Holy Martha Mother of Superheroes, Batman!

I missed out on seeing Deadpool 2 in the theater because...well, I wasn't the biggest fan of Deadpool 1, so I wasn't in a rush to see the sequel. Even though I like the character of Cable, I didn't care much for the casting (Josh Brolin, who always acts like he's above this type of stuff) or the way he was going to be depicted in the film (as the villain), so not even Cable's big-screen debut made me excited for the sequel.

So, I just only watched it. I liked it less than the first one, but that's not what I'm getting at here. In Deadpool 2, there's a line mocking the infamous "Martha Moment" of 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. That part of the movie has been mocked since its release, is still mocked by people on the internet on a daily basis, and I thought it was pretty strange for a real Hollywood movie to take a jab at it two years later, but that's me. Anyway...

I don't get what the fuck people have against Batman v Superman, and especially that scene. I mean...I didn't see Batman v Superman on opening weekend, so I had it all spoiled for me, and people have criticized the scene from day one. I remember listening to Hollywood professionals (like Kevin Smith, who likes to shit all over DC, but still gets to work for them, somehow) tear that scene apart and completely miss the point or meaning of the scene, a meaning that I understood without yet actually seeing the damn movie! So when people latch onto this scene and treat it like it's stupid or nonsense, I find it frustrating.

Bruce Wayne/Batman is terrified and repulsed by Superman. He doesn't trust Superman, he thinks Superman is nothing but a problem for the world, that he probably means the end of the world. He doesn't even see Superman as human or a man, but some alien freak, an animal, a weapon. Batman does his homework finding out Superman's weaknesses and beats him within an inch of his life, coming damn near close to killing him. Recognizing how close he is to the end of things, Superman blurts out that time's running out, that Martha (Kent) needs to be saved. Going in for the kill as this is said, Batman freezes. He freaks and panics. But it stops him dead in his tracks. He learns from Lois that Martha is the name of Superman's mom. Batman takes this all in. He throws aside the weapon he was using.

This scene goes beyond the dumb-dumb dismissal of "Heh, the fight all came down to their moms having the same name. That stoopid!" I don't understand why it's so hard for people to wrap their heads around the meaning of this scene, and the way it's presented in the movie.

Seeing a pathetic, bleeding Superman under his heel, learning that he has a mother, it humanizes Superman for Batman for the first time. What he saw as an alien freak, who could destroy the world, he begins to see as a guy, worried about his mom, being cared for by his girlfriend. (This is probably the moment Batman figures out that Superman is Clark Kent, by the way. So, for all of the weisenheimers who say "It's dumb for Superman to be saying 'Save Martha!' instead of 'Save mom," well...Superman's still in disguise here, man. He ain't going to be going "Save my mom, Martha Kent! I'm Clark Kent!" Not to mention...the dude just ate two Kryptonite gas grenades and had the shit kicked out of him. He wanted the info conveyed quickly! And also? People like to say that they wouldn't have had to fight if they just talked it out. Superman TRIED to talk it out. He lands and immediately lets Batman know he knows he's Bruce and what Luthor's planning, but Batman doesn't let him get far before he starts his attack. So there! "But Batman's supposed to be a detective!" Yeah, well, this is a broken, pissed off Batman, who's stubborn and decided on what he's going to do. And, besides, no matter what kind of great detective Batman's supposed to be...he's not going to be better than Superman. I rather like how Superman's obviously known Bruce is Batman, but doesn't let on until absolutely necessary, when the situation is dire.)

But not only does it humanize Superman for Batman, but, yes, what gets him to pause and freak out is that he hears the name Martha, the name of his mother. In this movie, Martha is his father's dying word. As with most Batman stories, Bruce/Batman still carries a lot of anguish and guilt about his parents' death. Hearing his dying opponent say the name Martha takes him by a chilling surprise. Once Batman collects himself, and Superman recovers enough to tell him that they both fell into Lex Luthor's trap and what they need to do to get out of it, Batman vows to take care of Martha while Supes goes and deals with Lex. Symbolically, Batman is being given the chance to save his own mother here. And he succeeds, in an awesome, awesome action scene that most people, even the biggest haters of this movie, call the movie's best scene!

But I also like to look at it like this... I love Batman. He's my favorite superhero. Throughout 70+ years of this character, we've had a lot of iterations of his parents' murder and, usually, 99.5% of the time, the focus goes to his dad, Thomas Wayne. Thomas Wayne is usually given dialogue. He's always given the most history. There's alternate worlds where HE is Batman. In the old days, there were stories that said he was briefly Batman even before Bruce ever thought the whole thing up, which is stupid. In Christopher Nolan's disgustingly overrated movies, Thomas Wayne is depicted as being the biggest saint who ever sainted -- until Bruce grows up, anyway. (Martha's practically an extra in Batman Begins, because Nolan likes a sausage fest.) What I'm saying is...

For the first time in the character's history, Batman v Superman makes Martha Wayne matter. She technically saves Superman's life. She technically prevents her son from making what would have been the biggest mistake of his life, and something he'd never come back from. (Killing Superman, continuing down the dark, mean path he was on, never rounding up the Justice League.) I think this is something that should be celebrated and acknowledged and NOT the source of ridicule it is. You know the biggest thing the comics have done with Martha Wayne? Have her become the Joker in an alternate history! How fucked up is that?! Batman v Superman gives you something with a little meaning and symbolism, but...fuck that, we're in the age of Twitter wannabe comedians, so let's just make light of everything, and turn everything into a meme!

And then take Justice League into account, where Bruce is down in the dumps for the way everything went down for Superman, for the way he treated Superman, where we realize how much of an impact Superman had on him in such a short time. In that moment when Superman is humanized for him...Martha Wayne saves Batman in that movie, too. At the start of Batman v Superman, we see a very dark and angry Bruce/Batman. We're told of how much Batman changed in the way he fought crime, how isolated he was, how brutal he had become, ESPECIALLY once Superman comes into the picture. And then not only is Superman humanized for him, but he realizes how wrong he's been about him, and what a good person and actual hero Superman is -- something he's gotten colder and farther away from being. There's that line in Justice League where Bruce confesses that he thinks Clark was a better human being than he was.

What I like about Affleck's Bruce/Batman is how haunted he is. People think the characters turn too quickly in BvS and that the rewrites and reshoots of Justice League make for inconsistent characterizations -- "LOL, they're about to kill each other and then 1 second later they're Super Friends!" -- but I think Affleck does a surprisingly good job of conveying all of the internal damage of the character, the psychological reasoning behind his actions. Bruce knew his enemy, he knew the Daily Planet was pro-Superman. So, seeing Lois come to his aide, I think that helps him take on the point of view of maybe all of the stories about him are true. But certainly his opinion changes once he, Superman and Wonder Woman fight alongside each other against Doomsday. He witnesses how selfless Superman is, ultimately sacrificing himself to stop the monster. It basically makes Bruce see all that he did wrong, all of the darkness he harbored, and I see him as in the midst of a deep depression in Justice League, on a suicide mission to round everyone up and make amends. You get the feeling he's willing to die to resurrect Superman, because Superman's better than he is, because Superman's the one who can actually save the world, and maybe, just maybe because he feels guilty for all of the problems he caused Superman, and feels he needs to pay.

Man, Batman v Superman is unappreciated. It has 20 movies worth of material in one movie! I mean...did you ever think you'd see a Superman movie where Batman is the villain?! And even though I ended up being a little let down by Justice League, I don't think that movie's as bad as people pretend it is, either.

The Films That Made Us

So, a few months ago, some movie streaming site decided to spam and gather data by starting a Twitter hashtag asking people to name the four movies that define them. As far as corporate stunts go, I thought it was pretty fun and harmless and it was interesting to see what some people thought. I got tagged and had to Google what the hell it was about, but thought it was fun, so I replied with my picks and then tagged some others. (If that annoyed you, well...that's Twitter's job. But I thought it was fun!)

I clicked the hashtag and went through A LOT of strangers' answers to the #FilmStruck4 challenge. I was curious what people said, but I also liked seeing the answers of some "famous" people. It's tricky whenever you talk about your top favorite movies or movies that mean a lot to you or compile a list of all of your favorites... I've been a member of forums that would have the inevitable "Top 10 Favorite Movies" thread and would want to reply, but would be hesitant. When I saw CCLemon99's blog post about his favorite movies, I wanted to copy him and post something similar, because his list was fun and honest. But...again, it's tricky.

I feel like a Top 10's not big enough, but where do you stop? And then there's snobbery... I'd compile a list of my favorite movies and it would be about 20 to 30 movies mainly from the 1980s. There's so many movies that mean so much to me from that decade, and I have theories why it was such a magical decade for movies. (No, it's not cocaine. Well, not JUST cocaine.) But the fear of snobbery creeps in. I'd be hesitant to post lists of favorite movies, because someone would see it and chortle at an entry like The Goonies, which I think is just one of the most fun and funniest adventure movies ever made. Or the way some people absolutely worship Back to the Future, I worship The Karate Kid. I'm pretty protective of that movie. ( Apologies to my bro, who was upset when I shat all over YouTubeRed's Cobra Kai, when he finds it legitimately entertaining, despite being a supposed Karate Kid fan. :P )

At the same time, I'll see some people's list of their favorite movies and be like "Yeah, right. Nice try, pretentious." (And I'm sure those people would turn around and say that's a defense mechanism based on my picks being "lowbrow" crowd-pleaser flicks, but forget those people. Pretend all you want, but you don't genuinely like the four-hour, black-and-white, silent, German, expressionist tearjerker you placed at number three on your list. So, shaddap!) There's many a "serious" movies I like and value, but I feel like if you're being really honest with yourself when compiling one of these lists of favorite movies or movies that mean most to you? You gotta think of what movie you reach for more often, and chances are it's not one of the heavies.

But this silly little Tweet was kind of different. The films that define you. I posted mine, and fear I had a couple of bizarre answers. (Of the many, many Tweets I went through, not too many people had a horror movie on their list. I did.) There also seemed to be some confusion about the challenge. I thought the challenge was obviously movies that meant something to you, shaped you in some way. These wouldn't necessarily be your TOP favorites, but movies that were important to you and probably still ranked pretty damn high for you. Some people took it to mean the movies that represent the type of person they are, which I think is a bizarre interpretation. (For example: one person said they were forgetful, so they felt Memento represented them. Weirdo.)

When I saw someone semi-famous post their selections, which included one of the choices I had, they indicated that if those movies truly defined them, then that meant they were a messed up person. So...I'm here to defend my picks and explain them a little more to compensate for that jackass.

My four choices, in chronological order:

GHOSTBUSTERS (1984)

Ghostbusters was a phenomenon when I was a kid. I was massively into the movie and The Real Ghostbusters. (I feel like my first memory is of the movie, but I'm not completely sure if I saw it or the cartoon first.) It speaks so much to my interests; there's wise-ass comedy, there's horror, there's heroics. It's also sci-fi in a way, in the way it tries to depict the science behind it all, striking a balance with the supernatural elements. It gives it all a surprising credibility for a comedy and roots it all. There's also authenticity in the supernatural material because co-writer Dan Aykroyd has a real life interest in the subject matter.

It's working on a lot of levels; it's a horror movie that's not too scary and it has so many types of comedy, one that you can still get as a kid, but also adult humor that you didn't realize as a kid. I hate when I see people categorize this movie as purely comedy or horror (or even worse, a kids movie because of the cartoon). It's a movie that transcends genres, yet pulls it all off and is its own, unique thing. And it's insanely quotable -- I think I quote the movie every day and just don't realize it. ("Slow down. Chew your food.")

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)

You can't overstate how popular this franchise and Freddy Krueger was back in the day. Horror just doesn't reach that level of popularity anymore, so there's nothing to really even compare it to in modern film. You couldn't escape this franchise, so it was on my radar well before I should have even watched the movie.

When I saw the first movie, I was just wowed and like "You gotta see this!" to whomever would listen. It's a highly imaginative movie that has been marred by too many of the sequels going too far with humor and losing sight of what makes this first one so damn good. Freddy Krueger is scary, yes, and entertaining and more memorable than a lot of horror villains, but most of the fans of this franchise are drawn to the movie also by its protagonists and its setting. (The third movie is practically a superhero movie, with people learning to use dreams to their advantage and finding their own unique "dream powers.")

I've always had a fascination with dreams and trying to analyze them. This movie and franchise takes dreams, dream psychology, dreaming techniques and applies them to a horror setting in a truly unique way. It's so much more than a slasher film. A lot of slasher films are made for the money, so there's not much thought put into them beyond a crazy guy with a knife stabbing a bunch of women. But Nightmare on Elm Street meant more to writer-director Wes Craven -- a true-life event inspired it! -- and it's fresh in its depiction of a threat, which is...you've gotta sleep! People like to say Jaws is such a great scary movie, because it ruined the beach for them. Well...it's a movie that doesn't work if you're someone who doesn't give a shit about the beach. Nightmare on Elm Street's concept is ingenious, and it stays with you long after it's over.

It's a movie that had a huge impact on me and cemented me as a horror fan.

BATMAN (1989)

So memorable and unlike anything before it, in terms of superhero movies. Tim Burton being a guy who grew up on horror movies, being a guy with a love for the Gothic, you can feel those influences in the movie. So it's marrying horror and superheroes, which appeals to me. It's the movie that set me on the path of becoming a Batman fan, a comics fan, and Batman became my favorite superhero. The movie was just huge and inescapable and influential. I have fond memories of it and it's a movie that I think of as being really special, and I'll just flat out say magical.

Michael Keaton was kind of a hero of mine when I was a kid. I loved Beetlejuice and The Dream Team, Batman making a good trilogy of sorts. I nearly included Beetlejuice in this list, but figured Ghostbusters better covered similar terrain.

PULP FICTION (1994)

A game-changer, such a juggernaut that it was the topic of my school when we were all too damn young to even be watching it. You'd think it was, like, a superhero movie or summer blockbuster with the way it was talked about amongst my schoolmates. One of my friends, who I knew was mainly an action-movie guy, was like "Man, you gotta watch this!" I finally rented it and was just blown away. Like, "Wow! What was that?!" It just felt so fresh and had such a unique flow and palpable energy. I felt like I was hit by lightning while watching it, only instead of becoming a superhero, I became a Tarantino freak who embarrassingly wrote stories aping his unique style. (Hey, I was just a kid. Go and watch movies Hollywood released for a few years after Pulp Fiction, and most of them desperately try to imitate QT, too, when they should've known better.)

To be honest, I actually like Reservoir Dogs the most of any of Tarantino's movies, but I might not have watched it if not for seeing Pulp Fiction first. Pulp Fiction put me on that path, therefore it's the one who shaped me. And Pulp Fiction's another one that I think is insanely quotable.

I feel like what these movies all have in common is a uniqueness, a certain sense of humor, they're highly imaginative, one of a kind, never a movie like it before or since, no matter how hard people have tried to replicate them. I feel like they all create their own unique worlds, with colorful yet realistic characters and you can immerse yourself in these movies, they're transportive. I think that's an important element in entertainment, to be transported, to let you and your imagination go for a ride. These four movies made such a mark that I can vividly recall when I first watched them and all that I felt. (Sometimes I'm like "How did I first discover (blank) movie/franchise? I don't recall...")

While I consider myself a sci-fi fan and was a huge Star Wars fan at one point, I felt funny not including a Star Wars, but even before prequels and Disney made me hate that franchise, I wouldn't consider any of those movies a top favorite or big influence. Similar to James Bond, I'm a huge fan of those movies and considered putting one there, but I feel like Tim Burton's Batman kind of covers it. What is Tim Burton's Batman, but a superhero noir? What is James Bond but a superhero noir detective? And Batman certainly is more meaningful and made more of an impact.

I love The Karate Kid, so that's one that...it would probably be the fifth pick if this had been FilmStruck5. Because that's a great movie with great lessons and I remember watching it a lot after coming back to the U.S. from Japan and loving it for its Nihon no Spirits. If anything's missing from the four I've picked in terms of something that defines me, it's that none of them contain any elements of Japan or Japanese culture when that means something to me.

Burn Bright, Super Sentai Spirits!

I like the Super Sentai Spirits concerts -- I think they're awesome. I think they shot themselves in the foot a bit in releasing the second one from 2006 when it was SO close to the set list of the first, but I still appreciated the release at the time. However...look how much time has passed. How many new shows and new themes. How many more of the PAST theme singers have started participating. There's so many shows and so many songs performed, that they've had to split up the concerts and have them performed on two separate nights now! And since 2006, there's been an entirely new home video format -- HD's taken over and Blu-ray's become the norm. Blu-ray offers more room on a single disc -- sounds perfect for two nights worth of concerts, eh?

It's me, Shougo, the Sentai Guy. "But Shougo, you're so negative about the modern era of shows, how can you say you love Sentai so much?" It's tough love, dammit! I'm mean because I care and know what the franchise is capable of. But that's beside the point. Toku-themed concerts really took off in the late '90s. I remember being excited to buy the Superhero Spirits 2000 DVD (still the only release THAT concert has been given), but being bummed out that there were so few Sentai songs performed there. "I'd love an all-Sentai concert," I'd think. When the first Super Sentai Spirits was announced in 2004, I was obsessed. If you're an entertainment-junkie, you're probably well aware of the feeling of REALLY looking forward to a blockbuster movie or a show's new season or a band's new album or the latest from a favorite author; even the date of a big convention or the release of a collectible toy. There's usually just one entertainment offering per year that consumes your attention and you can't wait for. I call that feeling "the entertainment event." Something that just grabs you with the same excitement as Christmas probably did when you were a kid. Super Sentai Spirits 2004 was my entertainment event of that year.

I had kept hoping they would get certain people, but I was impressed with the line-up they ended up with. Taku Kitahara! I never thought I'd see the Flashman themes performed; he's someone who seemed to have fallen off the radar. Kenta Satou, who I had always suggested on fan sites to do one of the concerts. (I knew he had dressed in character in the early '90s when performing Turboranger.) NEW JACK Takurou, Shinichi Ishihara, Kumi Sasaki, Hideaki Takatori -- these were the performers I was most excited to see perform their songs. I really like MoJo, and hadn't seen any live performance of his songs, so he was another I had look forward to seeing. And so I remember emailing official sites asking about the filming of the concert for release. The first time I emailed, I got a "we don't know." The second time I emailed, a couple of months later, I got a "it's looking likely." That was it, I was excited. It was announced right after the first concert the release date for the DVD, which was a felt-longer-than-it-should-have four months from its November performance to March DVD release. I'll embarrassingly admit that I kept a countdown calendar.

I excitedly read up on what concertgoers had to say. I was surprised that several Sentai actors attended the concert. Kazuo Niibori on the Red Action Club's blog described the night as having a "magical aura." Fans all sounded very happy and blown away by it. It meant so much to Hideaki Takatori, he didn't want to miss it and he actually left the hospital -- he was due to have his appendix removed -- just to perform at the show. It was the first big performance of Takayuki Miyauchi's since he recovered from cancer. Taku Kitahara was mindful enough of "Super Sentai Spirit" that he said he made it a point to wear Red. And whereas Super Anisong Spirits concerts tend to revolve around Ichirou Mizuki and Superhero Spirits around Akira Kushida, Super Sentai Spirits makes Isao Sasaki its headliner, and you can tell he really just appreciates that attention and steps up. (There was a point where Sasaki didn't participate in these types of concerts as much as those other guys.) All of the performers at this particular concert look like they're having so much fun, and it comes through their performances. They're all bringing it.

It DID end up feeling like a big, special, FUN, magical concert. My brother and I made an event for its release, buying some Japanese snacks, renting good audio and video equipment... I have a real fondness for the 2004 concert, and it's my favorite of the toku-related concerts. What's great about the "Spirits" concerts is that it's all about the music. The crowd is packed with mostly adult fans, so the performers are truly putting their all into their performance. The vibe of these concerts is great -- performers happy to be performing, an energetic audience of superfans giving right back. There's audience participation. Everybody who is there is a fan.

The Cho Eiyuu Sai concerts Toei puts on and releases are fun and all, but they're just not the same. They're overly produced. The focus of those events are on shows' cast members performing and talking. In terms of music, most of the focus goes to Kamen Rider. Sentai's only allowed to do TV size versions of themes, and only the same handful of recent singers are ever gotten. These events are geared towards members of all ages, but especially kids, so there's just not that same commitment by the singers in performing. Only being allowed to do one verse, they zip through the song, and the songs tend to be interrupted by suit actors getting up to antics on the side. These events are not about the music, so they're not even close to being the same as a Super Sentai Spirits.

The Super Sentai Spirits concerts started out one every two years, and then they became annual. Nearly every time they hold one, I hold out hope that they'll film and release it. With every concert, I'll email the folks in charge and ask. Each time I'd get what was obviously a brush-off answer. The concerts would come and go, unfilmed, unreleased. At a certain point, I wouldn't even bother emailing them, basically just giving up on the idea.

Cut to 2016. They announce the 10th iteration of the Super Sentai Spirits concerts, with the news that Daisuke Shima will be performing there for the first time. Now, I love Liveman. It's one of my top favorite Sentai shows, Red Falcon's one of my top favorite Reds and its themes are among my favorite toku themes. Throughout all of the Super Sentai Spirits concerts, Shima was the one performer I had hoped they'd always get. After Liveman, Shima stepped away from music to focus on acting. In the early '00s he had started to sing again -- nothing major, he didn't start touring or anything, but he released a few singles and an album of self covers. Shima's one of the better known, more mainstream performers that Sentai has seen, so even if he had started singing again, I didn't think it was likely he'd ever show up to one of these concerts and sing Liveman's themes. I had hoped he would, but didn't think it was likely...

But then he did. Knowing how popular Shima once was, how popular Liveman was (and is), I thought for sure they would film this one and release it -- if not to DVD or Blu-ray, then at least to pay television, which means someone could have found a download for it. But they didn't film it, so my hopes pretty much died. I was surprised to see Shima show up for the next concert, but didn't bother giving it much thought at all. And I'm REALLY surprised that he's planning to do the latest one, this November. I went from thinking he'd never do ONE to now he's done a couple. And not only that, but Hironobu Kageyama is slated to perform this year, and it's the first Super Sentai Spirits he's done in a few years. And it was a few years before THAT one that he did the previous one. He's no longer a regular at these things.

This year's line-up is one of the fullest they've ever had. The only people that are not listed to attend this year, that have in previous years, is Ken Narita, Taku Kitahara, Kumi Sasaki and Masaaki Endou. Now, Kitahara, Sasaki and Endou took part in the first and second concerts that were released, so...their appearance isn't crucial. And they filmed a portion of a Super Anisong Spirits concerts that Ken Narita performed at and aired it on pay-per-view, so there IS a professional clip of Narita performing at least the Denjiman OP out there. But everyone else who ever attended one of the Super Sentai Spirits is set to be at this new one. (They're apparently never getting Takashi Tsushimi, Naritaka Takayama or Masato Shimon. I understand why Shimon, since he's retired and it's not even officially confirmed he's the one doing the Gingaman songs. I know Tsushimi's a busy producer now, but I have no idea why Takayama won't do one.)

And, sure, since there are so many of the old-timers at the new concert, there will be several repeats that I mentioned as being one of my theories why I think the SSS II DVD tanked. But there are so many new factors at play here. The performers are going to have changed in the 12 freaking years since the last one. These concerts are done at an entirely different venue now. The brass members of Takatori's band Zetki now play with the band, which really oughta help a lot of the older songs sound closer to the track. The older performers aren't going to perform forever, unfortunately, so isn't this a good time, considering what a full line-up it is, to release a new one? (And, dammit, I REALLY would like to see great, complete live performances of Ohranger and Megaranger! Shima, Hayami and Fuuga are the top three I'm most excited about, but I've also always wanted a good live performance of Maskman's ED, which Kageyama performed last time he attended, so hopefully he'll sing it again.)

And, actually, you can't tell me that set lists being too similar or the repetition is a no-sale, because how many times have they released concerts with the Rider Chips and the Kamen Rider Girls doing the same exact songs, in the same exact ways, no variation? If they can film and release the 100th performance of Elements, then a concert with yet another performance of Sunvulcan or Jetman shouldn't be any different. "But Shougo, you've said you disliked this song or that, why do you want to see it live?" Well...geez, sometimes a song can grow on you, now can't it? Besides, it all goes back to the vibe these concerts have. There's some songs that I'll like after seeing a live performance of it -- whether it's hearing it in a different way or seeing what a performer puts into it or the energy it has live. (Here's a Super Sentai example: I used to be pretty indifferent towards the Fiveman themes. But then I saw Suzuki's performance at SSS II, with how emotional he got performing those songs, how much fun he was having, noticing certain lines he'd emphasize, which helped me appreciate certain lyrics more, and now I like those songs.)

I really would like for them to film and sell the two Tokyo Super Sentai Spirits concerts this year. It would mean a lot to me, and I know a lot of other people -- even Japanese fans, most importantly -- want another one released. Not everybody can go, you know? Each year when I'd check out a concert-goer's blog or Tweet about going, there'd be a bunch of replies of people who said how much they wanted to go, but couldn't, and that they wished they'd put a new one out on DVD. I really feel like this year's concert is the best shot at getting a new release. I think it would make sense to film them both and sell them. The line-up is massive, they wouldn't have to release another one for a while. And if they DON'T film and release it, well...then I will pretty much officially abandon hope that they'd ever film and release another one. It will be like letting go of the idea of Shoko Nakagawa getting to play a Pink. When they couldn't get her for the anniversary show (Gokaiger) or to just VOICE the Pink that was a suit (Kyuranger), it was obvious they were never going to get her. So, same situation here. If this one's not filmed...forget about any others. (So, Shougo will shut up about it. That's worth some Retweets, eh?)

You might think a Twitter campaign is pointless. I'm trying to stay positive here, man. Let's keep an open mind. When this newest concert was announced, I emailed the folks in charge. What did I get? The brush-off. "We don't know. We'll pass along that there's interest." Well, I figured it was time to stop bothering behind-the-scenes and take it public and make this an open request. I wanted fans to show how much they'd like to see another release, and I wanted to get on this ASAP. I was optimistic on that first day I Tweeted -- I got responses from a couple of people that made me very happy. But by day three it's tapered off and what the hell, guys? I appreciate those who did Retweet, but I couldn't help but think that I could Tweet a GIF of Mega Blue squeezing that Kunekune's nuts and instantly get 2,000 Retweets, but a Tweet that means something and has a goal gets lost in the mix so quickly...?

C'mon. Let's make this happen. Let's get a new release of this. You know you'd watch. Yeah, even you, who pretends to not like Sentai music. Yeah, even you, who thinks you're too cool to participate in a Twitter campaign. Yeah, even you, who thinks a DVD/BD release doesn't matter because you've been able to go see one of these shows live. Let's feel some Super Sentai Spirit, huh?

Let's do this to shut Shougo up! SHOW SOME SUPER SENTAI SPIRIT!

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