Showing posts with label Kamen Rider. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kamen Rider. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 3

Pink non-girl toys in Boy Franchises

Pink is usually considered a female color and I am not going into my whole debate over the color pink. But it should be noted that as late as the 1950's, it was still considered a "boy" color. Pink was seen as a shade of red, which relates to manly concepts like blood and war. Blue was associated with the Virgin Mary and was seen as a more serene color reserved for girls (in fact, the traditional colour for wedding dresses used to be blue before Queen Victoria popularized the white dress; all that remained of that is the line calling for "something blue" in the rhyme). Early in WWI, the French Army uniform included bright pink trousers. This was changed when the leaders realized it made them easy targets. Pink has become more of a girl color thanks to industrial merchandising and Barbie adopting the color. I wanted to highlight some characters in Boy Franchises that were NOT girls that wore pink.

 
 Hot Rod
He was introduced as Optimus Prime's replacement in the Transformers movie. Before final production, Hot Rod was originally cast in a pinker plastic to match the color of his animation model, but oddly, he was changed to a less animation-accurate red before release. This change evidently came too late to modify the factory-applied stickers the toy bears: the small decals on either side of Hot Rod's vehicle mode feature a pink background that would have matched the toy's original color scheme.
Skids and Mudflap
In the sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, these two 'male' Transformers became a pink and white Ice Cream Truck. They later changed their form.

Fangry and other Decepticons
G1 Decepticons were pink such as Fangry, Spinster and Carnivac.

Hot Wheels and Monster Jam
There has been many many pink Hot Wheels through the years and only one pictured above is a Barbie car. Another is a Batmobile. Four are Monster Jam trucks: Madusa, Eradicator, Scarlet Bandit, and Heart Breaker.

Bret Hart
The most famous wrestler in Pink Spandex, he said he picked the color to intimidate his competitors.

Gambit
The X-Men superhero had pink torso and accents and his kinetic energy was pink.

 Nimrod
 Speaking of Marvel and X-Men, Nimrod was an all-pink deadly villain.

Kamen Rider Decade
Kamen Rider is also known as Masked Rider. For the 10th anniversary of the revival in 2009, they made a 'magenta' rider. Fans refused to agree he was pink. Most of the Riders of the decade were Red and most of the first ones were green. He and Kamen Rider Raia are the only 'pink' ones.

Monday, May 28

Kamen Rider Cutie #2

Matt Smith was last mentioned as part of the American version of the Tokusatsu series Kamen Rider coming in the near future. They are adapting the most popular series of recent times Kamen Rider Ryuki (2002) into 'Kamen Rider Dragon Knight.' (Somewhat rough translation, though they are keeping the word 'Kamen' instead of 'Mask'.) It is scheduled to premiere February 27, 2008, probably on the Cartoon Network (not confirmed!) and 13 episodes are so far being produced---there were 51 episodes from the source.

Adness Entertainment Webpage

Here is Matthew Mullins who will be Kamen Rider Wing Knight. Fans have pointed out how he has comically pronounced 'Kamen' as 'Common.'

The Japanese character was simply referred to as Kamen Rider Knight.

I believe Ryuki was so popular because the great writing. Both series are centered around one Rider who tried to make peace among a dozen or so Riders meanwhile fight monsters from a mirror world.

He is a five-time World Champion Martial Artist and Second Degree Black Belt. Matt has done stunt work, one as Ted Bundy's stunt double in the 2002 movie and also No Rules. As for martial arts, he also does Tae Kwon Do, Wu-Shu, and Kickboxing.

He will be 27 years old in November and has done some stagework. His acting credits include Adventures of Johnny Tao: Rock Around the Dragon, Bloodfist 2050, Wentworth, Kung Fu Love Triangle, Freshmyn, Light in the Forest, Light it Up and a voiceover for the video game Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus

This is his Japanese counterpart Satoshi Matsuda, who is now a singer.

More Official Pictures at Henshin Justice

Related Topic: Kamen Rider Cutie #1 | Kamen Rider Cutie #3

Thursday, May 24

Violet Power Ranger

The picture above is from the latest Super Sentai series 'Gekiranger' in Japan, next year it will become the newest incarnation of the Power Rangers--Power Rangers Jungle Fury. I have been waiting for a Purple Ranger for years. For some time I thought the purple ranger would be female but I guess I was gender bias. This new 'ranger' is GekiViolet, yes that's right Violet. I agree that 'Violet' sounds female but thats just our society, gender assignment. It is silly to think colors have genders. In some cultures, pink and blue don't belong to any particular gender while in others pink is for men. I highly doubt the Disney company (that runs Power Rangers now) will call this ranger Violet but we'll see. [BoukenSilver which I mentioned last year is referred to as the Mercury Ranger.] I am so excited, I think it is so bad ass that a male superhero is violet.

Background on series: Gekiranger means 'Fierce Ranger' and started with three feline-inspired warriors that practice martial art techniques based on animals. GekiViolet obviously has a wolf theme.

In Tokusatsu (Special Effect Live-Action series), most purple warriors have been men:
2005 - Wolzard from "Magiranger" [Koragg from "Power Rangers Mystic Force"]

2002 - Kamen Rider Ouja from "Kamen Rider Ryuki" [If 'Kamen Rider Dragon Knight' gets picked up, he may be in the U.S.]

2003-2004 - Sazer Dali of the Gransezars [Not in the U.S.]

1993 - Tokusou Robo Jansperson [Not in the U.S.; I don't think it had a gender].

The only purple female in Tokusatsu I can think of is B-Fighter Tentou of "B-Fighter Kabuto" in 1996 [Platinum Purple Beetleborg from Beetleborgs Metallix].

Tuesday, February 6

Kamen Rider Cutie #1

This is Matt Smith and he is 18 and has recently filmed a pilot attempting to revamp the American version of the tokusatsu (Live-Action children adventure) series Kamen Rider. It was previously unsuccessfully adapted into Masked Rider by Haim Saban of the Power Rangers fame.

This time they are adapting the most popular series of recent times Kamen Rider Ryuki (2002) into 'Kamen Rider Dragon Knight.' (somewhat rough translation, though they are keeping the word 'Kamen' instead of 'Mask') I believe Ryuki was so popular because the great writing. It centered around one Rider who tried to make peace among a dozen or so Riders who wanted to kill each other to see who was the best meanwhile monsters would come froma mirror world. Trust me, it is much more complicated than that.

He is of German, Irish, Scottish, and English heritage on his Mother's side, and Italian, Hungarian, Polish and German on his father's side. He plays the lead role of Kit/the Dragon Knight, the pilot is being shopped around now and hasn't been picked up yet.

It is being produced by the American Toei company and directed by Steve and Mike Wang. Steve Wang has directed a couple of American Tokusatsu movies like Guyver and has done art direction for Underworld, special effects supervisor for Gremlins 2 and project supervisor for The Devil's Advocate. Steve dropped out of the MMPR: The Movie because of conflicts on production design.

He has previsouly been on "Drake and Josh" and "Hack."
Update July 25, 2008:
He played a mannequin come to life in "Wizards of Waverly Place."

Related Topics: Kamen Rider Cutie #3