Here is the one-shot 90's indie tokusatsu special "Brahman - Legendary Hero" with English subtitles!
The raw came from the amazing blog Rare Tokusatsu (raretokusatsu.wordpress.com), which was sourced from a VHS tape that was copied to a DVD-R and shipped to the site owner. The timing was done by Kaiju; everything else was yours truly. The fansub is a softsub mkv with traditional white subtitles.
This little oddity starts off really slow and gets better as it goes on, culminating in the title hero's appearance and battle with the villain. It's only 20-23 minutes long, but includes trailers at the end for other indie toku titles the company had released. I did not sub these, nor did I sub the nearly 5-minute end credit song, as I am hell with song lyrics. I also had a hard time with some of the dialogue near the end of Brahman's fight, since the sound quality is not the best (this was shot on video in the 90's) and the actors were speaking in low voices anyway. The scene in the club, where our lead actor is dressed in drag as Mazinger Z, was also very hard to understand. Lastly, I decided not to translate the few pieces of kanji that appear on-screen, as my educated guess is that these are explanations to the episode's universe and characters, and the translation would not have fit in the time allotted.
Yes, the lead actor in this also plays the lead villain, who is apparently a "shadow" of our hero from another world. The whole thing plays like a big audition tape for the lead, whoever he may have been, as he acts, sings, does stunts, and poses for his own transformation sequence into Brahman. Brahman even does a sword-swallowing trick, something I haven't seen any toku hero do before or since.
Oh, and just as a warning? There is some brief T & A in this, so you'd better not be watching it at work!
If you're into indie toku, or just need a break from the super-polished style of today's shows, then give Brahman a shot--it just might surprise you!
Comments - 2
DodgyAussie
HenshinMan (uploader)