A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It is interesting to see this title got less points than its prequel. It should have been the opposite.First movie was not very Miike-like. It looked just a movie for children. However, the second title was very different, and it was very Miike-like. You don't need to watch the first one and don't do so if you don't have time to waste. But watching Zebraman 2 is really fun.Now, the reason I wanted to write a few things about this movie was Riisa Naka. There are a few roles that fit perfectly to its actor or actress. Or shall we say, there are few players who can carry a role perfectly and after watching, you can not think of anyone else acting that role. Riisa, playing Zebra Queen is one of those. Just like Brando as Godfather, Hopkins as Hannibal.Zebraman 2 can not be compared with these movies definitely. No way! You will not even miss anything by not watching this movie at all. However, you will be sorry to miss Riisa in her Zebra Queen role. Watch the movie and you will be disappointed if you are a Miike fan, but you will become a Riisa-fan.

Zebraman sequel is just as weird as the first, but you can tell it was made on a bigger budget than the first one. There're lot more CG scene, on this one.Tokyo has been renamed Zebra city. The world is an apocalyptic place where corruption and violence rules supreme. It's a dog eat dog world where its survival of the fittest. Zebraman gets put on a centrifuge machine to get his black and white parts separated. The result is good white Zebraman, and evil black Zebra Girl.The plot is still like something done by an elementary school kid, but there are lot more actors, and staged shots in this one compared to the first movie. I've seen other weird movies, but this one takes the cake. First Zebraman was cheese and you can easily dismiss it as just another campy movie, but this one has lot more resources behind it making it a seriously weird movie. I love Zebraman for its weirdness. If you're aboard with the first Zebraman, this one will entertain you too.

Okay so Zebraman became a zero to a hero in the first movie and in this one it's about watching the developed hero in action. This time there is more action and much better special effects, probably because this movie had a bigger budget than the previous Zebraman movie. As silly as the first one was, the plot takes place in the year 2025 and takes place in a area called Zebra City. The main conflict is a reform called "Zebra Time" where police are allowed to commit any crimes they want for 10 min a day on a specified time, mainly shooting random people. But this just doesn't apply to the police but other people as well, so they can commit any crimes and get away with it. This time the antagonists actually sort of stands out, especially Zebraqueen(Riisa Naka) who is a idol singer in this story and also the evil governor's daughter. Also seemed to be influenced by the style of Lady Gaga, except Zebraqueen is more real. Riisa Naka played this psycho girl character pretty well in this and actually made the character believable for the most part. Even if the villain's so called master plan is just plain stupid, especially when it comes to the motive behind it. Takashi Miike is known for using pop culture references in some of his movies and that applies to this movie as well, but it's done in a way where it doesn't feel forced. The plot isn't better this time around but it's a bit more entertaining than the first movie. The action sequences actually gets pretty good after a hour into the movie although the build up is kinda slow and boring in some aspects. Everything is more ridiculous this time around and it really isn't a great sequel, but it's still much better than the first Zebraman movie. This sequel fixes some of the flaws from the previous movie, but it isn't a amazing sequel or anything like that.7.5/10

There's little doubt that Takashi Miike's films are always fun to watch and unconventional to be sure and his latest "Zebraman Zebra City No Gyakushu" (Zebraman - Attack on Zebra City) is no exception. "Zebraman 2" is an enjoyable and entertaining superhero adventure that definitely outshines the original.The original "Zebraman" (2004), which was adapted from Yamada Renji's popular "Gekka Spirit's" manga series, told the story of middle-aged school teacher, Ichikawa Shiinichi (Aikawa Sho) who dreams of becoming a costumed superhero similar to the ones he watched on TV as a youth. Creating a makeshift costume, Ichikawa soon becomes the hero "Zebraman" and desperately tries to impress his wife and win back his children's approval by fighting criminals and in the course of his adventures gains real super powers and inadvertently stops an impending invasion of slimy green invaders. Very much like Matthew Vaughn's recent "Kick-Ass", Miike's film was a tribute to American Comics and Japanese Tokusatsu TV (Live Action Sci-Fi TV) and combined the best elements of Superman, Batman, Ultraman and Kamen Rider to come up with a crowd-pleasing and surprisingly poignant superhero film."Zebraman - Zebra City No Gyakushu" (again adapted from Yamada Renji's manga series) takes place soon after the events in the first film. After defeating the alien invasion, Ichikawa becomes a media phenomena and is celebrated as a hero but the constant hounding by the news media has taken its toll and Ichikawa soon finds that the stress has caused him to lose the ability to turn into Zebraman. A renegade government scientist Aihara Shinzou (comedian "Garadunakanu" Taku)takes advantage of the situation to kidnap Ichikawa and subjects him to a series of torturous experiments to "extract" Zebraman's power from Ichikawa in an attempt to create an evil doppelgänger which he can control. After five years, he succeeds and a portion of Zebraman's power is extracted and gives birth to a teen-aged female life-form which Aihara adopts and names "Yui" (gorgeous fashion model Naka Lisa). Yui's powers aren't fully developed yet but Aihara hopes that in time she will become even more powerful than Zebraman. The experiments leave Ichikawa weakened and he soon loses all memory of his past identity. Ichikawa is left to die but is rescued by former student and now medical intern, Asano Shinpei (Kamen Rider Decade actor Inoe Masahiro). The year is now 2025 and Aihara Shinzou and his "daughter" have taken control of Tokyo (which they rechristened "Zebra Town"). At precisely 5 p.m. each evening (Zebra Hour), Aihara's armed battalion (the Zebra Army) go into town to slaughter and kill any resistance to their rule. Yui has also adopted the Lady GaGa like persona of "Zebra Queen" to taunt and lull the Tokyo citizenry with her hypnotic vocals. Asano brings the dazed Ichikawa to Shijou Junichi (Tanaka Naoki of the comedy group "Kokorico") who is the leader of a rebel resistance sworn to overthrow Aihara and who coincidently was the suit actor of the show "Zebraman" that first inspired Ichihara to become "Zebraman". Shijou has assembled a small army of rag-tag rebels to oppose the Zebra Army including a young girl named Sumire (cute Nakano Mei) who is the human host of one of the alien invaders from the first movie. Together they join forces to take back Tokyo and stop Aihara from expanding his forces across the globe.Like "Spider-Man 2" and "The Dark Knight", "Zebraman 2" is definitely a sequel that tops the original. Director Miike definitely knows how to please the fan-boys and he pulls out all the stops here with everything a movie geek could love - aliens, a beautiful femme fatale, a cool henchmen character, lots of mayhem and destruction and nice SFX visuals.I love all the visual gags that Miike includes in "Zebraman 2" and all the references to other cult shows. In one part of the movie, villain Aihara introduces us to his bodyguards, the "Mini-Skirt Zebra Police" who are parodies of the "Mini-Skirt Police" stars of the cult 90s TV series.Aikawa Sho again does good work at making Ichikawa/Zebraman an interesting hero character. Ichikawa is very much in the same vein as Peter Parker and Clark Kent, and Aikawa definitely succeeds at making Ichikawa a very human character to counterbalance the superhero alter ego of Zebraman.Stunning model turned actress Naka Lisa steals the show as the sinister villainess Yui/Zebra Queen. She definitely seems to be inspired by Lady Gaga in her outrageous look and reminded me of another model actress Anna Tsuchiya who Naka seems to also be channeling in her performance. While a bit over-the-top in her actions and behavior, Naka's performance brings an evil charm to Yui/Zebra Queen that is hard to resist and she makes for a very cool villain."Takeshi Gundan" member (Beat Takeshi collaborator) and Comedian "Garadunakanu" (Guadal Canal?) Taku AKA Iguchi Takahito AKA Taka-Chan) is hilarious as the villainous Aihara, self proclaimed mayor of "Zebra Town". Looking like a cross between Malcolm McDowell's iconic Alex character in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" and 70s Japanese androgynous singer Sawada Kenji, Taku is at his campy best.Abe Tsuyoshi (Hana Yori Dango 2; Rough) is great as Niimi, Yui/Zebra Queen's lead henchman and enforcer and has great charisma in his limited role. He makes for one cool bad guy.I was very surprised at how good the sequel was as the original "Zebraman" was good but not great. "Zebraman 2" is great entertainment and hopefully Miike will consider another sequel.