Monday, March 09, 2024

Shiny Plastic Disk: Kikaida 01 Box Set

A few years ago I made a kind of New Year's resolution that I wouldn't be buying videos of any kind anymore. Mostly because I'd become frustrated with the ever changing media formats, but it also had to do with the fact that I was spending too much money on things that weren't exactly special. I mean... why own something that you can either rent or watch on cable over and over again?

Killing off my DVD impulse buy habit had a side effect that I didn't expect though, and it was that when I came across something genuinely special, I didn't feel so terrible about spending the money.

This box set from JN Productions that presents all fourty-six Kikaida 01 episodes on six disks, is exactly one of those things.

Kikaida 01 DVD box set

I grew up watching Ultraman on a local (Channel 44 I think) San Francisco Bay Area station back in the '70s, and when the internet made the world a smaller place a decade or so ago, I fell in love with all kinds of other Japanese heroes. Kikaida 01 was one of those shows that I'd read about and found clips to look at, yet I hadn't actually watched an episode until I came to own this brilliant box set.

Kikaida 01 DVD box set

From the back of the packaging...

"Kikaida 01 features the exploits of android, Ichiro (Ikeda Shunsuke), who transforms into Kikaida 01 to stop the evil Hakaida Force from obtaining a secret that will allow them to conquer the world - until the sinister SHADOW organization rises to threaten them all! Aided by his brother Jiro-Kikaida (Ban Daisuke), Kikaida 01 hurtles into battle against the robot monsters that threaten mankind.

Kikaida 01 explodes with non-stop stunts by Sunny Chiba's Japan Action Club and an exciting score by Watanabe Chumei. Don't miss this limited-edition release of Toei's superhero classic!"


So, lets sum the show up: androids, motorcycles, fighting, stunts and robot monsters. Seriously, what more do you need?! The shows are in Japanese with English subtitles, and all of them together run about 18 hours and 55 minutes... which is a mind-blowing amount of fun.

These disks, along with a lot of other excellent DVD collections and Japanese superhero merchandise, can be purchased from the real-life heroes at Generation Kikaida (generationkikaida.com), who are currently running some great "special deals" that are worth checking out.

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