Toku Time Sub-Brand Announced by Discotek Media at Otakon 2022

Amid announcements for Space Sheriff Gavan and Legend of Dinosaurs and Dangerous Birds releases at an Otakon panel on July 30, 2022, Discotek Media announced a new sub-brand, Toku Time.

UPDATE (2022/08/05): A link to preorder the Space Sheriff Gavan Blu-ray set has been included.

During the Discotek panel at Otakon 2022, Discotek Media announced a new brand identity for its tokusatsu content. All previous tokusatsu releases like Megabeast Investigator Juspion and Cutie Honey: The Live are included in this new brand along with all future releases.

To coincide with the announcement of Toku Time, Discotek announced the localization and release of 1977’s Legend of Dinosaurs and Dangerous Birds and 1982’s Space Sheriff Gavan. 

Mike Toole, Associate Producer for Discotek Media, said that Toku Time has been in the works for over a year due to the success of other tokusatsu releases handled by Discotek.

“It’s because of older releases, notably Juspion,” Toole said. “In terms of sales– I can’t talk about numbers– but that kind of stuck around and we had to go back to the printers a couple of times on those. The demand kind of just stays steady.”

The Toku Time brand was also inspired by the growth of the tokusatsu fandom in the United States and that publishers like Discotek are responding to that, Toole said. 

“We wanted to create something distinct for tokusatsu fans because we’ve seen that fandom emerge in the past few years,” Toole said. “We’re interested in that space [of the market] and wanted a separate identity for those releases.”

Space Sheriff Gavan

For the Space Sheriff Gavan release, the box set includes high definition footage of all episodes, a reunion discussion with actor Kenji Ohba and director Osamu Kaneda, a photo gallery and a historical essay about the series written by Mike Dent of Vintage Henshin. The series comes out on Blu-ray in October 2022. Preorders are available through Rightstuf Anime.

“Juspion was kind of an experiment,” Toole said. “Juspion wasn’t the first Metal Hero film and Gavan is. We’re going back to the source and I think it is very cool that we got the remaster from the film, so it’s not going to be standard definition on Blu-ray. It’s going to be true high definition.”

Legend of Dinosaurs and Dangerous Birds

Legend of Dinosaurs and Dangerous Birds releases in high definition for the first time later in 2022. This release features a new scan of the film which increases its resolution. The box includes the original Frontier Enterprises dub, updated subtitling and trailers for the film. The Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode does not come with the set. 

It's…

Legends of Dinosaurs & Monster Birds! pic.twitter.com/ZyDqbubZiA

— ?Discotek Media (@discotekmedia) July 31, 2022

“We re-released the film Uzumaki on Blu-ray a few months back, and we’ve got a couple more in the pipeline like that, but it’s too early to announce those,” Toole said. “Definitely expect more Japanese live action content of a few different stripes from us in the upcoming years.”

Source: Discotek Media Industry Extravaganza (Otakon 2022), Mike Toole