failure in Japan, turned into a phenomenon in Brazil, and after that we have some testimonials from people whom Juspion impacted their lives, from fans who watched the show in Brazil when they were young, the presidents of Sato Company (the biggest Japanese media distributor in Brazil) and Everest Video (the company that brought Japanese media to Brazil in the 80's), actors Hiroshi Watari (Boomerang) and Kiyomi Tsukada (Anri), singer Akira Kushida, and Brazilian voice actors Carlos Takeshi (Juspion), Wendel Bezerra (Koko) and Cecilia Lemes (Anri). I'm honestly surprised that Fabio Yabu, Michel Borges and the rest of the team behind this graphic novel didn't write testimonials or pre/postface pages for it (like with the Combo Rangers graphic novels); I was honestly looking forward to what witty things Yabu would have had to say about it.

This graphic novel, The Return of Juspion, is a great tribute to the original series. The original series only featured Juspion, Anri and Miya as the core protagonist group while the Nanbara family were the main regular characters for most of the series. Bringing back Nanbara and Boomerang were obvious choices, but it was surprising to see Aigerman and Tiger Joe, two characters who were only involved in a single episode, along with Ikki, who only had 3 episodes in the original series. There's references from all over the original series and the graphic novel does do justice to it.

There is a political slant in the story that some people may not like, but it doesn't get in the way of the story too much; in fact, if you've watched the original series like I have, you might agree that Mad Gallant and Gilmaza's scheme of using the fear and hatred of humanity to revive Satan Gorth and his forces is on-par with their usual MO. Besides, as Gilmaza said, she didn't need to do much because humanity was already doing a good job of spreading fear and hatred themselves without them.

Xenophobia in Japan is a main political point highlighted in this graphic novel. We hear from Boomerang about what happened to Japan, and the rest of Earth, after the events of the original series; many people fled Japan and rich nations stopped investing there after constant monster attack, causing Japan's economy to regress to what it was after WWII. The Earth closed its borders and withdrew from Space Police jurisdiction, and in Japan, the climate of fear created leads to racial attacks on aliens, plus it opened a window for Gilmaza to promote Satan Gorth through the mainstream media. This is a particularly poignant point to raise given recent discourse over foreigners in Japan. Japan is a country that has a reputation for being xenophobic that nobody talks about, despite people around the world appreciating the technology, culture and media that they export. People there like to say that Japan must defend itself and its culture from foreign influences and mass migration, and the sad thing is that Westerners are actually agreeing with them and defending this xenophobia. Japanese netizens have gotten into flame wars on social media about foreigners not appreciating their media "the right way" by buying it instead of pirating it, or foreigners thinking they have the right to have opinions about anything because they pirate media.

As I said in recent posts: Hey assholes, you don't live in the Sakoku period anymore. You live in a global society. Deal with it. You people should be grateful that, unlike actual Israel, your media and culture are interesting enough to make foreigners ignorant of the xenophobic genocide deniers that you are.

Xenophobia to the Japanese may be refusing service with a smile, but to me, it's just bigotry with extra steps and more people around the world need to see it for what it is. You can say that Japan should stay Japanese all you want, but all they're doing is unfairly tarring ALL foreigners with the same brush when most of them aren't doing anything wrong. That's my main problem with Japanese xenophobia.

Boomerang does seem a bit out-of-character in this graphic novel. He wasn't that happy to see Juspion come back after all these years (then again, when was he ever happy), and then we see Boomerang (subtly) expressing the same type of xenophobia that the rest of the Japanese are, cluing us all to the revelation that Boomerang was somehow compromised by Gilmaza following his attempted attack on the Megabeast Empire Temple. And then it somehow led to Boomerang siding with Mad Gallant and Gilmaza, perhaps waiting for the moment he could take them both down and rescue the five children.

In my opinion, Boomerang wouldn't be one to be spouting xenophobic views about aliens given his dealings with Juspion along with Rotto and Sachi, who he got to know because of his brother infiltrating Mad Gallant's organisation. He knew that there were aliens affected by Satan Gorth's influence across the galaxy just as there were humans in the same situation. Perhaps Gilmaza's influence on Boomerang intensified the hatred he already had for Mad Gallant and his group to the point that it surpassed reason, while also creating a desire to go back to a time before aliens arrived on Earth (by playing up his toxic nostalgia) and resentment towards Juspion for everything that happened after he went back to Ejin's planet, which explains his OOC behaviour in this graphic novel.

Brazilian-Japanese singer MIC (Miku Nakagaki) was invited to sing a new R&B arrangement of the series' opening theme, which was advertised in the leadup to the release of this graphic novel and also in the appendix. I'm sorry, but this new arrangement doesn't fit the tone of the original series or this graphic novel. If my hypothetical movie adaptation of this had a 10-minute credit sequence I would give this song a pass and put it in, otherwise I'd rather have an original song after the original series' ending theme.

In all honesty, I completely underestimated the amount of work I needed to transcribe, translate and review this graphic novel. When I got the Combo Rangers graphic novels, they were PDF files that had a selectable text layer, so I was able to select all the text and copy it into a Word document, then all I had to do was condense the dialogue, denote speakers and add sound effects. However, I wasn't able to get anything like that for this so I had to go for OCR, but the thing is that OCR tools are notoriously bad when it comes to transcribing comics. All the text ends up in capitals (because fonts in comics usually consist of uppercase letters), random text comes in between lines and not everything gets transcribed correctly. In the end, I just decided to transcribe the entire comic manually (I didn't transcribe all the sound effects due to brevity). Now, there are over 150 pages of this graphic novel that I had to transcribe; it took me 10-11 days of work to transcribe it over 4 weeks, 6 days of work to translate it over 2 weeks, and then another 2 weeks to write this review. The appendix was the only section that was transcribed properly, so I copied it onto a separate document and processed the translation first, then once I was done with translating the graphic novel, I copied the appendix back and made the necessary corrections.

Right now, I'm currently working on the Combo Rangers Retrospective; while I was able to extract transcripts of the Flash webcomics, the printed comics will have to be transcribed by hand based on my experience with the Juspion graphic novel, plus I haven't been able to get the digital trade release because it seems to have been delisted from Amazon and other platforms.

So, about that hypothetical movie adaptation, could it have been possible? Even without considering the fact that Hikaru Kurosaki and Kenji Ohba have passed away, most of the characters would need to be recast anyway because their actors have either left the industry or passed away, not to mention that Juspion and Anri don't seem to have aged a day. In fact the only actors who could easily be called back (as of 2026) are Hiroshi Watari (Boomerang), Junichi Haruta (Mad Gallant but only his voice) and Isao Sasaki (Nanbara). If the adaptation were made around 2015-2020, we could also bring back Shōzō Iizuka to voice Satan Gorth and Kenji Ohba to play Commander Retsu. But I suppose a comeback film wouldn't feel much like a comeback without its main actor reprising his role as the title character, so I'd have to call a movie adaptation an impossible prospect.

Speaking of movies, there is a Juspion revival movie in the works since 2018 when it was announced by Sato Company, but very little details about it have come in the following years. It was only in February 2026 that a synopsis was released for the European Film Market, revealing a new character named Jonas, a 22-year-old Japanese-Brazilian from Sao Paulo who would don Juspion's armor. What really helped the hype for this movie (in my opinion) is CGI animator Rafael Segnini creating a series of Juspion 3D animated shorts on YouTube which are honestly amazing in their cinematography that they could be mistaken for teasers of the movie itself.

This graphic novel is part of JBC's Henshin Universe series, which is intended to consist of original graphic novels based on classic tokusatsu series. In 2024, a new entry in the series, Jiraiya: The New Ninja Empire (Jiraiya: O Novo Império dos Ninjas) was released, written by Chris Tex and illustrated by Santtos and Jhonny Domingos.

Originally, this prelude was meant to be posted in June alongside the one of The Last Princess, but it ended up being delayed until now. It's honestly amusing how things lined up - I started transcribing this graphic novel in the wake of Kenji Ohba's passing, and now I'm publishing this review in the wake of Hikaru Kurosaki's passing. This is just as much a tribute to them as it is to everyone else who was involved in or a fan of Juspion.

This is the end of the preludes for the Combo Rangers Retrospective, and boy what a lot of work it was to make this review possible. Whether you discovered this review as a fan of Juspion, Fabio Yabu, myself or anything related, feel free to give this review a like and follow me as we (finally) dive into that mythical Brazilian toku parody comic series that is Combo Rangers.

IN MEMORIAM - Kenji Ohba

(Shirou Akebono/Battle Kenya, Retsu Ichijouji/Space Sheriff Gavan, Daigorou Oume/DenjiBlue)

1955-2026

[yeonchi]

Rainbow Bubblegem Season 1 Review Part 2: Episodes 8-14

Episode 8: Twin Stickers

Green is part of the school’s cheerleading squad (honestly I thought this would be more Red’s thing), and Purple gets her moves mixed up, leaving the others in doubt as to whether she is worthy to stay. She tries to get Green to teach her but finds herself baffled by her long-winded explanation. She then decides to try by herself, but is unable to maintain her balance.

Leaving school that day, Purple finds a pack of twin stickers, which would make the person wearing one side copy what the other does. This leads her to get the idea to use it on Green as it’s revealed that the “gift” was from Black Dia, who sends a pair of spiky seahorse Blob Monsters after them. The next day, Purple goes to plant one of the stickers on Green, but she gets confused over which sticker is which and ends up putting the wrong sticker on Green, which makes her unknowingly copy everything Purple does (after she thinks it doesn’t work initially), like sleeping in class, snarfing down her lunch or kicking a rubbish bin over herself.

Green is freaking out over what is wrong with her when the Blob Monsters appear. She and Purple arrive at the scene, and it’s when she finds herself copying Purple’s morph pose (with the wrong hand, I might add) that she realises what is happening. Green’s Catcher is taken by the Blob Monsters in the ensuing confusion, but Purple somehow knocks them out with a portal and throws the Catcher back to Green. Though with some difficulty, Green manages to morph with Purple’s help, which means it’s time for… W-Boiled Extreme!

CYCLONE! JOKER!

Sadly we never get to see them reenact the Joker Extreme, but Green and Purple manage to defeat the spiky seahorse Blobs together thanks to the former’s coordination, just as Red and Orange arrive. After the battle, the girls discover that Green lost all the Bubblegem pieces she collected; she’s initially mad about it because she realises that this is what Black Dia can do now, but she quickly moves on from it and offers to help Purple practice before tryouts. Purple thinks about using the twin stickers but she has Pink Star destroy them, saying that she can’t rely on any dumb shortcuts. She and Green gain a Bubblegem piece and Green is happy to start over. Unbeknownst to them, Red and Orange’s team were already picked to be the official cheerleading squad, which is why they were late to the battle. See, I told you cheerleading was more Red’s thing.

If you were watching this from the Korean YouTube channel, this would be the final episode to provide English subtitles. Given the timeframe that the episodes were uploaded, I think they stopped subbing the episodes ostensibly because they were preparing the series to be dubbed, but it doesn't make sense because there's no reason to stop subbing the series if you're planning to get it dubbed. Anyway, I've found the subs to be fairly accurate going by the second dub, down to them calling Orange "the Clamshell Princess" in episode 7. Did they just send the translated scripts verbatim and forget about that error there?

Riffs:

1:20:

2:42: Purple: “Pink Star, in the human world one of the well-known rules is ‘finders keepers, losers weepers’, got it?” “Another well-known rule is ‘whoever smelt it, dealt it’!”

Episode 9: Purple King’s Visit

It’s Bring Your Dad to School Day and Purple brings her dad to school to talk about his job, even getting a human form and all that (and there’s nothing maintaining it like Purple seems to have). Purple tries to use a system with her dad but he doesn’t seem to get it. Seeing that the Purple King is taking a risk by being on land, Black Dia sends a blobfish Blob (it’s just called a fish Blob in the dub) to impersonate a human. The Blob hypnotises the dad of a kid named Daniel, who is a magician, and takes on his form.

In class, Purple’s dad introduces himself as a whale dentist (should have gone with whale biologist lol), but he makes a stuff-up, much to Purple’s dismay. Daniel’s “dad” is up next and when he tries going after Purple’s headband, she makes an excuse to leave the classroom. The “magician” follows her, but an indigo princess morphs and throws her weapon at his head, briefly disabling his disguise. As she passes by Purple’s dad going down the hallway, he seems to sense something familiar, but it is dismissed as the Blob hypnotises him and takes on his form.

As Purple and Pink Star reflect on how the Rainbow Catcher didn’t go off even though it detected a Blob, her “dad” comes out and tries to take her headband, but the real Purple King shows up to confront the fake. Red and Green show up, already morphed, but without Orange for some reason. Green can’t figure out which one of them is the Blob, but luckily Purple’s dad manages to remember his system and Purple uses it to disable the fake’s disguise. The Blob is too giant to defeat so Green decides that they need to shrink it first. They lure the Blob over and with Purple’s help, the King knocks it down, allowing Red and Green to shrink it before Purple finishes it off.

Yeah, it’s inevitable that there would be a few filler episodes in this series. For all we know, this episode could have taken place between episodes 6 and 7 with no changes. At least this series seems to do them better compared to Sea Princesses.

Riffs:

0:43: Purple King: “So, you didn’t know that I was the King!” Does anyone know anyone in the sea? Why haven’t the princesses met before they started attending school?

3:08: Daniel is shown with brown hair and wearing a blue jumper with beige pants, then in the next scene he’s a completely different boy wearing glasses with light brown hair, a green shirt and blue pants.

5:58: Purple: “I should have told them my dad was a magician.” “It was better than telling them he was a whale biologist.”

Episode 10: Find the Treasure Ship

A two-part story? In my 15-minute kids show?

Purple gets told off for leaving her castle at night. As she chases down Pink Star for being a tattletale, she finds a treasure chest with a map in it, not knowing that it is yet another “gift” from Black Dia. She tells Red, Green and Orange about it and they learn that there is an ancient ship at the bottom of the ocean with treasure in it. Black Dia sees that the girls have taken the bait and summons a group of anglerfish (or lanternfish) Blob Monsters.

The girls sneak out of their castles and head to the ship, which is near the Abyssal Valley (oh, so they didn't call it Abysmal then, but should it be the Abyssal Kingdom?). They don’t seem to find anything even as they split into two groups. Red and Orange encounter the Blob Monster and their screams alert Purple and Green, who decide to morph just to be safe. This is the first time that we see the princesses morph underwater and the morphing sequence has been modified to reflect this; normally, Purple is shown rising from the water in her human form, but here, Purple is shown “descending” from the water before the scene flips upright and the sequence continues as normal, albeit the camera holds on Purple's face for a few seconds because there's no need to morph her shoes due to being in mermaid form.

Purple and Green find Red and Orange hypnotised by the Blob Monster; the former distracts it while the latter drags the two away. Purple struggles against it because her attacks are shiny and the Blob can sense light, seemingly predicting her attacks. Green heads off the monster with her smartwatch before Purple defeats it. Red and Orange wake up and they, along with Purple and Green, find the sparkling treasure chest and are entranced by the treasures inside. As their Catchers go off, the girls are unaware that they have been hypnotised by another of the same Blob Monster, who takes their Catchers inside its mouth as Black Dia morphs into her Nightmare form and brings the ship to her…

Riffs:

0:08:

6:18: Red: “I can’t believe we have to find a treasure without knowing what it is.” I don’t know, have you tried the chest on your right or those boxes to your left?

9:56:

Episode 11: Abyssal Nightmare

Purple shows off her golden duck to her dad and servants, who allow her to do whatever she wants. Thanks to her golden mirror, Red is voted the prettiest student at school and she is paraded upon her arrival. Orange brings her giant golden muffin into the cafeteria and all the kids want a bite. Green’s golden book allows her to learn everything there is to know in the world, causing her to be interfaced in the matrix as she is flown away by four birds.

As the ship continues to approach Black Dia’s castle, the princesses’ dreams begin turning into nightmares. Red’s reflection turns ugly, and soon she turns ugly as well as her mirror chases her out the door. Orange’s muffin comes to life and tries to eat her, while Green is in agony over being interfaced. Purple’s dad and servants disappear and she eventually finds herself alone in her castle. Purple begins to hear her Catcher as it floats into the Blob Monster’s mouth in reality. Her castle falls into the depths and the sight of Black Dia’s castle (how would she know that?) makes her wake up and grab back her Star Stick. Purple morphs and takes her friends away, giving them back their Catchers as they morph.

It’s here where we get our first joint morph sequence (and the only one without Purple), and I want to take some time to highlight this as these sequences are the most innovative I’ve ever seen in a series. Normally in Super Sentai/Power Rangers, group morph sequences usually split the heroes up in a grid and they are shown morphing simultaneously. Ultraman played with the format during their crossover episodes as they arrange the sequence dynamically, then show the Ultramen rising one after the other or at the same time. In this series, there are some parts where they’ll still do the split-screens, but for the main part it’ll cut between each of the Bubblegem Warriors as they morph. They play up the format as well depending on how many characters are in it, so the joint morph sequences are different each time. It makes the sequence look frenetic, but it gives focus to each of the characters, even if Purple’s the only one who does her roll call, and it really helps that the character models (in Unreal Engine) share the same base because it makes the cuts between characters look smooth. Kudos to Campfire Aniworks for this.

The girls fight the anglerfish Blobs but they soon find themselves surrounded. Purple gets the idea to use their phones as bait and they defeat all of the Blobs. However, the main Blob reveals itself and hypnotises everyone except Purple once again as the ship arrives at Black Dia’s castle. Purple tries to protect the others and her struggle is sensed by Queen Whitegold, who awakens and unleashes a DEUS EX MACHINA NO JUTSU through the Catchers, teleporting them away.

The girls reflect on what happened and wonder what power saved them as they go back home. As Purple sneaks back in, she is confronted by Pink Star and one of the servants, but she is glad to see them as she thanks them for being by her side.

The series so far was already miles ahead of Sea Princesses, but the two-part stories are a real bonus that leave the latter in the dust. I’ll do a deeper comparison at the end.

Riffs:

2:45: (Epilepsy warning)

4:02:

4:18:

Episode 12: Burning Blue

There’s a new transfer student at school. Thanks to Purple’s stunt with Red at the end of episode 2, the school news team decides to introduce the new transfer student, Blue, who immediately calls the other princesses out and challenges them to a duel at lunch. They meet in the gym, where Blue introduces herself as Blue Sapphire of the Jellyfish Kingdom, along with her Secret Guardian fairy Jellyfin.

Blue challenges the girls to a series of physical ordeals and she dominates in all of them. Red calls her out on the challenges being everything she is good at, so she lets the girls choose the final challenge; Purple decides on a dance endurance contest, where the one who dances the longest wins. Blue complains that they can’t compete with dance even though it is another physical exercise, but when called out on it, she proclaims that she has never lost a competition in her life and becomes determined to win.

So the girls begin the contest, and Blue has lost before she even started because she spends a few seconds looking at the girls instead of dancing. She does get into it, though, and soon the competition becomes a head-to-head between Purple and Blue as they end up dancing together. A hit from an invisible Blob Monster causes Blue to fall, and Purple wins. Purple is happy to be friends with Blue, but she is distraught at the prospect of losing, throws her shoulder belt bag on the ground, which is revealed to be her Catcher, and storms onto the school bus crying as school ends. You live in the sea, Blue. Where exactly are you going?

Anyway, as Red and Green are indifferent to Blue’s loss, Purple decides that they should look for her and return her Catcher just as a Blob is detected. The Blob Monster of this episode is a boxing mantis shrimp Blob Monster (that can turn invisible) enhanced with Green’s Bubblegem power, allowing it to use Green’s Screen Pod ability to analyse the other princesses except Blue. Thanks to this, the Blob Monster is able to counter their attacks, meaning that their only hope is Blue. Purple throws Blue’s Catcher to Leo who brings it to her; she says that she doesn’t deserve it, but when she learns that Purple asked Leo to give it to her and sees the others struggling outside, she is spurred into action as she pushes the school bus back up the hill.

Blue morphs into her Bubblegem Warrior form, Sapphire Blue (Department of Redundancy Department, anyone?), whose abilities are based around strength and agility. Her Catcher weapon is a pair of Sapphire Gauntlets on her arms (for some reason her morphing sequence only shows the one on her left arm before the one on her right arm suddenly appears right when she poses) which can spawn boxing gloves on her fists for her signature Bubble Punch attack. The Blob Monster manages to analyse Blue, but she I AM A MAN punches through the Screen Pod before lifting the monster up and throwing it back into the ocean. Although we don’t see it scatter, this can be considered the third Blob Monster to be defeated by someone other than Purple – Whitegold took care of the anglerfish Blob in the last episode and those other Blobs the girls defeated weren’t the main one.

Blue returns Green’s Bubblegem piece to her and concedes that while it’s great to win, it’s better to spend time with friends, declaring the four princesses her friends as the episode ends with that signature ending laugh that was the bane of every episode of Sea Princesses. Everyone gets a Bubblegem piece too even though Blue was the only person who learnt something. I guess being passive does count as mental growth.

At this point in the season, they refer to the Bubblegems like they’re individual items when they’re really just fragments of the whole Bubblegem that they haven’t finished collecting yet. What’s up with that? Also, my earlier point regarding Blue’s Catcher disguise.

Riffs:

2:58: Leo: “Man, that Blue sure can aura farm. No wonder I’m sweating.”

3:16: Blue: “Alright, let’s burn blue hot!”

3:31: Alright, she’s just cheating at this point.

4:52: Leo: “Just standing here sure is tiring…”

Episode 13: Bickering Volunteers

Queen Whitegold sends some supplies to the Purple King for the kingdom’s fish in need, leading to a discussion between Purple and Pink Star over whether the former is generous. At school, there is a program happening where students who do volunteer work around town can earn stickers, with the two who receive the most stickers to be named the volunteer masters. They’re dragging private citizens into this program now?

Later, Purple runs out and asks Green to join her in her volunteering. When Green notes that generosity is an essential quality for a queen, Red, Orange and Blue fight with Purple over her, but she chooses neither of them and pairs up with Leo instead. Red and Orange decide to team up, which leaves Purple with Blue.

Purple’s team gets overzealous as Blue attacks a woman crossing the road on a blinking light. Red’s team struggles as Red obsesses with herself and Orange gets confused when the light turns green. Later, both teams decide to help an old man find his parrot, Alex. Purple decides to dress up as a parrot when Blue finds Alex on the tree above them. She climbs up to grab it, but a gust of wind from a Blob Monster causes him to fly away as Blue falls on top of Purple. Red and Orange try to catch Alex, but Orange is too scared and another gust of wind makes Alex fly away. It’s then that we see Green and Leo having finished their sticker sheet, which makes the others argue with each other before going their own ways.

Miss Annie finds Purple sulking and she tells her that friends don’t have to get along all the time, but a true friend knows how to accept those who have different ideas. She sees Alex and runs after it, leading her back to her friends just as their Catchers go off. The Blob Monster this time is a bluefin gurnard enhanced with a piece of Red’s Bubblegem, giving it the power to fly and conjure wind. Red, Orange and Blue try to attack the Blob individually but they are all blown back as it takes their Bubblegems.

Purple tells them that they need to work together, then the others work to distract the Blob while Purple circles behind to create a portal behind it. Blue attempts to attack directly but the Blob puts up a shield. As the Blob Monster blows a gale, Purple manages to create a portal behind it, allowing the others to fly through and attack from behind before Purple finishes it off.

The girls find Alex and return him to the old man, who gives them a sticker. Purple decides to split it, giving them half a sticker each.

Whitegold learns that Black Dia has stolen the Bubblegems, but she remains confident in the princesses’ progress.

Riffs:

3:00: Red: “Red, you’re extra cute today.” “Better than that Swordfish Princess Marli.”

4:38:

8:18: Did everyone just say “Twinkle Purple” there?

I can just imagine Green and Leo just watching the others during the battle: Leo: “Aren’t you going to join them?” Green: “No. They can figure it out for themselves.” And then Purple looks around the corner and this happens:

11:25: Whitegold: “It seems Black Dia has stolen the Bubblegems. However, the princesses are starting to learn the true meaning of their power.” “It was the friends they made along the way.”

Episode 14: Surprise Birthday Party

It’s Purple’s birthday and the King is preparing a surprise for her. In an attempt to cover it up, he allows Pink Star to grant a wish for her. Her wish is to invite all her friends, including Leo, to her party. Pink Star and Green note that he will get discovered, but Purple suggests dressing him up like a mermaid princess with Red’s help (in the Indonesian and Russian dubs, he just gets a crown and some gills put on him, cultural sensitivities and all that). Pink Star says that he still needs his own Secret Guardian fairy, and Chacha’s convenient appearance gives him that.

Pink Star turns Leo into a mermaid and Chacha is turned into a pig-fish. You know, why not have Purple lend her headband to Leo? It’s not like she needs it to hide her Catcher as a mermaid anyway. They head to Purple’s castle, where he is introduced as Princess Leia of the Tropical Kingdom. The King has the other girls hide in a box to surprise Purple, but Black Dia sends forth a sea cucumber Blob Monster in another box which the Henchblobs swap out.

As Purple is seemingly disappointed that her friends weren’t able to come (when they were actually in wait for her surprise), the gift box is opened and the Blob emerges while the girls emerge outside. The King is pinned to the wall by the Blob and Purple morphs. A shot from the Blob deflected by Purple throws Leo’s disguise loose. The Blob is defeated, but more of them emerge as the others arrive. Green discovers that the Blobs are copies of the main one spawned from the sea cucumber’s spikes. Chacha uncovers the main blob and the King pins it with his trident, eliminating the clones before Purple finishes it off.

Purple’s dad is disappointed that she lied to him and brought a human into their kingdom, but he is reassured that he is reliable as he also takes a liking to Chacha. Uh, you met Leo a few episodes ago. No interaction between them, but still. Also, why exactly aren’t humans allowed in the kingdoms? In the Sea Princesses animated series, the reason wasn’t directly stated but we did see why such a rule existed; because there were humans who would do harm to the sea and pose a danger to all those living in it; the true reason would be elaborated on in the books.

Riffs:

1:55: Red: “Now that's quiche!”

2:30: Leo: “And I thought Purple was the weird one…”

[yeonchi]

Rainbow Bubblegem Season 1 Review Part 1: Episodes 1-7

I am about to commit an act of blasphemy here when I say that Rainbow Bubblegem is better than Sea Princesses.

I was channelsurfing in my Seoul hotel room one afternoon when I stumbled upon this cartoon. With a bit of Google-fu I found out what it was called and started looking into it. As I looked at info about this series from wikis, I began to notice some familiar elements to it, and I began to realise, could Rainbow Bubblegem be ripping off elements of Sea Princesses?

Look, jumping to the conclusion that a series ripped off elements of a series that premiered 15 years before isn't fair, and it’s important to consider that both series have their own merits and they should be judged on them. So I’m going to review the first season of Rainbow Bubblegem and then make my comparisons.

Rainbow Bubblegem, also known as My Classmate is a Mermaid (我的同学是美人鱼), is a Korean-Chinese 3D animated series created by Campfire Aniworks in a co-production with EBS, Tencent Video and LiveFun (乐翻文化). Its first season premiered in July 2023, but the series has been in development since at least 2017 according to an old blog post from Campfire Aniworks. It's animated using Unreal Engine (as mentioned on the website of Saelofim/Sero Film, one of the outsourced animation studios for the series), a 3D CGI game engine which has also been used in film and television mediums (and ironically, it's likely because of it that people have managed to make eerily accurate AI slop of characters from the series). Aside from Korean and Mandarin Chinese, the series has also received dubs in English, Indonesian, Mongolian and Russian, and hopefully more dubs will be available in years to come.

So the thing about the English dub for this series… is that there are two of them. The first season’s English dub first came out in 2024, produced by Florida recording studio RMP Music & Arts (Bluebird RMP) for Blu Digital Group. It was broadcast on Singapore’s Channel 5, but when the dub began to be posted on the official English YouTube channel from September 2025, it was a different dub, produced by 3Beep for Cake Entertainment. Through my research, I discovered that RMP had gone inactive in 2024 and the first dub apparently wasn’t that good anyway (particularly since Blu asked for a lot of retakes). The first eight episodes are also subtitled on the Korean version, but no more have been reported (even though all the episodes have the Indonesian dub as well). Because I’m going off what’s on YouTube, my review of the series will be based on the second dub.

Without further ado, let’s begin. Each part will be released weekly.

I suppose I should talk about the opening and ending themes of the series. The episodes on YouTube have had the opening titles and ending credits cut, so I had to go to other sources to find them.

The opening theme is Call up a Rainbow (Dream of Rainbow) and the ending theme is Feel the Rainbow, both songs sung in Korean and English by Lee Sumin with localised versions created for other dubs. The opening titles are 90 seconds long, which I think is weird for a series with 12-minute episodes, but it would be justified if you aired the episodes in pairs and just play the opening and closing titles once on both sides of the timeslot. The opening could be cut down to 30 seconds by cutting out the recap footage and just leaving the original scenes, but you wouldn’t see the girls in their morphed forms, plus starting the song at the chorus might seem a bit abrupt (they did this for the Chinese dub at the cost of the lyrics, cutting to the middle of the chorus after 5 seconds). The ending titles are 30 seconds long and it consists of Purple in a photobooth as the other girls gradually join her. It’s simple, but still good. Anyway, let’s move on to the episodes themselves.

Episode 1: From Swimming to Steps

Also known as Bang! Out to the World in the first dub.

The series begins with its background conflict; Black Dia attempted to conquer the ocean with her dark magic, but Queen Whitegold, the guardian of the sea, combined the magic of the seven sea kingdoms in a Bubblegem, which she used to seal Black Dia before the Bubblegem was sealed in a mountain on land, proclaiming that her successor, one among the kingdoms’ princesses, would be the one to wield it (in the dub she says “the one from my family”, which seems weird).

Purple Star is the princess of the Starfish Kingdom (and yet the servants are ordinary fish), who thinks fish are boring and humans are fun. Her yearning for land and human interaction leads her to collect lots of human objects, which are already filling her room. As Purple’s dad (the Purple/Starfish King) and servants prevent her from going to land, Purple is tasked with accompanying her father with palace work, which includes listening to messages from all across the ocean. Purple hears that some whales are returning from their migration and goes to hitch a ride to land on a baby whale.

Approaching the shore, the whale sends Purple flying head-first into the sand, where Ms Annie is bringing her students to the beach. One of her students, Leo, is the first to see Purple; she quickly disguises her tail (while standing on it) as she plays with the rest of the class. Later, while playing hide-and-seek, Leo ends up falling into the water and is unable to swim. Purple swims down and brings Leo back up, but her disguise floats away and her tail is caught in a net (she sure didn’t look caught at first, not to mention that she could have moved her tail with her hands).

As Purple panics over the possibility of getting caught, her tears form into a beam of light that flies to the Bubblegem and shatters it. This also summons her Secret Guardian fairy, Pink Star, who is shocked at this happening too early (for Blue Dot Island). Seeing the situation, Pink Star transforms Purple into human form and is able to avoid her identity being revealed as a result.

Returning to her castle, the Purple King is disappointed at Purple’s actions and wonders what Queen Whitegold will do. It is then that a messenger from Whitegold arrives with a message, which is also delivered to six other princesses; they will go to the surface and attend school so they can gather all the scattered Bubblegem shards, and the one who restores it first will be named Whitegold’s successor as guardian of the sea. At the same time, the shattering of the Bubblegem also restores Black Dia(mond)…

Overall, a very good start to the series. If I don’t have much to conclude about the episode, I’ll just skip my review conclusion and move on to the next episode.

Riffs:

3:31: Purple: “You want seaweed candy? This one’s extra yummy!” “No artificial colours or preservatives! 99% fat free! Extra dollop!”

5:15: Wow, that hour sure went by quick.

6:26: Hey, that’s a foul! You’re out!

8:36: Pink Star: “But wait! You’re still just a kid!” “You’re too early for the island!”

Episode 2: Chaos on the First Day

Also known as It’s Difficult the First Time in the first dub.

Purple’s dad and servants are in tears as she prepares to go for her first day of school, almost forgetting her backpack which Pink Star has to carry for her. Heading onto the bus carriage, Pink Star transforms Purple into her human form and teaches her about how to use her Rainbow Catcher, which is transformed from or embedded into the star on her headband (the series is inconsistent about which approach they want to go with, particularly in Purple’s case as the star on her headband is still shown during her morphing sequences in this season). Also, the star on Purple’s headband is shown on the right side of her head in this scene when it’s usually shown on the left. Whoops.

Purple arrives at Blue Dot School and goes to her classroom, but in her excitement, she goes into the wrong classroom and ends up causing a scene for the other new transfer student, who is in the science teacher Mr Snivel’s homegroup class. Ms Annie finds Purple and takes her into her classroom, but when she tries to introduce herself, her nerves suddenly get to her and she breaks down in tears.

Black Dia sees these developments and sends out an octopus Blob Monster to the surface. She does so by ripping out a page from her book and dropping it into a cauldron beneath her. An army of Henchblobs enter the cauldron and form the Blob Monster, which is then launched out of Black Dia’s castle.

As Purple laments over her stuff-up, the other transfer student confronts her and demands that she apologise for embarrassing her. Her Secret Guardian fairy, Heartcon, recognises Purple as a mermaid princess, and we learn that the other student is Red Ruby, princess of the Seahorse Kingdom (she looks more pink if you ask me). If you think the mermaids’ names in this series sound generic because they’re named after colours (and gemstones and whatnot), you would be correct.

It’s then that the Blob appears in front of the princesses. The two fairies activate their Bubble Time Stop, which freezes time in the area for all humans, only allowing mermaids to move within the frozen time. Purple tries to morph with the Rainbow Catcher but she forgets the exact activation phrase. Red is able to morph and briefly hold off the Blob Monster; in the ensuing struggle, Purple manages to remember the phrase and morph into her magical girl/Bubblegem Warrior form, Twinkle Purple, preventing Red’s Catcher from being taken.

In their Bubblegem Warrior forms, the Rainbow Catchers are transformed into their individual weapons; Purple wields the Star Stick, or Portal Stick, and can fire bubble projectiles that can form portals. Purple uses the portals to lure the Blob, and with Red’s help, she ties up the Blob Monster’s tentacles before defeating it with the Rainbow Clean Bubble, which scatters the monster into its component Henchblobs.

After the battle, Purple and Red make up, which results in them gaining a Bubblegem piece each that is stored in their Catchers. Red wishes that they could have introduced themselves properly, which leads Purple to barge into the school’s news studio and introduce herself and Red to everyone, much to the latter’s embarrassment.

Riffs:

1:21: Purple: “I’ll go to school, take tests and do homework, and maybe make friends!” Comedian Dayo Wong (黃子華) once said that anyone who says they like going to work has to be possessed. The same logic applies here.

2:27:

5:24:

8:54: Red: “I’m drowning!” “The cake was a lie!”

9:54: 

Episode 3: Purple’s Princess Diary

The episode begins with a flashback to the final battle between Whitegold and Black Dia. Having transformed the servants of the Abyssal Kingdom into Blobs, Whitegold uses the power of the Bubblegem to imprison Black Dia and seal the darkness. However, as their oath as monarchs means that one monarch who harms another will get back double, this results in Whitegold being imprisoned as well. The Purple King picks up a necklace, saying that he will give it to someone worthy.

In the present day, Purple finds the necklace in her father’s study, thinking that it is a gift for her. She wears it to school and starts bimbo-walking down the hallway in an attempt to show off to Red. Red brings up something called the Princess Rulebook (the episode title calls it the Princess Diary while a translation of the original Korean name for it is Princess Dictionary, which seems a bit inconsistent - it's only confirmed to be the Princess Diary next season) as she questions whether Purple is being “princess-like”.

Black Dia recognises the necklace as hers and sends a parrot clam (it’s actually a nautilus, even Sea Princesses was able to say it) Blob to retrieve it. At recess, Purple attempts to memorise the Princess Rulebook but she ends up falling asleep as a Blob Monster is detected. Rushing over, Red has Heartcon stop time before she morphs into Shining Red. I didn’t talk about her Bubblegem Warrior form in the last episode because she didn’t get the morph sequence there. Red’s weapon is another wand known as the Heart Wand which can shoot heart-shaped projectiles, but her main ability is being able to sprout wings and fly, her Shining Wind attack blowing away enemies with her wings.

Pink Star starts gushing over Red, causing Purple to storm off, refusing to morph or order Pink Star to stop time. From what we see of the Bubble Time Stop ability, the fairies can trigger it together or individually depending on the situation, but they can only do it once per day. I presume that more fairies can allow the Time Stop to last longer or affect a larger area, but that isn’t explored in detail (at least in this season). I would also posit that the princesses could strategise the fairies to take turns using their Time Stop individually so they could maximise the length of the Time Stop if this makes it last longer than all the fairies doing so simultaneously. I look forward to seeing how the series plays with this concept.

Red fails to attack the Blob as it finds Purple and zaps her necklace, causing a portal to open from which emerges… Black Dia. As the ensuing tornado affects the frozen humans, Red is blown away and Black Dia grabs her as she offers to work with Purple to unite the human and mermaid worlds. Purple throws the Princess Rulebook at her before she morphs, flying up to save Red. Black Dia absorbs the Blob Monster into herself, which morphs her into a darker Nightmare form and increases her power, allowing her to even transform humans into Blobs.

Purple manages to save Red as Black Dia takes back her necklace. She has Red turn her wand back into her mirror so she can aim her attack at it, which is deflected to Black Dia, sending her back into her prison. Though Black Dia can no longer open any more portals, she manages to turn her necklace back into her Staff of Darkness.

Riffs:

2:53: Red: “A princess must always dress for the proper occasion.” “They must also eat dainty morsels, take special lessons and eventually, marry their cousins.”

Episode 4: Shh! It’s a Secret!

As Pink Star chides Purple for taking off her headband on the way to school, which transforms her into her human form, Purple exploits this ability by repeatedly taking it off and putting it back on, which exhausts Pink Star’s magic and makes him fall asleep.

Meanwhile, Leo, who we haven’t seen for the last two episodes, sneaks his pet pig, Chacha (his original name is Kaka, I can see why the second dub decided to change it) into school. He forgets that he is in charge of class for Mr Snivel and has to leave Chacha in his bag as he leaves the classroom. Purple sees Leo’s bag moving and finds Chacha inside, but the pig manages to steal her headband, which changes her back into her mermaid form.

Chacha finds his way to Leo who finds the headband. Interestingly, when he puts it on, he transforms into different fish-like forms depending on where he puts it on. While Leo hides from everyone as he tries to find Chacha, Red finds Purple in her classroom. She initially refuses to have Heartcon stop time, but is forced to do so when other children are about to come in. Leo, who is hiding in a locker, is saved from being discovered, but the headband causes him not to be affected by the Time Stop. Leo and Purple find Chacha just as the Time Stop expires, forcing Red to quickly whisk them away before Snivel can spot them.

Leo discovers that Purple is a mermaid and is fearful of her, but Black Dia sends in an anglerfish Blob Monster, who takes the headband from Leo as he faints at the sight of it. Red morphs and knocks the Blob down, allowing Purple to recover her headband. Pink Star awakens and stops time before they are discovered, allowing Purple to morph and defeat the Blob. Red points out their dilemma; they either have to lie to Leo or make sure he keeps their secret.

When Leo wakes up, Purple confesses her and Red’s identities as mermaid princesses. Purple is saddened that she can’t be friends with Leo as a result of this, but after realising that Purple was the one who saved him from drowning at the beach, Leo is happy to hang out with Purple and promises to keep her secret. Purple is excited at officially making her first human friend as the two fairies wonder how to explain Leo to Whitegold.

This episode shows that the mermaids’ human forms, or Purple’s at the very least, are linked to their Rainbow Catchers, as she is shown reverting to her mermaid form when she loses her headband. There are other examples of the princesses losing possession of their Rainbow Catchers (or the items they are disguised as) and nothing negative comes of them as they are neither demorphed nor reverted back to their mermaid forms. Come to think of it, if this is also the case for the other princesses then some of the choices for Catcher disguises are stupid. In terms of Red, her Catcher is disguised as a mirror, which I suppose she can turn back into its Catcher form and pocket it, but it’s not like it couldn’t be embedded into her choker.

Riffs:

3:12:

Episode 5: Fancy Festival!

The Blue Dot Beach Festival is happening and Purple has some costumes for Leo and Red (which they never end up wearing). Purple’s father bans her from leaving the castle at night, so she decides to portal over instead. She finds Leo, but he seems to be rather avoidant of her as she drags him all over the festival. Leo wants to tell Purple that they aren’t really friends and he can’t have a weird friend like her, but he doesn’t get the chance to do so when an electric stingray Blob Monster attacks.

Having thrown Pink Star out of the castle, Purple is unable to have him stop time. She shoves Leo (and Chacha) into a stall compartment before she morphs to fight the Blob. Leo heads out after Chacha when he escapes his grasp. Purple’s bubble attacks are deflected by the Blob’s electricity; seeing her struggling, Leo realises that he has been looking for a reason to push Purple away for being different when she wants to be his friend and is willing to risk her life for him, so he goes to help her by firing off some soap bubbles to distract the Blob from Purple’s Clean Bubble. After the battle, Leo reconciles with Purple, who gives him an enchanted bracelet that would render him able to move in a Time Stop.

I think this and the last episode should have been swapped because it doesn’t make sense for Leo to suddenly consider Purple weird after that episode’s events. Have Leo learn that Purple’s a Bubblegem Warrior in this episode, then reveal that she and Red are also mermaids in the next before giving Leo the bracelet in the episode after that (the next one).

Riffs:

0:30:

6:12: Leo: “Purple, we need to talk, about how we decided to become friends. The thing is…” “I like you better as an acquaintance.”

Purple: “Yeah, we’re best friends. What about it?”

Episode 6: The Library LEGEND

Yeah, for some reason the word “LEGEND” in the title is capitalised while the narration of it says “The Library Rumor”. This mismatched title reading happens in a few other episodes, keeping in mind that the first dub got the readings correct.

Purple talks to Leo about how they have been collecting Bubblegem pieces when they hear a rumour of a wise person in the library who can answer any question they have. Purple decides to check it out for herself and finds that Red is also doing the same. Leo seemingly finds the so-called wise person, who asks him about Purple and Red before he runs off to find them. It’s then that the wise person reveals herself as Green Leaf of the Stingray Kingdom, with her Secret Guardian fairy Stings. She was briefly shown in episode 4, so at this point she’s been here for a while and the others don’t know that she’s transferred.

Green reveals that she is first in line to succeed Whitegold after having collected a significant amount of Bubblegem pieces. When Red says that she can get more pieces after taking down a few more Blobs, Green reveals that it isn’t how the Bubblegem works; it’s actually a character development MacGuffin where pieces only appear after the princesses show mental growth. So far, it has been consistent because the pieces don’t appear right after a Blob is defeated, or every time they defeat one.

Purple and Red try to show Green their “mental” growth, but she tells them that it isn’t what she meant, suggesting that they could try deepening their friendship as an example. This results in Purple and Red trying to show off to Green how “friendly” they are, but when they call her out on it not working, Green questions whether their “fake friendship” is helping their mental growth, telling them that they will never be on the same level as her. She also points out that while Purple was the one who broke the Bubblegem, she hasn’t done anything to fix it. Um, what exactly did you think Purple was supposed to do? It’s not like you were any closer to figuring it out even with all the fragments you’ve collected, Green. I mean, yeah, she is following Whitegold’s instructions and attending school, but it’s not like she’s given any further instructions to the princesses after that, probably owing to the fact that she is, I don’t know, IMPRISONED?

After school, Purple admits that Green may have had a point and decides to head back in to try and ask her to be friends, but Green bluntly says that it would be difficult because they’re just too different. It’s then that a swarm of garden eel Blobs come out of the books and begin making a mess of the library. Purple and Red rush in with Leo and help Green up before she morphs into Dia Green. Green’s Catcher is embedded into her wristwatch (which becomes a smartwatch while morphed) and this is the only time we see her directly using it to morph; the rest of the time she takes her Catcher out to do so. Green’s techniques are based around defense and analysis, summoning the Screen Pod from her Clover (smart)Watch to analyse data or as a shield called the Clover Field; later on you'll see that she can also summon multiple shields in a mildly-offensive attack called the Clover Circle. Yes, despite being called Dia Green, her smartwatch and attacks are named after clovers. Whoops.

Leo and Red quickly find themselves struggling against the eel Blobs. Green tries to guide Purple where to attack; initially Purple doesn’t understand her instructions, so Green has to make them easier for her to understand. The four of them regroup and they charge once again, but they find themselves boxed in by the shelves. Green struggles to analyse her data in the changing situation and is distraught, but Purple gets an idea and she gets some help bringing everyone to the top of the shelves with a portal before they rush outside, allowing Purple to defeat the main Blob. Green learns that answers and data aren’t everything while Purple and Red learn that they could learn from Green, allowing the three to gain a Bubblegem piece each.

Riffs:

1:14: Green: “Don’t you know to be quiet in the library?” “You’re lucky Mrs Dawes hasn’t caught you.”

2:28:

4:38: Purple: “I told Red that she’s pretty more than 100 times today, you know!” “And I didn’t actually mean it!”

Green: “You don't really think that a fake friendship like that is going to help your mental growth, do you?”

10:14: Purple: “If there’s no answer, we’ll just make one!”

11:33: Black Dia: "Don't think you've beaten me just yet. The sea is boundless, and the darkness so deep." That's basically the same thing you said at the end of episode 2.

Episode 7: Sweet Bazaar

The school is having a charity bazaar. Purple intends to sell her collection of human objects, Red intends to sell paintings of herself, and Green intends to sell books. They’re not having much luck with it until they find a nervous girl having trouble with her stall. As they go to her, Pink Star identifies her as Orange Amber of the Anemone Kingdom (yeah, both the English dubs say “Clamshell Kingdom”, I checked the English subtitled version and it says the same thing too - the original Korean dub was correct. Whoops), with her Secret Guardian fairy Monet. Orange is selling muffins but she is having trouble setting up, so the girls decide to help her, dragging Leo into it as well.

Even as the others are helping her, Orange finds herself calling her mother about the small details she is overthinking about. Later, as customers are beginning to line up, Orange is unable to read her recipe and her muffins end up burnt and covered with squid ink due to the squid Blob Monster that Black Dia sent out. Red insists on selling them anyway, but the customers soon turn back and demand refunds. An overwhelmed Orange sneaks away to the cafeteria crying as the Blob Monster (which has turned giant) grabs her. Purple, Red and Green come to the rescue and as the Blob grabs the three, Purple tells Orange to morph, but she can’t because she has never done it before. She cries that she has never done anything all by herself before and that she isn’t brave enough to do anything at all.

Purple reminds Orange that if she was the one who chose to bake muffins, she can choose to save the others as well. This gives Orange the courage to morph into Flower Orange (should really be Blossom Orange if you ask me), but she is still unsure about what to do, running around in fear until she discovers that she can open her Magic Umbrella to shield herself from the Blob Monster’s ink. She can also use it to fire the Jelly Beam (given who comes next it should have been called something else, like Sunny Beam) and after Purple is freed, she helps Orange free Red and Green too.

With the others’ weapons eaten by the Blob Monster, Orange ends up thrown in the air and she shoots her Jelly Beam at the monster’s snout which defeats it, making it the first Blob Monster to be defeated by someone other than Purple. The others regain their weapons and they praise Orange for being brave, earning Bubblegem pieces in the process. Orange makes another batch of muffins and this time, they are well received.

Coming back to my earlier point from episode 4 about the Catchers’ disguises/storages, Orange’s Catcher is embedded into her handbag, which, if it was maintaining the mermaids’ human forms, would be a stupid idea. Also, like Green, Orange is another princess who the others don’t know when she transferred, but for all we know this could have been her first day.

Riffs:

0:46: Purple King: “I’ll pay top dollar for everything, just don’t bring them back!” You live in the same castle. You’ll just be bringing them back anyway.

2:10: The power of mavity!

5:50: WHY ARE YOU NOT WEARING OVEN MITTS?

[yeonchi]

2026 Mid-Year Report - Awakening

I haven't done a mid-year report since 2021 (during the pandemic) and I never thought I'd find myself doing one this year. So, so many things have happened in the last six months that I just really need to get off my chest. I guess this is what happens when you care too much about the world but you have to hold it in to keep the toxicity on my social media as low as possible. Let's get right into it.

Current projects

Starting off with my projects now; Kisekae Insights has now concluded, marking another step to putting the series to rest. I've done five runs totalling 70 instalments over 7 years since June 2020, starting off as an overview of the various series that were spun on to my personal project before going to full-blown recaps of the Moushouden Series with Gokaiger, Decade, Three Kingdoms, Soulbound, Zi-O and Decade Legend Fighters. My eBooks 3.0 project is still slowly ongoing, but I might need to dedicate at least a month or two to focus on it now that I'm nearing the end of the Moushouden 2.0 revision.

I just want to thank those of you who have read and liked the Kisekae Insights instalments over the course of the series. As I stated in the very first part, the original intention of the Yui Hirasawa Kisekae Project (that would later inspire Kisekae Insights) was meant to be an adaptation of my personal project that I abandoned because of various factors. My personal project was originally written for my Facebook friends and now that their interest in it has long passed, I know that bringing it to the rest of the internet was the right decision and your likes, few though they may be, have helped me realise that. Once again, apologies for not being able to release the full detailed stories as I have to maintain the privacy of myself and the IRL people I've featured in them.

If I ever decide to write another story for my personal project and feature it on here, it won't be part of the Kisekae Insights series because it would be a new story and the series was originally meant to recount the events of the project. I originally planned for the series to end at Part 60 after Three Kingdoms and Soulbound, but after I decided to add Decade Legend Fighters to the mix, I knew that I had to make more filler instalments for a total of 70 parts, especially when considering how long Soulbound Series 3 and 4 would get. Nonetheless, I'm glad that that's over and I can finally move on to other things, like the Combo Rangers Retrospective which Kisekae Insights is making way for.

Speaking of the Combo Rangers Retrospective, I've started transcribing and translating the webcomics and the first review will be out soon. They're already available for viewing in my cloud drive folder here.

I've also completed the Sengoku Basara Retrospective, my look on the niche hack-and-slash series that makes Koei Warriors games look mainstream. Also as part of that series I wrote a storyline saga, Deadset Tour Kiwami, a story about dealing with jealousy and resentment over one girl by travelling with seven other girls. The storyline was basically written on short notice so I'm glad I actually managed to finish it fairly quickly and that things have calmed down on that front...

--- Outside the studio, Kamen Rider Dawn just stood there watching, and then in a blink of an eye, she disappeared as if she had never been there. ---

Despite me taking inspiration from Kamen Rider Zeztz for the storyline, I didn't title each part of it, but I've gotten around to it recently and I'll list the titles here:

Sing 謳(うた)う - Catastrom

Disguise 紛(まぎ)らす - Shadow Proclamation

Expel 放出(ほうりだ)す - Tokyo

Accompany 付添(つきそ)う - Seoul

Enjoy 楽(たの)しむ - Taipei

Mourn 愁(うれ)える - Hong Kong

Cogitate 案(あん)ずる - Shenzhen

Surpass 凌(しの)ぐ - Orderm

I originally wanted to feature Zeztz Exdream right at the end of the last part but I decided not to because Orderm, despite being a secondary super form, was only featured in two episodes at the time of writing, plus I didn't know what to do with Exdream and I didn't want to throw it in for no reason and overshadow Orderm. However, thanks to recent events (namely Akari Ichigo's real-life inspiration getting married that also led me to expand parts of my Kisekae Insights instalments on Decade Legend Fighters, btw I hope you fucking die lmao), I've written an alternate version of the last part that features Exdream and it'll be released in due time.

New project ideas (including the Combo Rangers Retrospective) have pushed down some other project ideas like more Yeonchi's Tech Things posts, top 15 lists for some of my favourite childhood cartoons or a retrospective on the Kamen Rider Battride War games, but I'll keep hoping that I'll get to them eventually. I'm taking things easy after all.

Koei Warriors

In the first half of 2026 I covered the Dynasty Warriors Origins: Visions of Four Heroes DLC and the Origins crossover DLC for Warriors Abyss; while the former was epic, the latter revealed Koei Tecmo's EA moment as they made a ban mechanic in the free update with a limited number of points available, then made it so you could only earn more points by using the companion mechanic that was exclusive to the DLC.

Dynasty Warriors 3 Remaster (read: Remake) would have been covered by now... if it hadn't been delayed until October, as we learnt at the start of this month. For me the delay is a good thing because I was away when the game was originally going to come out and I wouldn't have been able to do anything on it for a few weeks. The main reason for the delay is to improve the quality of the game, as apparently fans spotted performance issues in the Taipei Game Show demo.

Some new features added in this "remaster" include new unlockable scenarios (that weren't available in the original game), weapon fusion and the addition of Ziluan from Origins as a playable character. LMAO. Remaster. My. Ass.

Until the release date trailer came out, nothing has been said about the English dub of this game even though we know that the Japanese voices are being ported from the original game and that the Chinese dub is being redone because of localisation quality and XL not being dubbed (the game was also dubbed into Korean and German but neither dub is being added to the remaster even though it's getting a Korean localisation). When the trailer did come out, I could tell that they kept the original dub while also recording new lines (particularly with Ziluan's inclusion), but we'll have to compare the two dubs when the remaster is released. I did say a little piece in the Origins DLC review hoping that the original English dub could be reused, and I'm glad that it is (at least for now). However, after seeing a couple of discussions on the subject in the leadup to the release date announcement, I realised that I never talked about the consequences of both approaches.

See, DW3R is mainly appealing to fans who played DW3/XL back in the day, but it also needs to appeal to people who haven't in order to attract new fans. The cheesy and unintentionally funny original dub was a memorable part of the English DW3 experience for those fans, but it (and by extension, later dubs) was hated by a great deal of the fanbase, whether because of the "bad acting" or because they're dub haters who think media should be enjoyed in their original languages. Just having the original dub might also create more dub haters out of new fans who would expect better acting or just change to the Japanese or Chinese dubs, but redubbing the game altogether (and not having the original dub as an option) would potentially alienate the OG fans to whom it was memorable to - and once again, continue to prove that this game isn't a remaster, but a remake. Plus, let's not forget that the prospect of further remasters depends on how DW3R performs in sales and reception. Also, the English trailer made it a point to highlight the “Cow Cow” pronunciation. If that doesn’t show how Koei Tecmo is trying to appeal to the old-school crowd, I don’t know what will.

Now that we know that the old dub is coming back, I wonder how Koei Tecmo got permission to use the original dub or how they're going to pay royalties to the old voice actors. Because it was a non-union production, no voice actor was credited and the original studio (KTSF Studio 26) hasn't dubbed video games for decades, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that the voice actors are hard to track down or that Koei Tecmo just didn't care about finding them, because who cares, it was the style at the time. Hell, they had to get some of the crew in on it back then because the studio ran out of budget. What I'm hoping to see is how the dub cast and production will be credited in the game when it comes out - will they acknowledge Studio 26 and all the old voice actors, and who did they get to fill in the gaps?

Sea Princesses

Liamasterink spreading misinformation about Sea Princesses again? Man, it's been a while since I last called him out on it.

At the end of last month, Liam made this YouTube Community post calling Banijay, the company who currently holds the rights to the series, "the worst enemy of the Sea Princesses fandom", claiming that they are to blame for the first 10 episodes being taken down by copyright because Fabio Yabu was involved with them. Okay, by "10 episodes" I think he means the first 10 episodes of Season 1's Castilian Spanish dub (really 1-11 except 9), which were uploaded in 2015 and were copyright striked by Endemol Shine in 2017 during the wave of strikes that endangered the preservation of the series - Banijay had nothing to do with them because they didn't buy out Endemol Shine until 2019.

Now, I'm not saying that Banijay isn't to blame for their treatment of Sea Princesses - I was just saying that they weren't responsible for what I said above - because Banijay has treated the series rather poorly since they bought the rights to it along with other Endemol Shine series and IPs. TV networks not picking up the series anymore I can understand, because it wasn't made in HD plus it's rather old - the books that they were adapted from are more than 20 years old at this point. The series is up on Amazon Prime, okay, at least there's that. But on YouTube, though?

Before Banijay bought Endemol Shine from Disney/Fox, they were uploading the series on the Mr Bean and Friends channel and streaming episodes on livestream. They only got up to The Mural (S2E16) when they stopped in October 2018, which was during the time when Fox was negotiating with companies to sell Endemol Shine to. In December 2025, the channel was mostly wiped of all its old videos and repurposed as a full-time Mr Bean channel... even though they already had several channels dedicated to Mr Bean. Presumably, Banijay opened (or rather, repurposed) the Toon Time channel in 2025 and began uploading the first season of Sea Princesses to it, this time fully intact with opening titles and ending credits. However, they got the episode titles wrong even though the episodes were uploaded in the right order, there was a point where they combined the titles for two episodes even though the upload was only for one, and they even missed uploading 5 episodes; on a recent check, it appears that 7 episodes have been deleted from the channel since they were uploaded, leaving a total of 12 episodes missing according to the playlist, and I know that because I was downloading them as they were uploaded. Ultimately, I'm not mad about this because I've already preserved the series from the Amazon Prime raws, but honestly Banijay, you had a chance to upload the series onto YouTube properly, you fucked it up and you won't fix it or upload the second season.

Hey, Banijay, have you or Endemol Shine managed to buy the rights for Brazil, Latin America, Spain and Portugal back from Flamma and Neptuno? Flamma doesn't seem to be doing anything with their rights at the moment and Neptuno filed for liquidation in 2017 and disbanded soon after. You could put the second season of the Latin American Spanish dub up on Amazon Prime, which has still been missing since (the English dub of) the series was uploaded in 2018, or the full Castilian Spanish dub, which (as stated) has 10 episodes missing on YouTube and has never been available without the Disney Channel logo or the promo in the corners of the screen.

I already said my piece at the end of last year about the state of the renaissance fandom (Liamverse) in current year and I don't think I need to restate it any further. Anyway, on my recent travels I discovered a new series that puts Sea Princesses to shame. My review of Rainbow Bubblegem Season 1 will be released throughout July. Also, the French dub of Sea Princesses Season 1 is available here.

Doctor Who

*sigh* So it's been a year since Doctor Who died a horrible, horrible death. We know that Ncuti Gatwa decided to leave the series due to the uncertainty over the return of Doctor Who and wanting to be free to pursue other projects. We know that The Reality War's ending was redone as a result and that Billie Piper was called in to film the regeneration scene at the last minute while not explicitly being credited as "the Doctor" when it SHOULD have faded to black and left open-ended. Initially, RTD was called back to write the 2026 Christmas Special (and fix the mess that he left behind), Murray Gold even claiming that RTD wrote multiple versions of the script, but most recently, it was announced that the Christmas Special would be cancelled and the BBC would put the series to a competitive tender (to see which company would bid for the rights to produce future series of Doctor Who, but until official plans come out the series is cancelled). That is the greatest news I've heard since my high school crush got married!

And yeah, RTD and Bad Wolf have confirmed that they have officially left Doctor Who. RTD also said that he only made up the news about a Christmas Special "to guarantee a future when no one knew what would happen" and that "there was no script, I never wrote it, and no actor was ever approached to play the next Doctor". Yeah sure, that's why you were hyping it up and bragging to Murray Gold about how you had multiple scripts for it and that your plans left BBC executives "with jaws agape". Cultbox has collated evidence that RTD and the BBC led the fanbase on for months after announcing the Christmas Special, but regardless, it doesn't change the fact that you overestimated your own hubris and killed Doctor Who with your actions towards the series and its fanbase, so frankly, cope harder, RTD. This show should have "gone on tender" as far back as June 2025, because let's face it, Disney was already out when Series 14 didn't bring in the viewers they were expecting.

Apparently, recent rumours (from before the news came out) stated that the show is struggling to find the next Doctor, David Tennant and Billie Piper are unable to return for the Christmas Special (watch this from the 1-hour mark) and that the Christmas Special would instead be delayed to Easter 2027 with Billie Piper once her schedule is free or because Bad Wolf don't want to suffer a tight production schedule with Christmas. But I guess we don't need to worry about that anymore now that the Christmas Special has been cancelled. Frankly, this should have been the first sign that the BBC never had plans for the Christmas Special in the first place because they would never hold the production back for Billie Piper.

Back at the start of May there was apparently a press release stating that AMC had partnered with Sony (note: not Bad Wolf) and the BBC for a three-series global reboot of Doctor Who to premiere in 2028. That turned out to be fake, but a couple weeks after, it was revealed that AMC+ would be hosting the Doctor Who modern series episodes for streaming in the US after they had left HBO Max at the end of July 2025.

As a reminder, here are the three story elements and plot points (introduced post-Moffat) that killed Doctor Who (putting all the politics and wokeness aside):

1. Chibnall killed the Doctor's past with the Timeless Child.

The Timeless Child elevates the Doctor to being "special upon special" when he was already special to his people and the people he meets. It complicates the Doctor's past with previously-unknown incarnations, including Ruth the Fugitive Doctor and the faces of what should be Morbius, shoehorned before the First Doctor's incarnation. Also, Chibnall doubled-down on the Timeless Child in Flux by confirming the Master's words to be true, then pussied out of the double-down by having the Doctor dump the fob watch with the Timeless Child's life deep in the TARDIS.

2. RTD killed the Doctor's present with the bi-generation.

Regeneration, originally created as a means of replacing the Doctor's actor with another (typically to avoid being typecast), is depicted within a series as a process marking the death of one incarnation and the birth of another. Bi-generation takes away the gravitas (fuck mavity, all my homies hate mavity) of regeneration and makes it meaningless because it makes past incarnations look like they can sit back and leave everything to the new incarnation. Given how 14/15's bi-generation is shown as a rehab for the former, I could let this slide if RTD left it as the mythically rare occurrence that the latter apparently said it was, but no, RTD just had to make bi-generation a thing. It's implied, but not shown, that Fourteen would apparently merge back with himself ala the Watcher and complete his regeneration into Fifteen, but it never happened and Fifteen just regenerated normally like the bi-generation didn't matter (Ncuti Gatwa abruptly leaving certainly didn't help either). Behind the scenes, RTD ran his mouth about how all the past incarnations bi-generated as well and created a "Doctorverse", then later on, the Rani also bi-generated, but the new incarnation got vored at the end of the story.

3. RTD killed the Doctor's future with Billie Piper.

Pretend you're RTD for a moment. So Disney's dragging their heels on whether they should continue their partnership with Bad Wolf and the BBC for more Doctor Who (even though you had plans for two more series), and Ncuti Gatwa (who you chose to become the next Doctor because he stole the spotlight from the candidate you already chose) decided to leave the show out of consideration for his budding career and the uncertain future of Doctor Who. So instead of leaving the episode as-is and letting Carole Ann Ford's return as Susan Foreman play its course, you decide to change the ending to The Reality War just so Ncuti Gatwa can get a regeneration scene, and why not, let's get Jodie Whittaker back as Thirteen too, screw Ruby and Belinda.

Now, there's no way you're going to find a new Doctor without a new series of Doctor Who to make, but instead of blaming Disney for dragging their heels or yourself for losing your face with the fans, you decide to blame them, whether it's the NMDs you blocked on social media or your sycophants who are trying so hard to maintain whatever optimism they have left to defend you or the series. At the last minute, instead of fading the episode to black like how the Chibnall era was going to end before you oh-so-heroically decided to come back and save the series, you decide to call in Billie Piper and have her film her part of the regeneration scene on a greenscreen in her house just so you can walk out the door, two middle fingers in the air and burning any bridges and goodwill the fanbase had towards you.

Then soon after, when you and the BBC can finally announce that Disney has decided to end their partnership with you, you announce a Christmas Special for the year after that, according to you, was never going to happen because you never made any plans for it because any plans you had were ruined because you never knew how to do right by the fanbase who were hoping that you would be the one to resurrect the series again after you did it 20 years ago. Then, after some more heel dragging from the BBC over what to do next, they just decide to say "fuck it" and go looking for a new production partner because they can't afford to make the series on their own anymore while they work on their CBeebies spinoff that no one will watch. Congratulations! Doctor Who is deader than it has ever been since Moffat left the show in 2017, and it's all thanks to Chris Chibnall and Russell T Davies. I sure hope you're proud of yourselves.

I don't feel like making a separate post for this. If you want to know more about how Doctor Who died, go read the posts in my #RIPDoctorWho tag.

You know, back in high school, people would tease me by saying that "Doctor Who is dead" because of my love for Doctor Who and my personal project. After 2020, I'd probably be agreeing with them. After this news, I'd be saying to them, "Yeah, I know, and thank God for that."

Robert Shearman, who wrote Dalek back in RTD1 20 years ago, said in October last year that Doctor Who "is as dead as we've ever known it" because there is no "current" Doctor for the extended universe to write for, and I unironically agree. At least with the cancellation of the classic era there was the Seventh Doctor, and then after the TV movie failed to commission a new series in the US, the Eighth Doctor became the "current" Doctor of the extended universe. But Billie Piper? What the hell are we supposed to do with her Doctor if she actually is one? Face it, people, this is Wilderness Years 2 - but maybe it won't last for as long as the first one did. Be grateful it didn't start at the end of the Chibnall era because RTD volunteered to come back for the 60th Anniversary... for better or worse.

So even as the RTD2 era ended with its showrunner ousted (we already knew that before the Christmas Special was initially "announced" but this recent news makes it official), RTD continues to show himself as out-of-touch with the fanbase. In late-March, he spoke at a masterclass held at the Series Mania festival in Lille, France. It's an hour long so I'll only highlight two things that fans are talking about in it; at 58:00, he talks about how the "online voice" that exists on "hate sites" like Twitter/X can be dangerously assumed to be the "fan voice"; then at 1:06:00, a member of the audience asks RTD about what gives him hope amidst the darkness of the world, to which he answered, "Well, the next generation always gives you hope, I used to give that answer now they've been radicalised into bastards."

Regarding the first point, HEY ASSHOLE, THE ONLINE VOICE IS THE FAN VOICE!! People like Bowlestrek, Nerdrotic and Noelzone were passionate about Doctor Who amidst the enshittification of the series post-Moffat; the Timeless Child revelation was the point of no return for these so-called NMD's, with some continuing to hatewatch to make fun of the continuing enshittification or in the hope that things would become better. And then The Reality War happened and somehow even the opinions of shills like MrTARDIS or Tharries aligned with those of NMDs as the latter group was proven right all along and both groups agreed that that finale sucked. The former group stood with RTD when he bit the hands that fed him, and now they're shocked that their hands got bit by him too. Put another score in the "RTD can't take criticism" jar along with him blocking jacknibbletmaine and snarking back against fans who criticised his justification for not showing Davros in his life-support chair.

On the second point, I know lefties might think RTD's referring to "the children that grow up to become dudebro techbro chuds," but unfortunately, he never made that distinction and because of that, he could as well be talking about the "radicalised bastards" supporting Palestine, Mamdani, Luigi or whatever the current thing is at any given point in time. Do you people finally understand now? RTD doesn't care about you, your causes or being an ally to you or your causes. He hijacked Juno Dawson's episode to write the Doctor torturing a "terrorist" to avenge what a corporation had done to his home and his people. Substitute the Hellions in the episode for Palestinians, Ukrainians, Hongkongers or the Taiwanese (soon enough) and realise that this is what RTD thinks of you.

Although The War Between the Land and the Sea premiered on BBC iPlayer in December last year with a promise of it being uploaded to the rest of the world on Disney+ this year, it's coming up to July and it still isn't on there as far as I know. Bad Wolf should sue Disney for breach of contract. Also, tell me again that the BBC and Bad Wolf's deal with Disney+ was only for worldwide streaming, I dare you.

(Polvina once told me about this one time when she and Daniel were making out near the shore and they saw this crazy lady on the beach pointing a gun at someone over a bottle)

I've already decided to stop following Doctor Who after The Reality War and I was initially torn over whether I should watch or review the Christmas Special, but now that it's cancelled I don't have to worry about it anymore. The RTD2 era, especially Series 15, has made me hate Doctor Who, a series that meant so much to me because of my personal project and that I only continued following casually in the hope of seeing whether wokeness would lead to the series' ruin - from what I saw of Chibnall and RTD2, my concerns were confirmed. So yeah, congratulations once again, RTD, for making me hate a series that meant so much to me. I no longer care about Susan Foreman's involvement in the story (Carole Ann Ford deserved better than this, especially considering how old she is) or the mystery of "the Boss" that Anita mentioned. I don't recognise Billie Piper as an incarnation of the Doctor either because a) she wasn't credited as the Doctor, b) this was a desperate stunt from RTD to keep Bad Wolf and himself working on Doctor Who and entice Disney to fund them for more series, and c) because fuck you. There's a lot of things I wish I could tell you to do, but I'm too over it to even say it. I've moved onto other ventures, but Doctor Who will always be a fond memory in the back of my head and the background of my personal project. Cope all you want with RTD about how "DoCToR whO iSn't CaNceLLed!", but in my eyes, Doctor Who has already been cancelled, ever since the Twelfth Doctor regenerated in Twice Upon a Time. And it's all thanks to you sycophants cheering him on.

Also RTD, if one day I somehow regenerate into a carbon-copy doppelganger of my high school crush, the first person I blame will be you.

#RIPDoctorWho

On Japanese xenophobia and their attitudes on piracy

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the Japanese gatekeeping pirates and foreigners from their pop culture in response to them showing their true colours on piracy. I've seen those people calling foreign pirates "thieves who don't deserve to appreciate our pop culture when they can't pay for it," then saying in the same breath, "It doesn't matter to us if you pirate, just don't shove it in our faces."

"Oh, it's okay if you're LGBT, just don't shove it in our faces."

"It's okay if you care about marginalised people in your country, just don't shove it in our faces."

"It's okay if you have a problem about our xenophobia towards foreigners, just don't shove it in our faces." You see the pattern here?

Like I said in that post:

Hey assholes. You don’t live in the Sakoku period anymore.

You live in a global society. Deal with it.

You people should be grateful that, unlike actual Israel, your media and culture are interesting enough to make foreigners ignorant of the xenophobic genocide deniers that you are.

Japanese companies have been known for only listening to their domestic fans and staying ignorant of their fanbases outside of their countries. Some companies have become open to international reception, whether it's things like enabling global distribution or making media that was previously limited to Japan open to global audiences. "But Japanese companies don't give a shit about youse gaijin scum-" WELL IF THEY WON'T LISTEN TO US THEN WE'LL MAKE THEM LISTEN, AND WE'LL FORCE OUR VIEWS DOWN YOUR THROATS AND MAKE YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND TOO, YOU RATCHET CUNTS.

Japanese attitudes towards foreigners have been somewhat obscure to the rest of the world because they're not known to talk openly about it, but in recent years, people outside of Japan are hearing about their attitudes towards foreigners and some of them are actually agreeing with their xenophobia, saying that "Japan has the right to defend its culture" or that "foreigners are ruining Japan's culture and testing the patience of Japanese people". Let me tell you something. Japanese xenophobia is just bigotry with extra steps.

I'm not saying that I don't sympathise with Japanese attitudes towards foreign tourists (because God knows I've read about the antics of certain mainland Chinese tourists in Hong Kong). I'm just not a fan of their attitudes because a lot of it comes from them blaming entire groups and cultures when it's really just a few bad apples. I'm not saying that Japan should embrace Western wokeness (because God knows what damage wokeness has done to the West in current year), but it wouldn't kill them to be less xenophobic, and people should start calling this xenophobia for what it really is- BIGOTRY.

Hey, unpopular opinion, but it is possible to be "woke" (caring about the disabled, the LGBT, minority groups etc) while also defending your culture, no matter how many times you insist "give an inch and they'll take a mile". You just have to find the right balance and make SJWs be happy with what they get.

This meme's been making the rounds on Twitter, apparently because SJWs like pointing out how "the country you like is bad ackshually" or something. I really think this should apply in this situation - we should keep calling out the Japanese for past atrocities when they act ungrateful for us Westerners appreciating their culture and entertainment.

Current affairs roundup

In February 2026, Jimmy Lai, the founder of Next Media and Apple Daily who has been imprisoned since 2020, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for offences under Hong Kong's National Security Law.

*sigh* I hate talking about current affairs in recent years. I used to shitpost about Hong Kong news by sharing articles from Apple Daily's Facebook page, but due to circumstances I decided to stop at the end of 2017 before Apple Daily's Facebook page was deleted on 24 June 2021. From 2018 onwards I rebranded myself from the toxic keyboard warrior I was back in the Koei Warriors Rant Series days to become the niche internet reviewer I am today. I only comment about current affairs occasionally, whether in the odd post or the Year in Review posts, because I don't want my blog to become cluttered with them. The problem is that when you hold back from talking about things for a while, chances are you'll forget about them or your feelings about them will get diluted so that by the time you actually start writing about them, you won't be angry as you were when you initially wanted to write about it, but the toxicity is still there because all the bullshit I see on the news and social media continues to make me so fucking angry at the state of the world.

Over the past decade (since I graduated high school, coincidentally) the world has gotten worse by the year, and time and again I let that toxic side of me come out to say my piece about things. The National Security Law has been inconsistently enforced since it was enacted in 2020 and it seems that people will get arrested willy-nilly for the most innocuous things as police participate in Streisanding certain dates and occasions in the name of "public safety", and every time they arrest people under that law it feels like a flex for them. For the past two Year in Review posts I've held back from talking about Hong Kong because the year after we'd be going there on holiday and the last thing my family and I want is to be arrested over merely talking about current affairs on social media. If you think I'm being paranoid over this then you do not understand why the law affects innocent people just as much as it affects "foreign forces".

After hearing the news of Lai's sentencing I wrote a draft post making my feelings palpable about the n-words and n-word lovers who cheered it on, and I wrote another post after coming back from my holiday several weeks later. Parts of those draft posts would be worked into the storyline saga segments of the Sengoku Basara Retrospective and this post and the more hard-hitting parts of it will remain offline (for obvious reasons). Anyway, here's a small cherrypicking of things that have happened in Hong Kong in the months before I wrote those draft posts:

On 26 November 2025, a fire at Tai Po's Wang Fuk Court killed 168 and injured 79 after burning for 43 hours. A university student was arrested and later expelled for, and get this, national security violations related to a public petition listing demands and calling for accountability over the fire. This month, two companies and seven people were charged with manslaughter, fraud, perverting the course of justice and tax evasion. And no government department admitted accountability to anything.

In the midst of spies working for China being uncovered in the UK and the mega-Chinese embassy being planned in London, an HKETO (Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office) surveillance operation of a former investment director, involving former members of the Hong Kong police and a British/Chinese dual citizen working for UK Border Force and the London police, was revealed to have possessed espionage information of British Hongkongers taken during protests against Hong Kong and Beijing's governments. Two men linked to this were found guilty (the third was found dead after appearing in court) and sentenced to 10 and 8 years in prison, which is frankly not enough compared to what Jimmy Lai got.

A father of a pro-democracy activist has been sentenced to eight months in prison under the national security law for withdrawing an insurance policy he brought for his daughter when she was young.

A 21-year-old Hongkonger living in Australia was arrested for possessing weapons upon her return to Hong Kong. This was in relation to her being arrested during the 2019 protests when she was around 14.

An amendment to the national security law gives police the power to force people to hand over their phone or computer passwords, with anyone failing to comply liable to face a year in prison. It may be true that the police can't do this without a warrant, but with the scope of the law, who's to say that some random person won't be compelled because they've somehow been red-flagged over something minor that happened years ago that they've forgotten about?

In the first half of the year, Maduro was arrested in Venezuela and Ayatollah Khamenei was killed in Iran, much to the celebration of their countrymen and diaspora abroad despite them being caused by US intervention (and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of them). This has led me to conclude that nobody cares about "foreign interference" because such accusations get thrown around so much to the point that they mean nothing anymore. Who cares if the Hong Kong protests or Tiananmen 1989 were CIA-funded colour revolutions? Who cares if the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong has been framed as a "pro-independence movement"? If China has made it clear that they won't capitulate to our demands and that we should accept everything they offer us without question, why should we have any qualms about leaning on other countries to help us get what we were promised or punish the country that was supposed to look out for us? And maybe there are some stress-inducing aspects of life that need to be changed through revolution, like spoon-fed "teach to the test" education (填鴨式教育) or overtime office work culture, who knows.

Hongkongers were promised the chance to vote for a leader with as little influence from Beijing as possible, not to mention that they want their motherland brethren to be better or be held accountable for their antics. But sadly, we lost the war and any further attempts at placating Hongkongers will now fall shallow. Over the years, the West has been so distracted in their culture wars, social justice and literally anything and any country other than China to even care. China could invade Taiwan any day now and if the West bothers to step in to help Taiwan, it'll only be a shallow move made out of obligation to something that they could have prevented. Trump's sanctions towards China in 2019 were cheered on by Hongkongers because he was the first US president who actually did something for them. However, everything bad that's happened around the world in the past few years is karma to the world for not continuing to support Hongkongers (and Taiwanese) and pushing back harder on China in the years when they really needed it the most. ICE raids (and the rise of the far-right) are karma for the left. The Epstein files are karma for the right. The entire world is burning and I couldn't be happier to see it burn from afar. Fuck you all. You all deserve what's coming to you.

And by the way, given that Ebola's back in the news, I just want to say fuck the UN and the WHO. We will never forget how you treated Taiwan during the pandemic, or rather the past 80 years. Taiwan may not be "independent", but given how they've been treated, frankly they deserve to be.

Over to Australia now, and to start off I'm just going to come out and say VOTE ONE NATION. To explain why, let's look into what happened after last year's federal election.

After the Coalition lost the federal election, Peter Dutton resigned from politics and Sussan Ley became the Opposition Leader, signalling the advent of wokeism in the Liberal Party. National Party leader David Littleproud announced that they would split from the Coalition, only to reform it again a week after. With Labor winning a second term in government, the under-16s social media ban (which was passed by both Labor and the Coalition in late-2024) was implemented later that year, covering the major sites except Discord, Tumblr or Github - even Roblox despite it being for kids. Then, the Bondi terrorist attack happened and the glass-hearted Jewish community wanted the government to strengthen gun laws (as if they weren't strong already) and pass hate speech laws to prevent anti-Semitism. Both houses of Parliament were recalled and the amendments to the laws were passed by both Labor and the Coalition. After that, the Nationals split from the coalition again only to reform again after two weeks. Then Angus Taylor defeated Sussan Ley in a leadership spill and he's the Opposition Leader now. Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus. And then finally, a couple of teal whores have decided to form a new political party... but the rest of them have declined to join.

While I was overseas, I learnt that our eKaren Julie Inman Grant and her office had implemented a "porn ban", or rather enforced a requirement that sites hosting adult content would be required to ensure that their users are over 18. No, it turns out the old "lie about your age" trick isn't enough anymore and you have to either have your face scanned by AI or upload your ID to an account in order to access adult content. When the social media ban came into place last December the only site that asked to verify my age was Discord and that was to access NSFW channels in the servers I was in. If you think I'm going to scan my face or upload my ID to access Pornhub or Paheal then you're fucking wrong.

(UPDATE: A few weeks after the release of this post, do you want to know about the enshittification of my porn experience? My booru apps no longer work as normal, more and more adult sites, obscure or popular are implementing age verification, and Old Reddit, which I've used to browse NSFW subreddits ever since "New" Reddit walled them to non-logged in users, now requires you to log in to even browse anything; even Reddit on my phone browser is forcing me to get the app when I scroll down.)

Why am I complaining about porn sites being banned and inadvertently outing myself as a gooner? Because it shouldn't be the governments job to police how children use the internet. We wouldn't be in this position if parents took some fucking responsibility. Remember how back in the day when tech companies were advertising all sorts of "net nanny" web filter/screen time monitoring software? Given that those services were typically run on paid subscription models, is there any free and open source (FOSS) web filter software that essentially does what those paid solutions do, maybe with something like EasyList which is used by adblockers like uBlock Origin?

Yes, I know that I can use a VPN to get around this, just as under-16s have managed to get around the social media ban. But the point is, if people are just going to find ways to go around the bans, that just shows how useless they are and that parents should educate their children about the dangers of the internet and be open with them about the use of web filters or similar software. You know, fun fact, I used VPN Gate to watch YouTube videos I couldn't access in Australia by tunnelling in through a VPN in Japan. I haven't needed to use it so much as the years went by, but when I moved to Linux (I'll make a post on it eventually, I promise), I struggled to work out how to get it working even though they had OpenVPN config files that I could just download and add to my network settings. It was only recently that I realised that I had to change the firewall setting to the zone where I had all my other apps at. Sometimes the answer was in front of you all along.

So what else is happening in my neck of the woods that is Victoria? The Metro Tunnel (Yamatoji Trunk Line) is now open with inconvenient connections and the rest of the rammed-through Big Build is progressing, with Dictator Dan's new tollway (North East Link) nearing completion and Dictator Dan's new rail loop (Suburban Rail Loop) is breaking ground. Crime is still high despite the gaslighting from lefties that "uh, crime figures are falling ackshually". In shopping centres, people are brawling with machetes, driving their cars indoors and carrying knives while acting shadily. I always drive with the doors locked, but despite all my precautions, my car was broken into when I decided to park at a different train station one morning. Towards Christmas last year, 200 people stormed into a supermarket before having a brawl on the nearby beach. With all the people in bathers and bikinis on video, I honestly thought there was an orgy happening in there, though contrary to my gooner logic, there sure was one - of violence and shoplifting, that is. African and youth gangs haven't been as much of a popular topic like what they were in 2014-18, probably because Liberals and the media are trying to be careful with their words this time around.

In March 2025, Socialist Barbie Jacinta Allan announced that machetes would be banned from September of that year, but there would be an amnesty until the end of November where people could anonymously dump machetes into bins outside police stations. Because people are just going to up and do that in September for some reason. They could have started the ban in June or earlier and not leave the state with a 6-month free-for-all, but that wouldn't make the ban any more reactionary, like the strengthening of gun laws and hate speech laws. But they finally managed to strengthen the bail laws for people who commit crimes while on bail... ten years after it should have been done.

Absolute harlot Jess Wilson became the leader of the Victorian Liberal Party after defeating Brad Battin in a leadership spill in November last year. A few months later in March, Moira Deeming, after having won a defamation suit against John Pesutto, lost the preselection for her seat in the state upper house. However, it was revealed that the candidate that ended up getting selected had given a character reference to a nonce, so the preselection was redone and Deeming was reselected because all the other candidates withdrew. And then most recently, Deeming accused former Liberal leader Matthew Guy of assault, saying that he put her in a headlock at a community event, when video only showed him putting his hand on her back. And then she refused to apologise to him, saying that she misunderstood the "technical meaning" of the word "headlock". You fucking slut-

So yeah, that's why I've decided to vote One Nation at the Victorian state election this coming November, and at the next federal election in 2028. I don't care what anyone says. South Australia had their state election this past March and while Labor was re-elected, One Nation managed to elect MPs in four seats as they and Labor took votes from the Liberals. Frankly, this was deserved for the Liberals given how they've been so incompetent at being right-wing, let alone an opposition thanks to them going woke, but the main problem remains the brainwashed masses who are still voting or preferencing Labor. I can't comment on the situation in South Australia, but Victorians, how many more people need to be attacked, carjacked or even killed just so you can have "better" infrastructure or stick it to the cookers who were right about things all this time? Please think about the people who just want to live peacefully without fear of becoming victims of crime instead of voting for more and more free stuff. Even free things do cost money, you know, and that money is funded by your taxes.

Fun fact, Victoria is the last state in Australia to still have group voting tickets, which determine how votes are distributed to other candidates and were abolished in other states and in federal parliament. Apparently people are mad that Avi Yemeni and Monica Smit are gaming the system with parties like "Free Palestine" or "Save the Environment" to funnel votes to One Nation. Hey, last state election you had a "Sack Dan Andrews" party that ended up funnelling votes away from freedom parties and to Labor. Turnabout is fair play. Avi and Monica are exposing how bullshit the group voting system is and showing everyone why it needs to be abolished. Glenn Druery's days of being the "preference whisperer" are numbered. BTW, vote below the line for the upper house ballot. You don't need to number all the boxes, but you should number at least 5 (as the instructions say). That way you won't have to deal with the group voting system and you can vote however you like.

For the state election, I'll be preferencing Liberal second because as much as they have been a failure of a right-wing/opposition party for the past decade, they are our best hope at getting Labor out. With apologies to freedom parties like UAP, Libertarians or Family First, but it's time to stop splitting the vote and come together behind One Nation, particularly in preferences. The next few years need to be about bringing justice for people who were disadvantaged by vaccine mandates, rampaging young bailed criminals, intrusive infrastructure development, union bullshit, and most importantly, cancel culture.

Whether you agree with cookers or not these past few years, it's time to wake up and realise that the cookers were right all along. And if you still continue to vote Labor despite everything that's happened all these years, then I hope you get attacked by bailed criminals with machetes because there is no redemption for you. WAKE THE FUCK UP.

I want to see the social media ban and porn ban repealed and the eSafety Commissioner's department defunded. Don't make me advocate to (re-)legalise machetes, guns, murder, prison colonies or familial executions.

And once again, Erin Patterson and Dezi Freeman are still innocent lmao

So yeah, if you've read up to here, you can see why I've come to hate talking about current affairs. There's probably a bunch of things I would have wanted to cover in this post, but I either forgot or decided not to. That's a side effect of me bottling my feelings up for an extended period of time then rushing to get posts written and done with so I can move onto other things. I hate the current state of the world right now and I have the right to be bitter about it. If any of you have a problem with anything I've said then I don't care unless this post gets flagged by AI censorship bots powered by cancel pigs.

Now that this post is finally over and done with, it's time to let the bitterness go as I move on to talk about things I find fun. Yes, I expect you to let my "edgy incel bigot" ramblings go while I spout opinions about things I like. Are my ramblings satire? Unfortunately for you, you'll never be able to tell. And if you ask me why I'm like this, I'll tell you, "Because you didn't support Hongkongers when they needed it the most."

I really don't want to laam chau (攬炒) the world, but if this world isn't going to get any better, I'd rather let it burn, baby, burn. Anyway, stay safe and see you elsewhere.

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #70: The End of the Series

It’s time for the final instalment of Kisekae Insights. I originally wanted to write a farewell letter, but then I realised that I already did it in #30 even though it was more toward the original intended audience of my personal project. I wanted to summarise the farewell letters I’ve made over the years, but then I realised that I wrote very few of them.

My personal project has seen numerous endings over the years, whether it’s a change in production or era, and so I thought I’d talk about what changed following those endings. For the final time, let’s get into it.

The Final Slice of Forgiveness (Series 4, 2012)

Series 3 and 4 of the RFC revived series featured the Kikuchi Clan as the main villains, particularly during the minidramas, Parallax of Love and Time and The Return of the Kikuchi. The name of the latter minidrama’s final episode (and later the final episode of the restructured Series 4) is poetic, as it symbolises Parker(Zhuge Liang)’s final battle with the Kikuchi before the series moves on from them. At the same time, it also symbolised me moving on from my feud with the Kikuchi and onto other things, like my feud with Girl Power which was still ongoing.

The Fifth Doctor’s actor, Philip Zhou, was credited under the name Zhou Zhong Ping up to the end of Series 4 of the RFC revived series; from Series 5 onwards he would be credited as Philip Zhou.

The Return of Antoni (Series 5, 2012)

After Series 4, production of RFC Doctor Who would begin moving from Tokyo to Cardiff. Up to the end of Series 5, the series was co-produced by the RFC and the NHK, after which the RFC would become the sole producers of the series (though the NHK would also co-produce the Fourth Doctor Adventures side series along with the premium Series 5 episodes).

Series 5’s finale also featured the return of Yuzuru (and by extension Kanade) along with Parker (Zhuge Liang), Jack Harkness, Fifi Forget-me-not and Antoni, wrapping up the series’ ties to the Parallax War before continuing to adapt the Moffat era BBC Doctor Who series, with the adaptation of BBC Series 7 being split across RFC Series 6 and 7.

Series 7 Specials (2012)

The Salacian Time War arc was an event that led to a 4-part special being made for it. So many characters were featured in the story that the production team decided to make a 500 Miles music video featuring all the cast and crew. It was the last large-scale production for the year and frankly, it deserved to be celebrated.

50th Anniversary Series - Block 9 (2013)

Block 9 was the final arc of the 50th Anniversary Series and the last story to be produced before production went into hiatus so that the cast could study for the DCE/VCE (high school finals). On one hand it felt like the end of an era while on the other hand it wasn’t, because the Next Gen Series was already in production by that point in time because I just had to do another year.

The production of that block was also special to me because we actually went to Manchester in the UK to film it. That was a lot of planning. I gotta give props to Kong Won Express in Salford (they're no longer in business sadly) for letting us have a couple meals at theirs.

Next Gen Series - 5115 Specials (2014)

After extending the series for a year, the time had truly come for production to wrap. The Series 9 finale was hyped up as an event while the 5115 Specials, which celebrated 51 years of BBC Doctor Who and 15 years of RFC Doctor Who, were promoted as the final episodes of the series alongside that year’s Christmas Special. We also had an end-of-series formal party and it was pretty epic for what it was. Shame my Year 12 formal didn’t live up to the same standard.

Gokaiger/Decade

After much tribulation, the Moushouden Series started in 2017. Gokaiger and Decade would air in January 2018 and was originally scheduled to end in May, but due to delays with uni, was pushed down by a month to June, with the series finales airing separately and the post-series movies airing once a month until September. I remember having to sacrifice an anniversary special for aTV’s revived Doctor Who just so I could finish Gokaiger and Decade. Me and my story planning, huh?

Believe in Me

Believe in Me was our 2018 Christmas Special alongside the BBC’s 2017 Christmas Special, Twice Upon a Time. The Doctor regenerated back into himself and towards the end of the special, we learn that he has now become one with the TARDIS, gaining immortality as long as his TARDIS is alive, and not only has the TARDIS chameleon circuit been repaired, but the Doctor can also change his form to whoever (or whatever) he wishes without having to regenerate. Unfortunately, despite the Doctor continuing to appear in my personal project, I’ve never made use of this plot point - but perhaps I have a theory that makes use of it come Zi-O.

Three Kingdoms

Before the coronavirus pandemic affected the entire world, Three Kingdoms ended with Hiroki leaving his army and becoming a ronin, going on to officially start a relationship with Akari to tie into his involvement in Doctor Who. As stated, there was also an alternate ending to the final episode to tie into Kamen Rider Zi-O. Since by that point we were coming to the end of the Moushouden Project, I commissioned a number of music videos to commemorate them. The one for Three Kingdoms was 若者のすべて.

Soulbound

After being stuck writing this series for years, I was finally relieved when I finished writing the final episode of Soulbound Series 4 because it meant that I was free. The series ended with the multiverse rebuilt and all the different universes living in harmony under the watchful eyes of the Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews and everyone else in the Shadow Proclamation. The music video for Soulbound was Message.

Zi-O

The Final Kamen Rider Chronicle was commissioned because I wanted to adapt Kamen Rider Zi-O and reduce the amount of episodes to write by cutting a series out from both Three Kingdoms and Soulbound. Soulbound Series 4 was the end of the main story and Zi-O is considered a side series featuring the Kamen Riders - for Sougo it’s an alternate timeline, but for Hiroki it’s a continuation of the story.

Something I never mentioned back in the Zi-O instalments - ever since I made the Doctor an immortal shapeshifter (linked to the TARDIS) in Believe in Me, I’ve never utilised this new ability in my stories, mostly it’s because I never had any intention of recasting the Doctor or doing anything with that ability. But recently, I came up with a theory, and hear me out - what if Mark Roberts was the Doctor all along? 9TO5 could have been the TARDIS and then the shop specialising in clock repairs (or anything, really) could make sense. Little something to think about…

The music video for The Final Kamen Rider Chronicle is P.A.R.T.Y.  ユニバース・フェスティバル, whereas for Hiroki Ichigo and my personal project in general, it’s ドラマティック, featuring Hiroki Ichigo watching some alternate version of himself in another universe grow old. It’s very heartwarming.

I don’t feel like I need to talk about Decade Legend Fighters because the last two instalments were already dedicated to it.

Top 15 songs featured in my personal project

I wanted to do a top 15 song list in one of the recent filler instalments but I ended up changing my mind. Honestly, I wouldn’t be doing them justice if I left this series without doing this list, so I’ve decided to do it here; better late than never.

While there will be a mix of theme songs and insert songs, the only catch is that I can’t feature songs that I’ve mentioned in previous instalments so as to give other songs fair representation.

Top 15 theme songs:

夜は眠れるかい? (Three Kingdoms Arc 3-5 OP)

不枉 (Three Kingdoms Arc 6-7 OP)

悲しいほど貴方が好き (Three Kingdoms Arc 12 ED)

渇いた叫び (Three Kingdoms Arc 13 OP)

乱舞Escalation (Three Kingdoms Arc 13 ED)

我本無罪 (Three Kingdoms 2019 Specials ED1)

揚帆 (Three Kingdoms 2019 Specials ED2)

ヤキモチ (Three Kingdoms Arc 15 ED)

至少還有你 (Soulbound Arc 3 ED)

恋 (Soulbound Arc 5 ED)

きらきら (Soulbound Arc 6 ED)

如歌 (Soulbound Arc 7 ED)

錯愛 (Soulbound Arc 11 ED)

サブリナ (Soulbound Arc 14 ED)

Lemon (Soulbound Arc 15 ED)

Top 15 insert songs:

英雄の詩 (Ultraman Ginga, various)

レッツゴー!!ライダーキック -2016 movie ver.- (Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker)

JUSTICE (Hiroki Ichigo, Three Kingdoms Series 3)

Supernova (Aikawa Army, Three Kingdoms Series 3)

宙船 (Parker Zhou, Three Kingdoms Series 4)

Rise Up Your Flag (Hiroki Ichigo, Three Kingdoms Series 4)

フュージョンライズ! (Soulbound Series 3)

愛は勝つ (Soulbound Series 3)

君だけを守りたい (Soulbound Series 3)

さよならエレジー (Soulbound Series 3)

DIVE INTO THE MIRROR (Soulbound Series 4)

少年志 (Soulbound Series 4)

まちがいさがし (Soulbound Series 4)

Rewrite the story (Soulbound Series 4)

ジオウ 時の王者 (Kamen Rider Zi-O)

Well everyone, we have finally reached the end of Kisekae Insights. It’s been a very wild ride all the way, just as my personal project was. At this point, there’s nothing much to say because I’ve written farewell speeches for my personal project before and I keep reviving it, plus it’s a significant part of my life that I’m proud of - I can’t just leave it all behind like that. Here’s a collection of farewell speeches I’ve written for the final episodes/movies for each of the Moushouden Project series:

“Being a hero is not just about obeying the rules or being the strongest. It's about doing what's right even when the rules say that it is wrong. Trust your heart and believe in yourself, because only then, you can sense the true meaning of justice.” - The Doctor, Gokaiger - Space Squad Part 3: The Penance of the Doctor

“The Kamen Riders will always be by your side. They’ll be with you no matter what. So live your life to the end, live the best life you can and live it to the fullest. The spirit of the Kamen Riders will always be there for you.” - Hiroki Ichigo, Decade - Age of Riders Forever: Decade and Wizard

“Some people think that this is where the story ends. I wouldn’t really say that, because if you believe in yourself, you can create your own story and if you truly believe, then the Doctor’s story can continue as well. Who knows, maybe your stories may come together someday, possibly even with mine. Believe in hope, believe in love, believe in yourself, believe in the Doctor, believe in me. Merry Christmas, everyone.” - The Doctor, Doctor Who 2018 Christmas Special: Believe in Me

“Metallic 5 may have been defeated, but our journey through the multiverse will continue forever. Maybe our paths will cross someday when we go through the dimensional bridge and visit your universe. So look out multiverse, we’ll be coming to meet you soon.” - Shinbu Serizawa, Soulbound Series 4 finale

Thank you for being the audience to my overlord’s grand tale, but sadly, all good things must come to an end. Maybe there will be another timeline worth chronicling in this book, but for now, live life your way, the way you believe in, and have memories worth chronicling for futures to come. Now I too, must live by my own words and live life the way I want to live. So once again, thank you all and farewell. - Kazuto Hongō, Kamen Rider Zi-O Episode 40: Parting in the Daybreak Hour ~ Apocalypse Over Quartzer 2019 ~

And finally, to quote my words from the promo poster for Believe in Me:

To all the people I’ve met, To all the people I’ve worked with, To all the people who believed and to those who didn’t, Thank you for being the inspiration to my story.

THE END

Thanks for your support!

[yeonchi]

The Last Princess Review

Original title: A Última Princesa

Release year: 2012

Translation available on Google Drive

Picture this: It’s the year 2012. Sea Princesses is rerunning every so often on TV, whether in Australia or Latin America, blissfully unaware that its days of repeats and syndication would soon be numbered. You’re a fan who’s either based in Brazil or is savvy enough to find the official website for the series. There’s no new episodes coming out and very few updates, but the most latest update is a new book from Fabio Yabu; a story about a princess - not a Sea Princess, mind you - but about a princess whose story has gone forgotten, not unlike the plot of his last Sea Princesses book. It’s a story about a princess who longs to go back to her homeland; though she is discouraged by her Prince Charming, she remains inspired thanks to a friend whose story is likewise forgotten.

Welcome, my friends, to the Fabio Yabu Extravaganza. This is the story of Princess Isabel, the last princess of Brazil.

As I stated in the introduction to the Combo Rangers Retrospective, I wanted to review a couple of other books that Fabio Yabu wrote (that I could easily find from Anna’s Archive). And yes, I’m only reviewing this because it’s tangentially related to Sea Princesses. Can you imagine me making a study guide on this book for schoolkids? Actually, it’s funny that I say that because in 2024, this book was selected to be part of the PNLD, a government initiative dedicated to distributing textbooks to schools for free. The publisher, Editora Record, has also made the book available for free reading on their website along with a study guide for teachers (so technically it isn’t pirating). The only catch is that downloading the book (and study guide) from there is an absolute PITA; the e-book allowed me to easily acquire the transcript for the translation, but I won’t be hosting the transcript because there’s no point in me doing that.

This book is a hybrid between a historical biography and a magical fantasy story, telling the story of Princess Isabel, her quest to abolish slavery in Brazil and her subsequent exile to France, where she would meet another fellow Brazilian, Alberto Santos-Dumont. When people talk about the first men to achieve flight, they usually talk about the Wright Brothers, who did so in 1903. There have been other claims to this title, but in Brazil, the credit goes to Alberto Santos-Dumont, whose first ascent dates back to 1898. Because he’s practically unheard of outside of Brazil, it can be argued that his story, like that of Princess Isabel, has gone forgotten as well.

Here’s a translation of a blog post Fabio Yabu posted in late-2011, announcing the upcoming release of The Last Princess:

“Curse” means “to speak ill of,” “to defame,” something that was once believed to be so powerful that being cursed was much worse than dying. After all, slander and gossip about us affect our children and descendants, and does not cease even in death. At the end of 2008, I was looking for inspiration to write my new book when I was struck by an epiphany, a thought that appeared out of nowhere in my mind – as if someone had whispered three little words in my ear. Those words were “the last princess.” I kept that whisper orbiting in my thoughts for several weeks, without knowing what it meant, until I consulted an oracle, Google, and discovered that the last princess we had in our country was Isabel. The one who freed the slaves. I remembered the streets, avenues, and schools that bear the Princess’ name, who even gave her name to a city in Paraíba. Of all the times I took a bus identified with the sign “Terminal Princ. Isabel”. And then I realized I didn’t know where that terminal was – or who the princess had been. I immediately became interested in her story. And reading about her life, her family, her great love, and especially her enemies, I was astonished to realise that she too had suffered a kind of curse. A year after signing the Golden Law (Lei Áurea), the Princess was exiled along with her family, forever losing the throne she had been prepared to assume since childhood. In exile, she saw her mother die of grief. Shortly after, she lost her father, who, despite receiving tributes from rulers around the world, had his funeral ignored in his country of origin. The Princess died much later, never having returned home. And perhaps the saddest part of her story was that she ended up forgotten by her own people. After all, what do we know about Princess Isabel? We know what she did, but we can’t imagine who she was. We have no idea of ​​her rich life story, full of curious and even funny facts, such as the exchange of grooms with her sister on the eve of her wedding. Or that her fight for the liberation of slaves preceded the signing of the Golden Law by decades. During the 30 years she lived in France, the Princess met another illustrious Brazilian: Alberto Santos Dumont, one of the most famous men of the time. The mere meeting of the two is already unbelievable in itself – because in general there is a perception that the Princess lived in medieval times, while Santos Dumont lived with our great-grandparents. But the fact is that they did know each other – and used to meet with other eccentric figures, almost like a “League of the Extraordinary,” such as the architect Gustave Eiffel, the watchmaker Louis Cartier, and – it is speculated – the writer Jules Verne. Their first meeting is also worthy of a scene from a book: the inventor literally fell from the sky while conducting tests of his balloon No. 5 in Paris. He was trapped in a tree near the Princess’ residence, and upon learning of this, the daughter of Pedro II ordered her servants to bring a sumptuous lunch to her countryman – with cheeses, fruits, and champagne – while the firefighters tried to find a way to rescue him. And it is these fantastic stories that inspired my new book, The Last Princess, which I consider a “historical fairy tale,” as it is not a history book (with a capital H). I took many liberties with the plot, and the characters don’t even bear the names of their real-life counterparts. It’s a tale about two dreamers, a princess who claims to be cursed and an aviator who doesn’t believe in curses, determined to take her back home. People who faced their fears for the things they believed in, paid the price, and never looked back. In The Last Princess, I don’t intend to retell the history of Brazil, but rather to draw people’s attention to this very important figure who did not deserve to be forgotten. And, who knows, maybe break her curse.

Before we start, however, the thing is that this book is 20 chapters long and the story alternates between two timelines; the past, covering the story of the Princess and her father; and the future, covering the story of the Princess, her Prince Charming, and Alberto. To make the recount a more streamlined one, I’ll cover both timelines one after the other.

The other thing is, as the blog post states, most characters in the story are unnamed, including Isabel, the inspiration for the Princess, with the only named character being Alberto - the illustrations in the book don’t have faces either, with the only exception being the Princess on the cover of the book. This was done so as to make the story more fantastical rather than historical, to leave the historical baggage out of the story and also in the hope that readers would discover the inspiration for the books’ characters at the end and begin looking into the history of the princess that their country named a city, a street, an avenue, a school, a bus terminal after. Yabu also enlisted another illustrator to provide the illustrations for the book so that readers wouldn’t associate his artstyle with Sea Princesses.

Without further ado, let’s begin the story.

The prelude introduces us to the Princess, living a rich life in her castle, which contains the Crystal Palace, a building of glass housing a vast plantation of her favourite flower, camelias. It’s then revealed that the castle isn’t her home, but rather her prison, as she has been banished from her own kingdom.

The past storyline begins with an introduction to the kingdom and to the King in his childhood. His mother died when he was a year old, then at the age of five, his father abdicated the throne and left to fight in a war, leaving him to become King. The King grew up and was beloved by the people, and eventually he got married to an heiress who would become the Queen and had children, one of whom was the Princess.

The Princess’ older brother was taken by convulsions when he was two years old. The Princess was struck by the same illness as well, but it’s thanks to a medal that the King’s oldest friend, a traveller known as the Advisor, gave to her that allowed her to miraculously recover. That medal was a treasure from a distant land that was capable of protecting its wearer from illnesses and accidents. The Princess also gained a younger sister and they would become best friends throughout their youth. (They would also have another younger brother but he died of a fever at the age of one.)

In the castle’s garden, which was named the Princesses’ Garden, there were all sorts of rare plants, ornaments made by the Queen and a jabuticaba tree. The princesses had eight servants in their service, one of whom was a gardener named Gamba, who the Princess became great friends with. However, an incident with the two involving the Baron, one of the oldest merchants in the kingdom who also apparently had ties to the occult, seemingly caused Gamba to change as he refused to talk to her after that.

The King hired a tutor, the Godmother, who would also become another friend to the Princess and her sister. Amidst their studies, the Godmother gave them the idea to stage a play for the court. On the day, everyone in the court was present on the King’s orders, but for some reason, the Princess couldn’t spot Gamba among the crowd. When the Princess found Gamba the next day and tried to tell him about her play, he just hid his face, which was spattered with blood like his shirt. Gamba suddenly ducked at the sight of the Baron, and it's then that the Princess realised that Gamba wasn’t her servant, but rather her slave.

The Princess went to ask the Godmother and she confirmed her suspicions. On the day of their play, Gamba attempted to escape but was caught by the Baron and was flogged within an inch of his life. Gamba wasn’t the only slave; there were 103 in the castle alone, including him and the other seven servants. They were captured from their homelands, torn from their families and forced to work throughout the kingdom. The Princess felt guilty that her life of luxury was built on slavery, and shattered that the King would do nothing about it. Days after, the Princess decided to confront the King about this. The King sympathised with her plight, as he longed for a world without slavery, but lamented his inaction on powerful forces within the kingdom, such as the Baron and his allies who controlled the farms, the food and spices, and therefore, the people. The Princess realised that this was hurting the King just as much as it was hurting herself, and together, they vowed to bring an end to slavery someday.

The Princess and her sister soon grew into young women and the King sought out suitors for them. The candidates eventually came down to a pair of cousins from a distant kingdom; a younger Duke and an older General. The Duke was promised to the Princess and the General was promised to her sister, but they realised that they were more compatible with the other’s suitors, so they told their father and he happily arranged the swap. And so the General became Prince Charming, and for the Princess’ wedding, she asked the King for 10 slaves to be freed, including Gamba and the other seven who worked for her since childhood, giving them all her wedding gifts in the process.

After her sister got married, she and her husband left the kingdom and went travelling the world, continuing to exchange letters with the Princess. The King’s age was beginning to take its toll as well, and the Baron, who seemed to remain ageless, began spreading rumours about the King’s health and that the Princess could never replace him because she was a woman and her husband was a foreigner. The King had to travel abroad to seek treatment for his health, leaving the Princess to rule in his place. She sought to fulfill her goal of abolishing slavery in the kingdom, but after a warning from the Baron and imminent revolts from those who were against abolishment, she was forced to relent. She instead declared that every child of a slave born from that day would be free (Lei Rio Branco, aka the Law of Free Birth), but because she didn’t say when they would be free, the Baron and his allies did an r/MaliciousCompliance and would only free the children of the slaves when they became adults (at the age of 21, there was also the Sexagenarian Law that freed slaves over the age of 60 and required their masters to feed them and provide them with free service until they turned 65). Soon after, the Princess removed the Baron from the court and expelled him from the castle; in response, the Baron cursed the Princess, saying that she would lose something very precious. Sure enough, the Princess would soon receive a letter from her sister’s husband, informing her that she had died of a sudden illness.

The King rushed back to his kingdom and reassumed the throne, while the Queen fell into a deep depression which she would never recover from. The Princess told the King about what happened, and he went to his old friend, the Advisor. The Advisor told them about an artifact that could end slavery without starting a war, known as the Golden Feather, but to use its power would require a great sacrifice.

As the Baron continued spreading his discordant words across the kingdom, the Princess embarked on a journey to search for the Golden Feather, despite her Prince’s objections. People reacted weirdly when she asked them about a magical artifact, but when they learnt that it would be used to end slavery, they reacted surprisingly differently, as many also supported abolition and were willing to help her in her quest. People also began wearing camelias in support of her message as slaves gradually became freed across the kingdom. In the end, the Princess never found the Golden Feather, as she was given it as a gift from a child of slaves upon her return.

The kingdom celebrated as the Princess used the Golden Feather to free the slaves from their chains. This acts as a metaphor for the real-life Princess Isabel’s signing of the Golden Law (Lei Áurea), which declared slavery extinct in Brazil. The war that the Baron warned of was fought without a single of drop of blood spilt, and the Baron himself would come to congratulate the Princess on her victory. He would also curse the Princess again, saying that she would lose the throne, then her family, and then be forgotten by her own people. Perhaps this was the cost of using the Golden Feather or the bluffing words of a sore loser, but we may never know.

In reality, the Golden Law was viewed negatively among slave owners as it ended slavery in an instant instead of gradually (like the Sexagenarian Law attempted to do), but also because it meant that they would have to source workers elsewhere (and actually pay them). Former slaves would also suffer struggles in their new freed lives as they were prohibited from owning assets or receiving an education, and thus they were left to make their own way in the world after the Golden Law came into effect. This led to the monarchy being overthrown a year later, with Pedro II unwilling to resist, and the royal family being exiled to Europe.

Returning to the story, the Baron staged a rebellion a year after the Princess used the Golden Feather to free the slaves. The King’s soldiers were forcibly turned by the Baron as his family was gathered in the hall along with others like the Godmother and the Advisor. With a word, the Baron teleported them to the Farlands, where they relied on the generosity of others to survive (wouldn’t it be great if we could exile people to somewhere like the North Pole with a single word?). The Queen, the Godmother and even the King passed away, one after the other, and after the King’s funeral, which went completely unnoticed back home (ironically, while the republican government in Brazil banned any official reaction, not even sending any delegates to the funeral, the people mourned Pedro II despite some police suppression). The Princess and her Prince were the last of the royal family, and they moved to a new castle to start their lives anew. As their kingdom became a country, and her story became a legend, few people would remember the Princess, like Alberto.

Now we switch over to the future storyline. The Princess tried to live a normal life in that distant land amidst the gossip reminding her that she wasn’t in her kingdom anymore. She expresses a wish to go back home to her kingdom, but the Prince was already resigned to his fate and tried to convince her to accept the same. One day, the Princess was reading in her library when the Prince informed her that her friend, the inventor Alberto, had arrived.

Alberto was an inventor from her kingdom who was raised by one of the wealthiest families in the court. He is a man of short stature with a thick mustache and clothes designed to make him look taller so as to not be mistaken for a child. He dreams of machines few would dare to dream of and despite being renowned, he was a very discreet man. Alberto presents the Princess with some jabuticabas from the kingdom. While he doesn’t have much news from the kingdom as his inventions have been keeping him travelling, Alberto shows the Princess plans for a bird-shaped flying machine, the Bird of Prey.

Alberto hopes to complete the Bird of Prey so he can cross the seas and take the Princess back to their kingdom in the hopes of reclaiming the throne. The Princess is sceptical of its effectiveness, but Alberto is confident that he will be successful, leading the Princess to believe that she can escape her exile.

The Princess invites Alberto to dinner. They tell the Prince about Alberto’s new flying machine and his manner turns from apathetic to hostile. After dinner, the Prince asks the Princess to head to bed while he escorts Alberto out. As he leaves, the Prince threatens Alberto, saying that if the Princess sheds a single tear or suffers a single scratch, then nothing in the world would be capable of sparing him from his blade. Geez, with the tension between these two you’d think the Princess and Alberto were having an affair.

The next morning, the Princess prepared a lavish breakfast spread to celebrate the anniversary of her and the Prince’s first dinner. Alberto’s visit clearly changed something in the Princess, making her more upbeat as she believes that her dream of returning to her kingdom could come true. The Prince gets upset with her, reminding her about everything they went through, about the curse, and that she could never go back because the people have moved on and there is no place for them anymore. The Prince has been such a negative Nancy when it comes to the Princess’ outlandish dreams; in the past it was ending slavery, and in the future it was going back to her kingdom. Also, how would the curse affect the Princess and the people around her if she actually made it back, because it was never mentioned. As far as we know, everything the Baron cursed her with happened and that was it.

Anyway, Alberto returned to the castle days after and showed the Princess the changes he made to the Bird of Prey blueprints. Though the Princess is impressed, she tells Alberto that she can’t go back because she was cursed; Alberto, as a man of science, says that he doesn’t believe in curses, but the Princess insists that she can’t go back and asks him to respect her decision. As he leaves, Alberto muses that, “in a way, a curse is like an invention: for it to work, you need to believe in it.”

Weeks later, the Princess was working in her garden, using skills she had learnt years before from Gamba, when Alberto came dragging in his Bird of Prey, with wings made of silk and thin wood, a huge balloon and a beak that was scraping the ground. He invites the Princess on a test flight around the castle, something that was even witnessed by the Prince on his hunting trip. When it came time for them to land, however, one of the ropes broke and the Bird of Prey began to spin before falling toward the Crystal Palace, breaking its walls and destroying a camellia greenhouse. Soon after, the Princess wakes in the Prince’s arms with Alberto behind them, and the Prince banishes him from the castle as the greenhouse goes up in flames from the crash.

Alberto becomes rueful over putting the Princess in danger as he heads to the river and watches the activity there through the afternoon. He sees a boy trying to fly a box kite and helps him by fixing it, with the help of his robotic spider named Lydia.

Back at the castle, the Princess lamented the near-destruction of the Crystal Palace and apologised to the Prince. The Prince was willing to rebuild it for her, but he made her promise not to have any more crazy adventures. Some time later, after the palace was rebuilt, the Princess heard Alberto’s voice coming from a robotic squirrel in a tree; Alberto wants to invite her to visit his house, the Encantada (Portuguese for “enchanted”) and he can’t do so in person because he was forbidden from going to the castle. Alberto has the Princess follow the squirrel up a hill to the Encantada, a house that appears bigger on the inside filled with high ceilings, chairs and tables and mechanical animals that seem to be sentient and take care of chores. Holy crap, the Encantada is a TARDIS. Alberto is a Time Lord!

Anyway, Alberto invites the Princess to lunch atop a table standing above the clouds as she sees her kingdom far in the distance, wanting to show her the view aboard the Bird of Prey 2. The time comes for the Princess to leave and Alberto shrinks the table down to bring her to the ground. Before she leaves the Encantada, the Princess gives her medal, which she received from the Advisor when she was a baby, to Alberto. In the days and weeks that followed, she patiently waited for Alberto to return, looking for bird-shaped flying machines out the window or mechanical squirrels in the garden. She sent letters and packed lunches to him, but Alberto never replied to them. She went to the hill where the Encantada was, but there was only a vacant lot there. You see? That just proves that Alberto IS a Time Lord. I know this story is part-historical, but if the Encantada could just disappear like that, why couldn’t Alberto just take the Princess back to their kingdom? Oh, and by the way, the Encantada in real life is located in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro and is now a museum house.

The Prince finds the Princess on the hill and is dismayed to hear that she has been seeing Alberto again. The Princess just tells the Prince what Alberto told her about curses and that she will return home eventually, and when it happens, he should respect her decision. After that, the Princess decided to start doing more for herself while waiting for Alberto, inviting people to visit the rebuilt Crystal Palace and hosting travellers from her kingdom in her castle, saying that if she can’t go to the kingdom, then the kingdom will come to her. She recalls a time when walking through the streets of the kingdom with her father, and when she asked him if the people will belong to her, the King told her that one day, she will belong with the people. The Princess and the Prince went on to have 3 sons (in reality, they were born prior to the royal family’s exile) and Alberto went on to become a sweet memory.

One day, the Princess was walking through the garden when she suddenly fell and fainted. She was bedridden for a long time, but eventually she was able to walk again and continue working in her garden, accompanied by the Prince and their children. Suddenly, the sky darkened as Alberto descended with the Bird of Prey 2, a sight that even delighted the Prince. It’s time for the Princess to return to her kingdom; farewelling the Prince (who promises to see her again in a year) and her children, she steps aboard the Bird of Prey 2 and they fly away from the castle and over the sea into the night. The next morning, the flying machine descends in the kingdom and is welcomed by her people. Upon landing, the Princess is greeted by the 103 former slaves, the King and Queen, her sister, Gamba, the Godmother, the Advisor and everyone else. The curse had been broken. And the Last Princess returned to her kingdom.

The study notes state that the last scene could be interpreted differently; did the Princess even arrive in the kingdom? Was it just a delirious delusion? Or could this have been a metaphor for Alberto taking the Princess to the afterlife? Considering how the last chapter was worded, particularly the Prince’s promise to see her in a year and the Princess reuniting with loved ones who had died, most importantly the fact that this book is essentially a biography on Princess Isabel, I would agree with the last point. In reality, when the republican government in Brazil lifted the royal family’s banishment in 1920, Isabel was too ill to walk, let alone return home, so her husband and her first son went to rebury her parents in Brazil. Sure enough, Isabel died in November 1921, never having returned to her homeland, while her husband died the following August. As for Alberto Santos-Dumont, in his later years he became depressed over airplanes being used as weapons of war and after multiple attempts, died by suicide in 1932, aged 59.

The Last Princess is a great book that blends history and fantasy in an effort to make Princess Isabel’s story more palatable to young readers and get them fascinated to learn more. It explores an abridged and romanticised version of Isabel’s life through unnamed and facially-unseen expys of her and the people close to her. The end of the book features an account of how Princess Isabel and Alberto met, followed by some photos of the royal family and the elements that inspired the story.

The book also explores topics including slavery, freedom, family, friendship and feminism. Highlighting the “forgotten” part of Isabel’s story is a poignant point of the book for me, particularly in a world where authoritarian governments only accept a singular narrative as the truth and actively suppress all alternative narratives, opposing those who propagate or possibly even witness or overhear them in the name of “national security”.

Something I want to point out with the Prince's character is that he seems to act like a grounding figure for the Princess, keeping her down to earth and preventing her from looking up to the people she admires for too long; in the past, it's her family, who believed in her mission to free the slaves, and in the future, it's Alberto, who believed that the Princess would return to her kingdom once again. In both storylines, the Princess stands her ground and defies the Prince's attempts at stopping her, but in the end, the Prince ultimately respects the decisions she makes and stands by her, til death did they part.

Apparently, since August 2010 there were plans for a movie adaptation from BossaNovaFilms that would have been produced using a mix of live-action and CGI, but plans have apparently fallen through since its intended release year of 2012.

Wow, writing this review felt like being in a book club or English class. This is a rare case of me reviewing a serious book in a more serious manner. If you’ve managed to read this through to the end, rest assured that I’ll be going back to covering things that are more fun. Next time on the Fabio Yabu Extravaganza, it’s The Return of Juspion.

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #69: Decade Legend Fighters Part 2

I wonder how much the RFC is paying Toei for me to keep using their IPs in my personal project?

Out of the 12 episodes I wrote for this series, 4 of them were in the first part and 8 of them are in the second part. I was so obsessed with being on top of everything throughout the Moushouden Series that it ended up stressing me, causing delays with releasing stories and eventually burning me out. After finishing Soulbound Series 4 in 2022, I began to manage my burnout over the following years as I wrote Zi-O, the Sea Princesses 20th anniversary event fanfic and this series. I only ended up writing half the episodes in this series so as to reduce stress over missing deadlines or the effects of writer's block, with most of my contributions coming in this second half.

The big difference with this series being animated instead of live-action is that we didn’t have to spend money on making costumes or importing them from Japan, constructing sets or maintaining them, and negotiating schedules and pay for cast and crew. Instead, most of that money was invested in animation and voice acting, but the downside is that we can’t use the original Japanese footage like we had before - then again, a lot of it would have had to have been reshot anyway. Frankly, with how invested everyone (including myself) became in their adult lives, this was for the best.

This part will cover the last 12 episodes of the series.

Opening theme 2: Now or Never!

Episode 13: Family 家族/Episode 14: liveDevil 魔相棒 - リブデビル -

The Revice tribute two-parter. Kamen Rider Revi is Kyle, the son of Karen Brewer. A new member of the Seven Spears, Hiruma, is Kamen Rider Gaoh (we don’t have to worry about suits because this is an anime).

Episode 15: Snacks 菓子/Episode 16: Got Boost 噛喰 - ガヴ -

Shouma is Kamen Rider Gavv in his tribute two-parter. Hiruma is defeated in this story.

Interlude 2

The second interlude was released between episodes 13 and 16 for 4 episodes. It’s a short adventure involving Veronica and James working together and, idk, sharing what they know about Hiroki or something.

Episode 17: Spring Rain 春雨

From this point on, the remainder of the series is written by me. This episode adapts Gotchard episode 32.

As the four Twindriver users work with Kayley and Firerose to deal with Kaiju Factor monsters, Akari is suddenly attacked by Hiroki before Gengetsu attacks with the Kachinebots, transforming into Hundred Type Three. Zeni Zi-O uses his Dimension Attack Ride card to teleport the three (with the Kachinebots) into a pocket dimension.

Inside the pocket dimension, Hiroki continues being hostile towards Akari, saying that he would rather die than let her save him and that it would be better for her if he died anyway. Akari asks Hiroki what is going on with him and Hiroki tells him that he is about to die because everything he did (to stay with Akari) has come back to bite him. Akari is determined to help work through their problems together even if they are forever broken in their own ways (because of what happened between them).

The two of them are confronted by Gengetsu and the Kachinebots. Hiroki says that he will decide for himself how his life will end before he transforms and defeats the Hundred Hands forces alongside Akari. Hiroki promises to tell everyone the truth about everything, while the last of the Seven Spears, Saigetsu, Tasogare and Mimei, arrive through an Aurora Curtain.

Episode 18: Hundred Hands 百手団 - ハンドレッド -

Adapts Gotchard episodes 33 and 34.

Hiroki has told Akari and the new Brigadier that Zeni Zi-O has been possessing and influencing him since their encounter in episode 0 and that he risked breaking the Laws of Time to release himself from his control. Hiroki is later approached by Butler, who informs him that the Hundred Hands are mobilising in full force to obtain the two superweapons in this world, the Decade Module and the Legend Kamen Riser. They are called superweapons because they channel the powers of all Kamen Riders and multiply them by the power of infinity.

A large Aurora Curtain opens in Yokohama, from which Saigetsu, Tasogare and Mimei emerge with Kachinebots. In this version, Tasogare transforms into Juuga instead of Eternal (because Zi-O wasn’t too long ago), otherwise everything else goes similar to the original episode. Juuga’s ten Revice Genomes are countered by Platinum Decade with the power of eleven Riders that correspond to them (including Revi and Vice). Saigetsu attempts to summon an army of Dai Mazines, but Robin deals with them before fighting and defeating him as Legendary Legend.

Episode 19: Type Final 終式

Adapts Gotchard episodes 34 and 35.

The three fallen members of the Seven Spears, Hakubo, Mangetsu and Hiruma, in the forms of bipyramids, summon Gengetsu and give him a final chance to avenge them and bring glory to the Hundred Hands. He is given the power to transform into Hundred Type Final before he goes to confront Legend.

Hiroki manages to understand that Robin must have felt lonely fighting the Hundred Hands all on his own because he felt the same way as well fighting Zeni Zi-O because he doesn’t want to get his friends caught up in his struggle. The two of them defeat Gengetsu, whose body is then transmuted by the three Spears into the Dooms Clock.

Episode 20: Revolution 乱式 - レボリューション -

Adapts Gotchard episode 35.

Robin senses the Dooms Clock and starts attacking Hiroki, only to leave after being stopped by Narutaki. Zeni Zi-O extracts Gengetsu from the Dooms Clock and resurrects him, imbuing him with his power which allows him to transform into Hundred Revolution.

Hiroki and Robin later reconcile and they defeat Hundred Revolution and destroy the Dooms Clock. During the fight, Legend’s Zero-One summons are replaced with that of Decade. The Hundreadriver is then picked up by an unknown individual.

As everyone welcomes Robin to this world, he tells Hiroki that he has discovered something about the Hundred Hands’ Great Leader, and Hiroki says that he has done the same as well.

Episode 21: Reminiscence 追憶

In this two-parter, Hiroki explains to his friends what happened in episode 0 before going on to explain what happened between episodes 16 and 17.

At some point in his travels, Hiroki ended up back in the Zeniverse, where he fought Ohma Zi-O in episode 0. As he eats at the same café he ate at in that episode and watches a review from yours truly, someone sits across from him at his table; it’s Zeniverse Akari, and on top of that, it’s been a few days since the battle at Ōsaka Castle, and the body of the local Hiroki is nowhere to be found.

Akari tells Hiroki that he deserves to know the truth about Zeni Zi-O; as the day turns into night and Hiroki heads outside to see what is happening, Akari’s boyfriend is seen walking towards the café before stopping and running at the sight of Ohma Zi-O. Hiroki transforms into Legend Decade and he becomes a stand-in for Akari’s boyfriend as their movements align with and mirror each other on-screen. In the end, Hiroki/Akari’s boyfriend is defeated by Ohma Zi-O and dies in Akari’s arms.

In case you’re wondering, no, Akari’s boyfriend isn’t identified here. His face isn’t shown in the scene and Legend Decade/Hiroki essentially becomes his stand-in. The reason why is because his real-life counterpart has never met me or had anything to do with this project and as much as I’ve put Akari, her family and her friends through this “embarrassment”, her boyfriend doesn’t deserve the same for something he isn’t aware of, regardless of my feelings about them.

Episode 22: Freebird 紫鸞 - フリーバード -

Hiroki suddenly wakes up at his table as it’s revealed that Zeniverse Akari used a soporific patch to make him enter a lucid dream state that she could control, using it to show Hiroki how her vendetta against Zeni Zi-O began. Hiroki asks how things between them got the way they did; basically it follows my IRL story (see #16), but after Ohma’s Day, he began targeting everyone close to Zeniverse Akari, and her friends targeted everyone close to Ohma Zi-O, resulting in both sides being killed in the crossfire.

Akari gathered what remained of Girl Power and formed an army, while at the same time, Ohma Zi-O established the Hundred Hands, becoming its Great Leader, appointing seven evil Kamen Riders to be his Seven Spears and sending them to attack other universes. As for the battle at Ōsaka Castle, Akari tells Hiroki that he will have to find out for himself.

It’s at this point that Hiroki learns that the leaked photos of Akari and himself on social media were posted from his own tablet in the Zeniverse. This leads him to go back in time, borrow his tablet from his past self, then return to the Zeniverse before the battle at Ōsaka Castle and post the photos onto social media before returning the tablet. Hiroki then uses the randomiser to dress himself like Ziluan, the protagonist of Dynasty Warriors Origins, before joining the Girl Power army under that name. Like Ziluan in the game, Hiroki remains silent, only communicating when he has to by writing on his tablet.

When Girl Power begins their advance, Hiroki is nowhere to be seen. It’s only when they begin charging that Hiroki appears, unmorphed and wielding his Ridexcalibur, unleashing an All Riders Xtrash-powered Ultimate Musou Attack before transforming and fighting the Girl Power forces, causing another shockwave by unleashing a Platinum Charge Fever.

Girl Power fires their cannons at the main keep and Hiroki goes to his Zeniverse counterpart’s lifeless body. Hiroki is thrown back by a Zeni Zi-O Hissatsu Geki before Zeni Zi-O pulls out the Ridewatch he used to control him from his body. Zeni Zi-O reveals that he had some contingencies set in place in case anything happened to him, including a spare Humagear body he could download his consciousness into. In order for him to ascend into godhood, Zeni Zi-O needed to regain his physical body and Hiroki just gave him the perfect opportunity to do so by going back to it. He places the Ridewatch back into his body and after an explosion of light, Zeni Zi-O is nowhere to be seen, with the Humagear body he inhabited fallen to the ground.

Originally, Zeni Zi-O’s body would have been taken by Girl Power and placed in a tank, then Zeni Zi-O would possess Hiroki as he proceeds to their headquarters to find his body, throwing the Ridewatch to it which breaks the tank and restores Zeni Zi-O’s physical body and consciousness. But yeah, plans change and I ended up writing a timey-wimey plot, which is fine.

Ending the flashback, Hiroki explains to his friends that he came back home because he wanted to say goodbye to everyone before he went to stop Zeni Zi-O at the cost of his life, but meeting Robin and seeing how he was willing to abandon his newfound friends to fight the Hundred Hands along made him realise what he was doing and he decided to ask his friends for their help instead. Because why should he give up the happy life that he fought so hard for so another version of himself can get his revenge? It would be all for nothing.

The events of this interlude take place before episode 17 from Zeni Zi-O’s perspective after regaining his physical body as shown in episode 22. There are two episodes in this interlude released alongside episodes 21 and 22.

In the first episode, the Humagear body that Zeni Zi-O abandoned is beamed into the satellite Ark and reformed into Daniel Barrera (aka Kuroto Dan’s counterpart in Ex-Aid). In an abridged version of Outsiders up to episode 5 where the story begins, Daniel establishes Genm Musou Corporation, rebuilds Mighty Action X in a month and obtains his Maximum Zombie and Hyper Fumetsu Gashats. He writes a wish at Ace’s shrine, which catches Tsumuri’s attention and leads her to seek him out.

Ark-Zero confronts Zeni Zi-O and is defeated by the Faiz Blaster, replacing the fight with the Ride-Player from the original episode. Daniel appears (with Tsumuri) and transforms into Genm Hyper Fumetsu Gamer to fight Zeni Zi-O, tricking him into taking out the Zero-Two card so he can take its power and upload it into Ark before being destroyed by Zeni Zi-O. Zea and Ark’s avatars make contact with each other and just as their avatars’ love transcends the bounds of humanity, the two satellites reach a new singularity as they evolve into Kamen Rider Zero-Three. Zero-Three takes Tsumuri’s power of creation and uses it to resurrect Daniel as a human, just as he wished for.

In the second episode, adapting Outsiders episode 6, Zero-Three confronts Zeni Zi-O and defeats him before Evol-X, which he cloned as his personal assistant, appears and takes Zeni Zi-O away. While Ziin and Tsumuri recruit candidates for the next Desire Royale, Zero-Three confronts Zeni Zi-O again; despite using GeatsIX’s powers, Zeni Zi-O is still defeated and Evol-X takes him away. Zero-Three then meets with Ziin and Tsumuri outside Yokohama as they prepare to sign up their final candidates…

Episode 23: Rider 騎士 - ライダー -

In the Voidstation, Shinbu Serizawa and Mogoro Kuwabara (who have also made cameos earlier in the series) are the last warriors standing after Zeni Zi-O went through all of the Shadow Proclamation’s armies. Shinbu sends off a mayday message before he and Mogoro charge at Zeni Zi-O, only to be defeated. Zeni Zi-O then takes in the Seven Powers of Heaven and creates clones of himself.

Ziin and Tsumuri enter UNIT HQ and show everyone Shinbu’s mayday message as they declare the beginning of a new Desire Royale, with the Deza Shin to be decided by whoever can defeat the most Zeni Zi-O clones. As Hiroki goes to ask the scientists how fast they can get the enhanced Twindriver specs for Akari and Narutaki ready, Akari takes him aside to tell him that while she knows how much fighting Zeni Zi-O means to him, he isn’t fighting alone anymore. Hiroki tells her that this entire ordeal has made him realise that he has some problems he needs to work through, and Akari replies that she and everyone else will be there for him as they embrace and address each other by their real names.

Aurora Curtains open and bring through whole platoons and duplicates of the Seven Spears and they are met by the Kamen Riders as the the Desire Royale begins. Hiroki, Robin and the new Brigadier join Diend, Kuuga and the Gotchard Riders to fight the Kachinebots. When duplicates of Kamen Rider Hundred’s various forms appear, Akari and Narutaki use their new enhanced equipment to transform into Wizard Eternity and Silver Drive.

After the Kachinebots, Seven Spears and Hundred duplicates are defeated, Zeniverse Akari appears and uses the Hundreadriver she picked up to transform into Hundred Revolution. She fights Legend Decade and the two Riders defeat each other with the Exceed Maximum Impact and Platinum Charge Fever, detransforming the both of them. As Hiroki’s friends rush to his side, Zeniverse Akari tells them that hundreds of Zeni Zi-O clones will descend on Earth, but the real one will be controlling everything from the Voidstation. Zeniverse Akari is hit by a fireball fired by what appears to be another Akari, but is actually Evolto in disguise. Evolto transforms into Evol-X and is engaged by the other Riders as Zeni Zi-O clones begin descending on Earth.

Episode 24: Summer Grass 夏草

Hiroki decides to head up to the Voidstation and have a showdown with Zeni Zi-O. He joins his friends in transforming before he teleports there. While Ziin fights and defeats clones of Zeni Zi-O and Evol-X as Ziin Gazer, adapting the fights from Outsiders episode 7, Platinum Decade destroys Kachinebots while making his way to Zeni Zi-O, only to be ambushed by him with the Axcalibur.

Zeni Zi-O says that he knew Hiroki would come to stop him even though he knows he doesn’t deserve anything he has, like friends, family or Akari, he only got them out of luck or manipulation. While Hiroki admits that Zeni Zi-O is right about what he said about him, he is still thankful for these blessings even if they didn’t come naturally. Until recently, Hiroki was willing to put his life on the line to stop Zeni Zi-O, but after thinking it over, he decided that even if he has to stop him, he will live.

After a fight, Decade and Zeni Zi-O unleash their Rider Kicks at each other and while the former prevails, the latter doesn’t die. Zeni Zi-O asks Hiroki why he didn’t kill him, to which he says that he doesn’t deserve to die after everything that happened. He gives him another Legend Twindriver with the Zi-O Module, telling him that it is time to walk a new path. Their feud could have ended with one of them victorious and the other dead, but instead, Hiroki chose life for the both of them, showing that their fight doesn’t have to end that way.

Zeniverse Akari (the one defeated in the last episode was a clone) comes in and asks Hiroki why he chooses to stand with Zeni Zi-O when he took everything from her; Hiroki says that he never wanted to be a part of their fight and that they forced his hand when they dragged him into it. Zeniverse Akari transforms into Hundred Revolution while Zeni Zi-O and Hiroki transform into Platinum Zi-O and UItima Decade. Since their Legend Twindriver transformation phrases weren’t revealed in #52, here they are now:

“Decade Complete 21! Ohma Zi-O! Zi-O On! Final Match Ride! Final Rider Time! Platinum Zi-O!”

“Legendary Legend! Zeni Zi-O! Ultima Match Ride! Ultima Rider Time! Ultima Decade!”

Although Hundred Revolution drains the Decade, Zi-O and Legend cards to perform the Omega Critical Vortex, she is defeated by Platinum Zi-O and Ultima Decade with the Platinum Charge Fever and Ultima Charge Fever, powered by the Seven Powers of Heaven. As the three Riders detransform, Hiroki declares himself the winner of this fight and banishes Zeni Zi-O and Zeniverse Akari from his universe, saying that he won’t show them any mercy if he sees them again because his universe is defended by him and his friends.

Hiroki leaves the Voidstation and returns to his friends. Over the next few months, Hiroki attends therapy and after Narutaki and Veronica are married to Accel and Birth, James heads home after his contract with UNIT ends and Hiroki and Akari move away to Fukuoka so they can get away from their former lives of war. Hiroki’s Beltmorphers have been repaired as well, and the two of them are seen by Ace as they drive past, revealing that Akari’s wish was also to live happily together with Hiroki.

And now for my impressions of the opening and ending sequences in the second part. The opening is basically just another tokusatsu opening sequence, showing off Legend Decade’s various forms. The ending shows Hiroki dancing with Narutaki, Veronica and Akari as the credits roll. They are just some of the women in Hiroki’s life, which really fits the title of the song LADY.

I had more grander plans for the series endgame originally. Aside from Silver Drive being created from a rod of Dalekanium that would be delivered to Narutaki at UNIT at the end of episode 12, there would have been a “friendly” showdown between Hiroki and Akari so they can forge the power of Wizard Eternity with the power of love, then Hiroki takes out a ring and proposes to Akari again, wanting a second wedding/vow renewal ceremony after their first one… well, you know how the aftermath of it went. It would have led to a crossover movie with Soulbound taking place several months after the epilogue that would have been known as Soulbound Saga: Decade Legend Fighters Galaxy or something like that.

The movie would have been formatted like the Kamen Rider Movie War series, with both the cast of Soulbound and Decade Legend Fighters dealing with resurrected enemies, including Crestor Calandia and the characters who were killed in my adaptation of Kingdom of Paradise (Soulbound Series 2). There would be 2-3 new Riders using a driver based on the Eldoradriver from Gotchard, Zeni Zi-O would also return as an ally (which Hiroki would grant an exception for) along with the rest of the Zhuge family (that would each transform into their respective Rider forms or one of the Legend Twindriver’s forms) and the Soulbound cast would join Hiroki and Akari’s families for their second wedding at the end. I didn’t end up doing it because the flashback arc needed another episode, plus this series was already extra upon extra (Zi-O) when I was supposed to be finished with Hiroki’s story and by extension, my personal project.

So, let’s look at the subtext behind Hiroki and Akari’s relationship and by extension, this series:

Hiroki’s relationships were already problematic in and of themselves before meeting Akari; he dated his first girl (Kimia) at the age of 5, married for the first time (Tiffany) at the age of 7 and had his first long-term/cherry-pop relationship (Fifi) at the age of 9. In the “original” timeline he met Akari at the age of 13, but Dalek manipulation stretched it way back to the age of 5, then he got married (for the second time) at the ripe old age of 15. Now consider that Akari is 18 months younger than him, and that an alternate version of Hiroki helped him make his relationship with Akari “official” by essentially “roofieing” or brainwashing her into being with him.

Hiroki’s life has been full of turmoil and his relationships felt like a way to keep himself grounded, but his repeated heartbreaks, especially those involving Akari, significantly contributed to his trauma. After the events of the Time War, Hiroki was glad to have Akari stay by his side, even if she was mainly doing it because she was afraid of what might happen if she broke his heart again. Perhaps Hiroki knew this deep down and felt guilty about it so he sometimes lashes out and wants to fight her, causing Akari stress in turn. His entire ordeal with Zeni Zi-O allowed him to come to terms with the circumstances of his relationship with Akari, as he refuses to yield to anyone and desires to make things work out with her, because at this point, he understood that dying or leaving would hurt Akari more than it would heal himself. Perhaps their relationship persisted as a kind of trauma bond, but hopefully after the ordeal with Zeni Zi-O, they can learn to love each other for real this time.

Hiroki and Akari’s relationship post-Decade Legend Fighters can be described with Kenshi Yonezu’s song がらくた (Junk); as explored in episode 17, the two of them are forever broken in their own ways and while they can never go back to how things were before because they don’t know what they were anymore, they can work through their problems together.

While it may not be predatory, people thought that this storyline was a bit creepy because the character of Akari was literally inspired by my real-life high school crush (and named after her, in fact); I’m sure she felt uncomfortable about it, and even I began to feel the same way about it in hindsight (I mean, did you see Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor regenerate into Billie Piper?). But I am not that much of a woke revisionist that I would retcon such an important storyline just like that - it’s my story, why should I change it to suit your feelings? This attitude is also reflected in Hiroki when he makes his decision to stand against Zeni Zi-O to protect his life and relationship; as I stated, why should he give up the happy life that he fought so hard for so another version of himself can get his revenge?

While I have explored “bad endings” with Hiroki and Akari where they break up and then get back together again, making them into “good endings”, I wanted to explore a “true bad ending” with Zeni Zi-O, a counterpart of Hiroki who let his obsession over his world’s Akari get to the point where she decides to kill him when his actions went too far and her hatred goes over the edge. In the multiverse, there’s bound to be multiple Hirokis with bad endings, but Zeni Zi-O is unique in that he knows his own bad end, he’s aware of the good endings and he decides he wants to change it for himself. The deal with Zeni Zi-O wanting to forge a paradise for himself was inspired by Enrico Pucci from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 6. He attempts to achieve his paradise by obtaining the Seven Powers of Heaven and he ends up obtaining most of them by possessing Hiroki because the circumstances lined up perfectly.

In his journeys throughout the multiverse (as shown in Episode 0), Hiroki kills off his bad end counterparts out of mercy for them or shame for the effects that his actions had on the multiverse, but throughout his ordeal with Zeni Zi-O, he begins to come to terms with everything, including his relationship with Akari and the outcomes of his counterparts’ endings, and he eventually decides not to kill Zeni Zi-O, but leave him and his version of Akari to do whatever across the multiverse so long as they don’t come back to endanger his own universe.

I have it on good authority that Akari’s actress/inspiration and her partner have recently gotten married. To be honest, I have never wanted to kill someone so much in my life, but I can’t because it’s illegal. Hiroki and Akari may be out there living their best life in my personal project, with their counterparts throughout the Central Finite Curve being friends, lovers, soulmates, whereas in real life, I’m cursed to never experience that kind of happiness for myself, even though I know that I have my own happiness and so much to be grateful for with my Tumblr.

The sad thing about my life is that, as I said at the start of the last instalment, fiction doesn’t always reflect reality. It almost seems like I have to have had a girlfriend from high school or even earlier (a childhood friend) in order for me to live a fulfilling life, have a good job, buy a house, raise a family. Unfortunately I’ve missed that opportunity due to various factors, and even if there was a possibility of me getting into a relationship and living that fulfilling life now, I have to say that I wouldn’t know what I want or what to do - would I agree to have pets, kids or even investment properties? So now, I’m living a different kind of fulfilling life, making up for what I never had or will have with my work and all my current hobbies, like writing stories, playing games and making content. Sometimes, it just feels easier to stay single and focus on yourself. I’ll probably never accept it fully for as long as I live (because I always flip-flop between being okay with being alone and wanting to be with someone), but I do what I can despite everything else.

The truth is, I feel like the game was rigged from the beginning. I’ve had crushes on a few girls over the years since kindergarten, but Akari (or rather, her inspiration) was the longest crush I’ve had, going back from 2011 to… now, really. Despite everything that happened, I never got to know her well and that honestly has to be my biggest regret, despite in Year 12 when my principal told our class that the year’s theme was to live with no regrets. It feels like she’s got a curse on me and the only way to break it is to defeat her with a Rider Kick, but deep down I know it’s not going to help with anything. It’s very sad, I know.

The series has been in the making for the past few years, pretty much ever since I discovered that Akari and her 打靶仔 boyfriend (now husband) were a thing in 2021-22. I hoped that the “good ending” that was Hiroki and Akari’s relationship at the end of this series would, by some miracle, also be the case in real life, but sadly, I’m either in a neutral or bad ending and I can’t tell which one I’m in. Sometimes I wonder if, like how the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) sacrificed his current incarnation for a baby who may not have existed originally, there was an incarnation of Hiroki Ichigo who sacrificed himself so that Hiroki and Akari could be together… (looks at Yui Hirasawa’s This Is It) Hey wait a minute not like that wtf-

Akari Ichigo, you hurt me more than you’ll ever know and I may never be able to move on for as long as I live. I kind of want to wish you all the best, but we’ve never talked since high school and you’ve barely acknowledged my existence practically ever, so if I can’t be happy, why do you think you deserve to be?

(Fun fact: I made this in 2017 as part of a comparison meme between 2016 and 2026 with this scene taking place in the latter, which could be said to mean that Akari would get married in 2026. Freaking Apollo and her gift of prophecy, amirite?)

Whew, finally got all that out of my system. Anyway, we have finally reached the end of Kisekae Insights. The next instalment will cover some of the goodbyes I’ve made over the years before it’s goodbye to my personal project for good. See you for the grand sendoff.

Ending theme 2: LADY

[yeonchi]

Sea Princesses French episodes now available!

The French dub of Sea Princesses is available on OneDrive. However, there is a catch - I'm not going to be the one hosting it.

In May, a user who is also known on YouTube as NewtBest, a French lost media archiver, sent me the French dub of Sea Princesses Season 1 that a friend of his, vik3111, ripped from the DVDs. I originally wanted to host these in my cloud drive folder with the English, Portuguese and Spanish dubs, but after leaving it for a few weeks and then coming back to think about it, I ultimately decided to just share the link he shared with me on a comment section in a Sea Princesses Wiki article.

There's a few reasons why I decided to do that. When I was preparing the aforementioned dubs for my folder, I downsized them to 480p (854x480) so that each season took up an average of 1.8 GB each. With the DVDRips as they are, they total up to 4.3 GB and given that the quality is already 576i (720x576) I don't feel like downsizing them because I don't want to make anyone lose face given how much work must have gone into making these rips available. (The series is in 4:3 presumably because it was originally broadcast on Piwi+ around the time of the digital transition in France.)

The Sea Princesses animated series folder takes up half the space in my OneDrive, and if it weren't for me redeeming the camera roll bonus back in 2015 (when Microsoft attempted to reduce the default free storage from 15 to 5 GB), I would have had to find another solution for either this or my other files. Also, I don't want to start a precedent of people wanting me to host individual dubs of the series when we still don't have Season 2 of the Latin American Spanish dub. That is where I stand.

A thing to note with these dubs is that all the episodes are in the wrong order except for these three: Lost, The Babysitters and The Return, which are in the correct positions according to the filenames - I presume the order is how they were ripped from the DVDs (also, there are 6 DVD volumes with 8 episodes each but one has an extra episode which accounts for 49 episodes, I presume the remaining 3 episodes were spread out on the other DVDs). This means that there are several Marcello episodes before his debut episode The Royal Ball, which is 18th in order; plus The Big Game (at 40) happens before The Toy (at 46), which matters because the latter is Bia's debut episode. Otherwise, they got the dolphin saga episodes in the right order and most episodes in the series can frankly be in any order you want. If I had decided to host them I would've renamed them to be in the correct order, but now that I decided not to, I decided to add the French episode titles with the numbers as shown to the episode title translations file in my folder. I hope it's a good enough compromise for everyone.

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #68: Decade Legend Fighters Part 1

(Art by Wizepuh)

Me writing another series out of jealousy? Inconceivable!

My resentment for my old crush has persisted even years after finishing high school, but an encounter in August 2024 where my weekend ended up being ruined because I didn’t take the shot (King Giri Giri Slash) pushed it over the edge. Amidst all this resentment and jealousy, a new story was forming and it needed to be told. Fiction may not always reflect reality, but even a perfect fictional world needs some turmoil every once in a while. So I decided, fuck it, I’m going full incel hours on this shit.

These are the inspirations for Hiroki and Akari’s story over the years; 2012’s stories were inspired by infatuation, 2013’s stories transitioned into jealousy, then 2014’s stories were made out of hatred and spite before the Moushouden series was about letting it go, addressing things that hadn’t been covered and a little bit of infatuation again. And now we come back to jealousy with a side of resentment. As I wrote this series facing the reality in front of me, I recognised that there was a problematic plot point in Hiroki and Akari’s relationship that I never addressed… but how I address it will be a surprise best left for the series.

Kamen Rider Decade: Legend Fighters is a largely original series incorporating elements of Kamen Rider Outsiders and Kamen Rider Gotchard and featuring all Reiwa Kamen Riders up to Gavv. It is an animated series co-produced with Studio KAI and commissioned alongside the Sea Princesses 20th anniversary fanfic anime adaptation (which was also co-produced with Ufotable). #52 introduced all the original equipment for the series, so let’s take a look at this side story sequel and see what turmoil may come from this new threat as Decade embarks on a new journey to save himself. Regardless of the optics, it’s going to be a wild ride as always.

The series was broadcast in the second half of 2025. This part will cover the prelude specials and the first 12 episodes of the series.

Opening theme 1: 夜に駆ける

Episode 0: Nightmare’s Night 悪夢の夜 - ナイトメアーズ ナイト -

This episode is a prelude released a week before the start of the series.

In the midst of Hiroki’s travels throughout the multiverse, Hiroki kills different versions of himself, finds universes where Girl Power, the Kikuchi Clan or Ohma Zi-O are active and thriving, and is also planning on moving out of Yokohama with Akari. As he is eating at a café in some universe, Hiroki discovers (on his tablet with a cover titled Fairytales of Kindness 善意御伽噺) that someone has posted photos of him and Akari on that universe’s social media. As a result, the local Girl Power is expediting an attack on Ohma Zi-O at Ōsaka Castle after unknown photos of that universe’s Akari with the equivalent Hiroki have been leaked.

Arriving at Ōsaka Castle, Hiroki sneaks into the main keep and fights off the Kachinebots before confronting Ohma Zi-O, that world’s counterpart of Hiroki/Sougo (who has another tablet with a cover titled Tales of a God’s Training 神様修行奇譚). Hiroki asks Ohma Zi-O about the photos, but he says that he wasn’t the one who posted them. He then asks why Girl Power are after him and Ohma Zi-O tells Hiroki that it is all his fault. Ohma Zi-O is able to see into the multiverse and he saw versions of Hiroki and Akari in universes linked together similar to the Central Finite Curve of Rick and Morty. Those universes were echoing off of Hiroki’s universe, and when he went in to see how Hiroki and Akari got together in the first place, he saw how they were manipulated together by the latter’s family and a version of the former from another universe who essentially “roofied” her into being with him. He was angry upon learning that Hiroki did everything he could to stay with Akari when his universe was trying to split them up, pointing out that he went as far as to fix his relationship with Akari in time yet managed to prevent a similar curve from forming with Hideko Kimihara.

During their clash, the main keep shakes twice as the Girl Power forces charging at the castle are impeded by an unknown force. That universe’s Akari decides to fire cannons at the keep as Decade Complete Form 21 is defeated with his equipment destroyed. The two of them hear this and they jump off the main keep as it is hit. Ohma Zi-O is left unconscious while Hiroki staggers away from the battlefield and heads back to his universe.

Episode 1: Autumn Winds 秋風

Every episode in the series has a two-character Kanji title and every second episode has a Katakana ateji reading. This episode adapts Outsiders episode 3 and takes inspiration from Gotchard episode 1.

Hiroki wakes up from a nightmare of the fight between him and Zi-O before seeing his friends unconscious around him in Yokohama. It’s been a month since the fight and Hiroki’s memory has become patchy, with parts of his travel history and UNIT files erased or encrypted. Akari’s friend from episode 11 of Kamen Rider Decade is now Brigadier at UNIT HQ fighting as Kamen Rider Birth.

That evening, Hiroki and Akari meet with Narutaki and Veronica, along with their boyfriends, Accel and Birth X, for dinner. Hiroki acts strange as he sees Ohma Zi-O in the corner of his eye and hears the others seemingly badmouthing him. Akari suggests to Hiroki that he cool off for a bit and he goes to the toilet, where he sees Ohma Zi-O in the mirror, telling him that his friends hate him and would turn on him the first chance they get. He then finds himself taking out his K-Touch as Ohma Zi-O entices him to give into his anger. Hiroki runs out as he tries to get Ohma Zi-O out of his head, but on the way back, he suddenly stops as his body is taken over.

Returning to the restaurant, Hiroki transforms into Decade Complete Form. Akari and Narutaki transform and defeat Hiroki before taking him to the UNIT sick bay. Akari tells Hiroki that he “went loco” again (like he did when he was hunting his former friends in Soulbound Series 4) but this time, he doesn’t remember what he did. Hiroki is told to stay in the sick bay while the new Brigadier and Akari brief the UNIT personnel on a new threat known as the Hundred Hands who are attacking worlds with the powers of Kamen Riders. Their minions are Ohma Zi-O’s Kachinebots, but they have been unable to find a link between him and the Hundred Hands.

Suddenly, Aurora Curtains open and an army of Kachinebots emerge from them. Hiroki runs out of the sick bay and into battle, but his body is taken over again and he fights the other Riders. He is about to finish off Akari (Duke) when time suddenly stops. Kamen Rider Zeni Zi-O makes his appearance, defeating Decade with the Hyper Critical Sparking which detransforms him. Zeni Zi-O detransforms and is revealed to be the Ohma Zi-O who Hiroki fought a month ago, having upgraded himself with Decade’s powers. He proclaims that he will obtain the Seven Powers of Heaven and become the purest and dearest god before retransforming and fighting the other Riders.

As the other Riders are defeated one by one, just like in his dream, Hiroki finds the strength to get back up and transform into Decade Ultimate Complete Form. He fights Zeni Zi-O but is still no match for him as the evil Rider ties him up in the air and tortures him with electric shocks. An Aurora Curtain opens and the Legend Twindriver flies out of it and onto Decade’s waist, which replaces the Decade Beltmorpher as it drops to the ground and detransforms Hiroki as he is released from Zeni Zi-O’s bonds. Hiroki uses his Rider Cards with the Legend Twindriver to transform into Kamen Rider Legend Decade Anniversary Time. Though Legend Decade holds his own against the Machinebots, he is still defeated in a Rider Kick clash with Zeni Zi-O. A detransformed Hiroki is taken away by an Aurora Curtain while Akari tells the new Brigadier that it’s no use searching for him as his Vortex Manipulator Mark 3 can make him untraceable, meaning that all they can do is wait for him to come back…

Episode 2: Legend 伝説 - レジェンド -

This episode adapts the Gotchard VS Legend web special, but with Hiroki in Houtaro’s place of course. Kaguya’s counterpart in this series is named Robin Phoenix Quartz Merle. Robin’s world was also ravaged by the Hundred Hands, and an encounter with Decade (where it takes place in his timeline is ambiguous because he doesn’t remember) led him to create the Legendriver and become a Kamen Rider himself, also creating the Legend Twindriver for Hiroki to repay his kindness.

Gengetsu of the Hundred Hands is a unique-ish Rider, Kamen Rider Hundred, who transforms using the Hundreadriver, with Type Zero debuting in this episode. He will be a regular villain in the series whereas Zeni Zi-O is the main villain. Gengetsu is one of the Hundred Hands’ Seven Spears, and the other Spears will be seen as we continue through the series.

After defeating Hundred, Hiroki finds six locked Kamen Ride cards (relating to the Reiwa Riders up to Gavv), meaning that he has to go on another journey to unlock them. He requests Robin to create some more Twindrivers for his friends back home, which he does. As Akari and the new Brigadier receive the package at UNIT, Hiroki calls Akari and tells her that he won’t be back for a while.

Special 1: Cross of Fire 炎の十字架 - クロス・オブ・ファイア -

Before this series aired I also commissioned two specials, which along with episode 0, equated to 4 episodes out of the 28-episode allocation I had for this series (same as the SPPDM 20th adaptation). Both specials take place between episodes 2 and 3. The first special was aired in April as the Easter Special, and it adapts Wizard episodes 52 and 53, the post-series Decade crossover two-parter.

Here’s the counterparts for the respective Rider characters in this special - Hiroki is Haruto, Sougo is Nitou, Ace (Geats) is Tsukasa and Geramie (Gotchard) is Kouta. Geiz, Luna and Mark from Zi-O return as well along with Jolena (and so do Firerose and Akari, but they’re also in the main series itself).

This special also acts as a pseudo-tribute to Gravity Falls even though I’ve never watched the series; the Haruto and Koyomi-expy kids are expies of Dipper and Mabel voiced by their voice actors (while also being named after Hiroki and Akari), and the villain, Amadam, is basically Bill Cipher (voiced by Alex Hirsch).

In the original two-parter there were 13 Rider Rings (excluding Wizard), but in this special there are 26 Ridewatches (including Ninja, Magica and Shugo but excluding Decade, Zi-O, Gavv and Legend). Naturally, “Dipper” and “Mabel” use the Ridewatches to summon the Kamen Riders to protect them.

Later, when Hiroki saves the kids from Amadam and steals the Fourze Ridewatch, Sougo passes him the Diend Ridewatch so he can summon the Diend Gunmorpher, using the Illusion, Blast and Invisible cards with it. Amadam then summons Geats to take back the Ridewatch.

Sougo sneaks into Amadam’s lair as he summons all the Riders from their Ridewatches, but Amadam knows that he is there. Sougo transforms into Zi-O, but Amadam easily defeats and captures him, whereas Beast just disappeared after his defeat.

Geats detransforms as he meets with Hiroki, then reveals himself to be on Amadam’s side as he makes his trademark fox gesture. “Dipper” is brought to Amadam by Ace but Hiroki soon confronts them, revealing that Amadam was once a tyrant from another dimension who was sealed by the Kamen Riders in a pocket universe inside a stasis cube. As a seemingly brainwashed Sougo is ordered to defeat Hiroki by Amadam since he owns the Ridewatches, Sougo seemingly “breaks” from it as he says that he, like the other Riders, were just protecting the weak.

In the ensuing fight, “Dipper” prays to the Ridewatches and brings Gotchard into the pocket dimension, then Amadam is defeated by all the Riders in their strongest final forms. After Amadam’s defeat, Hiroki and Sougo give “Dipper” a blank Rider Card and Ridewatch, hoping that he can find his own power someday.

Returning to the real world, Sougo confirms that he has become Ohma Zi-O once again in his world and says that Yabuverse PM10 needs their help, while Hiroki says that he has been having trouble with Zeni Zi-O. As the two of them laugh at Hiroki having trouble with himself again, Hiroki laughs uneasily as we see a quick montage of scenes from the first episode, a teaser of how epic it will be.

Special 2: Behind The Dust 塵埃の後幕 - ビハインド・ザ・ダスト -

This second special is an original special summarising Hiroki’s involvement in the Sea Princesses 20th anniversary event fanfic (and anime adaptation), which also includes my storyline saga The Interdimensional Café. I had to explain it sooner or later. It was broadcast between the SPPDM 20th anime adaptation and episode 0.

Part 1A, where Hiroki meets with Parker from Yabuverse PM10 and myself in the Voidstation, takes place six months prior to the events of this series. Three months after that, Hiroki’s Beltmorpher X and K-Touch 21 are borrowed by his future self (his current self from our view) because they were destroyed in episode 0.

In the present day, clones of the Salacians are attacking Salacia, Santos and Yokohama (among other places). This is where Parts 1B and 2A of the story takes place as Hiroki, Sougo and Polvina fight the Polvina clones at my studio. Part 2B takes us back to the Voidstation as Hiroki explains that he destroyed a universe where the clones came from and that it took his group five days to track them down. Parker PM10 is absent and Hiroki has been trying to find a way to enter his universe, but he can’t because something is preventing them from doing so.

After that, we then get Hiroki’s appearance in The Successors, and at this point, this is their fifth attempt at accessing Yabuverse PM10. On their 14th attempt, they actually manage to enter PM10, but they end up in the year 2046, 28 years after the war ended. The Salacian princes and princesses, who are now kings and queens and have families of their own, emerge from the ocean to greet them. Parker tells Hiroki that the key is Bites the Dust before he, Duante and Daniel Camielez hand them the Staff of Oblivion, the Goldvisor and the Mermaid King’s crown.

At the Voidstation, Hiroki connects the items to a portal to triangulate the exact time to open the other end. As Polvina’s friends arrive (having gone down to her Salacia to pick them up), Sougo and Hiroki say that they only built a dimensional beacon to summon people and they didn’t call their friends because Sougo’s are too busy and Hiroki doesn’t want to bother his. He gets a call from Kayley and Firerose on Never Land, but he lets it go to voicemail as he watches their fight from the Reading Room, and fun fact Firerose uses Kuuga Rising Ultimate Form alongside Kayley using Diend Ultimate Complete Form.

Sougo and Polvina are worried for Hiroki as he is acting different than normal; Polvina reveals that Akari told her and some of Hiroki’s other friends about what happened, but Hiroki asks her not to say anything else. The equipment locks onto Yabuverse PM10 and everyone, including Shouma (Gavv) and the future royals from 2046, rush through it, which leads them to Part G of the fanfic, but this special only focuses on the Rider side of things.

Returning to the Voidstation, Polvina tells Hiroki that he has people who are there for him as the group head their separate ways. Hiroki’s paradox meter goes off and he returns his Beltmorpher X and K-Touch 21 to his past self before the paradox rips open time and space. The future royals return to the year 2046 when they are all confronted by Zeni Zi-O in an early-bird cameo, who uses Ryuki Survive’s power to rain fireballs all over.

So that’s it for the specials. After this point, I haven’t written anything else until episodes 11 and 12, but I have contributed ideas for other episodes to their writers, which we’ll go through now.

Episode 3: Alchemist 錬金/Episode 4: Chemistry 化学 - ケミストリー -

This two-parter is the Gotchard tribute arc. Before this episode, Hiroki’s transformation pose as Legend Decade was just posing as he pulled the levers of his Legend Twindriver, but after this two-parter he adopts Gotchard’s transformation pose fully.

This story features the debut of Hakubo, the second of the Seven Spears who transforms into Kamen Rider Eden. Geramie Leigh Diamond is Kamen Rider Gotchard, who was also seen in the specials. Rina Cluedo is Kamen Rider Majade and Spanner Steelix is Kamen Rider Valvarad.

An idea I had for this episode was that Gotchard would attend the same school that Hideko Kimihara went to after leaving the Sendai Army in 2012 and so we would have also seen her and Karen Brewer working with Tenkuuji Takeru as ghost hunters. Karen and Hideko would have transformed into Zero Specter and Kanon Specter, but because I didn’t write it I don’t know if it would have transpired.

Episode 5: Intelligence 知能/Episode 6: Imagination 想像 - イマジネーション -

The Zero-One tribute arc. The premise of Zero-One’s world is that Zia Hiden (a girl) is going to be the next head of Hiden Intelligence and Albert Amatsu (a boy) is the next head of ZAIA Enterprise. The two of them are childhood friends and lovers which causes difficulty for their fathers, who are also training their children to be their companies’ Kamen Riders, Zero-One and Horobi. Zia and Albert grow distant as the latter’s father proposes a takeover bid through a Workplace Competition, which would culminate in a final battle between the two Riders.

By the time of the final battle, Albert learns that Zia has a terminal disease and she wants Albert to mercy kill him; he couldn’t do it initially, but he eventually does and Zia breathes her last in Albert’s arms. As a result, ZAIA Enterprise takes over Hiden Intelligence and Albert also becomes Zero-One. Albert is the Zero-One we would see fighting in Yabuverse PM10 and Zia being Zero-One here is a bit of a red herring.

Zia’s consciousness is uploaded to the satellite Zea and Albert’s consciousness is uploaded to the satellite Ark upon his death many years later, the two of them becoming their respective satellites’ avatars. The story ends with Albert joining Zia at a cottage in a virtual space, the two of them living happily ever after in code and consciousness.

This plot was something I imagined for another Hiroki and Akari counterpart, but I gave it to another writer and had them change the characters because I didn’t want it to be like that. Simple as.

And what was Hiroki doing in this two-parter? His Randomiser gave him a job at Hiden/ZAIA and he defeats Kamen Rider Eden.

Episode 7: Royale 合戦/Episode 8: Desire 欲望 - デザイア -

The Geats tribute arc. Outsiders episode 4 is also used as inspiration for this two-parter. Ace has already become the God of Creation/Genesis while Ziin is the latest producer/Game Master of the Desire Grand Prix/Royale.

Hiroki is selected to participate in the Desire Royale along with other Kamen Riders. My initial plans for this series were to include other Riders that had received new post-series forms and post-series legacy Riders (aside from those that had already been done in Soulbound Series 4/Zi-O), but a lot of them ended up in this two-parter because it was the only way we could do it (and I didn’t even write this story).

Other participants in the Desire Royale (along with debuting Riders and forms) include Zeni Zi-O, Double FangMetal/FangTrigger, OOO Tajadol Eternity, the Dazzlings (Next Faiz, Next Kaixa and Muez), Hundred Type One, a new member of the Seven Spears Mangetsu (Calibur), Garren King Form and Ark-Zero. The three-way battle between Ark-Zero, Garren and Zeni Zi-O from Outsiders episode 4 is adapted.

Once Legend Decade becomes the last Rider standing, he has to fight a final boss round with Geats in order to win the Desire Royale. The fight culminates in a final clash between Legend Decade Geats Gotchard and GeatsIX, which is won by the former. Hiroki’s wish isn’t shown in this episode, but it is later implied, then confirmed as “to live happily together with Akari”.

Episode 9: Saber 聖刃/Episode 10: Almighty 全能 - オールマイティー -

In the Saber tribute arc, Saber gives Decade a trial and after clearing it, he gains the Ridexcalibur (from Robin) with which he uses Decade X, transforming into various final forms. Mangetsu faces off against Saber and Legend Decade and then gets defeated. That’s it.

Interlude 1

Like how the SPPDM 20th adaptation had a 12-episode allocation in which we did the prelude mini-series (Combo Rangers: Operation Wagan/The Investigation), this series also has a 12-episode allocation which we did interludes. This first interlude was released between episodes 5 and 10 for 6 episodes and it features the Gotchard Riders meeting Akari and the others at UNIT. The Gotchard Riders basically help UNIT duplicate their Gotchardriver attachments, allowing Akari and Narutaki to transform into Legend Wizard and Legend Drive. Veronica’s new Twindriver spec needs some more work and another WizarMagic Spec is made which UNIT needs to find someone for.

Episode 11: Winter Skies 冬空/Episode 12: Platinum 白金 - プラチナ -

OK, now we’re back to a story that I wrote.

Hiroki has collected the Seven Powers of Heaven (Decade Complete Form 21, Ohma Zi-O, Kuuga Rising Ultimate, Kabuto Hyper Form, Wizard Infinity Style, Ghost Mugen Damashii, GeatsIX) and has created a superweapon, a Twindriver spec module shaped like Decade’s face called the Decade Module. He has also been fighting Progenitor soldiers from the Battle of Koshi Castle in December 2013 that have scattered throughout various time periods. He also witnesses his past self’s dates with Akari before he is shown watching her having a hen party with her friends before her wedding with past Hiroki (that took place prior to the Battle of Koshi Castle). Zeni Zi-O notes to Hiroki that this is where everything started to go wrong and that he could topple Girl Power and change history. The events of the Battle of Koshi Castle are a fixed point in time and it and the events around it were time-locked by Hiroki, who has now deactivated it.

This deactivation is detected by Akari, Narutaki and Veronica as Veronica wonders why she and some other cousins never made it to see Akari’s wedding. Akari remembers that the Teiro and Karn Armies were preparing to invade Yokohama while everyone was distracted at Koshi Castle, but both armies were defeated before they could do anything, and Veronica, who was with them, doesn’t remember much about it. Heading over to UNIT HQ, the new Brigadier allows Akari, Narutaki and Veronica to head back in time to find out the truth. Gengetsu arrives, leading a unit of Kachinebots as he transforms into Hundred Type Two. Akari’s other cousins are sent to fight them.

Akari’s group arrives at the Teiro Army base just as there is an explosion; Hiroki is fighting 2013 Veronica and the Teiro Army as Decade. Akari and Narutaki transform as they try to tell Decade that they can help him, but he questions how they could help him now. Veronica leads her past self and her cousins out of the base when they are confronted by Zeni Zi-O. She transforms into Gridon Lychee Arms, but Zeni Zi-O summons Drive’s Shift Tyres to knock out past Veronica et al before defeating Gridon with the Zeni Zi-O Hissatsu Geki, destroying her Sengoku Driver. He is about to kill her but is stopped by Legend Drive with the Full Throttle Crash just as Legend Wizard defeats Decade with the Gabutto Magic Finish, which destroys the Beltmorpher. As Hiroki picks up his destroyed Beltmorpher, he tells Akari that their next showdown will be at Koshi Castle before he and Zeni Zi-O leave through Aurora Curtains.

Hundred is defeated as Aurora Curtains bring in Progenitor soldiers, both in the present and in the past. The new Brigaider learns that a fixed point in time is being changed and is causing time distortions throughout the multiverse. The latest Twindriver user reports in, and it’s Hiroki’s old friend from the Northern Army, James Nolan. Akari, Narutaki and Veronica return from the past and they are quickly deployed to deal with the Progenitor soldiers. Veronica and James are given their Legend Twindrivers and they transform into Legend Kuuga and Legend Den-O, while Akari and Narutaki head back to 2013 to stop Hiroki from breaking the fixed point at any cost.

While Sougo and Geiz defeat the Karn Army in 2013 on Hiroki’s request, Hiroki uses the parts from his destroyed Beltmorpher to complete the Decade Module. Akari and Narutaki confront him and the three of them begin fighting. After repelling Hundred (who had attacked Yokohama) and reducing the number of Progenitor soldiers, Veronica and James are sent to assist Akari and Narutaki, but upon arriving in 2013, they are intercepted by Zeni Zi-O.

After the other four Riders are defeated, Hiroki uses the Decade Module to transform into Kamen Rider Platinum Decade before using the rest of the Seven Powers of Heaven to activate the Platinum Charge Fever. He fires the combined power towards Akari and the others, but it suddenly misses them and hits Zeni Zi-O instead. Decade reveals that he had been under Zeni Zi-O’s control since the battle at Ōsaka Castle, and his powers have been syncing with him since then, meaning that all Hiroki needed to get was GeatsIX’s power. The Platinum Charge Fever was meant to transmit the powers to Zeni Zi-O, but thanks to Decade’s subterfuge, it actually damaged him instead. The four Riders transform again as Platinum Decade defeats them and Zeni Zi-O.

Decade uses the GeatsIX card in the Ridexcalibur to restore time before sending Akari and the others away with Aurora Curtains. Inside the Aurora Curtains, Vicki is able to see Hiroki and Akari’s wedding for the first time in-person, while Zeni Zi-O sees Hiroki with the Akari from his universe. The time lock has been restored as well.

This has been the first part of Decade Legend Fighters. Most of my writing in this series will come in the second part. This series feels very incel-core, doesn’t it? Rest assured, the subtext will be explained later.

Kind of want to briefly explain the opening and ending sequences for the first part. The opening has Hiroki running up the steps on a pink background set amidst montages of past adventures, while the ending is similar to Kamen Rider Hibiki’s ending sequence as it shows Hiroki walking before turning to the camera as it moves past him and pans toward the sky.

Anyway, stay tuned for the second part. May the good times come!

Ending theme 1: 水平線

[yeonchi]

Last month, Alex Williamson was "indefinitely suspended" by his footy club after posting a "deeply offensive" video which (iirc) made fun of the fact that Jefferson Lewis was allowed near a child immediately after being released from prison, given his history of assault and domestic violence, resulting in Kumanjayi Little Baby going missing six days after. Yes, it may have been tasteless, but the reaction to it only served to prove his point... and showed that nobody calling him out for it watched the video.

This month, Lisa Jane Spencer was fired by her workplace, Peninsula Hot Springs, after people mobbed them online over a video she posted mocking indigenous community and identity. Pfft, consequences, more like overreaction, amirite? And yet they claim to be "inclusive" while the people supporting her firing have never lifted a finger for the communities in the outback whose issues were being called out.

GIVE HER HER JOB BACK, YOU COWARDS.

[yeonchi]

Combo Rangers Retrospective Introduction

(cloud drive link available after break)

What does it mean to have an impact on a franchise? For me, I’ve shared fanart, contributed to wikis and worked to make otherwise obscure media visible through transcription, translation and archival. My work may be underappreciated, but I still consider it important, particularly when it comes to obscure franchises in danger of becoming lost media. And when it comes to obscure and niche works that I happen to like, I take the opportunity to spotlight them and give them the mainstream (English) recognition they deserve.

Hello and welcome to Atop the Fourth Wall, where bad comics burn. Let’s get a bit more serious here because I’m going to be starting a new series. Welcome, my friends, to the Combo Rangers Retrospective, part of the Fabio Yabu Extravaganza.

In this series, I intend to transcribe, translate and review the entirety of the Combo Rangers series, which consists of the Flash webcomics (the ball phase, Zero and Revolution) and the print comics (the Revolution trilogy, JBC and Panini). The “We Are” Universe graphic novel trilogy was already translated and reviewed in 2022-23.

This is going to be a slow-burn project, so expect things to be released slowly over a longer period of time. The main reason for this is because I’m juggling between different projects, plus I haven’t had to put in as much effort into transcription and translation since the Sea Princesses book reviews in 2020, so I need some time to get back into the groove and figure out an optimal workflow.

There's already an English Wikipedia page and a TV Tropes page for the series, yet there are no English releases for the original webcomics and print comics. The reboot graphic novels (well, officially, two of them, anyway) are already in English, so it stands to reason that everything else deserves to be translated, particularly since they're literal throwbacks for fans of the original comics.

The Fabio Yabu Extravaganza is the unofficial name for an overarching set of reviews that also covers my reviews of Sea Princesses and the Combo Rangers graphic novel trilogy. Aside from all this, two more works from Fabio Yabu will be translated (as a warm-up), which are The Last Princess (A Última Princesa) and The Return of Juspion (O Regresso de Jaspion). These were the only (interesting) books I could get at this time; if other interesting books from Yabu become available later on then I might consider getting them to translate.

The Last Princess is a work I thought would be connected to Sea Princesses but it actually isn’t - as you’ll find out, it’s a part-fantastical part-historical story based on an exiled Brazilian princess whose story has been forgotten over the years. The Return of Juspion is the result of a collaboration between JBC, Sato Company and Toei, therefore it is an officially-sanctioned sequel work to the original 1985 series. Its original release in 2018 (before being delayed to 2020) was intended to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series being broadcast in Brazil and the 110th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil; this announcement of the translation comes 40 years after the series originally concluded in Japan.

So, about how to download the Combo Rangers raw materials… you know how I highlighted a site where all of the Flash animations and old comic issues could be downloaded through 4shared links? Recently, 4shared has been wanting users to create an account even if they log in through social media, which previously, was enough to be able to download anything. Now, some people may not want to create an account on 4shared for whatever reason, so I intend to host the files on my cloud drive folder. It doesn’t take up a lot of space, after all.

The Combo Rangers comics are straightforward enough (in terms of hosting), but the Flash webcomics are a little more complicated. See, when I acquired the Flash files, they were delivered in .exe format. Each of the .exe files include the original .swf file within a Flash projector, which means that you can just double-click the file and the Flash .swf will open without needing to install additional software. However, there is a concern that .exe files might contain viruses (even though these files don’t), and if your laptop was provided by your school or work, then they might have policies in place to prevent unknown .exe files from running, not to mention that they don’t work on phones or tablets.

Since the .exe files are already available on 4shared (via the linked site) and the Internet Archive, I’ve taken the liberty of extracting the .swf files from them and those are the files that I’ll be hosting. But how do you open them? I recommend using the Ruffle Flash emulator on all platforms, but if you have your own solution (or want to use the .exe files), then you may do so at your own risk.

Because the Flash animations were originally created for computers, it may be a bit hard to view them or navigate between pages on phone screens. You can connect a mouse to it to assist with navigation, but I recommend viewing the animations on a bigger screen, whether you connect your phone to a screen (if it has that capability) or use a tablet or computer. The animations upscale very easily on modern monitors because of how Flash files are rendered, but there are elements that go out of the frame border which I’ll attempt to detail in the transcripts.

The first three episodes of Revolution are fully animated and voiced, but they have also been adapted into a three-issue miniseries. I plan to release English (and Portuguese-transcribed) subtitles for them, so it might be a bit of a stumbling block in terms of progress because this series is best completed in order.

I did also have plans to do a screenshot/screencap release to make it easier for mobile users, but because of how Flash works I decided to just provide the .swf files instead. I’ll try to add descriptions for any moving scenes to the transcripts in case you’re not viewing them side-by-side with the animations.

All raws, transcripts and translations will be hosted in my cloud drive folder here. A separate document has also been created for me to document the time it takes to transcribe and translate everything. The reviews of the webcomics will be published in groups, then the reviews of the printed comics will be published individually, so follow me and the #combo rangers retrospective tag (on Tumblr or RSS) to see each post as they come out. Whether you've read them in the past or you'll be reading them for the first time, I hope you'll join me on my mission to bring the Combo Rangers (back) to the world.

And now, it's Combo Time!

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #67: We Didn't Start the Time War

For this last filler instalment I’ve got something special for you. In 2013, I made a special parody of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire for the 50th Anniversary Series, summarising the events of my version of Doctor Who, classic and modern. Please enjoy.

We Didn’t Start the Time War

(First Doctor) Gallifrey, Stone Age, Daleks, The Singing Sands, Velvet Web, Sensorites, Oldlin Mezatai, Yunfo, Invasion Earth, Chase chase, exterminate, Touch screen, Loneliness, Exile on Earth.

Autons, Silurians, Mars, UNIT, Parallel Earth, Airport to Hong Kong, Richard Yang is born, Wedding day, Muchiki, Total China Mystery, Orient, Kyushu, Osaki goodbye!

We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the Time War, No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it.

(Second Doctor) Kimia, Cheng Xieyun, Yusha and Alex too, Botanical, Southgate, shopping centre, Paige R, Hannah S, Matthew J, Minnie Xia, Brigadier again, "The Sound of Music", Tiffany, James Nolan, Simon’s getting married, Lyn Sheperd, Becky C, Lovelust, Hong Kong again, Violence, Stranglement, Liam B, Elaine, Threatening, Death knives, Simon’s getting divorced!

We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the Time War, No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it.

(Second/War/Third Doctors) Kookaburra, Blast guns, Dalek Dorks, Dinghai-Wuzi, Natsuki, Sisters of Karn, “Doctor no more” Colleen, Glenice Mac, Qigong, Clifton Hill Jamie N takes his girl, Tiffany no more, Oh-oh-oh.

(Third Doctor) Bad Wolf, Chibi falls, Fifi Forget-me-not, Slitheen, Downing Street, Winter Wonderland, Ferris Wheel, Rosebud, Modogawa, Shangkar, Angelina Ballerina, Garfield and a Dalek!

We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the Time War, No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it.

(Fourth Doctor) Allons-y, New Earth, Torchwood Institute Cybermen, TV, Daleks, Goodbye Fifi, Kagami Hiiragi, Smith and Izumi, Sonic and Tails, Grand Lord Specter, Gensokyo, Tsukasa, Antoni’s killing us, JDC and the Master, what else do I have to say?

We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the Time War, No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it.

(Fifth Doctor) Ricchan, Ironsides, Weeping Angels back again, Van Gogh, Yuzuru, Kanade, Kongming, Pony Doctor, Doctor Whooves, Silence, Kikuchi, Daleks in Equestria, Simon’s found Yukari, Wen Tao Gardens, Salacia War, Takumi and Kumiko, Snowmen, Sombra, Clara, Squiddie, Takeru, Sontarans in Tokyo, Alliance got Hideko, Going to Koshi Castle, I can't take it anymore!

We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the Time War, But when we are gone Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on…

We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the Time War, No we didn't light it...

“But what about Next Gen and Moushouden?” I got you covered, fam. Last year in preparation for Decade Legend Fighters, I made a new version of We Didn't Start the Time War focused on those series. It was based on Fall Out Boy’s 2023 cover of the song and because they cut out a verse and made the song a little shorter, you would have to rewind the song towards the end then go back to the end after my extra verse (which is indicated in the lyrics).

We Didn’t Start the Time War 2025

(Series 8) Strawberry Ichigo, Doctor Who is back again, CNY Specials, Project Next Gen Series Christmas Carol, Echizen, Mortein, Kamelion, Sea Devils, Gravis, the Master and the Daleks

(Series 9) Satoyuki, Momoka, Dashie Dasher in the TARDIS, Angelina Ballerina back into the fold, Yokohama, Odawara, Nagashino, Popei One, Sekigahara, Ōsaka, Honnōji goodbye!

We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the Time War, No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it.

(Series 10-12) Sendai VCE panic, Clara four years later, Rusty, Listen, Skovox, Architect Boneless, Missy, Antoni, Ashildr, Bonnie, Osgood, Danny Pink, Santa Claus, Fisher King, ghosts

Sleep No More, Face the Raven, Heaven Sent, Hell Bent, River, Nardole, Bill Potts, Monks, Mars, Cybermen, Harold Saxon comes back, original Doctor too, I let you go, Believe in Me, we’re taking you another way!

We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the Time War, No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it.

(Gokaiger/Decade) Gokai Change, Kamen Ride, Sentai Ranger, Rider Time, Girl Power, Dai-Shocker, a massive Zangyack fleet is here, Elwood City, Sodor, Auckland, Wales, Salacia, Space Squad, Age of Riders, a passing-through Kamen Rider

(Three Kingdoms) Samukawa, Xiangyang, revolutions everywhere, Flowertots, race cars, the Special Unit rules, Unifying the land, conquering everything, JIMPS, flips, cousin wars, birth of a wanderer!

We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the Time War, No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it.

(Soulbound) Soulbound, Parallax, Ouka, Skaro, Normal World, Shinbu, Mogoro, Eigen, Suirin, Densei, Hayasaka, Enozaki, Gechorusa, RintaRyo, Jeopardy, Metallic 5, TeruMino, SEPTAN, Ultraman Ginga, Hikaru gets his life back, Crestor C, Dimension Merge, what else do I have to say?

(you should be at 2:51 now, go back to 1:01 from this chorus) We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the Time War, No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it.

(Zi-O) Overlords, servant Woz, Time Jackers jacking time Another Riders, Time Mazines, nexus point forever, Future Riders, Zi-O II, Geiz Revive, Trinity Woz Ginga, Ohma Zi-O, Tsukuyomi ABC

(Decade Legend Fighters) Zeni Zeni, Legend, Zero-One and Saber, Revi, Vice, Revice, Geats, Gotcha Gotcha Gotchard, Gavv, Cross of Fire, Bites The Dust, memory blown away, Decade fights Zeni Zi-O, I can’t take it anymore!

(now go back to 2:51 to finish the song) We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the Time War, But when we are gone It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on…

We didn't start the Time War, It was always burning Since the world's been turning.

And now for a bonus special track. After the crew produced a 500 Miles music video to wrap up production in 2012, Philip Zhou worked with a couple others on a remake of The Ballad of Russell and Julie before going on to work on the 50th Anniversary Series (when originally that song was made to commemorate the end of the RTD1 era).

The Ballad of Philip and Katie

Katie (Huang) and Philip (Zhou) sat one night. Philip sparked up a Marlboro Light. Katie’s eyes were all ablaze, As Philip tried to shun her gaze. He knew the look, he knew the score; It seemed more manic than before. Philip cringed in fear and dread As Katie pulled him near and said:

Let’s do it! Let’s do it! I’ve had a really good idea. We’ll re-vamp, make more camp A sci-fi show from yester-year. I’ve had banter with Tranter. Your written word will be hailed in the ming mong mantra. Let’s do it! Let’s do it tonight!

But he said…

I can’t do it! I can’t do it! You’re asking far too much of me. I’m harassed, embarrassed; I’ve watched the show since I was three. Don’t choose me, don’t use me, My mother sent a note to say you must excuse me. I can’t do it! I can’t do it tonight!

So she said…

Let’s do it! Let’s do it! Make a brand new Doctor Who. We’ve got James back, all’s missing Is a sidekick and an all-Welsh crew. (the 2012 RFC reboot actually started with a continuation of the Fourth Doctor era in 2011, the first few series were also actually produced in Tokyo) It’s not silly to ask Rusty. (Russell T Davies) We’ll film in every quarry from here to Caerphilly. Let’s do it! Let’s do it tonight!

Ooh, then he said…

I can’t do it! I can’t do it! The pressure of the RFC. I must e-mail some young male To alleviate the stress on me. I can’t block out, please lock out, Images of Kagamine (Len) getting his cock out. I can’t do it! I can’t do it tonight!

She replied…

Let’s do it! Let’s do it! Phil okayed my offer to produce. We’ll get Trac to take flack When he lets his raging temper loose. My decision to use your vision Will make the show the best thing on the television. Let’s do it! Let’s do it tonight!

And he squawked…

I can’t do it! I can’t do it! James is giving up his role. No Time Lord? Oh good Lord, How we’re gonna fill this role? It’s too complex, we’re all wrecks. My brain is overflowing with a bloody Dalek. I can’t do it! I can’t do it tonight!

She excitedly said…

Let’s do it! Let’s do it! We’ll get another Time Lord in. Don’t sweat it, you can’t let it Make you sad and maudlin. It’s not over, and moreover, We’ll get the lovely fellow in from Every Move You Make. (Philip Zhou played the main character Linus Yiu in this) Let’s do it! Let’s do it tonight!

And he yelled…

I can’t do it! I can’t do it! I really think that I can’t cope. More re-writes, no respite- I think I’ve given up all hope. It’ll get canned, it’ll be panned. Lou says there’s no costumes in the whole of Tokyo. I can’t do it! I can’t do it tonight!

Then she proclaimed…

Let’s do it! Let’s do it! Tenshi Tachi (Kanade Tachibana) is Emily Neves. We’ll bring back Captain Jack To fight against the Cybermen. We’ll cast a great Master, (it was actually Zhuge Liang/Parker Zhou as Paul Lee lmao) He can plunge the planet into global disaster. Let’s do it! Let’s do it tonight!

And he screamed…

I can’t do it! I can’t do it! You’ve cast Ishinomaki’s pop princess. (the real-life inspiration for Akari Ichigo) It’s madness, my sadness Will make this episode a mess. My panic is manic- The uproar when I ship her with that handsome looking boy! (Hiroki Ichigo) I can’t do it! I can’t do it tonight!

And she expelled…

Let’s do it! Let’s do it! The Doctor needs a brand new mate. Don’t linger, go ginger. I’m gonna bring back Cassandra Lee. I wanna, you’re gonna, Reunite the Doctor with the fabulous Ricchan. (this was when Series 6 adapted BBC Series 7 Part 1) Let’s do it! Let’s do it tonight!

He punctuated…

I can’t do it! I can’t do it! I’ve got obsessed with Come Home Love. Writer’s block. Please don’t mock, It takes my mind off other things. It’s so lame, I must blame dirty thoughts I’m having about Clara Oswald. I can’t do it! I can’t do it tonight!

Excitedly she said…

Let’s do it! Let’s do it! To film abroad will get my vote. I promise Ed Thomas can’t bring Saitama to Cardiff Bay. It’s D-Day in Tokyo; The comments will be buzzing on Nico Nico Douga. Let’s do it! Let’s do it tonight!

And he roared…

I can’t do it! I can’t do it! The studio in Wen Tao’s ablaze. On fire, it’s dire- How the hell are you not phased? It’s mental. Be gentle. They say the cause of fire was a Berkley Menthol. (I don’t remember exactly but I recall there was a small fire in a bin that we quickly put out, idk it was over 10 years ago lol) I can’t do it! I can’t do it tonight!

So she roared…

Let’s do it! Let’s do it! We’ve got kids back behind settees. Our mission, ambition, Was a show for all the families. We should try as our goodbye A hassle-free excursion to Canterlot, Equestria. (The Curse of the Crystal Empire) Let’s do it! Let’s do it tonight!

Then he shouted…

Oh, let’s do it! Let’s do it! I feel like I’ve been set free. I won’t sweat it, now (Brian) Minchin Is taking up the reins from me. I can’t wait, it’s just great- I’ve got a cracking way for Hiroki to get married. Let’s do it! Let’s do it tonight!

Guess what?

They did it! They did it! They opened up the TARDIS door. They’re terrific, prolific. Made it better than it was before! A ‘thank you’ from your crew. We crown you both the King and Queen of Doctor Who. You did it! You did it tonight!

[yeonchi]

Sengoku Basara Retrospective Part 7: The Death of Sengoku Basara

Sengoku Basara had a good run in its decade-long heyday. It’s a series that has had its fans and while its appeal came from giving individuality to the characters and embracing its outlandishness over realism, it would never trump Koei Warriors games on various factors.

Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi was the last mainline/expansion game in the series released in 2015, followed by a spinoff Yukimura-den in 2016. Since then, while Capcom are continuing to peddle merchandise and pursue collaborations to keep reminding people that this series exists, no further games have been announced, and they’re also killing off some of their older games on the PSN Store even before the entire store closes for older platforms.

The ironic thing about Sengoku Basara was that it began life as a risky gambit by Capcom to stop them from going in the red for a third year in a row, and yet it wasn’t willing to take the risks necessary to keep the series going in the West, or whatever risks they took didn’t yield the results they were hoping to see.

In this conclusion to the Sengoku Basara Retrospective, we take a look at how the series died, why it’s not coming back and why the series only had two attempts at localisation.

Decline and Decay

Let’s take a look at what else happened in extended media after 2014.

Following the release of Sengoku Basara 4, the Judge End/End of Judgement anime premiered in July 2014. Although Takanori Nishikawa did not sing the opening theme for it, he did voice Tadatsugu Sakai. Later in October 2018, the Gakuen Basara anime premiered, adapting a comic anthology published since 2007 showing the characters in a modern-day school, the Basara Academy. Where the original anime series was produced by Production I.G, Judge End/End of Judgement was produced by Telecom Animation Film while Gakuen Basara was produced by Brains Base. For Gakuen Basara, Miyuki Sawashiro reprised her role as Itsuki from the mobile game (replacing her original seiyuu, Tomoko Kawakami) and Toshiki Masuda filled in for Ieyasu Tokugawa as his original seiyuu, Tōru Ōkawa, was on hiatus due to illness. This would also be the last appearance of Kōji Tsujitani, who voiced Nagamasa Azai, as he died of a stroke on 17 October 2018, early into the anime’s run.

In addition, Keiji Fujiwara, who voiced Hisahide Matsunaga, died of cancer on 12 April 2020 and most recently, Kōzō Shioya, who voiced Xavi and Yoshimoto Imagawa, died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 20 January 2026.

Sengoku Basara’s stage shows would continue running twice a year (which it had on average since 2012) until 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic led the live performance to be cancelled. Apparently they sold the merchandise for the show online and later ended up recording the performance but I haven’t seen any DVD releases for it. No further performances have come from the series after that.

A new Sengoku Basara mobile game, Battle Party, was released on 24 June 2019. It was a 6-v-6 gacha game that featured the new characters from Yukimura-den along with two new characters, Kiyomasa Katō and Komatsu(hime, aka Ina in Samurai Warriors) and an NPC navigator, Okuni. Apparently it was a flop due to the large number of bugs and glitches and it only lasted for 18 months, terminating service on 21 December 2020.

On 21 July 2020, Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi was rereleased with a physical Anniversary Edition and a digital Anniversary Set, combining a digital version of the game with a pack of all DLC sold for it (albeit with extra consumables instead of the element-changing weapons released as bonuses). After that, Battle Heroes was removed from the PlayStation Store for the PS3 and PS Vita on 29 October 2025, then the same happened for the PS3 port of 4 Sumeragi on 13 February 2026.

But perhaps the final nail in the coffin is the departure of producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi from Capcom at the end of March 2022 after 27 years. He went to join Chinese game developer NetEase, and later that year, became the chairman of their new Japanese subsidiary studio, GPTRACK50. He also scouted out lead programmer Shinya Shigeyoshi to join GPTRACK50 and their first game, Stupid Never Dies, is set to release sometime in 2026.

Until recently I was unable to find what happened to director Makoto Yamamoto. Supposedly, he was never heard from again after the end of the series because he isn't known to be on social media, but thanks to me finding an interview with Yamamoto released in April 2026, we finally learn that he is now working at Binary Haze Interactive and that he was producer and director on their latest game, TOKYO SCRAMBLE, released this past February for the Nintendo Switch 2. Funnily enough, Binary Haze Interactive was founded in 2020 by a Hiroyuki Kobayashi 小林 宏至, not to be mistaken for the Basara Hiroyuki Kobayashi 小林 裕幸 who founded GPTRACK50. (Seriously, I looked up the former's Japanese name and the main results were for a Hiroshi Kobayashi, what the hell?)

Sengoku Basara is a Capcom IP and with how franchises created by employees belong to companies, the prospect of another Sengoku Basara game would be next to impossible.

To import or not to import

Sengoku Basara’s localisation decisions can be described as short-sighted and erratic.

When the decision was made to localise the first game, Kobayashi and the team thought that Westerners wouldn’t enjoy a game based on Japanese history and they decided to capitalise on Devil May Cry’s success by 4Kids-ing the localisation and framing it as a sort-of spinoff game to the series. They also changed the names of the difficulties (on top of adjusting the battle mechanics) to make the game feel harder than it seems, but they adjusted the rewards in the wrong direction, ie Easy difficulty is Japanese Normal difficulty but you earn 0.7 times the EXP, while Normal difficulty is Japanese Hard difficulty but the rewards are equivalent to Japanese Normal difficulty. Unsurprisingly, this game was a failure in the West in sales and reviews and the subsequent sequel and expansion were not localised.

However, things would change later on down the line. The new wave of popularity brought along by Sengoku Basara 2 and Heroes spawned numerous spinoff mediums, including an anime series that was also dubbed in the West. Amidst the growing demand for another localised game, Capcom decided to take another chance and localised Sengoku Basara 3 as Sengoku Basara Samurai Heroes. They learnt their lessons from Devil Kings and left all the Japanese references and imagery intact, though they still adjusted the difficulty names to make the game seem harder than it appears while also adding an Easy difficulty since the lowest difficulty in Japanese is Normal difficulty.

Perhaps due to the lack of diversity in gameplay modes or a Japanese voice option, Samurai Heroes still didn't sell well despite it being released during a time when Koei Tecmo were being screwed over by Nintendo for Samurai Warriors 3. As a result, its expansion, Sengoku Basara 3 Utage, would not be released in the West.

There were attempts to appeal to Capcom for a localisation of Utage, filled with fans pointing out where Capcom went wrong, particularly the lack of marketing in the West. One of those attempts would be addressed by then-Senior Vice President Christian Svensson, aka Sven, who stated that Sengoku Basara, being a Japan-focused game, was meant only for that territory, implying that it would stay there. He would then go on to address fans trying to convince Capcom what they could have done like they knew better than the bureaucrats who did the math:

Guys, I understand your interest and passion for the title, but there's no way you're going to convince me that a significant enough number of people are going to buy a Basara title in North America at a reasonable price point. We've tried twice now across two generations. We released the last Basara title in two SKUs at budget price points ($29.99 SRP). There's no way you're going to convert the last outting's [sic] performance, regardless of what shortcomings you perceive, into a 6X - 8X performance in revenue for future titles. Not every title that's made needs to be released in the West if the game has a sustainable base in Japan.

Look, I always sympathise with the fanbase with things like this, because this is also something I’ve been through before with English dubbing in Koei Warriors games. There always seems to be a divide between business decisions and fan expectations; fans think that they know what’s best for the company, what they could do and what they should have done because they are the consumers and they can see what the company is giving and not giving them. However, businesses typically do not work that way; they make decisions based on what will turn a higher profit margin for their shareholders regardless of what their fans think. Put it this way - if a corporation were given the choice to earn $50,000 over 6 months or $300,000 over 3 years, of course corporations are going to pick the latter in a heartbeat, particularly when there’s no further context or any further prospects after the 6 months. By the time fans complain about their decisions, chances are that their minds are already made up and no amount of complaining will make them change their minds.

A couple of years later, Sven elaborated on the justification behind the decision not to localise Sengoku Basara:

We try lots of things... we tried the first Sengoku Basara games which were called "Devil Kings" in the West (just before my time here). Changed the name to be a bit more Western friendly and some of the trappings of the histories were also stripped down. It managed to sell about 30K copies here. Ok, that didn't work... so let's let a Japanese game be Japanese... we tried it again with the PS3/Wii Sengoku Basara... Media wasn't thrilled, preorders were weak, word of mouth was weak which in turn drives the forecasts and resultant marketing budgets and it sold about the same at aggressive price points. In short, it's unfortunate but sometimes there isn't enough of an audience interested in the title to justify the costs (both actual and opportunity) of bringing a title to the West.  Sometimes games aimed at a certain market are only viable in that particular market. There are games we've developed in the West that we haven't brought to Japan for the same reasons.

So yeah, people who say, “Well, Capcom barely advertised Sengoku Basara!” have neglected to consider that they already considered how much budget they were willing to put in for the games… and the popularity of the series could not warrant a wider marketing campaign. It’s an Ouroboros situation, much like English dubs in Koei Warriors games. Regardless, some credit has to be given to Sven for at least directly addressing the fanbase even if his responses were vague, because in my case, nobody within Koei Tecmo was ever able to give a straight answer about why they wouldn’t dub Warriors Orochi 3 (well, Chin kind of did but it took me a while to find it, so that doesn’t really count).

Raindrops and Daydreams made a post about how fans could convince Capcom to bring Sengoku Basara 4 to the West by sending them fan letters (which was the post I responded to), but as I said before, they wouldn’t have been much help because Capcom’s minds were already made up.

The Producer Factor

But of course, the biggest factor in getting a new Sengoku Basara game at all is of course, the production team, and sadly, the biggest figures, namely producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi and director Makoto Yamamoto, have moved on from Capcom, not to mention that Sengoku Basara is a Capcom IP, so there’s no chance of seeing a new Basara game coming from GPTRACK50 or even Binary Haze Interactive. Arguably however, even if fans in the West were yearning for a new game in the series, there are some fans in Japan who might not want to see one. Discounting the fact that the series was on the road to decline after 3, the main reason is that Sengoku Basara’s producer, Hiroyuki Kobayashi, is a problematic figure.

The guy has dissed the Koei Warriors series every chance he gets, yet he rips off elements from it at the same time. He called Samurai Warriors 3Z a “wagon sale” (bargain bin) game, and while Warriors fans acknowledge that it was released to backtrack on SW3’s Wii exclusivity and claw back PlayStation fans (though only in Japan), Kobayashi could have just taken the W for not limiting Sengoku Basara 3 to one console, and he didn’t even know how to do that.

Character-wise, SW Kunoichi’s Musou Attack became Basara Sasuke’s Basara Attack, Basara Kojūrō looks like SW Sakon and Basara Motochika’s appearance and personality is similar to that of DW Gan Ning. Basara Motonari is shown as a ruthless and cruel character, but in 3, he suddenly starts talking about unity (百万一心) which was ripped off from SW3 Motonari for some reason.

There’s a whole website that compares elements of the Warriors and Basara games. Just as there are characters who were introduced in SW before Basara, the opposite also applies so there are grounds for Basara to call plagiarism on SW, but most of these accusations are bullshit anyways.

So, remember all those jabs I made about Oichi and her character theme in earlier instalments? Fans have wondered why Oichi seems to get special treatment in this series compared to other characters. Why did Oichi get a character theme but nobody else did? Why does Oichi’s Story Mode have a special ending made for her not just in one game, but also in two spinoff games? Why did Oichi return in Basara 3 but not Nagamasa? The reason for these is… Hiroyuki Kobayashi is a simp for her seiyuu, Mamiko Noto.

Oichi’s character was likely heavily inspired by the character Enma Ai from the anime Hell Girl. Coincidentally, as Profar points out in his video on 2 Heroes, Ai was also voiced by Mamiko Noto and the way Oichi speaks in the game is eerily similar to Ai. Does Kobayashi have a fetish for girls who he thinks “I can fix her”?

The guy is a fan of Noto’s and he makes it known through his actions. When I said that Kobayashi “invited” Noto to sing 眠れ緋の華 for 2 Heroes, it was more like “strongly recommended”, maybe even “forced” at a stretch. Admittedly, this wouldn’t be much of a problem if the song was just in 2 Heroes, but it was also used in the PSP spinoff games as well.

When Noto was a guest on Basara-related radio shows, anime commentary or promotional events, you can bet your sweet ass Kobayashi would be there while at the same time not helping other seiyuus (like Keiji’s seiyuu Masakazu Morita) with their radio shows and promotions, showing clear favouritism for Noto. In the anime commentaries, he’d constantly gush more than the other cast and crew about his love for Oichi and less about the content of the episode.

In June 2008, Noto and Kobayashi were in a live event in the leadup to the launch of Sengoku Basara X. The two of them were asked which warlord they would serve for a day, meaning which character was their favourite in the series. Here’s how it went in a nutshell:

Kobayashi: Well, I like Nobunaga but I wouldn’t want to serve under him, so I’ll go with Masamune. Noto: Hmm… I’d go with… Ieyasu. I like how (his seiyuu, Tōru) Ōkawa voices him like a kid lol.

My plan was for the next line from Kobayashi to be “Oh, yeah nah, I like Ieyasu too,” but I found the source and it turns out that he never actually said it, at least not at that event. Regardless, when Sengoku Basara 3 was released in 2010, Ieyasu became the focus character for the game with a new older design, and Oichi also returned alongside Nobunaga despite the story taking place after the fall of the Oda (which means Nagamasa wasn't there because he was already dead by that point), and Kobayashi’s favourite character became Ieyasu. His Oichi favouritism got to the point that when the crew of the anime were celebrating his 38th birthday in 2010, the cake they got him had Oichi’s face alongside Kobayashi’s, the absolute fivehead.

With the Sengoku Basara games gaining a fanbase of female history buffs or rekijōs, Kobayashi has been reported to skew the focus of the series towards them in its marketing, resulting in the series attracting fujoshis (yaoi fangirls) and seiyuu otakus (the games’ easier difficulty, compared to Capcom’s other offerings, certainly helped things too). Normally there’s nothing wrong with wanting to appeal to a particular subset of an audience, but it starts to become a problem when you focus too much on that subset rather than trying to appeal to your audience in general. It’s even more of a problem when you focus on your female subset audience to flirt with them and they're like 20 years younger than you.

There are a lot of things to pick at with Kobayashi that I won’t go into here either because this post is getting long as it is or I don’t understand enough Japanese to fully dissect them. A lot of stuff has been pointed out on this r/dynastywarriors Reddit post looking at why Sengoku Basara is 100% dead and there’s a whole Japanese wiki calling out the bullshit of Kobayashi and Basara elitist fans. Their motto was to see Kobayashi leave Capcom, Sengoku Basara ending and Capcom going bankrupt. The third goal is a bit of a stretch, but on the other two, they were sure on the mark.

And so we’re here in 2026, over 20 years since Sengoku Basara was first released. At this point I think most of us can agree that Sengoku Basara is dead, and Capcom continuing to peddle merchandise and pursue collaborations is just beating a dead horse. The decline of Sengoku Basara is ironic when you consider that the series was originally created in a risky move to prevent Capcom from going further into decline. The production troubles that occurred in 4’s development led to them making a couple of risky moves with Sumeragi and Yukimura-den, but they clearly weren’t enough to justify another console game.

Perhaps the most important thing to consider is that Sengoku Basara isn’t one of Capcom’s best-selling franchises, nor are hack-and-slash games their bread and butter like Koei Tecmo with the Warriors games. Sengoku Basara only sold 4.1 million units (as of the end of 2025) compared to big hit titles like Resident Evil or Monster Hunter that sold over a hundred million units. Street Fighter, Devil May Cry and Mega Man may not be as popular as those two franchises, but they still sold more than Sengoku Basara did and games from the franchises I mentioned are still being developed and released to this day.

The Warriors games would also see a similar decline following the end of the classic era, eventually reaching rock bottom in 2018 when Dynasty Warriors 9 was released, however a lot of fan goodwill would be regained in 2025 with Dynasty Warriors Origins. While Capcom was never able to prove their use of their own patents during their lawsuit with Koei Tecmo (which they also won, by the way), it can be argued that Koei Tecmo's loss made them change their ways, particularly with them implementing season passes and expansion DLC instead of expansion discs with vanilla content locked behind an original-disc requirement for “import”/“remix”.

Putting aside its problematic producer or elitist fans, Sengoku Basara was a great series while it lasted. Although the series has made its mistakes over the years, they actually managed to seize their own peak at the start of the Warriors’ series spiral into decline, particularly during a period where they thought it would be good to make a mainline game exclusive to a console aimed at casual players.

Now that I’ve gotten a chance to get to know this series for myself, it’s incredible to see how this series became how it did and died when it did. I suppose as a fan of Koei Warriors games I should be privileged that that series continues on despite the many complaints fans (including myself) have had about the series. Capcom has had a better official response to the lack of localisations than Koei Tecmo ever attempted with the lack of English dubbing in their games. But now, in the midst of its games being taken down from the PSN, it has been a ride to experience the ups and downs of the Sengoku Basara series. Like the Warriors series before it, Sengoku Basara has been a beloved memory to its fans over the years. While things may come to an end, nothing ever really ends as long as people remember.

Sex and politics aside, I also hope you enjoyed the storyline saga that ran throughout this retrospective series, Deadset Tour Kiwami, named after Australian rapper Kerser's series of songs he made when he announced his tours. I came up with the idea for this story while on holiday a couple months back and I tried so hard to finish each chapter of the story in time for me to include it at the end of each instalment (I finished writing the retrospectives in advance). It was a cavalcade of mixed feelings, to put it simply, and I hope the story didn't detract from the retrospectives. (Then again, you could just not read it since it's only at the end of each instalment, and if you're concerned about who's reading this then Sengoku Basara is a series old enough for fans who followed the series to be of age anyway, or my best hope is that whatever censor at the National Security Department reading this doesn't give a shit enough to send a report to Tumblr or put a red flag on my record.) Anyway, please enjoy this conclusion to this storyline.

After leaving LOL-69 I went back to the Shadow Proclamation to drop off my luggage, then made my way back to that universe, the universe where it all started, and looked for the girl who started it all. I thought I'd killed her and her boyfriend some time ago, but after hearing rumours and seeing her in my nightmares, I learnt that somehow, that girl managed to survive.

Words couldn't express what I felt when I learnt the truth. Learning that she survived somehow felt like she was trying to spite me. I don't know how she survived and I don't care how, I'm going to stop her from plaguing my nightmares ever again.

Mission: Avenge the dream.

I confronted the girl at a park near where we fought last time. I took out my Zeztz Driver once again. Much to my surprise, she took out her sword, the Breakam Dawn.

CATASTROM!

PUNISH!

“It’s morphin time.”

PULVERIZE! RIDER! ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ! CATASTROM!

DAWN, DAWN, DAWN! NIGHTMARE RIDER! PUNISH!

As the two of us fought, I began to realise something; this girl is my nightmare. My regret for not being able to even form a friendship with my old crush, my envy for my old friends getting married and starting families, my resentment for never being able to have sex in real life. All these feelings and more coalesced into my initial fight with that girl, and her defeat coupled with the death of her boyfriend led her to become the Nightmare Rider as a form of revenge, a form of punishment towards me.

And then I realised the downsides of what I was wishing for; marital conflicts, having to raise children, potentially having to control my family so they don't go astray. There were also circumstances with my current situation; I've got new projects in the pipeline and old projects that have been stagnant for some time. I have the resources and connections to live in reasonable comfort. Most of all, I have a whole universe I can go to with a bunch of sexfriends who are happy to welcome me with open arms (and legs).

And then the doubt began to set in. What am I fighting for?

Catastrom is one of Zeztz's most powerful forms, but a drawback is that it requires full determination to use it. Having any sliver of doubt causes its power to recoil and harm my body. All these doubts paralysed me, giving my enemy a wide opening.

PUNISH SHOOT! Dawn managed to kick through me, locking me in an iron maiden. THE END!

...

...

...

"I can't let it be the end. I won't let it be the end. Don't let this be the end."

"Actions, effects, consequences, I'll surpass them. I'll surpass them all!"

And then, the dial on the Dualmare Capsem turned and the iron maiden broke around me.

METZAMERO! METZAMERO! ANATOMIZE! RIDER! ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ! ORDERM!

"I'll surpass everything."

With a snap of her fingers, Dawn altered the "nightmare" and summoned an army of soldiers. Solders who looked like people from our past.

Girl Power, Kikuchi Clan, the Dorks of the Kurayami Alliance, I will surpass them all.

"These are my orders: Avenge the dream."

Every soldier I fought, I named them as I surpassed them.

SWORD MODE!

Holly. Kaniko. Sarah. Penny. Tiffany. Shanae. Kacey. Seamus. Cooper. Kimia.

GUN MODE!

Kikuchi. Akahoshi. Kumabe. Saigō. Takezaki. Amano. Nonomura. Matsunaga. Hoida. Kimihara.

I turned around and finished them all off with a blast. BREAKAM BULLET!

DAWN PUNISH EDGE! GET LOST!

Dawn slashed the soldiers towards me with waves of purple, and I slashed at them as they flew past me in mid-air.

AX MODE!

Jayden. Ryan. Matthew. Tegan. Josh. Minnie. Ivy. Paige. Sam. Lin.

Alisha. Brian. Jamie. Cyrus. Michelle. Amy. Jade. Andrew. Justin. Wilson.

SCYTHE MODE! BREAKAM EDGE! I sent a wave of scythes flying to sweep them away. But Dawn's not the only one who can send soldiers flying. Just watch me.

Kyōko. Kai. Takumi. Kumiko. Richard. Zhuge Qiao. Hayato. Kyōya. Kasumi. Marco.

Momoka. Katsuki. Zhuge Shu. Terry. Dasher. Jee Gun. Takeru. Sougo. Parker. Hiroki.

Dawn sent those soldiers flying back at me, which I took down with my Inazuma Blaster. But despite this, Dawn didn't let up as she kept sending soldiers at me. This time, they resembled my new friends from universe LOL-69.

GREATSWORD MODE!

Hina. Mariko. Harumi. Ikumi. Chika. Rika. Tazuko. Kiyomi. Yukari. Natsuta.

Minakata. Hayami. Itō. Gotō. Kunishi. Murai. Kasahara. Awaya. Matsuda. Inoue.

PLASMA ON! VOLTAGE 1! 2! 3! FULL MAX! "Even if they're old friends, new friends, or casual sexfriends, I'll surpass them all!" GREAT PLASMA SLASH! With a great blast of lightning, the soldiers were engulfed in an explosion before clearing away in specks of light.

I turned back to Dawn and faced her again. "Is that all your nightmares have to offer?" I asked. She responded by sending soldiers resembling her Girl Power comrades and her Teiro Army cousins. I took out my Triple Zeztzer and started blasting.

Zoey. Maya. Christie. Anna. Jessica. Harmony. Liam. Ash. Dylan. Satoyuki.

Michael. David. Daniel. Nathan. Justin. Emily. Marcus. Veronica. Narutaki.

I loaded my Dualmare Capsem into the Triple Zeztzer. "Be destroyed with my broken dreams!" ULTIMATE OVER FINISH!

When I looked back, Dawn had disappeared. I deduced that she used the chaos to alter the nightmare and escape. But nothing was going to stop me from completing my mission. I countered the alteration and Dawn appeared right in front of me.

"You know, for a while my deepest wish was to make you cry. Not with tears of joy, but tears of anger and sorrow. In the Central Finite Curve, we were friends, lovers, soulmates, but in my universe I'm cursed to never experience that kind of happiness for myself. You hurt me more than you'll ever know and I may never be able to move on for as long as I live, but for now, it's time to end this nightmare. Prepare yourself, Akari!"

ORDERM! I launched her into the sky through a dream construct tower I conjured, then prepared to unleash my final Rider Kick.

ORDERM ENDER! ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ!

We both landed on the ground as the world around us disintegrated. Would I remember this encounter? Would I forget everything about her? Would things between us change after this? Those are questions that may never be answered, but for me, one thing was certain.

"Mission... complete."

...

...

...

I don't remember how or when, but I finally returned home for the first time in weeks, even months. I had a Sengoku Basara Retrospective to post and some instalments to finish Kisekae Insights, and throughout my absence I had ideas for what I would post next along with future projects.

For some reason, I felt more exhausted than usual and when I went inside, the first thing I wanted to do was sleep. As I pushed my luggage into my living room/studio I noticed something on the table. There was a whole stack of Combo Rangers comics and a CD, which I later found out had the Flash webcomics. (Seriously, a CD? I took out my DVD drive from my PC so I could use the SATA port for another hard drive.) At any rate, it was clear what I had to do next, for the good of the internet community and all the fans who once enjoyed this legendary series.

Your next mission: Bring the Combo Rangers to the world.

Good luck.

*End storyline saga: Deadset Tour Kiwami*

Combo Rangers Retrospective coming soon

Thanks to:

Mitsui Garden Hotel Ginza-gochome (Tokyo)

RYSE Autograph Collection Hongdae (Seoul)

Cosmos Hotel Taipei

Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong

Royal View Hotel Ting Kau (Hong Kong)

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #66: Assorted Promo Posters

For this next filler instalment we’re going to look at some promos I’ve made for my personal project over the years. You will have seen some of them in previous instalments of Kisekae Insights, but here I want to share some other promos that I haven’t used.

I’ve taken the liberty of editing some of them, but there are those that I’m unable to share or even edit to protect the privacy of myself and my friends from way back when. I deleted the original PSD files for everything before the Moushouden Series because I didn’t know how important archiving was.

Man, PNG files and characters on white backgrounds were such a boon for me. Please enjoy this collection of unused promos with some commentary from me.

Doctor Who Series 3+4

The wallpaper image of Yuzuru and Kanade was originally used with a different image of the Doctor as a promo at the time of its premiere; this version was made later when I was assembling wallpapers for the download pack. Doctor Whooves, the Pony Doctor, Derpy and Jee Gun/Storm Dasher are there because this was the first series to fully incorporate My Little Pony as a spin-on.

Doctor Who Series 5 Premium version

This is the promo used for the Premium version of Series 5; the normal version’s promo was used as the thumbnail for #3. The normal version includes representatives from Natsuiro Kiseki, Chu-Bra!!, The World God Only Knows, Nyaruko and Cat Planet Cuties, while the Premium version additionally adds representatives from To Love-Ru, Little Busters, Haganai and Mirai Suenaga from Mirai Millenium.

Doctor Who Series 6 Part 2

Just a simple composite of Tsukasa and Squid Girl with the Doctor (post-Ponds) in the TARDIS, despite them only appearing in half of the episodes in that part of the series. Look at the proportions lmao.

Doctor Who Series 7 Part 1

Features the Doctor, Tsukasa and Squid Girl with Kyōko Sakura and Amu Hinamori in front of the Matarazzo Building in Sao Paulo. I used an aerial view of the nearby highway interchange for an old photo, and then I didn’t know where exactly it was because I never took down any notes. This was made during a time when I thought Salacia connected directly into Sao Paulo and not Santos, the nearest coastal city.

Doctor Who 2012 Christmas Special: Curse of the Crystal Empire

Features Doctor Whooves and the Pony Doctor with their then-companions, Rainbowshine and Merry May. For the Doctor, this takes place just before The Snowmen, and this was the last Doctor Who episode that featured the Pony Doctor in his old olive green design before it was retconned for the 50th Anniversary Series.

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Series Blocks 1-3

Unfortunately this was the only promo from that series that I could use (with editing). Like with the promos for Series 3+4 and 7 Part 1, this promo was made post-series for the download pack. The old promo (which I posted at the time) was just the Doctor, Clara, Squid Girl and Takeru Aizawa on a simple background with the TARDIS and the tagline “Who’s squiddin’ ready?” The new promo is set on the Sky Arena at the entrance to the Tokyo Skytree.

“Who Is Returning” Teasers

I was inspired by this set of fan-made teasers from drsong on Tumblr to create my own set of “Who Is Returning” teasers, with the thumbnail of #31 being one of them (and wow has it been so many instalments since then). It mostly involved taking anime wallpapers and zooming them in to obscure their faces, but for the ponies and Guardian Characters I just pasted them on as is.

Doctor Who Series 8

When I first posted this promo at the start of March 2014, I put a glass filter over it and drew the letters DW so as to hide everything else other than the Doctor and Hiroki (represented here by Hanbei Takenaka from Samurai Warriors) before revealing the full promo two weeks after. Each element in this promo represents an element that would be seen in the series (jousting knights for The King’s Demons, a Silurian for Warriors of the Deep and a hatstand for Frontios). Having a bottle of chloroform in this promo feels so morbid in hindsight and without context.

Doctor Who Series 9

Astute followers may notice that this promo can also be seen as my cover pic when viewing this blog from the Tumblr dashboard. Unlike the episodic-focused format of Series 8’s promo, Series 9’s promo is more character-focused; not only does it feature 5 out of the 6 companions (if I included the sixth I probably wouldn’t be able to post this), but it also features other characters and enemies that would be shown throughout the series. There’s also a cupid on there possibly representing a two-parter that’s a throwback to a Series 4 story arc, and a kamikaze plane, which just so happens to be aimed at the TARDIS and is therefore, also morbid in hindsight without context.

Doctor Who Series 9 finale

Series 9 was marketed as the edgiest series I had ever done (for reasons relating to Hiroki and Akari) and its finale was going to be the finale to top all finales. Because they were extended episodes, I had to make special promos for them. This is a composite of two separate promos showing Sekigahara and Ōsaka Castle (yes, I know that’s actually Footscray Market, that’s where it would be under One Country Two Naming Systems) with the hashtag #TheEndisComing. I also did a separate promo for the final confrontation at Honnōji with the “our enemy is at Honnōji” line in Japanese for the tagline. Original art is by ほ on Pixiv.

Moushouden Concept Poster

Even while on hiatus during 2015-16 for high school exams, work on the Moushouden Series was already underway. This was the first promo I made for it, a concept poster that showed the (first) four series that would be produced, namely Doctor Who (series 10-12), Three Kingdoms, Gokaiger and Decade, but this is a later version made following numerous revisions; Bill and Nardole were originally Akari and Narutaki (who would later be moved to Decade’s section) and Pip (Fifi and the Flowertots) was originally in Alice’s place as GokaiGreen while Alice was originally in Marco Wong’s place as GokaiBlue.

Moushouden Series launch date promo

Once I had an idea for when each series would launch, I announced the production of the Moushouden Series at my Year 12 formal in mid-2016 (I won an award for “The Next Doctor Who” and got to make a little speech), then announced the launch timeframes a couple days after. This also acted as the first promos for Three Kingdoms, Gokaiger and Decade, and I would later separate each of them into individual promos, which you can see in previous Kisekae Insights instalments covering them.

Doctor Who/Ultraman The Equestria Chronicles promo

Yeah, just a simple one. When I made this in 2019, I was pretty sure what little talent I had in graphic design all but dried up and I was making less and less compositions. Hell, the poster for Soulbound Series 4 was just a montage of logos for the story document - I didn’t even post it on Facebook. This is the first time I used Doctor Whooves or the Pony Doctor since the 50th Anniversary Series, and the first time I used Storm Dasher’s new alicorn design.

[yeonchi]

The Asian Israelis that are the Japanese have been back at it again, siding with corporations on piracy and gatekeeping pirates and foreigners in general from their pop culture.

Over the past few years, the Japanese have shown their true colours when it comes to foreigners and their ways, whether it be tourism, immigration or piracy. I thought Japanese entertainment companies were out of touch with their Western fanbases, but it turns out that Japanese people in general (on the internet) are just as out of touch with the ways of overseas people, and frankly, the world needs to make them learn their place, like when I gave a dose of reality to Japanese artists who are against others reposting their fanarts.

I could make a post about how "piracy is not that bad, actually" but it probably won't move their conservative minds. I could talk about my experience with piracy in relation to that topic, but I have better things to do. But I will say this, however:

Hey assholes. You don't live in the Sakoku period anymore.

You live in a global society. Deal with it.