It's one of those behind the scenes curiosities in the Sentai franchise's history -- 20 year old actress Akiyo Hayasaka was originally cast in the role of Miki/Goggle Pink, not only going as far as getting fitted for wardrobe and taking publicity stills with the rest of the cast, but she also filmed at least three (three!) episodes. (That's a lot of reshooting for these tightly scheduled shows to do just because you didn't like who you cast in the part.)
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| Hayasaka and Jun'ichi Haruta in a scene from the third episode. |
She was replaced by Megumi Ogawa, who proved to be really popular, remaining so well-liked by fans that Bandai released two (two!) figurines of her in their Girls in Uniform line. It's unknown why Hayasaka was replaced, but I suspect they wanted a more "idol-y" type. There couldn't be many hard feelings between Hayasaka and Toei, however, since she went on to guest star in an episode of Sharivan a year later.
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| Goggle V as we know them, with Ogawa. |
No offense to either Hayasaka or Ogawa, but I don't really think the casting swap made much of a difference -- it certainly wouldn't make-or-break the series the way Dairanger would have been FLAT OUT DEAD on arrival had the super blank Keisuke Tsuchiya remained playing Ryou rather than the cool, charismatic Keiichi Wada, whose talents would have really been wasted as Kazu.
" it certainly wouldn't make-or-break the series the way Dairanger would have been FLAT OUT DEAD on arrival had the super blank Keisuke Tsuchiya remained playing Ryou rather than the cool, charismatic Keiichi Wada, whose talents would have really been wasted as Kazu."
ReplyDeleteWait, WHAT? They actually thought that would've been a good idea?
Yep. There's a trailer for the Dairanger movie, along with the other Tokuatsu Hero movies of the time, that was shot real early in Dairanger's production where you can see Tsuchiya as Ryou and Wada as Kazu.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing that someone at the time had the sense to be like "Guys, I think this Tsuchiya kid might suck as Red. Put him in the back of the team and put Wada out in front."
Every fan is right, productions did the bright thing in swapping Red and Yellow. But still Tsuchiya was good in playing the suave role and Kazu was a cool yellow. The mistake was he had the least episode of focus.
DeleteYou know, I always thought Daisuke Tsuchiya was the better of the two brothers. At least in B-Fighter he was capable of emoting and I think it's sort of a waste that he never came back to tokusatsu after that role. (Especially since B-Fighter did take so long to become a great show)
ReplyDeleteBut, man, Hayasakaa must have been astronomically bad to have been replaced after THREE full episodes had been filmed already. Or at least that would be my guess.
To be honest, I never thought there was much difference between the Tsuchiya bros. They're not horrible or anything, but I think they're just incredibly bland. When it comes to B-Fighter, maybe Keisuke sticks out as being weaker because he's not quite villain material. But I have to wonder if he just got kind of lazy in Dairanger because...well, it had to suck to be picked as the show's lead, and end up fourth in line.
DeleteAs for Hayasaka, that's a possibility. I also think she could have just really pissed someone off. I find it all weird, because it's not like Goggle Pink had that much going for her that the casting had to be EXACT, you know?
I really wish there was footage of this just to see what it was like. The Japanese are so bad about archiving stuff like this... I'm glad there's still things like footage of Ushio Kenji as Hedder in BFJ around at least.
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ReplyDeleteShougo,thank you for this article so cool! do you happen to have any pictures of Tsuchiya as Ryou and Wada as Kazu in Dairanger or is it only in the trailer you speak of.
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