Really excellent work but I wanna add one subtle thing to 06:21. The street where Kotaro is walking is called Ikegami-cho, which is the oldest Korean enclave in Kawasaki city that was originated from an informal camp for war-time forced laborers for the government-run Japan Iron & Steel Company. It's been a ghetto-like district for years after WWII with no land ownership.
Omg thank you for sharing that. That's both enlightening and sobering. It really does go to show that there's still so much we don't know about the plight of Koreans in Japan.
This is the first video that I've seen that actually gets this show. The amount of people I have seen complain about "the messaging" or just misrepresenting the conflict without the necessary context behind the history. I picked up on some things like the Abe and Unit 731 allegories, but the history of Japanese Koreans was completely new and recontextualizes so much for me.
Thanks a lot @adacorfirewind6301 for taking the time to watch this video. For some Japanese I.P.s, at least from my shitty Western POV, I'm slowly realizing that we're all consuming so much Japanese content without learning the context behind it (see Godzilla Minus One). Maybe @CRACtube can chime in better about those things, but the history of Zainichi Koreans is often overlooked by us all. We live in an age where the loudest people in the room get the biggest platform and a lot of times, we just speak over others that can provide actual nuance. I saw that when it came to Black Sun and I just had to make this video - with help of course. The show isn't flawless obvious, and the George Floyd reference is kind of in poor taste (though I have a feeling that the director wanted to shock Japanese viewers out of complacency), but Black Sun isn't just a history lesson about the specifics of Racism in Japan, it's a very telling reminder about what happens when we continue to cede our rights to fascists. I wish this video was shared more amongst people but I fear that isn't the case. Thanks again for watching. Your comment really made my day.
@NaikaVideo what's wild is how some takes I've seen be like "it's a condemnation of radicalism on both sides" when it's a bona-fide leftist manifesto advocating for radical antifascist action, as if the Creation King wasn't a giant walking allegory for systemic racism and how to deal with it
You know. After hearing more and more about the long running history between Japan and Korea,I can see why there may be a very ingrained mutual hatred for each other even extending to their dogs. Do not have a Shiba Inu next to a Jindo. They both are fiercely loyal but also can scrap really well for their masters.
Thanks for the breakdown of the politics of Black Sun. Like, I know about the obvious parallels like Shinzo Abe and George Floyd, but I didn't realize the depths it went.
Thank you for taking the time to watch the whole video Psyga! I hope it was informative! I think the Zainichi Korean references are very important to this show and much of that is thanks to @CRACtube.
Great video! When i originally watched Black Sun, i picked up on some of commentary but wasn't aware of alot of the the stuff brought up in the video. This has definitely given me a new found appreciation for Black Sun.
Thanks so much Kenneth, and thank you for taking the time to view the whole video. KRBS isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's brave, and so many of its detractors fail to consider the wider Japanese socio-political context that it's trying to push back on. Was there anything that surprised you, or anything that you want to share that you learned about here?
Just finished Black Sun today. and holy shit is so based. I love it. I'm relatively new to Kamen Rider, with Shin Kamen Rider being my first along with a handful of the OG Kamen rider episodes.
I love the OG Kamen Rider show but it IS long. If you're looking for a good entry point, my pick would be Kuuga. Glad you liked Black Sun though. Hope it was good watch, and I hope this video helped to flesh things out. Welcome to the Rider fandom!
I saw your post about how you changed the thumbnail for this video (I think) a couple of days ago and was really pleasantly surprised. I really loved the show for what it was on the first and second view. But this added context gives me more to love about the show. I'm actually rewatching it with a friend whose a huge history guy so I'm definitely sending this over to him once he finishes the show. Thank you so much for putting in all this work and letting us know what we would have missed as outsiders.
Thank you so much for giving this video a chance, because I learned a TON while making it, and I hope viewers, like you, did as well. Like you, I'm an outsider to how Japanese leftism was like in the 20th century and, in all honestly, I think this show is a super hero debate about the future of leftism in Modern Japan, with the potential amendment of Article 9 looming large in the background. KRBS isn't perfect and is, at times, flawed (I'm not a fan of it's pacing), but I was angered at how some sections of the fandom casually disregarded the show. I hope your friend enjoys it. Thank you for spreading the word about Black Sun because that's all I want really - for people to engage with the show and its nuanced perspective about a country that we ALL 'seem' to 'know' about, but rarely engage with on a human or social level (that counts for me as well). Cheers, ~Naika
This was very enlightening. As a lifelong Kamen Rider fan, having watched the show myself helped prove that tokusatsu is not just about Henshin Heroes fighting rubber-suited monsters and can go way deeper than that. What I was not expecting from your video was just how deep the show's political themes and messages, especially all the allegories to real world history, are and how well they're executed in the 10 episodes. I knew Japan was not as homogenous as the media makes you believe, but HOLY SHIT, knowing what I know now because of the excellent work put into this video makes me appreciate what Kamen Rider Black Sun was able to achieve. I've yet to see a movie or show on the level of this, a Kamen Rider show of all things, be done here in the U.S. in terms of themes and messaging and be done well. We should really take notes here. TL;DR: this was an excellent and well-researched video on how exceptional a show about a karate bug-man tackles political themes and messages.
Urmanita, thank you so much for the lovely comment....this really made my morning. Thank you for taking the time to watch the entire video and I apologize in advance for making it such an infodump. The show isn't perfect obviously, and it was still made under the auspices of a Japanese TV industry that's still very discriminatory, but the show at least wants to have a conversation about this. It's very hard to find something like this from Japanese TV and I had to talk about it since, back in 2022, the negative reception about it was...interesting. Like HBO's Watchmen, I hope more superhero shows get cranked out that are more nuanced eventually. There are more nuances in Black Sun that I didn't cover but I hope you got the gist of it. If you have any questions about the video, feel free to reach out. ^_^
@@NaikaVideo No apologies needed! Like I said, it was well researched and paced out excellently. I agree that Black Sun is not perfect, but the fact that it uses Kaijin and Kamen Rider to cleverly take a jab at the extreme discrimination from both the government and societal norms means the creators were geniuses in their production. Speaking of Kamen Rider, I’d love to see what you think of Shin Kamen Rider. I feel like that’s an interesting movie to discuss on more than just a love letter to Kamen Rider as a whole.
@@UrmanitaRules Thanks so much for the comment! Yeah, SKR is very interesting and while I did have fun with it, I had a lot of issues. I did have a long ass twitter thread about the film but do you think it's better to do a video on it?
@@NaikaVideo A video on it would definitely be interesting to watch. Especially after watching this video here. Honestly, anyone talking about Shin Kamen Rider is a win because I personally think it was one of the better superhero movies I watched in all of 2023. And I was lucky to watch it on one of the two nights it was screened in theaters here in the US. I myself definitely think it is not a perfect movie, but I believe it deserves more attention because of how unique it was. But I definitely would be down to read the “long ass Twitter thread.” I’m always up for a good read. Would love to know your views in general so to add to the overall discussion.
HOLEE SHIT Kazuma, I should've tweeted this to you but wasn't sure if you were gonna watch it since you're kind of a busy dude! If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have read the NYTimes LDP article so thank you. Thank you for enduring this boring video and hopefully it will get more ppl to look more deeply into the pop culture they enjoy. Hope to read more awesome writing from you soon. This comment means so much dude!!!
Great video, had watched Black Sun a couple of weeks ago, and it's still sitting with me. I love this video for the extra context it provides into Japan and how that ties back into Black Sun. All those references to Japanese politics flew over my head, and I could only compare them to the US politics I'm more accustomed to. Thanks so much for the enriching content.
Thanks for giving the video a chance @DjEnigma009! Kamen Rider Black Sun isn't perfect and there are a ton of things I can talk about that I think could be better, and a TON of stuff doesn't always work for a Western audience (the GF reference for instance). However, the show is very much made for Japan and so much of the flak I saw regarding the show had a great deal to do with how many of us in North America were only viewing it from that perspective, and that invited a ton of 'it's Japanese X-Men' remarks. Again, thank you for watching and have a great weekend!
Really informative video. I already adored Black Sun's worldbuilding but never noticed those small details that added so much more depth to the story. The set construction team did an incredible job.
Thanks a million for watching and I agree, the production team was just fantastic here and, dare I say, not beholden to any conservatives because they added so many hidden details in Samezu Yokocho that probably made it look like any other station in Japan with ethnic enclaves in it.
57:19 I like the section where you pointed out how the show kinda focuses on background characters. I feel like it's very accurate! During my watch of this show I certainly felt like I noticed the extras and scenery a lot more than usual. Your added commentary kinda hits home because I've definitely had moments where I was just another person in the crowd too scared to do anything.
@@blackh9604 Thank you for taking the time to watch this video. I’ve definitely been there and still feel that way at times (especially in this age of renewed right-wing madness). Do your best to build community if you can, but most of all, be alert, open, and aware of what’s going on around you. That’s a takeaway I hope more people get from Black Sun.
@3:15 Ah yes. GMK,the movie where Godzilla was the nightmarish almagamation of all the souls violently taken from WWII and where Godzilla went to the Japanese People saying "Today,I shall remind them". Good stuff.
@NaikaVideo As for Unit 731,I did see a bit of Wendigoon's Vid on that amongst other vids of his involving government conspiracies. Yeah. Stuff like that makes you ask "how does sewing his balls to his chin helps us win the war?".
hi naika (not sure if you prefer to be called that!), i'm an indonesian college student currently writing a thesis about black sun and i would just like to say thank you for such a well-made video essay -- it has greatly enhanced my understanding of the show and got rid of some of the bitter taste that it left in my mouth lol. i had come to roughly the same conclusions as you, especially regarding the parallels to japan's history, but i was not aware that it still extends to the present day. it's really mind-opening, especially as a fellow minority who has suffered through similar things in my life, that such vile things still happen in a country as "peaceful" and "civilized" as modern day japan (though like you said in the video, that must be the fault of how its media portrays the country and its problems). that said, i was wondering if it's ok for me to credit you and this video in my paper? as i feel like i wouldn't have been able to come across such specific obscure examples without your help, like the video of the protest against the korean elementary school which was harrowing to watch. also, i appreciate the mention of my country in this video -- growing fascism practices have been a problem here for a long while, and one of my goals with this thesis is to also write a sort of critique against what's happening in indonesia as well. thank you so much in advance, and either way i look forward to more of your content!
Thanks so much for reaching out KamenNepper. Naika is fine and I have no issues if you'd like to use the video and my name (Naika Video) for your paper. I'm so grateful for your words about the video and I hope it shed some light on a few things about Kamen Rider Black Sun. Although I don't live in Southeast Asia, both my parents are from there so it hurts very much to see the region slide so hard towards the path of fascism and I fear that much of the online behavior that's exported from where I'm from (the U.S.) helps to normalize rightwing madness. I wish you the best of luck in your thesis and I hope you score a hattrick with it! May the fight against fascism live on in Asia!
@@NaikaVideo i would love to discuss this further with you, but i think a public youtube comment section isn't the right place for this kind of talk lol. if you don't mind, i may contact you via twitter sometime in the future. either way, thank you so much! i wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors as well.
I am sorry for hearing that, fascist is truly an issue Worldwide. I am from South América and new to Kamen Rider. Watching Kuuga at the moment. In my country fascist mostly come in the form of communism/socialism which is pushed by Leftwing madness. I hope some day my country and yours recover.
Thank you for breaking the series down. Not only the series is a good imagining of an old classic but a movie that desires to awaken us from apathy and make changes to an old, barbaric system that we face in different forms in our respective nations. -from Philippines
Thanks for watching @PeejWan! You probably saw my nod to Duterte and Marcos there, but we SEAsians are facing this fight against fascism, one you already know about. I was under the impression that a lot of SEA toku fans didn't take kindly to Kamen Rider Black Sun given the region's strong affinity for the original Kamen Rider Black (a show that I saw once as a 5 year old visiting grandparents in Thailand way back in 1989 if you can believe it). I am glad that I am wrong in some respects because I continue to run into SEA folks that are engaging with this show like you. Thank you for taking the time to watch the video. I know it was very long and I apologize. So much of this video was made in response to the very negative SEA reaction to the show but I am glad that people like you exist. If our people can awaken from our apathy to challenge the systems that oppress us all (including the minorities of all stripes in our respective nations) and govern under the rule of law and human dignity, our region might truly become the treasure of the Pacific.
Just finished this show earlier today and am going down the content rabbit hole per usual whenever I finish something. This video was really fascinating and gave me a bigger appreciation for the show. Would love more videos like this 👀
Thanks for taking the time watch this @Bearick! I hope I can make more like this at some point, but Black Sun is very special in that regard, and it needed a deeper dive because a lot of its themes are, as you already know, not known widely outside of Japan. Hope the video was informative and I hope you enjoyed Kamen Rider Black Sun! Cheers to ya.
I saw you sharing this video on Twitter. That's an impressive works, well documented, great presentation and awesome soundtracks. I'll probably watch black sun once I finish the original kamen rider serie, seems like a really interesting serie. Once again, great video!
Thanks so much @paulrubens776 for watching this! It might make more sense once you watch Black Sun. The show isn't perfect as its pacing is rough at times, but this show has a lot of nuance and hopefully this video helped to discuss it. Hope to see you around the channel. The next video will also be a toku vid so stay tuned!
Thanks so much for watching this Jacob. So much of this is thanks to a lot of people so definitely check out the links in the description whenever you have the chance. I'm glad there are folks that do enjoy Black Sun because the pessimist in me says otherwise. Thank you for making my day Jacob!
Yo I already rewatched Black Sun like 3 times already and I'm still watching some scenes just for pure fun. But these content really make me appreciated the story and the history even more with all the art imitates life stuff, loved that. Btw Wife of a Spy is a fantastic movie, huge fan of Kurosawa and Yu Aoi. Thank u so much for these content, GREAT WORK man!
Hi Fiz, thank you for the wonderful comment! I think the show has way more layers than we're aware of and I wanted to do my utmost (with a lot of help) to bridge that stuff because many of the haters are really missing the point of the show, along with its message for Modern Japan. Glad that you also enjoy Wife of a Spy and, if you haven't already, definitely check the other movie recs, ESPECIALLY SHUSENJO. Hope to see you around Fiz. Thank you for enduring this long ass video!
Hugo thank you for watching this video and I hope it gave you much needed context for Kamen Rider Black Sun. The videos about this show on UA-cam don't go deep enough unless it's CRAC's livestream and I wanted to tackle the show's nuance head on. Thank you for subscribing and I hope to see you around here in the future! ^_^
@FenixYuk Thank you so much for translating that :) Really really appreciate it. It's a very apt and timely slogan. So grateful! ^_^ Also, thank you for watching!!!!
Thank Mekun for watching, I know it's a LOT so I hope it gives greater context to the show since Black Sun's pacing isn't the best per se. But I tend to view the show as this Japanese Leftist inside joke and if you're 'on the know', things will come to you right away. Very grateful for the feedback!
As a former black student in Japan, I learned a LOT from the residents. What I did not, I learned from Naika. Probably one of my favorite video essays of all time. Black Sun does what The Boys is afraid to.
I have been fascinated by the WW2 Japanese Imperial army and the 731 unit since young. So when I realized these elements are incorporated into KR Black Sun, it made me like the series even more. There was a documentary movie about the 731 unit produced in the 80's by the chinese. The title is called Black Sun 731. I wonder if Toei got the name from this show. lo. I have heard about the inference of racism against korean Japanese and Japanese political leaders in the show, but there was little information about it until I watched your video. Thank You for painstakingly gathering all these information and produce a commentary video on the politics of Black Sun. I really appreciated it. Arigato! Maybe you can do some commentary on the relation between the 731 unit and the creation king, the heat heaven as a kind of drug and so on. I am quite amazed by the imagination of the script writer and director to somehow managed to merge every bits of history and real life events together to form a story. Toei is producing "The Black Book" coming october to commemorate the first anniversary of the series. There was be tons of visuals and background information of the series. I hope there will be an english version of the book. I believe after reading this book, we will have a deeper appreciation of the show when we rewatched it again. And if you have gathered some more information, hope you can produce another video again. I want to know everything about Black Sun. 😀
Thank you so much for your great comment. If there is a translation of the Black Sun Black book, I would hope to touch on this subject again in the future. I will eventually make an addendum to this video, but will hold off on it until later next year, as this video really took a toll on me unfortunately. I would definitely like to know more about this documentary about Unit 731 that you referenced, though the show's title is a direct reference to the original Kamen Rider Black show from 1987. Will try to look into it. Thank you again for commenting and I hope you got to learn a lot!
When you came to twitter and ask to watch your video, I was not expecting to be this great, an awesome and very detailed analyses. To point one thing, the methods Bilgenya to hunt and torture Aoi's parents are almost the same as the military dictatorship in Brazil, during the 70's. Thank you for this great video, keep going with your amazing work.
Thank you so much for watching it Leonardo! I apologize for the length of the video but I hope it provided a lot of details that could be missed from Kamen Rider Black Sun. I've heard the dictatorship of the 70s was very brutal and I wonder if Bolsonaro participated in it given his military background. I'm very happy to get comments like this so thank you! I hope to do more fun things in the future so stay tuned! 😇
@@NaikaVideo Bolsonaro is a big enthuisiast of this dark past of Brazil, he never hide it, also he always salute tortures. About the video, it shouldn't be shorter, in fact i didn't notice is was this long, I enjoy every single minute, don't apologize about it. I really love those kind of analyses, that go deeper than simply talk about the show itself.
@@LeonardoTiburcio It makes me regret that I didn't have an image of Jair in this video - in America, we have to deal with so many idiots that love fascism that it's crazy. Thank you so much for the insight into this and thank you again for taking the time to watch this.
Hey! This was a great video overall and really helped me contextualize Black Sun and educate me on politics I knew nothing about. However, I had issues with the editing and how generally glib and comedic the whole tone of it was. Stuff like the vine boom on "No Survivors" and censoring with funny sound effects felt like they were in poor taste considering the context of the material. Looking forward to more!
Hi Scorpio, I apologize profusely about the video. It was not my intention to be glib or comedic. Spending six months on this project really took a toll on me and in was not my intention for it to be in poor taste (I'm on older millennial and I don't even know what a Vine Boom is - I added that sound effect there for the sake of gravity and I'm sorry if it did not come off that way). This was a very serious subject that's kind of near and dear to my heart as an Asian diaspora person and really, it was all thanks to @CRACtube for educating me on these issues and more. I hope it at least gave you some nuance for the show, especially with regards to how it lambasts a lot of the LDP's bigotry. Black Sun is not perfect by any means but its core message continues to be ignored by tokutubers looking for laughs and a quick click and I for one wanted to start an honest discussion about what it wants to say about Modern Japan. Endless thanks to you for enduring the video and I hope to have fun stuff for this channel in the coming months. This video was months of anguish but I'm grateful that folks like yourself are giving it a chance. 😭
@Naika Video Oh, don't be too harsh on yourself about it! This kind of thing is a trope that's all over UA-cam, I just figured a smaller channel covering this kind of thing would appreciate that feedback.
@@xStreamingScorpio Damn right I do! Thank you for being honest because this for sure helps me future vids. Also, does UA-cam hate cursing? I bleeped it out of fear of that but wasn't sure if it's really needed?
@@NaikaVideo The rules are super nebulous and change all the time, but afaik the rule these days is that you can't curse in the first minute of the video without being demonetized
I think you are greatly underselling the injury to kotaro. It's hard to stand up to systems when you are poor, and in pain, all of the time without any support. As soon as he sees an out, he takes it. Sure he needed some reassurance, but he's old, and that tracks. True selfish inaction would have him eat heat to heal his leg. He chose his ideals over his own ability to carry action forward. He is a smart and strong man of character. He was just alone.
Hi Combat, thanks a million for watching the video! I hope it was useful in teasing out the nuance of Kamen Rider Black Sun. If you have any questions, please let me know. Thanks, and cheers! 🍻
ZAIA thank you for taking the time to watch the video and thank you for your lovely comments online. Let me know if you have any additional questions about the video and I'll be happy to answer them!
Pretty interesting and informative video. I liked how it brought light to the political and cultural scene in japan and showed that its not as homogenous as many would believe. I thought japan was just a conservative country and wasn't aware of how big the political disparity was between older generations and the youth. My only point of contention is that words like leftist and socialist are used to liberally to broadly describe people who simply don't want to see minorities get abused. Not only does this erase nuances of peoples beliefs by implicitly putting politics on a straight line graph, but by not distinguishing between economic and cultural leftism/rightism, economically right leaning people who just want tax breaks and or fewer laws governing their personal lives are gonna feel awkward and vilified watching this video and seeing themselves be lumped war time revisionists, anti Korean racists, and people who think lgbt people in specific shouldn't get government aid because they "don't reproduce". I think that's important to bring up because the kinds of gen x bread and butter voters that Black Sun is trying to address tend to fall into that camp.
Thanks so much for watching the video and thanks a million for this awesome comment. You are very right that those bread and butter people need more nuance....60% of all Japanese, regardless of age and political leanings favor LGBT marriage actually. The issue is that those folks don't speak out when their voices are needed the most (hence Aoi's big speech to the U.N. and my conclusions towards the end of the video). How can you provide nuance when stats and literature show that the LAST thing the average bread and butter person wants is to speak up, show their voice or be noticed for any sort of view that upsets the status quo (the very thing that KR Black Sun' concluding montage shows). In East Asia, especially Japan, there's a saying that goes like "The nail that sticks out has to be hammered down" (出る釘は打たれる). Black Sun is literally showing the bread and butter the alternatives: either be a working stiff that ignores everything around you, or be the nail.
oh, wow, thank you SO much for making this. i could only interpret Black Sun based on american politics--which made it a good show--but with all this knowledge, it's a GREAT show. i'm in awe that it was produced at all. i hope you keep up this kind of work!
Thanks a ton for watching the video mootroid! This show really was a middle finger to the Conservative Establishment in Japan and it makes me wonder whether or not its 'under-the-radar' release on Amazon Prime was either purposeful or punitive, but I shouldn't speculate. Currently finishing up a script for The Politics of Ultraman Blazar so stay tuned for that! Hope to see you then!
Hiiii. Just wanna say, I watched the full video of your Black Sun video and it made me help to appreciate and understand Black Sun a lot more but it also makes me feel a bit more riled up on the injustice and cruelty that the LDP has caused to Japan and it's progress. I think it's brilliant and commendable for the Black Sun makers and even Toei to make such a show but I also wondered how successful the show is though I sent this comment through private message on FB messenger but I think you rarely used FB so I decided to put it here because your video on Black Sun needs more recognition and appreciation. I would love to talk about Black Sun with you more, maybe through Twitter hehe
Hi Nero, that's correct. I don't check my FB that much because not many ppl like to comment on my videos, but I'm very grateful nonetheless. If you have any question on Twitter, feel free to ask! I'm not sure as to how successful Black Sun is in Japan because a handful of the Japanese ppl I have spoken too have been folks that resonate with its messages, especially in regards to its critiques on homophobia, discrimination, racism and misogyny.
@@NaikaVideo thank you bro! I can see Black Sun being well beloved for how it accurately portrayed those heavy subject matter and it's those problems that I didn't even knew about from Japan which is really important to convey for those living in Japan who had faced those problems. Man, I would love to see a Black Sun season 2 someday
@@neronarancia1090 Honestly, I hope that maybe Kazuya Shiraishi can make a Director's Cut of this show because 5 more episodes would make the pacing of the show a lot better. Maybe: 1 episode about Oliver & his son. 1 episode of Bilgenia & the Kaijin Village. 1 episode about Yukari. 1 episode about Kujira & Nomi. 1 episode about Kotaro. Personally, I don't want to see a season 2 because I'd rather them leave Black Sun as is. Something open ended so that folks in Japan can really think about it. I'm not sure what the reception is in Japan, but for those in Japan that endured these terrible things, I hope it's cathartic in some way (though I understand why someone would be offended by it too). My goal here was to give the Western fanbase of Toku something to chew at about Black Sun because the negativity of 'oh this isn't KAMEN RIDER BLACK?, how dare you' flattens the nuanced message it's trying to convey. Sorry for my rant and thank you again!
@@NaikaVideo having a director's cut or extra episodes for Black Sun rather than a Season 2 would be pretty great too. I prefer to have another episode that touches more upon Kotaro and Nobuhiko's friendship and shows both of them bonding more. Also, a Yukari, Kujira, and Nomi episodes are the ones that interests me the most especially with Yukari and her ambiguity in terms of her alliance as I felt that even though it's implied that she worked for Dounami, her words and thoughts on ending the Kaijins feels true I think you are succeeding on your goals for fans to give a second chance to Black Sun. It might not be everyone, but I hope you have a lot of people who appreciate your content. Back when i watched Black Sun, I can't say I absolutely loved the show. This is because I didn't understand in depth about racism and it's sensitive topics. I can't make a proper opinion on it because I don't want my opinion to offend or devalue those who are struggling from racism, public negligence, and extreme political control. However, watching your video on Black Sun has made me appreciate and respect Black Sun more and it helped me understand more on what Black Sun represents the most. I still can't say a proper opinion on Black Sun but I do know that it has that passion, thought, and dedication to represent the struggles and horrors that Japan has been facing and to give some hope that we can solve or face it, maybe even to make a path much better than Aoi did but there needs to be more people in Japan to watch and learn something from Black Sun which is what I want the most
@@NaikaVideo I agree. Given it's rich content, they could have added a few more episodes to give some backstory to the whole plot as well as some more fight scenes with more kaijin. But well that's their decision and we have to accept it. Coming this october Toei will release a Blacksun The Black Book to commemorate the series. The book will reveal many background stories and other hidden details. This will bring us to a new understanding of the show when we rewatch it again.
When the earliest merch for the show was announced before we knew anything about the show, with shirts saying "Stop Kaijin Hate" and "Kaijin Lives Matter", I was really scared that the show would be tone-deaf. Shiraishi's history of directing yakuza movies, a genre not known for its deft touch or subtlety didn't help. I was so happy to be proven wrong.
Hey there Joel, thank you for watching the video and YES, I was very VERY afraid when I saw the Kaijin Lives Matter merch, but thankfully, he opted out of using that in the show. I hope the video gave you more context regarding Japan and I hope it acts as a companion piece to Black Sun on the whole. I will say however that Yakuza films (or Ninkyo Eiga) actually have more subtlety than we might all think. I mean, it's one of the best genres for post-war Japanese filmmakers when talking about the American Occupation and it's pre-inclination to crush Leftist movements.
@@JBOboe720 I want to say Battles without Honor and Humanity possibly, but I haven't seen it - but I hope to rectify that some day. I'm gonna do some research and will let ya know. In the NYT article I spoke of in the video, there's evidence that the CIA and others have paid yakuza folks money to basically rough up leftist movements across Japan. There's a paywall but a while back, I was able to break it somehow. www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html
Thank you so much @pacoracer!!! I hope it added fleshed out the nuance of Kamen Rider Black Sun. Thank you for taking the time to watch this. Cheers!!!
Dude, stumbling across this video on Twitter was a delight- I come in expecting a fairly surface level explainer, and get a deep dive instead. It's good!
Luke thank you for giving this long-ass video a chance. I hope it gave you more context into the show because its pacing sometimes works against it. If you have additional questions, feel free to ask. 😄
@Naika Video I suppose that it's because I'm basically a newbie to Kamen Rider so i just plain Don't Know, but would you say that the other series are similarly misunderstood by the Western fandom? Or is it that Black Sun's subtext is just harder to read for foreign fans? I deal with it all the time in anime spaces, to the point that my crew decided to start a watch group for political literacy in anime
@@lukezondervan8094 That's really great that your crew did a watch group from that respect, because that can really help to fill in the gaps of knowledge. I love that kind of stuff because it enriches the experience. I'm not the biggest disciple of Kamen Rider like many others, so I can't comment on how misunderstood the franchise is to Western fandoms, (there are better ppl out there that can inform us I think) but I do know that toku fandom in the West can, understandably at times, get mad about political things when all they want is to flex their cishet male empowerment narratives while rocking plastic belts. I was hoping for this video to be something that toku fans can look at and say, 'wait, this stupid thing in Kamen Rider Black Sun actually means THIS?' I hope that answers your question, but I apologize for rambling. My old millennial brain is starting to boomerize...
"stop putting politics into it", aka "please stop telling me I'm the villain, I wanna be an asshole in peace and with no consequences for my shitty bigoted behaviour".
Hi Jafango, thank you for taking the time to watch this long-ass video. If you have any questions about anything in this vid, feel free to ask. I think the show really outdid itself in trying to present these issues since producers might not always be inclined to do so in Japanese TV, but I think a sea change is happening now, and what Kazuya Shiraishi & his team have done is brave.
Hi Beau, Thank you so much for subscribing! I hope you enjoyed the video. Cheers!!! Please let me know if you have any questions about the video's context at all.😇
Thank you so much for explaining the politics and the history for me. A lot of the videos I see r people whinning that polotics ruin the show or its bad because polotics n not going into it besides saying it's woke.
Thanks for taking the time to watch the video Kayson. I agree - a lot of the videos about Kamen Rider Black Sun here on this space are geared towards their complaints and aren't interested in engaging with the show. I'm cool with the reaction videos, and Marcosatsu's review is neat, and I felt like Black Sun needed more love, so there ya go.
Quality supplemental for Black Sun. Honestly, it should be required viewing for those that enjoyed or not enjoyed the series, since a lot of the context would fly right over most heads (like mine) without it. It's been nearly a year on since you made this video, and I just now discovered Black Sun, and it left me wondering if it was a successful show, or if it has left any impact in pop culture, political discourse, or both. Maybe a follow up video would be warranted? Either way, big ups for the huge effort!
Thanks for watching @HeyItzJD. Yes it's been a year since I released this and an addendum has been on the cards for a while. However, I'm currently working on an Ultraman Blazar video, so we'll see how that goes. I'm not sure if Kamen Rider Black Sun has had any impact in Japan, though it did help Hidetoshi Nishijima realize his lifelong dream to become a Rider (he was born in 1971 if I recall and is a fan). This show isn't perfect (pacing, the GF reference depending on your viewpoint, needed more episodes), but I really hope those who dismiss the show due to its politics find a way to watch this again. Thanks again for the lovely comment. It makes my time spent on making this worthwhile.
Fantastic video! Thank you (and everyone who helped you with research) for putting this together. Post-war and anti-Imperial Japanese media makes up a lot of my favorites, so I'm gonna be looking into the film recommendations from the start of the video as well.
Thanks a lot for watching, and I hope it was informative. CRAC & AzuroDanger were big help with this and I cannot thank them enough. Yes, definitely look into the films I recommended in the beginning because there's a lot of interesting viewpoints found in them, especially with Shusenjo. I'd also recommend THE EMPEROR'S NAKED ARMY MARCHES ON, but it's a very long and rough documentary so your mileage may vary.
I love this video. It shows a lot of skeletons in Japan's closet. I knew about some, but my gosh, there's so much more. This movie is a political masterpiece with action sprinkled over. I love it. But yeah, the end reminds me of John Brown. He started helping black Americans like his father by smuggling them out. As the slavery laws got worse, he became more of an extremist. He started killing people who were slavers and continued to preach to the people, as it was their apathy that let it happen. In the end, his death sparked the civil war. He laid his life for his black brothers and sisters, and he didn't regret a single bit.
Natalie thank you again for watching this and sharing John Brown's story. There are so many stories that connect with this struggle against apathy and inhumanity, including this. I hope others who were turned off by Kamen Rider Black Sun will see it this way one day.
Please do a commentary on the new Godzilla minus one. Apparently it was a great film with overwhelmingly positive reception. But the fact that it depicts Japan immediately following the war in a very sympathetic light without any mention of the atrocities committed by the imperial army outside of a quick blurb on how little the government cared about its soldiers really rubbed me as intentionally avoiding its history. The director's previous work with The Eternal Zero was even more in the territory of glorifying war, and rewriting history, praised by Abe himself and criticized by Miyazaki. It disappoints me that the western audience accepts works that sidesteps and willfully ignores atrocities committed by imperial Japan when they would absolutely not tolerate the same for works about Nazi Germany.
Hi @artoras6098, this is a fantastic point and I'm hoping me and my Wife will check the film out later this week. I'm well aware about Yamazaki's past work with Eternal Zero (though I haven't seen it just yet) but there are some very good reviews out there that are critiquing the film's myopia well. Thanks so much for reaching out about this!
@@artoras6098 Here you go: feraldove.com/antigodzilla inreviewonline.com/2023/12/04/godzilla-minus-one/ filmlesscamera.substack.com/p/some-thoughts-on-godzilla-minus-one blog.pureinventionbook.com/p/godzilla-minus-one-doesnt-quite-add
@@NaikaVideo yeah these articles put into words my biggest gripe with the movie, the blatant nationalistic power fantasy of remilitarized Japan without any acknowledgement of the horrors they were responsible for. Also, now that I learned a bit more about Yamazakis history as a film maker from these articles, it's pretty obvious what his agenda is. Still I'm just super disappointed in the international community for its overall glorification of this film when they would have a complete opposite reaction if the film was about post war Germany instead
@@artoras6098 Well I did see Godzilla Minus One and....I didn't like it. I've been doing some research on a potential video but I'm going to wait things out a bit. But also, I'm kind of worried how some G-Fans will take the video too.
Thanks so much for sharing your feedback and YES, if you're going to go back and re-watch, then I did my job. 😁 These last 6 months wasn't entirely wasted I suppose. Thank you for enduring this hourlong info dump!
I went into Black Sun for two things. 1. For a good show. 2. To possibly make me watch the original Kamen Rider Black. The political stuff was secondary to me. Those two mission statements succeeded and yes I ended up watching Kamen Rider Black and finished it not to long ago in fact. Did I enjoy this show? Yes. Did I understand the political points in it? Given that I have a disability not so much but I did pay attention to Japanese news to help out before I lost access to NHK that is so I'm stuck. Now do I think people are unfair with this show? Yes I do think that. And the one comment that I will not let go of is one UA-cam channel said something really messed up about Aoi just because he didn't like her. It really astounds me how sometimes people's opinions are so mean and nasty.
Hi Ray, thank you for checking out the video. I'm rewatching the Original Kamen Rider Black (whenever time permits - thank you Discotek!) and it's certainly a fantastic piece of 80s tokusatsu TV. If you're ever interested in learning more about Japan, definitely check out all the twitter accounts I posted at the end of the video. Also, I would be very very wary of NHK news given it's reputation for being super super jingoistic. And to your last point, yes. Some folks in the toku webs really have it in for Aoi, and it's sad.
@@NaikaVideo and Aoi is our female lead protagonist that we have been asking for all this time. And we finally have it but what do people do they bad mouth her and say all this negative stuff about her. There really is no winning here
@@rayhayes7701 I agree completely Ray and it's very sad to see this. Ppl are either mad that she's a girl, mad that there's no exposition about her driver, mad that she's like Greta Thunberg or mad that she cries all the time. There's no winning here... EVER.
@@NaikaVideo It’s just really sad. And it’s no wonder why we still have either sexism in the fandom especially when people will attack you for “making Kamen Rider political”
I can definitely see the strong parallels between the treatment of Koreans in Japan with the discrimination of the Kaijin, but I don't think it's fair to define the characters as liberal or conservative. That feels too reductive, and the series itself isn't meant to depict right-wing vs left-wing, but, at least from what I've gathered, the concept of human rights being questioned or challenged. Lastly, I do not see Aoi as a reference to or a character inspired by Greta Thunberg. I feel Aoi is just a young woman trying to stand up for what she thinks is right, and any possible parallels are coincidental if they exist at all.
@@NaikaVideo I appreciate that. I've been seeing a lot of negative reviews for Black Sun, which I don't understand. Do you think it's based on the political nature of the series or just because it's different?
Honestly@@ScarletDusk99 it's a bit of both. At least from the views I've seen from those of us who are outside of Japan, much of the negativity is hyperfocused on its political nature - i.e. how dare this beloved toku property bend to the whims of 'western-ish wokeness', while another half of that contingent is upset that said show didn't conform to the rigid, toy commercial standards of the current shows with modes, techniques or vehicles. Per interviews, Toei gave Kazuya Shiraishi carte blanche for his vision and that's what he gave.
@@NaikaVideo My gosh. I could see not liking the political aspect if it was in-your-face and obnoxious about it (like Disney tends to be in recent years), but the series handles it intelligently, and the fact that it's a more concise story instead of an over-the-top Action/Comedy like we're used to seeing is, by no means, a bad thing. I feel we need the lighthearted as well as the dark and serious to keep the franchise from getting stale. I never use this term, but it's sounding like a toxic fan mentality going on.
@@NaikaVideo Hey, this is random, but I stumbled on a Kamen Rider Black Sun action figure online, and it made me think of you and how you said the series went against the toy-selling angle a lot of other series fall into.
No Mega Man X7 music was used here but let me know what section you're talking about. The intro is from the arranged soundtrack for Sega's SUPER HANG-ON, while much of the music is from METAL GEAR SOLID 2 AND 3. Thanks for watching.
@ oh, sorry I must’ve mistaken something from MGS2 or three for something from x7 for some reason, I think it was early on in the video, part 1 I think? This overall was a very good video I enjoyed it thoroughly and it was very educational
Amazing video! Love how you highlight every small detail and link all of them to the parallel histories and politics of Black Sun-Japan and IRL Japan. Shouldn't need to be said - but when so many fans take a Watsonian approach to criticism, it helps to show that everything in a piece of fiction was placed there by human beings with perspectives and opinions in order to say something about the world as they see it.
OMG I couldn't have said this any better Noah! What you've said here is emblematic of what I was feeling at the time when I the negative attitudes towards the show. I hope folks who didn't like it will at least try to give it a 2nd chance. Black Sun is NOT perfect but boy does it try. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here because I am so grateful for them! ^_^
this video radicalized me... again lmao. you're doing great stuff. really baffles me on how people say that toku isn't political when we have stuff like this being produced. Granted, I don't think we'll get another toku show like this in awhile, though that might change, i don't know. As a minority and a son of immigrants, I do get really tired of people turning a blind eye to injustices and the fked up things that conservatives in jpn are doing. Hell, people are always turning a blind eye to racism in the US, no surprise there. Guess you could say i'm used to it now. However I hope more changes start happening as more people wake up, no matter where they are in the world. I'll be rewatching both the OG Black and Black Sun now, great video.
Thanks for watching this video, and thank you for giving it a chance. Towards the end of the video, I mention how Black Sun refuses to 'dance around' issues pertaining to Japan unlike a lot of other Japanese media we're all accustomed to (RPGs, Films, Manga and even Anime are, at times, forced to do so because there's a lot of fear of upsetting the powers that be who tend to lean rightward). It's not that I don't think toku isn't political (it is), but henshin hero creatives have to play the game because sponsors, TV execs and producers have the power to pull the plug because they're invested in the status quo in my opinion (I wish I had more knowledge / facts to back this up). That's why it's important for so many creatives to hide their leanings and intentions with subtext. Black Sun is flawed in a lot of ways, but I bat for it a ton because it refused to hide its intentions and came out at a time when Japanese media continues to placate the whims of people with a dishonest view of history. I'm the son of immigrants like you, and I hope more people wake up to how right wingers all over the world view things, and how those views shape us to hate. We have to be critical of ourselves, and we have to understand that it's a journey to unlearn. And toku, I hope, can be a great starting point for that. Enjoy the KRBlack rewatch. I finished my rewatch a few months ago and it's so good. Thank you for the kind comment my friend. Hope to see you around!
I am in 15:38 in the video so far and i have to say, this is the best video i have seen for Black Sun because i want to dig deeper into Black Sun and what it represents Black Sun is an interesting and creative show that explicitly takes reference from previous Japan government failures and racism and make the show as anti-racist as possible. However, i do felt as much as Black Sun is great at portraying the racism aspects as what you told so far in the video, i feel Black Sun loses a bit of that KR spirit that defines the justice theme of KR atleast for Kotaro himself
Nero thank you for the wonderful comment. This was 6 months of pain to make but I hope people will dig deeper because it's one of the bravest pieces of TV to come out of Japan in a long while. And remember, it's hard to get this kind of subject matter out in the open, so for Toei to give Kazuya Shiraishi the green light to do things his way is kind of amazing (since Toei's kind of crappy sometimes). In response to your statement about the justice themes of Kotaro 1987, I actually think that Black Sun is better for it. As I mentioned in Chapter 7, the show has some strong critique of that justice mindset because in most KR shows, you have this really evil individual that makes it easier to bounce the ideas of justice from. In Black Sun however, one lone Rider for Justice can't defeat a decades-old political machine that's built to suppress minorities while also manufacturing said minorities for further oppression and profit. I find that it's an inversion of that theme and I kind of like it. Thank you again for watching this video Nero. So grateful for the feedback!😃
@@NaikaVideo thank you for replying to my comments. I really appreciate and admired how you put a lot into this video and this is really dang extensive that I have to share this to people now. I agree with your opinion on the ending as one man can't solve a big broken system. You need people for that and I think Black Sun shows off that. As I am at 40:52, I understand more on what Kotaro is doing in the Black Sun show and why he is a good character who leaves his pacifism and nihilism for the purpose of helping Aoi out and making amends to his past. But when i watch the show the first time, I still feel as though his development and growth doesn't really resonate with me. He feels as though he is there so that he can rectify his past and finish off what he is doing rather than being more involved with the cause of supporting anti-racism towards Kaijins. Of course, I am likely wrong as I watched this the first time and I need to watch a second time to better understand the character but there are still some parts I love and dislike the show such as relationship between Nobuhiko and Kotaro. When i will fully watch the video, I would love to talk more about Black Sun to you as you know a great deal about Japanese politics and it's horrible past
Very good analysis ! Regarding war crimes and ww2 I highly recommend The Human Condition trilogy by Masaki Kobayashi , that deals with the treatment of chinese prisoners in Manchuria and how the individual can retain his humanity in a fascist environment .
I'm well aware of the Human Condition trilogy but have never found the time to watch it (I love Kobayashi's films and find him a bit more critical compared to Kurosawa honestly) so I hope to rectify that soon. Thank you for watching this and I hope you give my 4 film recommendations a try. They're the best films that talk about Imperial Japan from a 21st century perspective (and maybe "Woman of War" too?) and they should not be missed!
@@NaikaVideo Watched Wife of a spy a couple of weeks ago and it was really good. Are you planning to do more videos were you talk about japanese politics and social issues ? I really think these issues are not all that well known in the west and bringing light to these issues could raise awareness .
@@masterengleza2738 I want to eventually, and may start with films like Wife of a Spy or Kuro Obi. As you mentioned previously, some of these issues aren't well known in the West despite UA-cam videos and docs covering this stuff. Hell, the Japanese government has worked hard to deny these things and it's kind of amazing that Japanese filmmakers are now trying to cover these issues with more courage. Glad you liked Wife of a Spy, and I have a feeling that Black Sun's focus on a reel of film is kind of an homage to it, but I'm reaching there.
@@NaikaVideo I watched the first episode of Kamen rider Black Sun , and while it was interesting there are some problems with the way in which it uses kaijins as an allegory for zainichi korean and other minorities living in japan . ua-cam.com/video/IQqysBZ79Dc/v-deo.html This bit from this video explains why using monsters and other inhuman creatures as allegory for minority groups can be problematic . That s not to say that it was bad for doing so but maybe tv shows in japan can, in the future, talk about racism and discrimination directly instead of using allegory .
@@masterengleza2738 I actually didn't interpret it that way and in my video, I kind of explain this. The way I saw it was that the kaiju are in direct community with Japan's minority groups and don't necessarily represent them (this is shown to us, and not told to us, and I cover it in the first part of the video - and pay attention to the funeral scene for Shunsuke) and that their visibility helps bring up the plight of minorities in Japan who have to stay silent about their ancestry (if you pay attention to the 1st episode closely, you'll see this). In Samezu-yokocho, all the background characters that are EXPLICITLY coded as Korean are NOT kaijin (the lady selling popcorn near Shunsuke's house and Izumi-san), and in the video, I try to highlight that kaijin in Black Sun are only able to find broad acceptance AND community with humans from either Korean coded locales and Oliver's son. The issue I'm raising in my video is that it's very difficult to speak directly on these issues in Japan, and although there are films out there that do speak about this, they're in the minority, and are eclipsed by a media narrative that is always pushing for homogeneity. I agree that the XMen analogies are very much from a bygone era and shouldn't be repeated. But again, I'm of the opinion that kaijin are NOT standing in as minorities, but, in a Japanese context, are another minority in the world of Black Sun that is in community with Japan's other silent minorities. But due to their appearance however, they're much more prone to be discriminated against and the patterns of abuse they suffer are meant to mirror the kinds of abuse that minorities in Japan (asian or otherwise) suffer silently. In this video, I tried to show that Zainichi Korean discrimination is ordinary in Japan, which is a huge problem, and unless you have a lot of community support where you live, bringing it up directly on your own could actually get you hurt or even killed. And give how conservative Japan's TV environment is, no one will take the risk to bring these issues up directly with a direct allegory, which is a tragedy in it of itself. Let me know your thoughts once you finish the show because I'd love to your input about it.
Looking forward to watching your video Naika but I must hold off until I've actually seen the show. I watched about half of the first episode and enjoyed what I saw so far!
God the amount of cope I saw from chuds regarding this show was hilarious, my favorite was probably "sure it's against racism, but it's only against Japanese racism so it's not political" as they recreate the George Floyd murder on screen, because as we all know messages against oppression and discrimination are always exclusive to the country they originate from. I'm sorry it really is just racism, this fetishistic idea that Japan is so far removed from the rest of humanity that it couldn't possibly experience any of the issues of the outside world, which isn't to say it doesn't have its own unique issues, every country does, but goddamn.
I'm thrilled that I didn't see that because I'd probably lose my shit. I'm not sure I got that across in my video but one point I *tried* to make was that the reason why blackface / brownface / appropriation persist so strongly in Japan is because Japan's local forms of racism against Japanese minorities / immigrants are normalized to such a degree that they make the same mistakes that whypipo do here in the States when it comes to cultures outside of Asia. Every country's racism is not the same unfortunately, but they all have the same results in the end, and I think that deserves a discussion. Japan's is unique but also egregious and it's important to note these differences. The chuds won't get it but, deep down, I hope they do in the end. Thanks so much for taking the time to watch the video and comment. Very grateful indeed!
Not fully all the way through with my watch yet. I have some heated but informed opinions about Black Sun myself that I love to discuss in a more open manner where possible (surprisingly hard to do so lol) but I do have a weird recommendation you could add to your considerations to help get your point across. The video game Like a Dragon 7, which features Yokohama and the immigration politics and harassment you bring up in part 1. I was quite aware of the relevant politics going into Black Sun and still found it quite lacking but not a total write off as many western fans have but am interested to see if there's more details I can learn to understand why it was made the way it was. Though I feel my thoughts on the show will remain the same as the problems with it are far deeper than just its use of current politics but also its imbalance between wanting to tell its story and having to throw in thing from Black when they aren't fitting in.
Hi MaskofFayt, I'd recommend you watch it the whole way through and then you can let me know what your opinions are. Happy to discuss here in the comment section. What things did you feel were lacking?
Honestly, Black Sun was the shot in the arm that a streaming service can provide it's creators the freedom with. No way the broadcasters will allow this kind of stuff on even late night tv. One sad reality people realize is Japan isn't some free land of debased debauchery. It is a rigidly lawful place that allows only the loosest interpretations of the law and the moment it is illegal. Everyone is expected to obey in lockstep with their government or whomever is in charge.
I agree with you 100% about Japan. It's way more rigid that many of us will admit and, eventhough G-Witch is doing good on TV with its themes, Kazuya Shiraishi has stated that the rating for Black Sun went up to 18+ due to the 2nd episode's early kaijin death scene: bunkaonline.jp/archives/253 I think a lot of us in the Japan Pop Culture spaces tend to forget that there's so much conformity that's enforced on everyone in Japan and all the wacky and fun media WE all see is kind of meant as a pressure valve for that, but lots of these media I.P.s from my perspective lack any direct criticism of this oppressive / conformist hierarchy. It might be why I'm so supportive of Black Sun despite its flaws. Anyways, thanks again for watching the video. And thank you for the comment! ^_^
@@NaikaVideo Also I can see an example of said conformity with Uma Musume, when the R18 ban was announced. Pretty much the entire fanbase took down all R18 works and tell the other fans on social media to report R18 works and it wasn't because of fear of ligation but the conformist aspect of the culture kicking in that most of people over here don't understand and go "lol it's just horsegirl porn, why so mad?" That said I also feel livid when I hear the comment about keeping politics and current events out of their entertainment because they don't realize how precious it is of a freedom to have NGOs like game devs and directors made politically and agenda charge media. Autocratic countries prohibits both nationalistic and seditious entertainment. So when someone says "Keep politics out of my games/movies" you are asking to be a smallfolk and I pity you coming from an authoritarian country
@@MrAsaqe I have no clue what Uma musume is but that's news to me. To your point about autocracy, it's difficult for me to fathom how some sections of the toku fanbase take umbrage with Kamen Rider Black Sun when a lot of the subtext is a direct critique about the stealthy appeal of fascism. That's kind of why I mentioned Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Poland very briefly there. And yeah, many areas of the U.S. are getting there too (I used to live in Florida and it's now trying to wage war against the LGBTQ community). One thing I spoke about in the video (and I'm not sure I spoke about it correctly) is how, I feel, the backlash against Kamen Rider Black Sun is rooted in its ability to kind of skew the whole 'the hero solves everything' trope. For a show of Black's pedigree, many are mad that the titular evil of the show wasn't taken down and that's Black Sun's strength for me - one henshin hero can take down a villain, but not an entire system of oppression.
If there is one thing I would had liked to see or hope to see in the future is how such hateful policies also creates a very controlled form of opposition through schostatic attacks on society. So a lone kaijin who has nothing to lose kills several cops and civies before being cut down by a cop. Or the reverse where some self loathing Kaijin gets a smuggle weapon through Nimura's toadies and attacks a street full of Kaijin and the news finds out his politics support Nimura which Nimura support because it sows division. That kind of struggle that would make a hypothetic Black Sun RX interesting as Aoi grips with the reality of her resistance and chooses to keep fighting
@@MrAsaqe Honestly I have no interest in a Black Sun RX actually and I hope Shiraishi decides against it. Maybe it can be another sequel that isn't tied down to any existing Rider property but I enjoy how open ended Black Sun's ending was. I'm afraid that the previously stated approach might 'both sides' the argument so to speak.
Stop using "black people struggle" as a entry to discus other groups social issues. What America as with racism & slavery and it's place in this society is not the same at least everyone keeps making that distinction. Also the police over there doesn't get called out for cover in up murders going back several years...
Thank you so much for you feedback! It was not my intention so I apologize. Thank you for pointing this out and thank you for sharing your thoughts about this.
Ive tried to get into kamen rider but i just can't take any of it seriously. All the over acting and the surprised look on there face can't stand that its silly . I guess they have a different style of acting idk. Im not into politics either leave it to the politicians.
This was *beautiful* to watch. I'm from Latinoamérica and we don't get to see so much, oh, SO MUCH from the world and specifically from Japan and Korean history. Until very recently, 2020s, we have started to get a deeper meaning beyond memes, Manwa or Manga content. Man, and the fact that it inspires art??? So good. So, like... it had a good pace, it was clean, and it was wonderful to behold. Keep it up. ❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍
Felipe thank you for giving this video a chance, and I hope it added a lot more details to Kamen Rider Black Sun because there's a lot that can be missed. And I really hope that others can use this video as a connection point to other types of leftism around the world, including Black American Leftism, Japanese leftism and a whole lot more. Thank you for watching my friend!
I wish I could have this video on blu ray or dvd - on my shelf next to Black Sun. Sigh... EXCELLENT JAW DROPPING ESSAY! A beautiful and loving examination.
Thanks so much @malpertius! This really made my day. I hope it provided a lot of context to this amazing show that deserves a better examination than the bad faith hottakes that permeate the internet about Kamen Rider Black Sun. Hope to see you around the channel more often!
Really excellent work but I wanna add one subtle thing to 06:21. The street where Kotaro is walking is called Ikegami-cho, which is the oldest Korean enclave in Kawasaki city that was originated from an informal camp for war-time forced laborers for the government-run Japan Iron & Steel Company. It's been a ghetto-like district for years after WWII with no land ownership.
Omg thank you for sharing that. That's both enlightening and sobering. It really does go to show that there's still so much we don't know about the plight of Koreans in Japan.
This is the first video that I've seen that actually gets this show. The amount of people I have seen complain about "the messaging" or just misrepresenting the conflict without the necessary context behind the history. I picked up on some things like the Abe and Unit 731 allegories, but the history of Japanese Koreans was completely new and recontextualizes so much for me.
Thanks a lot @adacorfirewind6301 for taking the time to watch this video. For some Japanese I.P.s, at least from my shitty Western POV, I'm slowly realizing that we're all consuming so much Japanese content without learning the context behind it (see Godzilla Minus One). Maybe @CRACtube can chime in better about those things, but the history of Zainichi Koreans is often overlooked by us all.
We live in an age where the loudest people in the room get the biggest platform and a lot of times, we just speak over others that can provide actual nuance. I saw that when it came to Black Sun and I just had to make this video - with help of course.
The show isn't flawless obvious, and the George Floyd reference is kind of in poor taste (though I have a feeling that the director wanted to shock Japanese viewers out of complacency), but Black Sun isn't just a history lesson about the specifics of Racism in Japan, it's a very telling reminder about what happens when we continue to cede our rights to fascists.
I wish this video was shared more amongst people but I fear that isn't the case. Thanks again for watching. Your comment really made my day.
@NaikaVideo what's wild is how some takes I've seen be like "it's a condemnation of radicalism on both sides" when it's a bona-fide leftist manifesto advocating for radical antifascist action, as if the Creation King wasn't a giant walking allegory for systemic racism and how to deal with it
You know. After hearing more and more about the long running history between Japan and Korea,I can see why there may be a very ingrained mutual hatred for each other even extending to their dogs. Do not have a Shiba Inu next to a Jindo. They both are fiercely loyal but also can scrap really well for their masters.
Thanks for the breakdown of the politics of Black Sun. Like, I know about the obvious parallels like Shinzo Abe and George Floyd, but I didn't realize the depths it went.
Thank you for taking the time to watch the whole video Psyga! I hope it was informative! I think the Zainichi Korean references are very important to this show and much of that is thanks to @CRACtube.
RIP George Floyd Kaijin. You were only there for a few seconds but you crawled into all our hearts.
Great video! When i originally watched Black Sun, i picked up on some of commentary but wasn't aware of alot of the the stuff brought up in the video. This has definitely given me a new found appreciation for Black Sun.
Thanks so much Kenneth, and thank you for taking the time to view the whole video. KRBS isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's brave, and so many of its detractors fail to consider the wider Japanese socio-political context that it's trying to push back on. Was there anything that surprised you, or anything that you want to share that you learned about here?
Just finished Black Sun today. and holy shit is so based. I love it.
I'm relatively new to Kamen Rider, with Shin Kamen Rider being my first along with a handful of the OG Kamen rider episodes.
I love the OG Kamen Rider show but it IS long. If you're looking for a good entry point, my pick would be Kuuga. Glad you liked Black Sun though. Hope it was good watch, and I hope this video helped to flesh things out. Welcome to the Rider fandom!
@@NaikaVideo thank you! It certainly did!
I saw your post about how you changed the thumbnail for this video (I think) a couple of days ago and was really pleasantly surprised. I really loved the show for what it was on the first and second view. But this added context gives me more to love about the show.
I'm actually rewatching it with a friend whose a huge history guy so I'm definitely sending this over to him once he finishes the show. Thank you so much for putting in all this work and letting us know what we would have missed as outsiders.
Thank you so much for giving this video a chance, because I learned a TON while making it, and I hope viewers, like you, did as well. Like you, I'm an outsider to how Japanese leftism was like in the 20th century and, in all honestly, I think this show is a super hero debate about the future of leftism in Modern Japan, with the potential amendment of Article 9 looming large in the background. KRBS isn't perfect and is, at times, flawed (I'm not a fan of it's pacing), but I was angered at how some sections of the fandom casually disregarded the show.
I hope your friend enjoys it. Thank you for spreading the word about Black Sun because that's all I want really - for people to engage with the show and its nuanced perspective about a country that we ALL 'seem' to 'know' about, but rarely engage with on a human or social level (that counts for me as well).
Cheers,
~Naika
I love the karate bug man.
Karate bug man is so based. I wish there were more Rider Kick explosions tho.
We stan karate bug men
This was very enlightening. As a lifelong Kamen Rider fan, having watched the show myself helped prove that tokusatsu is not just about Henshin Heroes fighting rubber-suited monsters and can go way deeper than that. What I was not expecting from your video was just how deep the show's political themes and messages, especially all the allegories to real world history, are and how well they're executed in the 10 episodes. I knew Japan was not as homogenous as the media makes you believe, but HOLY SHIT, knowing what I know now because of the excellent work put into this video makes me appreciate what Kamen Rider Black Sun was able to achieve. I've yet to see a movie or show on the level of this, a Kamen Rider show of all things, be done here in the U.S. in terms of themes and messaging and be done well. We should really take notes here.
TL;DR: this was an excellent and well-researched video on how exceptional a show about a karate bug-man tackles political themes and messages.
Urmanita, thank you so much for the lovely comment....this really made my morning. Thank you for taking the time to watch the entire video and I apologize in advance for making it such an infodump. The show isn't perfect obviously, and it was still made under the auspices of a Japanese TV industry that's still very discriminatory, but the show at least wants to have a conversation about this. It's very hard to find something like this from Japanese TV and I had to talk about it since, back in 2022, the negative reception about it was...interesting. Like HBO's Watchmen, I hope more superhero shows get cranked out that are more nuanced eventually. There are more nuances in Black Sun that I didn't cover but I hope you got the gist of it. If you have any questions about the video, feel free to reach out. ^_^
@@NaikaVideo No apologies needed! Like I said, it was well researched and paced out excellently. I agree that Black Sun is not perfect, but the fact that it uses Kaijin and Kamen Rider to cleverly take a jab at the extreme discrimination from both the government and societal norms means the creators were geniuses in their production.
Speaking of Kamen Rider, I’d love to see what you think of Shin Kamen Rider. I feel like that’s an interesting movie to discuss on more than just a love letter to Kamen Rider as a whole.
@@UrmanitaRules Thanks so much for the comment! Yeah, SKR is very interesting and while I did have fun with it, I had a lot of issues. I did have a long ass twitter thread about the film but do you think it's better to do a video on it?
@@NaikaVideo A video on it would definitely be interesting to watch. Especially after watching this video here. Honestly, anyone talking about Shin Kamen Rider is a win because I personally think it was one of the better superhero movies I watched in all of 2023. And I was lucky to watch it on one of the two nights it was screened in theaters here in the US. I myself definitely think it is not a perfect movie, but I believe it deserves more attention because of how unique it was.
But I definitely would be down to read the “long ass Twitter thread.” I’m always up for a good read. Would love to know your views in general so to add to the overall discussion.
wow! thanks so much for the shout-out and great analysis of kamen rider black sun!
HOLEE SHIT Kazuma, I should've tweeted this to you but wasn't sure if you were gonna watch it since you're kind of a busy dude! If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have read the NYTimes LDP article so thank you. Thank you for enduring this boring video and hopefully it will get more ppl to look more deeply into the pop culture they enjoy. Hope to read more awesome writing from you soon. This comment means so much dude!!!
Great video, had watched Black Sun a couple of weeks ago, and it's still sitting with me. I love this video for the extra context it provides into Japan and how that ties back into Black Sun. All those references to Japanese politics flew over my head, and I could only compare them to the US politics I'm more accustomed to. Thanks so much for the enriching content.
Thanks for giving the video a chance @DjEnigma009! Kamen Rider Black Sun isn't perfect and there are a ton of things I can talk about that I think could be better, and a TON of stuff doesn't always work for a Western audience (the GF reference for instance). However, the show is very much made for Japan and so much of the flak I saw regarding the show had a great deal to do with how many of us in North America were only viewing it from that perspective, and that invited a ton of 'it's Japanese X-Men' remarks. Again, thank you for watching and have a great weekend!
Really informative video. I already adored Black Sun's worldbuilding but never noticed those small details that added so much more depth to the story. The set construction team did an incredible job.
Thanks a million for watching and I agree, the production team was just fantastic here and, dare I say, not beholden to any conservatives because they added so many hidden details in Samezu Yokocho that probably made it look like any other station in Japan with ethnic enclaves in it.
57:19 I like the section where you pointed out how the show kinda focuses on background characters. I feel like it's very accurate! During my watch of this show I certainly felt like I noticed the extras and scenery a lot more than usual. Your added commentary kinda hits home because I've definitely had moments where I was just another person in the crowd too scared to do anything.
@@blackh9604 Thank you for taking the time to watch this video. I’ve definitely been there and still feel that way at times (especially in this age of renewed right-wing madness). Do your best to build community if you can, but most of all, be alert, open, and aware of what’s going on around you. That’s a takeaway I hope more people get from Black Sun.
@3:15 Ah yes. GMK,the movie where Godzilla was the nightmarish almagamation of all the souls violently taken from WWII and where Godzilla went to the Japanese People saying "Today,I shall remind them". Good stuff.
Great film in all honesty. I highly recommend all 4 of the films so that it'll prime anyone before they go knee-deep into Kamen Rider Black Sun.
@NaikaVideo As for Unit 731,I did see a bit of Wendigoon's Vid on that amongst other vids of his involving government conspiracies. Yeah. Stuff like that makes you ask "how does sewing his balls to his chin helps us win the war?".
26:53 oh my god that pun. You deserved to be Rider kicked for that. 😂
I deserve a Rider Super Kick by Kamen Rider Shunsuke.💣💣💣💣
hi naika (not sure if you prefer to be called that!), i'm an indonesian college student currently writing a thesis about black sun and i would just like to say thank you for such a well-made video essay -- it has greatly enhanced my understanding of the show and got rid of some of the bitter taste that it left in my mouth lol. i had come to roughly the same conclusions as you, especially regarding the parallels to japan's history, but i was not aware that it still extends to the present day. it's really mind-opening, especially as a fellow minority who has suffered through similar things in my life, that such vile things still happen in a country as "peaceful" and "civilized" as modern day japan (though like you said in the video, that must be the fault of how its media portrays the country and its problems).
that said, i was wondering if it's ok for me to credit you and this video in my paper? as i feel like i wouldn't have been able to come across such specific obscure examples without your help, like the video of the protest against the korean elementary school which was harrowing to watch.
also, i appreciate the mention of my country in this video -- growing fascism practices have been a problem here for a long while, and one of my goals with this thesis is to also write a sort of critique against what's happening in indonesia as well.
thank you so much in advance, and either way i look forward to more of your content!
Thanks so much for reaching out KamenNepper. Naika is fine and I have no issues if you'd like to use the video and my name (Naika Video) for your paper.
I'm so grateful for your words about the video and I hope it shed some light on a few things about Kamen Rider Black Sun.
Although I don't live in Southeast Asia, both my parents are from there so it hurts very much to see the region slide so hard towards the path of fascism and I fear that much of the online behavior that's exported from where I'm from (the U.S.) helps to normalize rightwing madness. I wish you the best of luck in your thesis and I hope you score a hattrick with it!
May the fight against fascism live on in Asia!
@@NaikaVideo i would love to discuss this further with you, but i think a public youtube comment section isn't the right place for this kind of talk lol. if you don't mind, i may contact you via twitter sometime in the future. either way, thank you so much! i wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors as well.
You can definitely contact me via twitter for more questions@@KamenNepper . Good luck!
I am sorry for hearing that, fascist is truly an issue Worldwide. I am from South América and new to Kamen Rider. Watching Kuuga at the moment. In my country fascist mostly come in the form of communism/socialism which is pushed by Leftwing madness. I hope some day my country and yours recover.
Thank you for breaking the series down. Not only the series is a good imagining of an old classic but a movie that desires to awaken us from apathy and make changes to an old, barbaric system that we face in different forms in our respective nations.
-from Philippines
Thanks for watching @PeejWan! You probably saw my nod to Duterte and Marcos there, but we SEAsians are facing this fight against fascism, one you already know about. I was under the impression that a lot of SEA toku fans didn't take kindly to Kamen Rider Black Sun given the region's strong affinity for the original Kamen Rider Black (a show that I saw once as a 5 year old visiting grandparents in Thailand way back in 1989 if you can believe it). I am glad that I am wrong in some respects because I continue to run into SEA folks that are engaging with this show like you.
Thank you for taking the time to watch the video. I know it was very long and I apologize. So much of this video was made in response to the very negative SEA reaction to the show but I am glad that people like you exist. If our people can awaken from our apathy to challenge the systems that oppress us all (including the minorities of all stripes in our respective nations) and govern under the rule of law and human dignity, our region might truly become the treasure of the Pacific.
Just finished this show earlier today and am going down the content rabbit hole per usual whenever I finish something. This video was really fascinating and gave me a bigger appreciation for the show. Would love more videos like this 👀
Thanks for taking the time watch this @Bearick! I hope I can make more like this at some point, but Black Sun is very special in that regard, and it needed a deeper dive because a lot of its themes are, as you already know, not known widely outside of Japan. Hope the video was informative and I hope you enjoyed Kamen Rider Black Sun! Cheers to ya.
I saw you sharing this video on Twitter. That's an impressive works, well documented, great presentation and awesome soundtracks. I'll probably watch black sun once I finish the original kamen rider serie, seems like a really interesting serie. Once again, great video!
Thanks so much @paulrubens776 for watching this! It might make more sense once you watch Black Sun. The show isn't perfect as its pacing is rough at times, but this show has a lot of nuance and hopefully this video helped to discuss it. Hope to see you around the channel. The next video will also be a toku vid so stay tuned!
@@NaikaVideo thank you, I'll make sure to stay around
What an amazing and informative video. I enjoyed Black Sun the first time through, but this has really elevated my appreciation for it.
Thanks so much for watching this Jacob. So much of this is thanks to a lot of people so definitely check out the links in the description whenever you have the chance. I'm glad there are folks that do enjoy Black Sun because the pessimist in me says otherwise. Thank you for making my day Jacob!
Yo I already rewatched Black Sun like 3 times already and I'm still watching some scenes just for pure fun. But these content really make me appreciated the story and the history even more with all the art imitates life stuff, loved that. Btw Wife of a Spy is a fantastic movie, huge fan of Kurosawa and Yu Aoi. Thank u so much for these content, GREAT WORK man!
Hi Fiz, thank you for the wonderful comment! I think the show has way more layers than we're aware of and I wanted to do my utmost (with a lot of help) to bridge that stuff because many of the haters are really missing the point of the show, along with its message for Modern Japan. Glad that you also enjoy Wife of a Spy and, if you haven't already, definitely check the other movie recs, ESPECIALLY SHUSENJO. Hope to see you around Fiz. Thank you for enduring this long ass video!
I was really looking forward to something like this. What a great insightful video. Thank you!
Hugo thank you for watching this video and I hope it gave you much needed context for Kamen Rider Black Sun. The videos about this show on UA-cam don't go deep enough unless it's CRAC's livestream and I wanted to tackle the show's nuance head on. Thank you for subscribing and I hope to see you around here in the future! ^_^
10:21 the slogan 仲良くしようぜ should be translate as "Let's be friends" or "Let's get along"
@FenixYuk Thank you so much for translating that :) Really really appreciate it. It's a very apt and timely slogan. So grateful! ^_^
Also, thank you for watching!!!!
This is a really nice contextual analysis of the show. Keep it up!
Thank Mekun for watching, I know it's a LOT so I hope it gives greater context to the show since Black Sun's pacing isn't the best per se. But I tend to view the show as this Japanese Leftist inside joke and if you're 'on the know', things will come to you right away. Very grateful for the feedback!
WOW this video is amazing! Really went all in with the research and infomation presented here. Keep up the amazing work!
Thank you so much for watching Buster! I'm really honored. Hope it was up to your standards! ^_^
Great to see you back with another video, and an hour-long Tokusatsu one at that! Can't wait to sit down with a meal to properly enjoy this later!
I hope you enjoy BroodMeister. It's been a LONG WHILE since I made something so I hope you enjoy!
As a former black student in Japan, I learned a LOT from the residents. What I did not, I learned from Naika. Probably one of my favorite video essays of all time. Black Sun does what The Boys is afraid to.
@@elsagaman thanks for watching man! Hope you’re doing well. Dude you know way more about Japan than me!
I have been fascinated by the WW2 Japanese Imperial army and the 731 unit since young. So when I realized these elements are incorporated into KR Black Sun, it made me like the series even more. There was a documentary movie about the 731 unit produced in the 80's by the chinese. The title is called Black Sun 731. I wonder if Toei got the name from this show. lo. I have heard about the inference of racism against korean Japanese and Japanese political leaders in the show, but there was little information about it until I watched your video. Thank You for painstakingly gathering all these information and produce a commentary video on the politics of Black Sun. I really appreciated it. Arigato! Maybe you can do some commentary on the relation between the 731 unit and the creation king, the heat heaven as a kind of drug and so on. I am quite amazed by the imagination of the script writer and director to somehow managed to merge every bits of history and real life events together to form a story. Toei is producing "The Black Book" coming october to commemorate the first anniversary of the series. There was be tons of visuals and background information of the series. I hope there will be an english version of the book. I believe after reading this book, we will have a deeper appreciation of the show when we rewatched it again. And if you have gathered some more information, hope you can produce another video again. I want to know everything about Black Sun. 😀
Thank you so much for your great comment. If there is a translation of the Black Sun Black book, I would hope to touch on this subject again in the future. I will eventually make an addendum to this video, but will hold off on it until later next year, as this video really took a toll on me unfortunately. I would definitely like to know more about this documentary about Unit 731 that you referenced, though the show's title is a direct reference to the original Kamen Rider Black show from 1987. Will try to look into it. Thank you again for commenting and I hope you got to learn a lot!
When you came to twitter and ask to watch your video, I was not expecting to be this great, an awesome and very detailed analyses. To point one thing, the methods Bilgenya to hunt and torture Aoi's parents are almost the same as the military dictatorship in Brazil, during the 70's. Thank you for this great video, keep going with your amazing work.
Thank you so much for watching it Leonardo! I apologize for the length of the video but I hope it provided a lot of details that could be missed from Kamen Rider Black Sun. I've heard the dictatorship of the 70s was very brutal and I wonder if Bolsonaro participated in it given his military background. I'm very happy to get comments like this so thank you! I hope to do more fun things in the future so stay tuned! 😇
@@NaikaVideo Bolsonaro is a big enthuisiast of this dark past of Brazil, he never hide it, also he always salute tortures. About the video, it shouldn't be shorter, in fact i didn't notice is was this long, I enjoy every single minute, don't apologize about it. I really love those kind of analyses, that go deeper than simply talk about the show itself.
@@LeonardoTiburcio It makes me regret that I didn't have an image of Jair in this video - in America, we have to deal with so many idiots that love fascism that it's crazy. Thank you so much for the insight into this and thank you again for taking the time to watch this.
Hey! This was a great video overall and really helped me contextualize Black Sun and educate me on politics I knew nothing about. However, I had issues with the editing and how generally glib and comedic the whole tone of it was. Stuff like the vine boom on "No Survivors" and censoring with funny sound effects felt like they were in poor taste considering the context of the material. Looking forward to more!
Hi Scorpio, I apologize profusely about the video. It was not my intention to be glib or comedic. Spending six months on this project really took a toll on me and in was not my intention for it to be in poor taste (I'm on older millennial and I don't even know what a Vine Boom is - I added that sound effect there for the sake of gravity and I'm sorry if it did not come off that way). This was a very serious subject that's kind of near and dear to my heart as an Asian diaspora person and really, it was all thanks to @CRACtube for educating me on these issues and more. I hope it at least gave you some nuance for the show, especially with regards to how it lambasts a lot of the LDP's bigotry. Black Sun is not perfect by any means but its core message continues to be ignored by tokutubers looking for laughs and a quick click and I for one wanted to start an honest discussion about what it wants to say about Modern Japan. Endless thanks to you for enduring the video and I hope to have fun stuff for this channel in the coming months. This video was months of anguish but I'm grateful that folks like yourself are giving it a chance. 😭
@Naika Video Oh, don't be too harsh on yourself about it! This kind of thing is a trope that's all over UA-cam, I just figured a smaller channel covering this kind of thing would appreciate that feedback.
@@xStreamingScorpio Damn right I do! Thank you for being honest because this for sure helps me future vids. Also, does UA-cam hate cursing? I bleeped it out of fear of that but wasn't sure if it's really needed?
@@NaikaVideo The rules are super nebulous and change all the time, but afaik the rule these days is that you can't curse in the first minute of the video without being demonetized
I think you are greatly underselling the injury to kotaro. It's hard to stand up to systems when you are poor, and in pain, all of the time without any support. As soon as he sees an out, he takes it. Sure he needed some reassurance, but he's old, and that tracks. True selfish inaction would have him eat heat to heal his leg. He chose his ideals over his own ability to carry action forward. He is a smart and strong man of character. He was just alone.
I agree with this 100%!
17:53 thanks for the reminder that modern day Japan is just cold war era relic, if only the US had treated it the same way Germany was by the soviets.
A great deal of America's Pacific policies are cold war adjacent unfortunately.
I know it's a year late, but this video alone got you a sub my man! Thank you so much for the in depth analysis.
Thanks a million for watching! Better late than never! I hope it was informative!
Excellent video, great analysis! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Hi Combat, thanks a million for watching the video! I hope it was useful in teasing out the nuance of Kamen Rider Black Sun. If you have any questions, please let me know. Thanks, and cheers! 🍻
Well done. Very informative. Historical context was key. Thank you!
Thanks so much for giving the video a chance. I appreciate it! ^_^
This is really incredible work.
ZAIA thank you for taking the time to watch the video and thank you for your lovely comments online. Let me know if you have any additional questions about the video and I'll be happy to answer them!
Pretty interesting and informative video. I liked how it brought light to the political and cultural scene in japan and showed that its not as homogenous as many would believe. I thought japan was just a conservative country and wasn't aware of how big the political disparity was between older generations and the youth.
My only point of contention is that words like leftist and socialist are used to liberally to broadly describe people who simply don't want to see minorities get abused.
Not only does this erase nuances of peoples beliefs by implicitly putting politics on a straight line graph, but by not distinguishing between economic and cultural leftism/rightism, economically right leaning people who just want tax breaks and or fewer laws governing their personal lives are gonna feel awkward and vilified watching this video and seeing themselves be lumped war time revisionists, anti Korean racists, and people who think lgbt people in specific shouldn't get government aid because they "don't reproduce".
I think that's important to bring up because the kinds of gen x bread and butter voters that Black Sun is trying to address tend to fall into that camp.
Thanks so much for watching the video and thanks a million for this awesome comment. You are very right that those bread and butter people need more nuance....60% of all Japanese, regardless of age and political leanings favor LGBT marriage actually.
The issue is that those folks don't speak out when their voices are needed the most (hence Aoi's big speech to the U.N. and my conclusions towards the end of the video). How can you provide nuance when stats and literature show that the LAST thing the average bread and butter person wants is to speak up, show their voice or be noticed for any sort of view that upsets the status quo (the very thing that KR Black Sun' concluding montage shows). In East Asia, especially Japan, there's a saying that goes like "The nail that sticks out has to be hammered down" (出る釘は打たれる). Black Sun is literally showing the bread and butter the alternatives: either be a working stiff that ignores everything around you, or be the nail.
Nice video, haven't watched the show yet,I think this video will enhance my watching since I'll understand some of the references more
It's a rough show and it isn't perfect, but I think its message is very relevant right now. I hope you enjoy it!
oh, wow, thank you SO much for making this. i could only interpret Black Sun based on american politics--which made it a good show--but with all this knowledge, it's a GREAT show. i'm in awe that it was produced at all. i hope you keep up this kind of work!
Thanks a ton for watching the video mootroid! This show really was a middle finger to the Conservative Establishment in Japan and it makes me wonder whether or not its 'under-the-radar' release on Amazon Prime was either purposeful or punitive, but I shouldn't speculate. Currently finishing up a script for The Politics of Ultraman Blazar so stay tuned for that! Hope to see you then!
Hiiii. Just wanna say, I watched the full video of your Black Sun video and it made me help to appreciate and understand Black Sun a lot more but it also makes me feel a bit more riled up on the injustice and cruelty that the LDP has caused to Japan and it's progress. I think it's brilliant and commendable for the Black Sun makers and even Toei to make such a show but I also wondered how successful the show is though
I sent this comment through private message on FB messenger but I think you rarely used FB so I decided to put it here because your video on Black Sun needs more recognition and appreciation. I would love to talk about Black Sun with you more, maybe through Twitter hehe
Hi Nero, that's correct. I don't check my FB that much because not many ppl like to comment on my videos, but I'm very grateful nonetheless. If you have any question on Twitter, feel free to ask! I'm not sure as to how successful Black Sun is in Japan because a handful of the Japanese ppl I have spoken too have been folks that resonate with its messages, especially in regards to its critiques on homophobia, discrimination, racism and misogyny.
@@NaikaVideo thank you bro! I can see Black Sun being well beloved for how it accurately portrayed those heavy subject matter and it's those problems that I didn't even knew about from Japan which is really important to convey for those living in Japan who had faced those problems.
Man, I would love to see a Black Sun season 2 someday
@@neronarancia1090 Honestly, I hope that maybe Kazuya Shiraishi can make a Director's Cut of this show because 5 more episodes would make the pacing of the show a lot better. Maybe: 1 episode about Oliver & his son. 1 episode of Bilgenia & the Kaijin Village. 1 episode about Yukari. 1 episode about Kujira & Nomi. 1 episode about Kotaro.
Personally, I don't want to see a season 2 because I'd rather them leave Black Sun as is. Something open ended so that folks in Japan can really think about it.
I'm not sure what the reception is in Japan, but for those in Japan that endured these terrible things, I hope it's cathartic in some way (though I understand why someone would be offended by it too). My goal here was to give the Western fanbase of Toku something to chew at about Black Sun because the negativity of 'oh this isn't KAMEN RIDER BLACK?, how dare you' flattens the nuanced message it's trying to convey. Sorry for my rant and thank you again!
@@NaikaVideo having a director's cut or extra episodes for Black Sun rather than a Season 2 would be pretty great too. I prefer to have another episode that touches more upon Kotaro and Nobuhiko's friendship and shows both of them bonding more. Also, a Yukari, Kujira, and Nomi episodes are the ones that interests me the most especially with Yukari and her ambiguity in terms of her alliance as I felt that even though it's implied that she worked for Dounami, her words and thoughts on ending the Kaijins feels true
I think you are succeeding on your goals for fans to give a second chance to Black Sun. It might not be everyone, but I hope you have a lot of people who appreciate your content.
Back when i watched Black Sun, I can't say I absolutely loved the show. This is because I didn't understand in depth about racism and it's sensitive topics. I can't make a proper opinion on it because I don't want my opinion to offend or devalue those who are struggling from racism, public negligence, and extreme political control. However, watching your video on Black Sun has made me appreciate and respect Black Sun more and it helped me understand more on what Black Sun represents the most.
I still can't say a proper opinion on Black Sun but I do know that it has that passion, thought, and dedication to represent the struggles and horrors that Japan has been facing and to give some hope that we can solve or face it, maybe even to make a path much better than Aoi did but there needs to be more people in Japan to watch and learn something from Black Sun which is what I want the most
@@NaikaVideo I agree. Given it's rich content, they could have added a few more episodes to give some backstory to the whole plot as well as some more fight scenes with more kaijin. But well that's their decision and we have to accept it. Coming this october Toei will release a Blacksun The Black Book to commemorate the series. The book will reveal many background stories and other hidden details. This will bring us to a new understanding of the show when we rewatch it again.
When the earliest merch for the show was announced before we knew anything about the show, with shirts saying "Stop Kaijin Hate" and "Kaijin Lives Matter", I was really scared that the show would be tone-deaf. Shiraishi's history of directing yakuza movies, a genre not known for its deft touch or subtlety didn't help. I was so happy to be proven wrong.
Hey there Joel, thank you for watching the video and YES, I was very VERY afraid when I saw the Kaijin Lives Matter merch, but thankfully, he opted out of using that in the show. I hope the video gave you more context regarding Japan and I hope it acts as a companion piece to Black Sun on the whole.
I will say however that Yakuza films (or Ninkyo Eiga) actually have more subtlety than we might all think. I mean, it's one of the best genres for post-war Japanese filmmakers when talking about the American Occupation and it's pre-inclination to crush Leftist movements.
@@NaikaVideo Do you have any recommendations for ninkyo eiga with those kind of themes? I'd love to check them out.
@@JBOboe720 I want to say Battles without Honor and Humanity possibly, but I haven't seen it - but I hope to rectify that some day. I'm gonna do some research and will let ya know.
In the NYT article I spoke of in the video, there's evidence that the CIA and others have paid yakuza folks money to basically rough up leftist movements across Japan. There's a paywall but a while back, I was able to break it somehow.
www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html
This video is even better than what already was an excellent show.
Thank you so much @pacoracer!!! I hope it added fleshed out the nuance of Kamen Rider Black Sun. Thank you for taking the time to watch this. Cheers!!!
Yes
OMG Marcosatsu commented on my vid. OMG!
Dude, stumbling across this video on Twitter was a delight- I come in expecting a fairly surface level explainer, and get a deep dive instead. It's good!
Luke thank you for giving this long-ass video a chance. I hope it gave you more context into the show because its pacing sometimes works against it. If you have additional questions, feel free to ask. 😄
@Naika Video I suppose that it's because I'm basically a newbie to Kamen Rider so i just plain Don't Know, but would you say that the other series are similarly misunderstood by the Western fandom? Or is it that Black Sun's subtext is just harder to read for foreign fans?
I deal with it all the time in anime spaces, to the point that my crew decided to start a watch group for political literacy in anime
@@lukezondervan8094 That's really great that your crew did a watch group from that respect, because that can really help to fill in the gaps of knowledge. I love that kind of stuff because it enriches the experience.
I'm not the biggest disciple of Kamen Rider like many others, so I can't comment on how misunderstood the franchise is to Western fandoms, (there are better ppl out there that can inform us I think) but I do know that toku fandom in the West can, understandably at times, get mad about political things when all they want is to flex their cishet male empowerment narratives while rocking plastic belts. I was hoping for this video to be something that toku fans can look at and say, 'wait, this stupid thing in Kamen Rider Black Sun actually means THIS?'
I hope that answers your question, but I apologize for rambling. My old millennial brain is starting to boomerize...
"stop putting politics into it", aka "please stop telling me I'm the villain, I wanna be an asshole in peace and with no consequences for my shitty bigoted behaviour".
Hitting it right on the nail my friend.
Amazing video, ive never been much of a kamen rider fan, but japanese politics have always interested me, so this was a really interesting watch
Hi Jafango, thank you for taking the time to watch this long-ass video. If you have any questions about anything in this vid, feel free to ask. I think the show really outdid itself in trying to present these issues since producers might not always be inclined to do so in Japanese TV, but I think a sea change is happening now, and what Kazuya Shiraishi & his team have done is brave.
Thanks for the video you have a earned a subscription.
Hi Beau, Thank you so much for subscribing! I hope you enjoyed the video. Cheers!!! Please let me know if you have any questions about the video's context at all.😇
Thank you so much for explaining the politics and the history for me. A lot of the videos I see r people whinning that polotics ruin the show or its bad because polotics n not going into it besides saying it's woke.
Thanks for taking the time to watch the video Kayson. I agree - a lot of the videos about Kamen Rider Black Sun here on this space are geared towards their complaints and aren't interested in engaging with the show. I'm cool with the reaction videos, and Marcosatsu's review is neat, and I felt like Black Sun needed more love, so there ya go.
Quality supplemental for Black Sun. Honestly, it should be required viewing for those that enjoyed or not enjoyed the series, since a lot of the context would fly right over most heads (like mine) without it. It's been nearly a year on since you made this video, and I just now discovered Black Sun, and it left me wondering if it was a successful show, or if it has left any impact in pop culture, political discourse, or both. Maybe a follow up video would be warranted? Either way, big ups for the huge effort!
Thanks for watching @HeyItzJD. Yes it's been a year since I released this and an addendum has been on the cards for a while. However, I'm currently working on an Ultraman Blazar video, so we'll see how that goes.
I'm not sure if Kamen Rider Black Sun has had any impact in Japan, though it did help Hidetoshi Nishijima realize his lifelong dream to become a Rider (he was born in 1971 if I recall and is a fan).
This show isn't perfect (pacing, the GF reference depending on your viewpoint, needed more episodes), but I really hope those who dismiss the show due to its politics find a way to watch this again. Thanks again for the lovely comment. It makes my time spent on making this worthwhile.
Fantastic video! Thank you (and everyone who helped you with research) for putting this together. Post-war and anti-Imperial Japanese media makes up a lot of my favorites, so I'm gonna be looking into the film recommendations from the start of the video as well.
Thanks a lot for watching, and I hope it was informative. CRAC & AzuroDanger were big help with this and I cannot thank them enough.
Yes, definitely look into the films I recommended in the beginning because there's a lot of interesting viewpoints found in them, especially with Shusenjo. I'd also recommend THE EMPEROR'S NAKED ARMY MARCHES ON, but it's a very long and rough documentary so your mileage may vary.
Gonna watch the film Recommendations part before i dive deep! Wow an hour plus long this is epic!
These 4 films will give you a lot of great context before you dive into Kamen Rider Black Sun. And they're all great films. 😀
I love this video. It shows a lot of skeletons in Japan's closet. I knew about some, but my gosh, there's so much more.
This movie is a political masterpiece with action sprinkled over. I love it.
But yeah, the end reminds me of John Brown. He started helping black Americans like his father by smuggling them out. As the slavery laws got worse, he became more of an extremist. He started killing people who were slavers and continued to preach to the people, as it was their apathy that let it happen. In the end, his death sparked the civil war. He laid his life for his black brothers and sisters, and he didn't regret a single bit.
Natalie thank you again for watching this and sharing John Brown's story. There are so many stories that connect with this struggle against apathy and inhumanity, including this. I hope others who were turned off by Kamen Rider Black Sun will see it this way one day.
@NaikaVideo Yeah I hope so too. I just find it depressing that in 2023 we have to resort to violence to get voices heard.
I watch Black Sun for the awesome fight scenes and I didn't regret watching a single bit of them
Hey that's awesome!!! Loved the gore too, especially in the first episode!
@@NaikaVideo
It looks more realistic than the ones in Amazon ngl. I still like Amazon too tho
Please do a commentary on the new Godzilla minus one. Apparently it was a great film with overwhelmingly positive reception. But the fact that it depicts Japan immediately following the war in a very sympathetic light without any mention of the atrocities committed by the imperial army outside of a quick blurb on how little the government cared about its soldiers really rubbed me as intentionally avoiding its history. The director's previous work with The Eternal Zero was even more in the territory of glorifying war, and rewriting history, praised by Abe himself and criticized by Miyazaki. It disappoints me that the western audience accepts works that sidesteps and willfully ignores atrocities committed by imperial Japan when they would absolutely not tolerate the same for works about Nazi Germany.
Hi @artoras6098, this is a fantastic point and I'm hoping me and my Wife will check the film out later this week. I'm well aware about Yamazaki's past work with Eternal Zero (though I haven't seen it just yet) but there are some very good reviews out there that are critiquing the film's myopia well. Thanks so much for reaching out about this!
@@NaikaVideo do you mind sharing those reviews with me? I'm very interested
@@artoras6098
Here you go:
feraldove.com/antigodzilla
inreviewonline.com/2023/12/04/godzilla-minus-one/
filmlesscamera.substack.com/p/some-thoughts-on-godzilla-minus-one
blog.pureinventionbook.com/p/godzilla-minus-one-doesnt-quite-add
@@NaikaVideo yeah these articles put into words my biggest gripe with the movie, the blatant nationalistic power fantasy of remilitarized Japan without any acknowledgement of the horrors they were responsible for. Also, now that I learned a bit more about Yamazakis history as a film maker from these articles, it's pretty obvious what his agenda is.
Still I'm just super disappointed in the international community for its overall glorification of this film when they would have a complete opposite reaction if the film was about post war Germany instead
@@artoras6098 Well I did see Godzilla Minus One and....I didn't like it. I've been doing some research on a potential video but I'm going to wait things out a bit. But also, I'm kind of worried how some G-Fans will take the video too.
Thank you!! watching the actual video now on prime video
Hi Thomas, it's a bit better to watch the show first before watching this video, but if you have any questions about the show, feel free to ask!
This video is incredible and makes me want to watch the show again thank you so much for your hard work!
Thanks so much for sharing your feedback and YES, if you're going to go back and re-watch, then I did my job. 😁 These last 6 months wasn't entirely wasted I suppose. Thank you for enduring this hourlong info dump!
I went into Black Sun for two things. 1. For a good show. 2. To possibly make me watch the original Kamen Rider Black. The political stuff was secondary to me. Those two mission statements succeeded and yes I ended up watching Kamen Rider Black and finished it not to long ago in fact. Did I enjoy this show? Yes. Did I understand the political points in it? Given that I have a disability not so much but I did pay attention to Japanese news to help out before I lost access to NHK that is so I'm stuck. Now do I think people are unfair with this show? Yes I do think that. And the one comment that I will not let go of is one UA-cam channel said something really messed up about Aoi just because he didn't like her. It really astounds me how sometimes people's opinions are so mean and nasty.
Hi Ray, thank you for checking out the video. I'm rewatching the Original Kamen Rider Black (whenever time permits - thank you Discotek!) and it's certainly a fantastic piece of 80s tokusatsu TV.
If you're ever interested in learning more about Japan, definitely check out all the twitter accounts I posted at the end of the video. Also, I would be very very wary of NHK news given it's reputation for being super super jingoistic.
And to your last point, yes. Some folks in the toku webs really have it in for Aoi, and it's sad.
@@NaikaVideo and Aoi is our female lead protagonist that we have been asking for all this time. And we finally have it but what do people do they bad mouth her and say all this negative stuff about her. There really is no winning here
@@rayhayes7701 I agree completely Ray and it's very sad to see this. Ppl are either mad that she's a girl, mad that there's no exposition about her driver, mad that she's like Greta Thunberg or mad that she cries all the time. There's no winning here... EVER.
@@NaikaVideo It’s just really sad. And it’s no wonder why we still have either sexism in the fandom especially when people will attack you for “making Kamen Rider political”
@@rayhayes7701 True Ray....so true :(
I can definitely see the strong parallels between the treatment of Koreans in Japan with the discrimination of the Kaijin, but I don't think it's fair to define the characters as liberal or conservative. That feels too reductive, and the series itself isn't meant to depict right-wing vs left-wing, but, at least from what I've gathered, the concept of human rights being questioned or challenged.
Lastly, I do not see Aoi as a reference to or a character inspired by Greta Thunberg. I feel Aoi is just a young woman trying to stand up for what she thinks is right, and any possible parallels are coincidental if they exist at all.
We can agree to disagree my friend. Thanks for giving the video a chance.
@@NaikaVideo I appreciate that.
I've been seeing a lot of negative reviews for Black Sun, which I don't understand. Do you think it's based on the political nature of the series or just because it's different?
Honestly@@ScarletDusk99 it's a bit of both. At least from the views I've seen from those of us who are outside of Japan, much of the negativity is hyperfocused on its political nature - i.e. how dare this beloved toku property bend to the whims of 'western-ish wokeness', while another half of that contingent is upset that said show didn't conform to the rigid, toy commercial standards of the current shows with modes, techniques or vehicles. Per interviews, Toei gave Kazuya Shiraishi carte blanche for his vision and that's what he gave.
@@NaikaVideo My gosh. I could see not liking the political aspect if it was in-your-face and obnoxious about it (like Disney tends to be in recent years), but the series handles it intelligently, and the fact that it's a more concise story instead of an over-the-top Action/Comedy like we're used to seeing is, by no means, a bad thing. I feel we need the lighthearted as well as the dark and serious to keep the franchise from getting stale.
I never use this term, but it's sounding like a toxic fan mentality going on.
@@NaikaVideo Hey, this is random, but I stumbled on a Kamen Rider Black Sun action figure online, and it made me think of you and how you said the series went against the toy-selling angle a lot of other series fall into.
Hey is that mega man x7 music? At least something from that game was used in good media
No Mega Man X7 music was used here but let me know what section you're talking about.
The intro is from the arranged soundtrack for Sega's SUPER HANG-ON, while much of the music is from METAL GEAR SOLID 2 AND 3. Thanks for watching.
@ oh, sorry I must’ve mistaken something from MGS2 or three for something from x7 for some reason, I think it was early on in the video, part 1 I think?
This overall was a very good video I enjoyed it thoroughly and it was very educational
@@legomania2427 MGS1
Amazing video! Love how you highlight every small detail and link all of them to the parallel histories and politics of Black Sun-Japan and IRL Japan. Shouldn't need to be said - but when so many fans take a Watsonian approach to criticism, it helps to show that everything in a piece of fiction was placed there by human beings with perspectives and opinions in order to say something about the world as they see it.
OMG I couldn't have said this any better Noah! What you've said here is emblematic of what I was feeling at the time when I the negative attitudes towards the show. I hope folks who didn't like it will at least try to give it a 2nd chance. Black Sun is NOT perfect but boy does it try. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here because I am so grateful for them! ^_^
this video radicalized me... again lmao. you're doing great stuff.
really baffles me on how people say that toku isn't political when we have stuff like this being produced. Granted, I don't think we'll get another toku show like this in awhile, though that might change, i don't know.
As a minority and a son of immigrants, I do get really tired of people turning a blind eye to injustices and the fked up things that conservatives in jpn are doing. Hell, people are always turning a blind eye to racism in the US, no surprise there. Guess you could say i'm used to it now. However I hope more changes start happening as more people wake up, no matter where they are in the world.
I'll be rewatching both the OG Black and Black Sun now, great video.
Thanks for watching this video, and thank you for giving it a chance. Towards the end of the video, I mention how Black Sun refuses to 'dance around' issues pertaining to Japan unlike a lot of other Japanese media we're all accustomed to (RPGs, Films, Manga and even Anime are, at times, forced to do so because there's a lot of fear of upsetting the powers that be who tend to lean rightward).
It's not that I don't think toku isn't political (it is), but henshin hero creatives have to play the game because sponsors, TV execs and producers have the power to pull the plug because they're invested in the status quo in my opinion (I wish I had more knowledge / facts to back this up). That's why it's important for so many creatives to hide their leanings and intentions with subtext. Black Sun is flawed in a lot of ways, but I bat for it a ton because it refused to hide its intentions and came out at a time when Japanese media continues to placate the whims of people with a dishonest view of history.
I'm the son of immigrants like you, and I hope more people wake up to how right wingers all over the world view things, and how those views shape us to hate. We have to be critical of ourselves, and we have to understand that it's a journey to unlearn. And toku, I hope, can be a great starting point for that.
Enjoy the KRBlack rewatch. I finished my rewatch a few months ago and it's so good. Thank you for the kind comment my friend. Hope to see you around!
I am in 15:38 in the video so far and i have to say, this is the best video i have seen for Black Sun because i want to dig deeper into Black Sun and what it represents
Black Sun is an interesting and creative show that explicitly takes reference from previous Japan government failures and racism and make the show as anti-racist as possible.
However, i do felt as much as Black Sun is great at portraying the racism aspects as what you told so far in the video, i feel Black Sun loses a bit of that KR spirit that defines the justice theme of KR atleast for Kotaro himself
Nero thank you for the wonderful comment. This was 6 months of pain to make but I hope people will dig deeper because it's one of the bravest pieces of TV to come out of Japan in a long while.
And remember, it's hard to get this kind of subject matter out in the open, so for Toei to give Kazuya Shiraishi the green light to do things his way is kind of amazing (since Toei's kind of crappy sometimes).
In response to your statement about the justice themes of Kotaro 1987, I actually think that Black Sun is better for it. As I mentioned in Chapter 7, the show has some strong critique of that justice mindset because in most KR shows, you have this really evil individual that makes it easier to bounce the ideas of justice from. In Black Sun however, one lone Rider for Justice can't defeat a decades-old political machine that's built to suppress minorities while also manufacturing said minorities for further oppression and profit. I find that it's an inversion of that theme and I kind of like it.
Thank you again for watching this video Nero. So grateful for the feedback!😃
@@NaikaVideo thank you for replying to my comments. I really appreciate and admired how you put a lot into this video and this is really dang extensive that I have to share this to people now. I agree with your opinion on the ending as one man can't solve a big broken system. You need people for that and I think Black Sun shows off that.
As I am at 40:52, I understand more on what Kotaro is doing in the Black Sun show and why he is a good character who leaves his pacifism and nihilism for the purpose of helping Aoi out and making amends to his past. But when i watch the show the first time, I still feel as though his development and growth doesn't really resonate with me. He feels as though he is there so that he can rectify his past and finish off what he is doing rather than being more involved with the cause of supporting anti-racism towards Kaijins. Of course, I am likely wrong as I watched this the first time and I need to watch a second time to better understand the character but there are still some parts I love and dislike the show such as relationship between Nobuhiko and Kotaro.
When i will fully watch the video, I would love to talk more about Black Sun to you as you know a great deal about Japanese politics and it's horrible past
Very good analysis ! Regarding war crimes and ww2 I highly recommend The Human Condition trilogy by Masaki Kobayashi , that deals with the treatment of chinese prisoners in Manchuria and how the individual can retain his humanity in a fascist environment .
I'm well aware of the Human Condition trilogy but have never found the time to watch it (I love Kobayashi's films and find him a bit more critical compared to Kurosawa honestly) so I hope to rectify that soon. Thank you for watching this and I hope you give my 4 film recommendations a try. They're the best films that talk about Imperial Japan from a 21st century perspective (and maybe "Woman of War" too?) and they should not be missed!
@@NaikaVideo Watched Wife of a spy a couple of weeks ago and it was really good. Are you planning to do more videos were you talk about japanese politics and social issues ? I really think these issues are not all that well known in the west and bringing light to these issues could raise awareness .
@@masterengleza2738 I want to eventually, and may start with films like Wife of a Spy or Kuro Obi. As you mentioned previously, some of these issues aren't well known in the West despite UA-cam videos and docs covering this stuff. Hell, the Japanese government has worked hard to deny these things and it's kind of amazing that Japanese filmmakers are now trying to cover these issues with more courage. Glad you liked Wife of a Spy, and I have a feeling that Black Sun's focus on a reel of film is kind of an homage to it, but I'm reaching there.
@@NaikaVideo I watched the first episode of Kamen rider Black Sun , and while it was interesting there are some problems with the way in which it uses kaijins as an allegory for zainichi korean and other minorities living in japan . ua-cam.com/video/IQqysBZ79Dc/v-deo.html This bit from this video explains why using monsters and other inhuman creatures as allegory for minority groups can be problematic . That s not to say that it was bad for doing so but maybe tv shows in japan can, in the future, talk about racism and discrimination directly instead of using allegory .
@@masterengleza2738 I actually didn't interpret it that way and in my video, I kind of explain this. The way I saw it was that the kaiju are in direct community with Japan's minority groups and don't necessarily represent them (this is shown to us, and not told to us, and I cover it in the first part of the video - and pay attention to the funeral scene for Shunsuke) and that their visibility helps bring up the plight of minorities in Japan who have to stay silent about their ancestry (if you pay attention to the 1st episode closely, you'll see this). In Samezu-yokocho, all the background characters that are EXPLICITLY coded as Korean are NOT kaijin (the lady selling popcorn near Shunsuke's house and Izumi-san), and in the video, I try to highlight that kaijin in Black Sun are only able to find broad acceptance AND community with humans from either Korean coded locales and Oliver's son.
The issue I'm raising in my video is that it's very difficult to speak directly on these issues in Japan, and although there are films out there that do speak about this, they're in the minority, and are eclipsed by a media narrative that is always pushing for homogeneity.
I agree that the XMen analogies are very much from a bygone era and shouldn't be repeated. But again, I'm of the opinion that kaijin are NOT standing in as minorities, but, in a Japanese context, are another minority in the world of Black Sun that is in community with Japan's other silent minorities. But due to their appearance however, they're much more prone to be discriminated against and the patterns of abuse they suffer are meant to mirror the kinds of abuse that minorities in Japan (asian or otherwise) suffer silently.
In this video, I tried to show that Zainichi Korean discrimination is ordinary in Japan, which is a huge problem, and unless you have a lot of community support where you live, bringing it up directly on your own could actually get you hurt or even killed. And give how conservative Japan's TV environment is, no one will take the risk to bring these issues up directly with a direct allegory, which is a tragedy in it of itself.
Let me know your thoughts once you finish the show because I'd love to your input about it.
Looking forward to watching your video Naika but I must hold off until I've actually seen the show. I watched about half of the first episode and enjoyed what I saw so far!
Of course Clinton, hope you enjoy it. It's a really really heavy show so just take in bit-by-bit. Have a great one! :)
God the amount of cope I saw from chuds regarding this show was hilarious, my favorite was probably "sure it's against racism, but it's only against Japanese racism so it's not political" as they recreate the George Floyd murder on screen, because as we all know messages against oppression and discrimination are always exclusive to the country they originate from.
I'm sorry it really is just racism, this fetishistic idea that Japan is so far removed from the rest of humanity that it couldn't possibly experience any of the issues of the outside world, which isn't to say it doesn't have its own unique issues, every country does, but goddamn.
I'm thrilled that I didn't see that because I'd probably lose my shit. I'm not sure I got that across in my video but one point I *tried* to make was that the reason why blackface / brownface / appropriation persist so strongly in Japan is because Japan's local forms of racism against Japanese minorities / immigrants are normalized to such a degree that they make the same mistakes that whypipo do here in the States when it comes to cultures outside of Asia.
Every country's racism is not the same unfortunately, but they all have the same results in the end, and I think that deserves a discussion. Japan's is unique but also egregious and it's important to note these differences. The chuds won't get it but, deep down, I hope they do in the end.
Thanks so much for taking the time to watch the video and comment. Very grateful indeed!
Not fully all the way through with my watch yet. I have some heated but informed opinions about Black Sun myself that I love to discuss in a more open manner where possible (surprisingly hard to do so lol) but I do have a weird recommendation you could add to your considerations to help get your point across. The video game Like a Dragon 7, which features Yokohama and the immigration politics and harassment you bring up in part 1. I was quite aware of the relevant politics going into Black Sun and still found it quite lacking but not a total write off as many western fans have but am interested to see if there's more details I can learn to understand why it was made the way it was. Though I feel my thoughts on the show will remain the same as the problems with it are far deeper than just its use of current politics but also its imbalance between wanting to tell its story and having to throw in thing from Black when they aren't fitting in.
Hi MaskofFayt, I'd recommend you watch it the whole way through and then you can let me know what your opinions are. Happy to discuss here in the comment section. What things did you feel were lacking?
Honestly, Black Sun was the shot in the arm that a streaming service can provide it's creators the freedom with. No way the broadcasters will allow this kind of stuff on even late night tv.
One sad reality people realize is Japan isn't some free land of debased debauchery. It is a rigidly lawful place that allows only the loosest interpretations of the law and the moment it is illegal. Everyone is expected to obey in lockstep with their government or whomever is in charge.
I agree with you 100% about Japan. It's way more rigid that many of us will admit and, eventhough G-Witch is doing good on TV with its themes, Kazuya Shiraishi has stated that the rating for Black Sun went up to 18+ due to the 2nd episode's early kaijin death scene: bunkaonline.jp/archives/253
I think a lot of us in the Japan Pop Culture spaces tend to forget that there's so much conformity that's enforced on everyone in Japan and all the wacky and fun media WE all see is kind of meant as a pressure valve for that, but lots of these media I.P.s from my perspective lack any direct criticism of this oppressive / conformist hierarchy. It might be why I'm so supportive of Black Sun despite its flaws.
Anyways, thanks again for watching the video. And thank you for the comment! ^_^
@@NaikaVideo Also I can see an example of said conformity with Uma Musume, when the R18 ban was announced. Pretty much the entire fanbase took down all R18 works and tell the other fans on social media to report R18 works and it wasn't because of fear of ligation but the conformist aspect of the culture kicking in that most of people over here don't understand and go "lol it's just horsegirl porn, why so mad?"
That said I also feel livid when I hear the comment about keeping politics and current events out of their entertainment because they don't realize how precious it is of a freedom to have NGOs like game devs and directors made politically and agenda charge media. Autocratic countries prohibits both nationalistic and seditious entertainment. So when someone says "Keep politics out of my games/movies" you are asking to be a smallfolk and I pity you coming from an authoritarian country
@@MrAsaqe I have no clue what Uma musume is but that's news to me.
To your point about autocracy, it's difficult for me to fathom how some sections of the toku fanbase take umbrage with Kamen Rider Black Sun when a lot of the subtext is a direct critique about the stealthy appeal of fascism. That's kind of why I mentioned Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Poland very briefly there. And yeah, many areas of the U.S. are getting there too (I used to live in Florida and it's now trying to wage war against the LGBTQ community).
One thing I spoke about in the video (and I'm not sure I spoke about it correctly) is how, I feel, the backlash against Kamen Rider Black Sun is rooted in its ability to kind of skew the whole 'the hero solves everything' trope. For a show of Black's pedigree, many are mad that the titular evil of the show wasn't taken down and that's Black Sun's strength for me - one henshin hero can take down a villain, but not an entire system of oppression.
If there is one thing I would had liked to see or hope to see in the future is how such hateful policies also creates a very controlled form of opposition through schostatic attacks on society. So a lone kaijin who has nothing to lose kills several cops and civies before being cut down by a cop. Or the reverse where some self loathing Kaijin gets a smuggle weapon through Nimura's toadies and attacks a street full of Kaijin and the news finds out his politics support Nimura which Nimura support because it sows division. That kind of struggle that would make a hypothetic Black Sun RX interesting as Aoi grips with the reality of her resistance and chooses to keep fighting
@@MrAsaqe Honestly I have no interest in a Black Sun RX actually and I hope Shiraishi decides against it. Maybe it can be another sequel that isn't tied down to any existing Rider property but I enjoy how open ended Black Sun's ending was. I'm afraid that the previously stated approach might 'both sides' the argument so to speak.
Stop using "black people struggle" as a entry to discus other groups social issues. What America as with racism & slavery and it's place in this society is not the same at least everyone keeps making that distinction. Also the police over there doesn't get called out for cover in up murders going back several years...
Thank you so much for you feedback! It was not my intention so I apologize. Thank you for pointing this out and thank you for sharing your thoughts about this.
Stop using the 'quacwnk" sound effect and just use bleep?
You can blame FD signifier for that. He got me into using it 😃.
Ive tried to get into kamen rider but i just can't take any of it seriously. All the over acting and the surprised look on there face can't stand that its silly . I guess they have a different style of acting idk. Im not into politics either leave it to the politicians.
I understand man. Thanks a ton for the engagement!
Knowing the context behind Black Sun just made the show worse. Thanks.
This was *beautiful* to watch. I'm from Latinoamérica and we don't get to see so much, oh, SO MUCH from the world and specifically from Japan and Korean history. Until very recently, 2020s, we have started to get a deeper meaning beyond memes, Manwa or Manga content. Man, and the fact that it inspires art??? So good.
So, like... it had a good pace, it was clean, and it was wonderful to behold. Keep it up.
❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍
Felipe thank you for giving this video a chance, and I hope it added a lot more details to Kamen Rider Black Sun because there's a lot that can be missed. And I really hope that others can use this video as a connection point to other types of leftism around the world, including Black American Leftism, Japanese leftism and a whole lot more. Thank you for watching my friend!
I wish I could have this video on blu ray or dvd - on my shelf next to Black Sun. Sigh... EXCELLENT JAW DROPPING ESSAY! A beautiful and loving examination.
Thanks so much @malpertius! This really made my day. I hope it provided a lot of context to this amazing show that deserves a better examination than the bad faith hottakes that permeate the internet about Kamen Rider Black Sun. Hope to see you around the channel more often!