Interviews

Meet the Team: Max Ellis

Published on September 13, 2019

For this month’s Meet the Team, we chat with translator and YouTube team member, Max Ellis.

Can you tell us about yourself?

I am a British born otaku, who spent most of my life watching anime and fantasy shows. In 2012 I moved out to Tokyo and I’ve been living here ever since. Most recently I started a new job as a translator, and I got married to a Japanese beauty, who I managed to get interested in tokusatsu thanks to Lupinranger VS Patranger.

How did you first get into tokusatsu?

Obviously when I was young I would watch Power Rangers and Saban’s Masked Rider, and I knew as much about Godzilla as American films could tell me, but naturally the concept of tokusatsu only became clear to me when a senior at University showed me Kamen Rider OOO. That got me hooked and so I started binge watching, catching up on the better part of the first generation of Heisei Riders before graduating.

How did you become a member of Team TokuNet and what does your role entail?

After living in Japan for a while I met Tom Constantines and got to be friends with him. Gradually I have been meeting more and more members of TokuNet until finally it seemed silly not to officially join the group. Now I am part of the translation team, providing accurate translations between Japanese and English, and the Video Production team, editing and helping to film bits and pieces where I can.

What is your favorite tokusatsu show or movie?

Oh, thats a big question. Its hard to pick because the answer changes per franchise. If I had to pick one from the top franchises it would be:

Kamen Rider Gaim

Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger

Ultraman Geed

And so far my favourite film is basically anything directed by Sakamoto Koichi, though right now Hurricane Polymar is my favourite.

Is there a funny or memorable moment from working in TokuNet that you would like to share?

Basically anytime we got Pokemon hunting on Community Day! I’d say one of my favourites was when Tom took me out to drinks at Tenma’s for my birthday a few years ago.

Outside of working for TokuNet, do you have any personal projects or hobbies?

I make my own tokusatsu independently. I am the first to coin the genre EGT = Earl Grey Toku (if spaghetti western is a cowboy film made by an Italian, then EGT is tokusatsu made by an Englishman). So far I have made “Cyber Ninja Tekkaraiger”, which is currently on Youtube, and I am working on my next project “Entaku Kishi Avalon”, so look forward to more of that coming soon. I make many other videos, the main objective being to bring the joy and wonder of Japan to western viewers.

I also enjoy kendo, anime, manga, travel, medieval history and swimming.