Catch more from Snarky Jay on YouTube
I don’t understand what Toei Tokusatsu World is thinking, or if it’s higher up at Toei itself. They want to get Kamen Rider to the US, and they partnered with Shout Factory to get Kamen Rider ZEZTZ to YouTube via TokuSHOUTsu, but didn’t stop YouTube from covering the stream now and then with their ads. Plus watching it that way meant the potential of accidentally spoiling yourself if you came in on the wrong time because the replay started right after the previous broadcast ended, meaning coming in at the start was difficult. Eventually they put episodes by themselves, which was the right thing to do. Sadly this hasn’t included the movie that along with the final episode passes the torch to the next series in the line.
So with the next show, that came out a couple of weeks after the last Kamen Rider series (good luck getting US TV to even do seasons right anymore, 8 episodes over 16 weeks if you’re lucky) they decide to post it to their own channel 2 days after the Japanese airing rather than continuing the simulcast with Shout Factory. Word is that they’ll only have it up for about a month before taking it down. It seems they still don’t know how to use their YouTube channel to get their shows to a larger audience and take all the ad revenue (minus what YouTube takes).
The new show is Kamen Rider My-Th, a double pun due to the mythology of the zodiac (the Chinese one, I believe) and that the hero’s theme is based around mice, as the franchise dropped the bug motif a long time ago. I can post the first episode, “The Mouse Meister & The Young Lady”, but watch it fast as it will go away in four weeks. A full review follows, so this isn’t a Saturday Night Showcase. It’s a short-lived bonus showcase unless they’re kind to the international fans and keep it up. As it is it was delayed by the posting schedule, so we lost a couple of days. Since this isn’t the English streaming service you’ll need closed captions set to English (or your language of choice, I guess) to follow along.
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Today is the 60th Anniversary of the original Star Trek making it past two pilots, a failed early pitch, and finally making it onto television. Airing for only three seasons on NBC, it only stayed that long to make syndicated reruns possible, and that still required a fan outcry. The show would gain more fans, lead to a failed new series that became Star Trek: The Motion Picture, whose opening song became the theme song for Star Trek: The Next Generation.
In between those events, NBC wanted more Star Trek, but turned to animation. The plan was to make an hour long series, but the network opted for a half-hour Saturday morning series to be cheap. Plus kids liked Star Trek. Partnering with Filmation, the show would bring back old writers, most of the cast (Leonard Nimoy fought for most of the cast when they just wanted him, William Shatner, and DeForest Kelley, but either didn’t fight for Walter Keening or couldn’t get him involved–so he wrote an episode instead), revisit some of their episodes, and chart new adventures for the crew of the starship Enterprise.
For reasons I’ve never heard, Gene Roddenberry didn’t consider it canon, and neither did Paramount for many years. I’m not even sure they do now, so I was surprised to see it show up in the tribute video. So did Lower Decks but if Prodigy was there I missed it. It doesn’t air on any other network or streaming option except for MeTV Toons, what the Boomerang network should have remained. None of the Pluto TV Star Trek or science fiction channels carry it, nor is it on demand there. I can watch all the pre-Kurtzman shows and movies, even the Abrams movies, but not Star Trek: The Animated Series.
I know Hollywood doesn’t care about animation. It’s either “kiddie crap” or subversive adult actual crap. However, they should get over their biases and this show is a good reason why. Since it’s also the animated show’s anniversary (we’re the same age!), allow me to explain.
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Catch more from SF Debris on his website because YouTube is a pain
Also, this was recorded after a tornado hit his neighborhood. No injury reports but also no electricity and a lot of smashed trees. Hence the impromptu nature. This has been in the buffer for a bit.
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Chapter By Chapter (usually) features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as a read-along book club.
In the previous chapter, we saw an attempted date go horribly wrong, and it couldn’t happen to a bigger jerk. It did give us a chance to explore the philosophy of the Followers Of T’Vet, and the author got to play with Vulcan mating habits and biology for a bit. Now we’re returning to Nisus and Korsal the Klingon. Don’t worry, the usual cast will be here soon enough. I hope.
Quick shoutout to the Spacebattles forum (yes, my stats told me you were talking about me behind my back again…hi!) and specifically Dragolord09 for linking to the first chapter of this review. Appreciate it. One of the other posters commented that making Nisus an unaligned colony makes it look like a “super-special colony that’s outside the Federation is really just the Federation, and it kind of ruins the suspension of disbelief”. It’s not the first time we’ve seen colonies or transporters not officially aligned with the Federation or the other Alpha Quadrant throughout the franchise, both officially and in fan projects like Star Trek: Intrepid. (I need to follow up on that someday. Darn backlog!) The books tend to exist somewhere between those two designations.
I think the reason Jean Lorrah chose to set it in such a place was to include races that normally wouldn’t be allowed to take part, either by the Federation/Starfleet or by their own planets. We have the Klingons who recently left, sans Korsal who is acting as a representative. I think Romulans were mentioned but I could be wrong. Our book-exclusive guest cast also includes Borth, an Orion looking to weaponize the plague and sell it to the Klingons as a bio-weapon since thus far they appear to be immune, or at least Korsal and his mixed species children are currently. Who knows what will happen if the plague mutates again. Korsal stated that Klingons would never do something so dishonorable, but I suspect this will come up again. (Also, what’s the Duras family like in this period? I wouldn’t put it past the sisters from the next century, but it’s been a while.)
As we saw in The Vulcan Academy Murders (previously reviewed), Lorrah likes to play with various races as part of exploring the conflict between them. Setting the story primarily where those races can best interact, like the Vulcan Science Academy that isn’t tied to the Federation despite working with them, or the Nisus science colony gives her open territory to build up that conflict, especially given what little we already know about the plague, and some currently unknown connection to the children before the Andorian who made the discovery died from it. The point is more about the potential for personal conflict that making it super-special. Gives her more toys to play with. And one of those toys is heading home, so let’s check in with our Klingon and half-Klingon.
BW Media Spotlight 
What Lanterns Can Learn From Kamen Rider My-Th (And My Failed Comic)
There are two superhero shows that came out recently. Actually three, but we’re going to compare these two. Sorry, Ultraman Teo. I want to compare Greenless Lanterns and Kamen Rider My-Th. Lanterns comes from an American creator, My-Th from Japan. Japan makes what we used to, but still in a style unique to Japan. Yesterday I reviewed My-Th because it looks so cool. I still haven’t touched Lanterns because it does not. There shouldn’t be that much difference beyond the two countries and yet it’s there.
Both shows have hinted at a mystery with serious questions. Both feature something trying to be different from the predecessors. Both feature superheroes…allegedly. And yet I was more excited for a brand new property with a character that didn’t exist in public discussion until a month ago (longer if consider how long it took to make the promotional materials), while the show allegedly based on a childhood favorite has failed to obtain my interest.
So why does the Japanese superhero succeed in one episode where four episodes of the American series based on a long-standing character fail so miserably? And which of their arguments is giving me flashbacks to one of my own superhero sci-fi comics…and not in a good way, because it means the young amateur’s failure cause me to learned more than the supposedly successful older professional?
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on September 10, 2026 in DC Spotlight, Death of DC, Streaming Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged commentary, Green Lanterns, Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Kamen Rider (franchise), Kamen Rider My-Th, Lanterns (HBO Max), Sprite comic, Tales From The Spriteverse.
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