100000th Views Special! Big Bad Beetleborgs Review

Since I have been holding back on somethings recently I want to give a special review. Thanks to Netflix I can watch the shows I loved as a child. Looking back at them though is very different for me now. First is the knowledge I have about the original series Juukou B-fighter and I may have only seen a hand-full of episodes I can tell I'm going to love it. What I saw in Beetleborgs with the first episode is a very bumpy ride. The show focuses on three kids, Drew, Roland, and Jo as they love the Beetleborgs comic book series. One day they are given a challenge to go into a haunted house and there they meet monsters who want to eat them. After getting away they release a phantasm named Flabber after playing on an organ. There he gives the kids one wish and they want to become the Beetleborgs! Their wish is granted and fend off the monsters, but all isn't well. Accidentally, Flabber has released the villains from the comic book into the real world. Now the three will have to fight as the Beetleborgs to defend their home. What the kids also find out is that they get a super power as an addition. Drew can use telekinesis, Roland has super speed, and Jo has super strength. This is where I usually talk about the characters, but I'm saving that for another section of the review.

Pros- I have to give credit is that the show has an interesting motif which is comic books. Some fight scenes can have some cartoon bubbles inserted in them. I actually like it as it reminds me of the Adam West Batman series which is another thing I loved in my childhood. Along with the comic book motif they also changed the stock footage to have a comic book look and it did pretty well. Another thing that was done right was how the stock footage was used, the series had a lot of creative ways to show how things happen. For example The Gaohm zone was barely used in this series, but when they did do it, it was creative how. In one episode the team follow a rat into a mouse hole in the haunted house and that's when the stock footage comes in. There is a really good arc I need to talk about and that is the Shadowborg arc. This was the best part of this season as the series seemed to have some progression going on which is another point I will bring up. In this arc we had a good villain who was very threatening and his voice is re-memorable for me. Even the other villains stepped up for a change and things got more serious which can be said for the ending arc. There was another borg the White Blaster, but... yea

Awesome in the original and adaption!

Cons- As I mentioned before is that the Shadowborg arc gave the series some progression and by that I mean the series barely has that feel. A lot of episodes are just full of comic relief and that's it. There are barely any character arcs heck the characters are plain and boring. The only one who jumps out is Flabber, but that is only because of his comedic side. Even the villains suffer from this as the three commanders are just a bunch of goofballs. The leader barely does anything and it's even worse because he has some big moments. Going back to the Shadowborg arc is the newest member, but he was just in that arc. Josh was just a character for that arc and that is because in the original series the character was just called Kabuto and didn't fight that much. Going back to the ending (spoilers) the reveal of the new villain was great and seeing him plot was great heck he even got rid of the first villains, but that is my point. The series gave a really bad end to the first villains and just made me want to slip something. I mean these villains were very useless and are some of the worst I have seen from American Toku. These guys didn't get the right treatment at all, which is sad because in B-fighter they are awesome! The series also used their own action scenes and I want to give credit for that.... I can't. These fights were very bad since it looked like a bad take of a fight scene. It's slow and the heroes barely used their weapons in them. Another thing that was odd is the guns. In the original the guns were silver, but for some reason Beetleborgs changed them to a pink/purple gun. Now that goes to the editing of the show and they don't even try to hide the original guns in the stock footage. Then in the American fight scenes every weapon has a beam and it's constantly used as a finisher and it's just pathetic to see a monster be defeated by a little beam. The comedy is a hit or miss because it's the goofy 90's comedy which made MMPR famous, but it is used soooooo much that it's like a nail is going into your head.

He only did one thing important

Overall- This is probably the worst of the Power Ranger clones Saban tried to make as it just falls apart. There are good moments, but there is barely any progression, the fights can be just terrible thanks to bad editing and bad dubbed dialogue. The comedy can be good, but you get annoyed by it very quickly and for an action series it can get very boring. I recomend just watching the Shadowborg arc because that is one of the only shining episodes in this series. I give it a D- next special review will be going Metallix!

Looks and has the same career as Jay Leno. Can be funny at times, but in the end you are annoyed by him.

My favorite American Toku Series

Now I'm not a big fan of the localized toku shows, but there are some good ones out there. So I will start with my favoirte Power Rangers series which is Lost in Space. I barely remember it as a kid all I remember was that it was in Space. Beofre looking back into it I saw about 20 episodes of Megaranger and so far its a good sentai series. So I finally got back into Space and I was surprised that even though Megaranger has a video game motif Saban still went with the Space theme. Which it did work this series was the most original so far having many new ideas. The series was also pretty dark for a power ranger series mostly the ending which all fans will remember. I will do a full review on it sometime, but not now, but I do know this PR series did a lot right, but it still had it's flaws like the TMNT crossover episode.

Why?!!!!!!

Now sadly Kamen Rider was only adpated twice for America and we all know how much the first attempt sucked, but the second one was good. Dragon Knight came around 2008 and adapted the 2002-2003 rider series Ryuki. It sure is a big time gap and the series was cancelled, but it was still good. Again there was original ideas used and there are big differences between it and Ryuki. Another thing is that it kept Kamen Rider. I guess they were trying to keep people away from the thought of Masked Rider even though Kamen means Masked. Well the series did keep some darkness with losing riders going into eternal slumber in a different world, it sort had a death feeling. The villian was even impressive sort of similar to Shiro giving the powers to certain people. Xaviax wanted to rule both worlds (OF COURSE!) and he was limited on who becomes a rider because of the mirror world. He was a smart villian and gave off the impression Lord Zedd had before he got goofy. They both had the look of having power and seem like the emperor, this was shown at times with Xaviax threatning riders. The series also used some of their own footage, but they had some bad editing with that at times when they had to use the original footage because of the time gap. This was a good attempt and there should be more in the future just not with Decade start with Double.

There were then Metal Hero series that were adapted and I barely remember some of those and one of those was Big Bad Beetleborgs! I loved this as a kid and there are still some moments I remember a lot like that one episode where they actually had Janperson in an episode or the Shadowborg arc. I do remeber the blue Jay Leno though and now he just creeps me out at times. For the other monsters they're okay, but pointless. The heroes maybe kids, but it was used better than Turbo with Justin. I dont like the fact they just get powers just because of a wish and now they have to fight evil because Jay Leno released the villians. This was adapted from one of the most popular metal hero series Juukou B Fighter. I only saw the first episode, but I have seen clips and MV's and I can tell I will love this series. I remember Shadowborg as my favoirte badass back then and now that I know more about Black Beet he is more awsome since there is more character behind him and he has one of my favoirte songs from toku. The villians were good there are the three goofballs and I bet they're not all goofs in B Fighter, but the leader uses a similar method in American Toku or Toku in general which is the emperor feel and in the final episode of the Shadowborg arc we see the heroes couldnt finish him off even after three deadly attacks. I didnt like how he was then tossed aside for the new villians because I would love to see those two groups work together.

"Its offical, you suck."

So those are some of American Toku series that I remember or love the most, I will easily try to find more again like Beetleborgs and thanks to Netflix that is pretty easy. Even with some good ones from America there are a lot more original toku series I love.