Category:Toku

""I know I should be excited and scared and all but I--all I think of is sweaty Japanese guys...""

- Tom Servo, Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode 212 Godzilla vs. Megalon

"Tokusatsu", often shortened to just "Toku", is the Japanese live-action effects genre. Though the overlap is not total, it can, at least casually, be considered the live-action analogue to Anime (at least, to the subset of anime best known to casual viewers in the west).

Originally, Toku differentiated itself from western visual effects genres by its preference for "live" effects (ie. People in Rubber Suits) over the equally phony special effects created during editing (at the time of the genre's birth, specifically the stop-motion techniques pioneered by Ray Harryhausen, now CGI). Modern Toku uses both forms of effect, but "live" effects are still preferred. Toku is closely identified with Wire Fu.

Far and away, the most popular early example of Toku is the Godzilla film franchise, which exemplifies many of the genre's tropes: people in rubber suits smashing scale model cities, and an abundance of squibs.

Most of the examples of Toku series are actually franchises of the Sentai and Henshin Hero variety, producing many separate but related series.