Black Action: Kamen Rider Black episodes 11 - 15

11 - This episode could have dialed up some of the gross-out factor, IMO. When too many Golgom monsters are starving and fighting over food, the priests decide to use humans to sprout a fruit for the monsters to eat. It's depicted in a way we've seen so many times in toku, with little branches and buds coming out of people's faces, but it IS a suitably ooky premise. Not an entirely groundbreaking episode, but it does end with Golgom having to put a lot of their monsters on ice since their new food supply is cut off by Black.

12 - Uehara's return as writer, and the last episode he writes of this series, and it's a crummy commercial. (Son of a bitch!) In 1987, Sentais were starting to get two mechas, so I guess some asshole at Bandai was like "Hey, what unnecessary thing can we give Kamen Rider?" and another asshole replied "Hey, how about a new bike!" Because Koutarou doesn't need it, and it's especially useless when they've just built up Battle Hopper's importance, and it's especially useless since the Road Sector really, really, really, really sucks, and it looks like some dumb leftover from Super 1.

So we end up with some junk you don't care about, about how some guy's dad built the Road Sector for Golgom, who wanted to mass produce them and use them for eeeeeeevvvvil, but the guy's dad didn't like that, so he went and hid in the mountains and left the Road Sector for his son (who was a pro biker), who then trains HIS son to use it, but...sorry, random assholes and their sons endorsing an ugly Bandai toy doesn't sell, so we need to end this story with that Kamen Rider motherfucker gaining ownership of this piece of shit. And that's just what happens. I'll give the episode this: at least the biker and his kid didn't die in order for Koutarou to end up with the bike. But this is the first time in the series that the Golgom priests have seemed kind of dumb. "Yeah, dude, this stupid, ugly motorcycle is the key to our victory!" It's probably this episode which causes me in my subconscious to think of Baraom as the weakest of the three Golgom priests.

One thing I do like about the episode, though, is how Koutarou wins over the biker and his son. Not only by repeatedly saving them from monster attacks (I do believe Koutarou led Golgom right to their hiding spot!), but by laying out how much Golgom's screwed him over. (The biker's dad and wife were killed by Golgom; Koutarou's lost two dads, a mother, a brother, his own humanity...) One thing I think Black does better than a lot of the Riders before it is highlighting Koutarou's sorrow and repeating what he's lost. I know some of this has to do with changes in television storytelling style between the early '70s and 1987, but in V3, he was only really in pain in the first two episodes and maybe once in every dozen episodes he'd bring up his family. A lot of those times, it was the NARRATOR who brought up his family. In Super 1, Kazuya literally forgets about his murdered space camp friends after the first episode. That's it. Nothing is ever said, and he's never given much of a beef with Dogma beyond "he's the hero, and he'll fight the monster bad guy dudes." (Dude doesn't even ever mention his martial arts buddies who get killed halfway through the show.)

Kamen Rider is a tragic character, he needs his pain like Batman needs his pain, and I think that's something that needs to be at the forefront of the character's motivation. That doesn't mean he needs to be moody or whiny -- Black conveys this with Koutarou just visiting a place he visited in the past with Nobuhiko, looking solemn, and hoping there comes a day when they'll both visit that spot again. Kyoko will look at siblings with sadness, Katsumi will look at lovers with envy -- these little moments add up and help sell the cost this has on the characters, it gives the show more consistency and flow and authenticity rather than perpetually rebooting and focusing on some random scientist who the Rider doesn't know, but gets involved with because a freaking Shonen Rider Scout happened to witness something and buzzed the base.

13 - The first episode to be written by Noboru Sugimura, who will go on to write a lot of Black's key episodes later, being named its second main writer. This is the first time Sugimura's written for Rider, and I think he only does ZO after Black -- he goes on to play a bigger role in Metal Heroes and Sentai in the '90s. Despite liking Dairanger and Kakuranger, I'm not a huge fan of Sugimura's writing. I feel like writers like Hirohisa Soda, Susumu Takaku and Toshiki Inoue were trying to advance toku writing styles, and that Sugimura takes toku a step back. His scripts really remind me of uber-formulaic '70s scripts, where an episode's focus would be on a kid or scientist-in-need of the week. What Sugimura brings that's uniquely his own is a trying too hard to be bizarre (that's certainly a problem with his Sentai shows). He uses gimmicks and oddness rather than cohesive storytelling to mask an outdated style that's regressing the genre. However, he's more or less reined in here, and I do like a lot of his Black episodes.

Nevertheless, this episode is kid-focused and bizarre. Golgom's latest monster, the crab monster, lays a ton of eggs, so Golgom sets out on kidnapping new mothers to care for the eggs. The eldest son of one of the mothers takes it upon himself to try to find the monster's lair and save his mother, so that's how Sugimura brings a kid into the spotlight. This isn't the most terrible episode ever, or even one of the worst toku plans, because there is something sinister about Golgom snatching mothers just released from the hospital for their own use, but it just doesn't make sense to me -- you'd think Golgom would want more harsh methods so the monsters would hatch and grow to be aggressive, but it's just the mothers speaking kind of soothingly to the eggs. Huh?

More proof that Sugimura is a '70s-style writer in disguise is that he has a scene where Black's training himself in a rocky quarry to find a new technique to beat the monster. Black doesn't have a Tachibana to help him out, though, he's on his own. Something else reminiscent of '70s Riders is the crab monster's attack, spraying a foam on its opponents. Also: Sugimura seemingly mistakes Koutarou for one of the '70s scientist Riders -- there's an unintentionally laughable scene where Koutarou's hanging out in his abandoned garage Rider Cave, analyzing a bit of the crab's evil foam. It just doesn't seem very Koutarou-like -- Hongou/1 is a man of science, guys like Kazami and Keisuke were scholarly. Koutarou's supposed to be more average, so it's just out of character for him to be whipping out a telescope and flipping through science textbooks.

A new technique brings updated Rider Punch and Rider Kick sequences, which just means a couple of altered, slower shots and extra Seizure Flash. (What this sequence really needed was to be slowed down, too. Avert the eyes!) This is the first time in a while I've rewatched Black, and I have to say, this is the first time that damn flashing has bothered me. I wonder if the difference is watching Black on an HDTV versus an old-styled TV. I don't know, but it sucks that I pretty much have to look away for his transformation and finishers -- two signature marks of tokusatsu, taken away.

14 - Golgom's plan for today is to wipe out Japan's tuna supply so Kuromatsu can create an extract which will power the episode's monster, which is a mammoth. The terror of Japan's fish supply being stolen or blocked or wiped out is a common threat to a number of tokus, but it's not really used here in a way like "It will ruin Japan's cuisine!" "It will bring down Japanese food businesses!" or anything like that. That would be Godneros' agenda. It's something that maybe Golgom early on would have considered, one of the convoluted ways of bringing down society. But, no, here it's just to power the monster. If you haven't noticed, Golgom's legitimate faces have been dwindling, and we pretty much only ever see Kuromatsu from here on (and he's getting the boot shortly, too). Kuromatsu was always the more over-the-top of Golgom's puppets, so I think that his hanging around while the others are phased out represents Black's early intention of being grounded gradually being abandoned with the villains becoming more fanciful.

The guest stars are a sushi chef and his son. The sushi chef pushes it, he's a little too comical for Black's grim world, but he and his son are at least likable performers. Still, you get that uneasy feeling that Black's starting to slip, and that it will soon become Super-1's second half (where Kazuya is barely in the show, and it's instead kid-focused). Probably the most memorable part of the episode is Katsumi and Kyoko taking the kid to the beach, where he has an annual tradition of setting flowers into the sea to honor his dead mother. This scene is mocked for Katsumi and Kyoko busting out into song -- Long Long Ago 20th Century, no less -- but it at least brings things back to Black's grim Earth! The son is mourning his mom and Katsumi and Kyoko take the time to honor Nobuhiko while they're at it.

One part I love, though, and it's brief -- Koutarou pulls up to a few farmers talking about the stolen fish dilemma. He listens in and butts in asking questions and one farmer is just, very quickly, like "Who are you?" and Koutarou just bulldozes over that, he Rider Sidesteps it. It's hilarious to me because Koutarou's been really bad about that -- he pulls up to accident scenes, crime scenes and just marches up to an official and asks them for the details, like he's a cop! This is something pretty much every Kamen Rider up until this point has done. And people usually just fill them in! Cops, paramedics -- they're happy to answer him, no questions asked! A lot of Sentai heroes get away with this, but a lot of Sentai heroes are government sanctioned or ex-cops or whatever, or it's known that they're heroes. And keep in mind that it's not like Koutarou has advertised he's Kamen Rider and that he's a superhero; he's just an average 19 year old, strolling up to a crime scene, "Hey, what happened?" In this episode, there's finally someone who's like "And who the fuck are you, exactly?" The way the actor says it, it HAD to be a comment on how often this happens. Thank you, writer Hisashi Yamazaki! Too bad you only write one more episode of this show.

15 - The show, for as much as it's gotten away from the quality and style from when it began, has up to this point at least been entertaining. This is the show's first real stinker, a completely unnecessary episode without any redeeming feature. It reminds me of those mid-20s episodes of Liveman, which give a stink of a staff like "Hey, can we go on vacation now? Oh, we have one more to churn out? *scribbles nonsense* There! Let's party!"

Kyoko's roped Koutarou into helping whip a kid's soccer team into shape. That's the first inkling that we have a generic episode on our hands. But, hey, unlike when this happened in Metalder, it works for Koutarou, since he's at least been shown to be a sporty guy, and into soccer. This conveniently leads Koutarou to Golgom's plan this week, which is a TV-Y7 version of Joker's plans in The Dark Knight to show society "naturally" turning on each other and becoming cruel when the chips are down. Shit, that might sound more interesting than what we got here, which is...a gym coach under Golgom's influence creating a really, really tough study group that turns on anyone who fails to meet their standard. Shit, that might even sound more interesting...

The whole episode is a kid being beaten by his class with gym equipment and typical ways the Japanese punish the bad kids of class, all under the influence of Golgom's evil turtle monster. Once this school is taken over, the Golgom will ship the turtle to other schools and recreate this wonderful plan. There's bad lighting out of Freddy's Nightmares, and at one point randomly, the kid of the week is somehow speaking to Koutarou through a soccer ball which Koutarou desperately tries to talk to, Cast Away-style, before it just floats away. It's...just bad. It could literally be the script of ANY tokusatsu from ANY era.

Sad note, this is the last episode where Koutarou wears the cool grey jacket and black gloves. It was a dark look that fit the dark tone this show was trying to have. He wears the white outfit from here on, and continues to do so in RX.

Black Sun Rising: Kamen Rider Black episodes 1 - 10

Intro

It was a new world, with new enemies, and new threats...but you could still depend on one man...

Kamen Rider Black doesn't need an introduction; it's one of the most popular entries in the Kamen Rider franchise, considered to be one of the best. Kamen Rider Black was the first Rider show on the air in several years, but it was going to be Kamen Rider coming back with a bang. It was going to be dark and hip and with the times; it was going to be the first truly standalone series and not rely on the past shows at all...

Out: stuffy scientist protagonist. In: a young average guy, a teenager, the youngest protagonist yet.

Out: Scarves, cloth suits. In: monstrous flesh, rubber suits.

Out: Stunt team Ono Ken Yukai. In: Dynamic Japan Action Club, which brings ACTING along with ACTION.

Out: Longtime franchise producer Tooru Hirayama. In: Metal Hero vet Susumu Yoshikawa, fresh off of fan-favorite series Metalder, known for its poetic, lyrical style. (Koutarou even has to get angry to transform, as Spielban had to do in order to kill his villains and as Ryusei had to do in order to become Metalder.)

Out: Longtime writer Masaru Igami. In: respected tokusatsu writer Shozo Uehara. (For a while, anyway.)

Out: Composer Shunsuke Kikuchi. In: the up-and-coming, modern, experimental Eiji Kawamura.

That's right, Toei was cleaning house and pumping in fresh blood. They had attempted to reboot Rider with Skyrider, which eventually relied on tying itself into the past shows. Super 1 attempted to be different, but was inconsistent, while also attaching itself to Skyrider by carrying over the Tachibana-wannabe Tani as Rider's "oyassan" mentor. In the end, both shows wanted to be fresh takes, but ended up feeling same old same old. Wanting Rider back on the airwaves, but wanting it to be a success, Toei actually had the balls to be different...

This was going to be a darker Kamen Rider than you remember. Gloomy, gothic, stylish. It was going to be more emotional, more personal. It's 1987, and VCRs are changing the way people view television and movies. Television wanted to still be accessible to new viewers, but also needed to reward the longtime viewers, the viewers who are now recording this stuff and always accessing it. Where the old shows could get away with mentioning a Rider's pain in the premiere, and leave it to the lyrics of the main theme to remind you from there on, Black's pain and loss was going to be the centerpiece of the story.

He was going to be a new hero for a new era. One gets the impression from the early episodes that Black was aiming higher than most of these shows tend to; it wanted to tell a good story, it wanted to appeal to viewers of all ages, fans and non-fans. It wants to be a good show above all, not interested in shilling toys. It's a dark reiteration of a classic brand, a modernization of the essential ingredients of the Kamen Rider character, but done in a grounded approach. I look at the build-up for the series, those early episodes, and see a precursor to the mature, serious, brooding and dark approach that most filmed superhero stories started adapting after Tim Burton's Batman film.

There was excitement surrounding Black, there was hype. Take a look at how they had an introductory special a week before the series premiered, where they ran down Black's stats in a Trekkie-like obsession, interviewed Ishinomori, showed footage from the auditions, interviewed the cast in character, and so on. The show was reaching for big things, and wasn't going to be exclusively a kids show. (So, it's a big shame when writer Noboru Sugimura is put in charge as main writer and makes it all about kids.)

Before Kuuga, Black was going to be the new hero and legend that rewrote the rule book...

And its debut episodes are some of the strongest episodes in the history of all henshin hero series, setting up a dark, realized world. And then the show is hit with departing writers and rumored difficult cast members and other behind-the-scenes shenanigans. What Kamen Rider Black would have been like if it had stayed true to its original intentions is something you're left only to imagine. The show changes. Writer Shozo Uehara leaves and leaves the show scrambling and eventually replaces him with Noboru Sugimura, new to tokusatsu, and a lesser talent than Uehara. And then there's Toei getting soft. Their desperation at bringing Rider back and making sure it appeals to the new audience gave them a boldness and courage to make Black what it was in the first place; the fear of losing that new audience leads the show to begin to play it safe, becoming more of a formulaic, typical entry in the franchise, when it was going to be so much more...

Black's one of my top favorite Rider shows. To me, it's the best representation of Ishinomori's entire Rider concept. (If Agito wasn't such a great, strong work of excellence, Black would probably be my favorite Rider.) Sure, the show disappointingly dips in quality, sort of abandons its original intention, but I still think overall, it's more consistent than any Rider series before it had been. And this is pretty much the last of the true Ishinomori Rider shows; RX does its own stupid thing, the movies are failures and then Kuuga takes the franchise in another direction.

I first wanted to say, however, what I think Black does well above the other Riders. Kamen Rider is a tragic character. A loner. One in pain, and he needs his pain, the way Batman needs his pain, the way Captain Kirk needs his pain. Each of the Showa Riders have a personal stake in their fight -- Hongou loses his humanity and his mentor; Kazami his family, Keisuke his dad; Stronger his friend; Skyrider his friends and parents; Super 1 his entire scientific colony. The thing was, with henshin heroes being so new at the time, and with the constraints of the way television was made and distributed, the shows didn't dwell on these important moments, these character motivators.

Like, the premiere episodes of V3 has Kazami mourning his family. From then on, they're only brought up whenever the show feels like it (and it rarely did), leaving the only reminder to be lyrics in the opening theme. Most of the shows were like that! Super 1 loses a ton of friends and never mentions it after that! At the halfway point of his series, he loses his martial-arts mentor, and NEVER mourns him or mentions his loss after that! (Strangely enough, after that episode, the show becomes a comedy that focuses on the Junior Rider Kids, with Super 1 basically becoming his own show's equivalent of a Sentai mecha, summoned at the last minute.) The '70s shows are just straightforward superhero adventures like that, practically like a '40s movie serial -- you're joining the adventure in progress, practically.

So Black made the smart move of focusing on not only the pain the villains cause Koutarou, but his family. Instead of being the mere set-up, it's the focal point of the story. The show has a little more depth and tries to be bolder about using Koutarou's pain as an ongoing storyline. Koutarou loses his birth parents and his adoptive father; not only is Koutarou kidnapped and surgically altered by the villains, but his adoptive brother is, too. His brother isn't lucky enough to escape, which becomes the core of the show -- is his brother beyond saving? These are things always effecting Koutarou, his adoptive sister and his brother's girlfriend. The villains have ruined the lives of the entire main cast, and it's something the show doesn't let them (or you) forget. So, I find Black to be more emotionally tangible than most of the Riders before it. Koutarou never forgot what drove him, needing his anger to transform into Black, but he didn't let it consume him, either. And people like Shadow Moon not because he's some new character pulled out of the writers' asses at the halfway point, but because of the ominous and suspenseful buildup throughout the series. Black also tried to give everything more of a reason, more of a lore to the mysterious and cult-like villain group, Golgom.

I've been having a Kamen Rider marathon over the past few months, picking shows I don't remember well or feel I should give another shot. I threw in a couple of shows I really like so the marathon wouldn't be a total chore, Black being one of them. It's been quite a while since I have watched Black, so I was excited to get to it. I wanted to pay close attention to it, keep an open mind about the later episodes I consider weaker. So, I made notes and observations as I watched each episode, hoping to track what I liked about it, and get into where I felt it went wrong. I'll cover 5-10 episodes per post.

Episodes 1 - 10

1 - 2 are perfect episodes; alongside Liveman, some of my absolute favorite debut episodes of a toku series -- some of my favorite toku episodes, period. THIS is how to do a classic Kamen Rider. Uehara hits it out of the park, perfectly updating the Kamen Rider lore and style for the '80s, while homaging certain scenes from the original without at all feeling like a lazy imitation. Great atmospheric style from pilot director Yoshiaki Kobayashi (this pilot is what put his name on my radar), which director Makoto Tsuji picks up in the second episode.

I love the start of the first episode; a panicked Koutarou running through the streets of Japan, at night, chased by the three creepy Golgom priests. What I like about them is how they're depicted as being scary and menacing, but really low-key. The show wants these guys to be intimidating and spooky. As much as I like a lot of the Rider villains prior to Black -- General Shadow is my favorite Rider villain -- most of them tended to be large and colorful and over-the-top. Black's starting off wanting to be, sure, scary and supernatural, but also more grounded. The Golgom guys aren't yelling or have a gimmick, they're not Nazi lovers or cosplayers for a wax museum or kooky aliens; they're weird motherfuckers, they're obviously into the occult, they're mysterious, they're ancient. Koutarou's terrified by these guys, and he should be. I love those Shocker villains, but if you saw Shinigami Hakase in a dark alley at night, you'd be like "What's with this motherfucker? You're too early for Halloween, Grandpa Munster!" If you see Darom or Bishum coming your way...you're not gonna wanna be hanging around. And I like that Golgom is pretty much a cult, and they have members who are legitimate, seemingly normal members of society -- doctors, politicians, businessmen, A-list celebrities. Golgom's influence has a far reach, and it gives them a more realistic feel, makes them seem like even a bigger threat at large.

3 - A more standard sort of scenario you'd expect from Uehara, but it picks up by the end. The plot of the missing people and the random mayhem seems like something that could be found in any of Uehara's average Metal Hero shows, but what sets it apart is the dark and creepy atmosphere; this is Golgom making their presence known to the public, planning to create and display a creepy tableau made up of their victims and the destruction they've caused -- which they hope to top with Black's decapitated head.

4 - It's too early to have an episode this weak, Uehara really fell down on the job. Yutaka Hirose guest-starring as Koutarou's friend and racing monster who gets turned into a werewolf sounds awesome, but it isn't. Mad scientist Kuromatsu experiments on athletes as a way to find a formula to defeat Koutarou, but it's all just lame.

5 - First episode not written by Uehara; not the strongest plot, but it makes up for it in creep factor and tension. Golgom's goat monster possesses a small village, turning everyone homicidal. The reason? A peace conference of various world leaders will soon be held there, and Golgom's sending a message. Flashman's Yayoi Satou gives an effective performance as a traumatized village escapee.

6 - A kind of ho-hum episode involving Golgom kidnapping artists to...memorize tech schematics, give them to the public, and ruin companies? What? I mean, I appreciate the attempt at a kind of realistic plan to depict Golgom's attempts at ruining society, but this episode just isn't done well or in a way that's interesting or in a way that makes you think it all warrants a superhero to stop this boring shit.

7 - I like some of these more low-key plans of Golgom's -- in this episode, they recruit and hypnotize angry young men who have been wronged or have had loved ones killed by reckless hooligans. Golgom's people are such bastards in this episode, lying through their bastard teeth that Golgom's the ones that want a peaceful utopia. A problem with this episode, though, is Red One from Bioman, whose performance is so completely hammy and so over-the-top it's overflowing the bowl; he seems nuttier than any of Golgom's longtime members. (That's not the intention. At all.)

The highlight of this episode is the confirmation that Battle Hopper is a living being. The show indicated this, but flat out says it in this episode, not only having Battle Hopper take hits for Black (he shields an unconscious Black from a collapsing roof!), but gets torn up by the rhino monster and is shown healing his tissue. Back in my day, a Kamen Rider was a dude and his bike. He didn't need cards or trains or rings or Gashapon shit. A bike is his ally, his trusted arsenal. So I think it's pretty smart of this show to have Battle Hopper be a living creature, making the Rider's important tool an actual character -- and doing it in a way that can still work dramatically, but not be a talking, obnoxious, cute cartoon character like an Engine.

Be on the lookout for Darom suit-actor Hirokazu Shouji as the guard who catches Red One leaving the Golgom guy's mansion. Shouji's one of the recurring Soldier Group guys in Changeman, a good JAC performer, and he died in a car crash a few years after Kamen Rider Black.

8 - Another low-key episode, but one that brings back some creepiness and horror, as Golgom kidnaps young women musicians and controls them to play their deadly tune, all while alluding to musicians who sold their souls. The awesome Miyuki Nagato guest-stars as a Golgom henchwoman. I like that this episode speaks the truth of the world, that money and connections is what wins out over talent. This ain't the syrupy message of your typical superhero show, where everything is supposed to be awesome and only the yucky bad guys are bad! Also: that stock footage of that colliding and burning car I made fun of all throughout Changeman's anniversary makes an appearance!

9 - Weak. I usually pick on this episode when I'm looking for a lazy toku plot to mock. "The one where the villains' big plan is...to distribute necklaces that unleash killer bees!!!!!!!!" Golgom's plan could have been depicted better. It's diabolical, the stings of the bee monster's minions spreading disease. That Bishum wants to focus on a trendy part of Japan fits their MO. But the necklace thing? The surrounding story of the West Side Story dancers and stuff? It's just...weak. (The one dance team is color coordinated, and one of them is played by a pre-Zyu Hideki Fujiwara, whose color is...blue! Pretty much every Black episode so far has had one or two familiar-to-toku actors, it's crazy.)

10 - The one that's infamous for being called "Where is Nobuhiko?" despite having jackshit to do with Nobuhiko. Kaura/Bias guest-stars as a soldier under Golgom's thumb, staging road collisions and scooping up the victims to kidnap and force into being Golgom soldiers. That's a bit sinister, but also a bit convoluted. It's interesting to have Dr. Kuromatsu coerce people into joining his cause by healing their crash injuries, but I think the episode would seem less odd if he was healing people suffering from all kinds of pains and maladies and disease and blackmailing THEM. This car crash stuff...huh?

Despite its misleading title, the episode does at least bring up the earlier episodes, and has Koutarou checking out Golgom's more legitimate members (Kuromatsu and Sakata), getting bullshit answers and brush-offs and cover stories to throw him off.

This episode is also the second and last appearance of Toudou, the dude who inexplicably handed his shop off to Kyoko in episode 2. He was this show's obvious attempt at having a Toubei Tachibana, but they just didn't want to bother, I guess, and just cut him out altogether.

And I have to say that the scenes depicting Kaura/Bias' harsh training of the potential Golgom army is pretty minor compared to Ibuki's training of the Changeman. Think about that for a second.

Blue Warriors

Previously on Them's Fightin' Words, Shougo gave his thoughts on the Reds of Sentai. Now he covers the other color to appear in every series thus far, the Blues.

The Blues. Usually the second-in-command, usually cool. Well, once again, it depends on the era of Sentai you were raised on. Being an '80s kid, Blue to me will be the comedic youngster of the team.

And, once again, I'm going to try to decide which Blue I'd want to work with on my Sentai team. I'm going to try my best to not repeat any members on this hypothetical Shougo's Ultimate Sentai Team. It would be a lot easier to draft more than one member of a team, but that's kind of a cheat.

Akira Shinmei/Ao Ranger

Akira was basically lucky to be played by Hiroshi Miyauchi, who instantly cemented the image of having a cool, smart Blue, a guy who can always be counted on to step up if the leader's in trouble. Some purists would go back to the old Gatchaman argument -- "Sentai is a rip-off of Gatchaman! Condor Joe was the first cool second in command!" -- well...Condor Joe's cool and all, but he has a short fuse. I never felt like he COULD be counted on to have a cool head and lead the team if something happened to Eagle Ken.

I've read gossip over the years that said Miyauchi kinda wasn't happy playing second banana after leading his own shows, which could be a reason the show goes out of its way to present Akira as so dependable, on nearly equal ground as Kaijou/Aka, often even disagreeing with Kaijou and being right. The shame is, the biggest way the show decides to highlight this is by making Akira the prime operator/caretaker/lover of the team's mecha, like the Variblune. I mean, I know there's this thing of guys who are obsessed with their cars, or even the way Captains Kirk and Picard love the Enterprise in Star Trek, but Akira really acts like he's in love, L-U-V, with the Variblune. It's disturbing. I mean, there's an episode where it gets totalled and he screams "Varibluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuune!" like he just watched his wife and kids get gunned down, Punisher-style.

Ryuu Higashi/Diamond Jack

I think Ryuu's awesome. He's tough, he's bad-ass, he has a surprisingly edgy backstory for a "kids show." It's kind of a cliche with these types of stories, but he's basically the Bruce Willis story from Pulp Fiction, a boxer who falls in with a criminal element and he refuses to take a fall in a fight. While Willis' character actually kills a dude in the ring, Higashi's details are a little murky -- we're introduced to him being escorted in cuffs by the fuzz, and there's talk of a murder rap before he decides to go with Joker to become a cyborg and have his name cleared. He has contacts on the street that come in handy and is even aware of the secret CRIME organization before Joker approaches him.

Like I said, a crazy backstory for a hero in a "kids show." Ryuu remains a reliable, street smart, tough son of a bitch, a physical threat made twice as kick-ass as a cyborg. JAKQ could have been such an awesome show, but...well, we know about the retool, and the way the original four lose some of their edge -- and spotlight -- once Banba shows up to lighten things up.

There's so many times where a character like Ryuu that won't work because the actor isn't believable, but actor Heizan Itou is really believable as a boxer with a dark past. I love Black Condor, but I feel like Ryuu could easily kick his ass...even before being a cyborg. He's THAT level of tough sonuvabitch.

One nitpick, though. Ryuu's a boxer, but as Diamond Jack, becomes a swordsman. Clover King, on the other hand, fires his fist off, Mazinger Z-style, or attaches his fist to a chain and swings it towards opponents. Shouldn't that be Jack's ability? I don't understand that. It's like when Oh Red gets the boxer mecha even though it's Oh Green who's the boxer. Shit ain't logical, Captain.

Higashi's also the only one on the team that's not affected by the show's lightening up. They try to make Sakurai more affable (they try; good luck figuring that out, since Yoshitaka Tamba only learns to move his face IN THE FINALE), Karen gets cutsie-fied and Daichi's made into a comedian. But Higashi remains his cool, bad-ass self. First encountering the too casual Banba, he doesn't trust him and is ready to rough him up. Fed up with the beyond irritating Tamasaburou, he physically picks him up and throws him out of the room. Higashi rocks.

Kyousuke Shida/Battle France

Representing the countries of Europe, he's supposed to be this really stylish, cool and laid-back type. An artist, a bit of a dandy. As an American, some things come across as having a kind of "sissy" image or something stereotypically associated with womanliness (which is in itself a sexist assessment, it must be said) -- things like the fencing, that he's a beautician, that he's into fashion, art and cuisine.

Actor Yuuhei Kurachi is a good enough actor, and I like him, but he makes certain choices, has these mannerisms... And while the character is written as a ladies man, Shida never really connects with the women he flirts with, and that makes Shida play in a whole different way... I mean, look at what I just said above, but then give the role to a guy like Kurachi, and then the writers start writing stuff for him like making him Diane's disco and shopping BFF on top of that and...

What I'm trying to do is find a politically correct way to say that I think he might be the first tokusatsu hero who is a gay homosexual. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Daigorou "Anpanman" Oume/Denji Blue

Kenji Ohba's the man. That's about all you need to know about Oume; Oume is a fun guy who will deliver some awesome action and then eat his weight in anpan. If you're going to have a hero who's a circus daredevil, you're best off getting a crazy awesome JAC guy.

While Goranger and JAKQ gave us the Serious/Cool Blue archetype, France was supposed to be hip and more lighthearted, but Oume is a big departure. Oume's second-in-command, but mostly a comical guy.

Kinya Samejima/Vul Shark

My memory of Sunvulcan is a bit fuzzy, because I don't want to rewatch it out of protest due to its being overpraised. It's beyond overrated. But my memory of Kinya is basically...nothing. Like, they try so hard to make him a cool, strong and silent type, but they go too far, because I honestly remember episodes going by where his only piece of dialogue would be saying "Vul Shark!" in the big pose-down.

I mean, he has a pretty heavy backstory, with his family being killed by warring nations when they lived in Africa, so he's a quiet guy, longing for peace, like the serenity of the sea, but...I just don't they pulled it off. Sunvulcan wasn't interested in going far with that kind of thing. Or maybe the actor wasn't capable.

Kinya also begins this long association of the Blues being into swimming or water sports or whatever. I guess the thinking is blue = water. Actually, I feel like one of the awesome things Sunvulcan introduced to Sentai -- something that nearly every subsequent Sentai clings to -- is taking the military concept behind the "Sentai" term and really going with it, having a military Sentai made up of representatives of land, sea and air, which Sunvulcan wisely associates with corresponding animals. I think that's a cool touch.

Saburou "Who?" Aoyama/Goggle Blue

Remember what I said about Akama? How he's just so damn bland? Aoyama takes that and turns it to 11. I seriously can't say a single thing about Aoyama. He likes hockey? (Someone on HJU once said about Sunvulcan that the show never tells you more about the characters than what's in the credits. I don't think that's true of Sunvulcan, but it IS pretty true of Goggle Five.)

Actor Shigeki Ishii himself is so generic and non-descript, the character might as well be a blank cardboard cut-out. Seriously, the guy is so generic, it's like he doesn't even have a face. He's styrofoam.

Yousuke "Spicoli" Shima/Dyna Blue

Poor Shima. He's kind of stuck with the lamest of big dreams of the five Dynaman, isn't he? Red's about reducing pollution, Black wants to start the United Federation of Planets, Yellow's about creating more food resources, Pink wants to communicate with animals. Blue? Typical pothead surfer, man, he just wants to make gills for men so they can, like, just surf and swim all the time, dude!

Lucky for Shima he has an awesome JAC actor like Kouji Unoki playing him. Unoki's not quite as cool as co-star Jun'ichi Haruta (Ryu/Black), but he gets in a lot of really swift action, and also plays Dyna Blue in-suit (without needing to switch off to a substitute every now and then, unlike Haruta, so...there!)

Shima kind of begins a run of Blues who are the kid of the team, but I'll get to that more in a minute.

Ryuuta "Benjamin Button" Nambara/Blue Three

Sunvulcan's shadow was already large, because here's our third Blue who is obsessed with the water. I think Shima probably wins, though, because he was, like, such a part of the sea, man, that he was chosen by a mermaid to hear her pleas of saving the waters, dude.

Anyway, Nambara's another guy saved by a cool JAC actor, in this case Akito Oosuga. I feel like Nambara never got enough focus, he was mainly there for comedic relief. What little we're actually told about him is vague -- suspiciously vague, like having a rough home life with a dad he didn't get along with, maybe some thuggish background. Did he cook some fools? Is he just a mama's boy who invented some tough background? No idea, but, here, enjoy Nambara getting shit on by a bird, LOL!

Nambara is supposed to be 18. More on that in a minute.

Yuuma Oozora/Change Pegasus

I might be biased, but I don't care. Yuuma's the first of the young, more comedic Blues who I think is actually funny. Well, the first one since the first one, Oume. (I mean, I like Blue Three, but I like his ass-kicking JAC side and not the comical side.) I think Yuuma is all around a more solidly written character and that actor Shirou Izumi just mines the character for all its worth.

Yuuma's young, but he's also capable. He makes mistakes, but he's not a clownish idiot. He's funny, but it's more in the sarcastic, real wise-ass variety. He's really in his own zone, marching to his own beat. Yuuma is initially saddled with some of the more lighthearted, kid-oriented episodes -- he's a big kid himself -- before the show throws him more dramatic material, and we watch Yuuma grow. He grows, but doesn't lose his fun factor. Izumi really just aces this role, and I'll just go ahead and say I think Yuuma's better than Burai. Yeah, I said it.

Bun/Blue Flash

Flashman wanted to ride Changeman's coattails, so we kind of got lighter Xeroxes of the Changeman team. Bun's the smart-ass kid who initially gets lightweight episodes before being thrown dramatic stuff and growing up...you get the idea. The main difference is...Changeman emphasizes the trauma of war, while Flashman's keyword is tragedy. The Flashman are all, in a way, stunted kids. They didn't have a normal upbringing, the Mess robbed them of that, robbed them of a normal childhood.

But Bun is the youngest -- and seems the youngest -- of the team. While on the one hand, it's more tragic that Jin is older and has gone longest without regular human contact, he at least does have memories of home and of Earth, whereas someone like Bun doesn't. So Bun's a bit more susceptible to simple, childish pleasures or falling for a potentially not-so-trustworthy villain's scheme. And I think Flashman's overall message works best with young Bun; a problem with Flashman is how pretty chill the most of them are with their situation, but Bun's always looking for that surrogate family, to make that connection with someone on Earth.

Bun takes his lumps and never comes close to meeting his family, but he never gets broken and still retains the ability to trust, like when he's convinced to assist a dying Kerao. Kerao! As in, part of the Alien Hunters that kidnapped him! But his heart's as big as the Prism Ball and he made the right call, because Kerao ended up giving his life for Bun.

Bun's actor, Yasuhiro Ishiwata, is a pretty unsung member of the cast. He's funny, but he hits the dramatic notes, AND he dives into a lot of the action scenes himself. He's not a JAC member, but he does his best to give you the impression he is one, like Dyna Blue or Blue Three. Bun has a lot of ninja-y moves, the same kind of moves Jun'ichi Haruta pulled in Dynaman. Ishiwata also actually seems young! He certainly seems the youngest of the team, and Ishiwata is actually younger than Bun is supposed to be! But he's still seemingly old compared to...

Akira/Blue Mask

The first young Blue that's actually young! While the Blues of Dyna through Flash were supposed to be the young funny guys of the team, only Bun came close to actually seeming young. I mean, Blue Three is supposed to be 18 years old -- 18! -- but his actor looks 38. So Akira is pretty much the first young Sentai hero. He certainly is one who's the age his character is supposed to be. (Some of the early heroines claim to be really young when they filmed the show, but I think that's some showbiz cloaking. Sorry, but there's no way Heart Queen's actress is 16 in JAKQ.)

Now, as someone who doesn't really like mid-teen or kid heroes, I can imagine Akira and his casting bugging some long-time fans at that point. I don't remember liking him as a kid, but I wasn't too into Maskman as a kid, period. (Like Metalder, it's a show I love now, but not at the time.) Akira certainly gets a lot of focus early on, probably the show wanting to showcase a young actor, but actor Kazunari Hirota ended up becoming really popular -- like boyband popular -- so a lot of Maskman in the middle and later portion end up spotlighting Akira a lot. Maskman's a show that's not too popular amongst Japanese fans, and I wonder if focusing on the kid so much turned people off.

But I appreciate the Akira character now. He's a fun character and you can tell that Hirota IS having a lot of fun in the show. For not being an actor -- he was cast based on his ability in Chinese martial arts -- Hirota's a pretty decent, natural performer. My perspective on Akira shifted in the episode when he has amnesia and he's just goofing off with some kids, and the other Maskman are watching him from afar and noting how his duty as a Maskman is robbing him of enjoying his youth. There's also some strong bits that show his leaving his single mother behind to join Maskman, a really short flashback clips that's given its strength by being well filmed and acted.

One of my favorite Akira storylines is when he becomes Unas. I remember being kind of shocked, even spooked a little by that when I was a kid. It might have only lasted two episodes, but that was enough -- you didn't anticipate a hero going bad and actually not being saved by the end of the episode. So, it was a little eerie to see the four remaining Maskman piloting Land Galaxy without Blue. The show did kind of chicken out, however, by not sticking with Sugata's assumption that Akira's possession meant he was from the Underground. That was an interesting idea that's shoved aside, I guess because Toei just didn't want to commit to the idea of having a Sentai hero who wasn't all human. (It's, what, Timeranger before they have the balls to have a non-human/non-Earthling regular hero?)

Megumi "All this and brains too" Misaki/Blue Dolphin

Megumi is awesome. I feel like leaving it at that. She's the smartest one on the team, the dolphin being a perfect animal to represent her. She's a more than capable fighter. Early on, she certainly seems more like the team's leader. She's at the top of the school, behind the three Volt traitors. Strange to think that, if she didn't have such a good head on her shoulders, that she could have possibly ended up hanging out with them. That's something the show could have explored in an episode.

When I was a kid, Liveman was a weird, but interesting change. I had associated Yellow with heroines and Blue as teen goofballs -- not to mention expecting five people on a team -- so Liveman was like "Whoa!" Megumi's a return to the mature, intelligent Blue after a run of the funny youngsters, and I think she's the best of the female Blues. Megumi Mori was a singer on the rise at the time and was a case of special casting for the anniversary, but she really captures the smarts, warmth and maturity of the character for being pretty young herself.

Once I thought "Which Blue would I put on my Ultimate Sentai Team," Megumi was my immediate choice. But since I already chose Falcon...

Youhei Hama/Blue Turbo

A return to the lighthearted Blue...who also likes swimming and the water...yay? While Youhei is meant to be funny, the role of total goofball goes to Shunsuke/Yellow Turbo. Still, it's one of those odd situations like Kakuranger where there's two funny guys on the team. We had a funny guy back with us in Korea...they blew his brains out all over the Pacific.

While Youhei can goof off in school, he IS supposed to be a little more serious than a Nambara or Bun type, he IS supposed to be cool and attract the ladies and is someone who can be counted on to keep their cool. I think Youhei just doesn't come across as being in that Hiroshi Miyauchi vein because of how he walks the line between funny guy/cool guy and how young the Turboranger are supposed to be.

What really helps Youhei is being played by the immensely likable Keiya Asakura. He just seems like a cool guy and you can tell he's having a lot of fun. (Compare him to Daiichi's actor, who looks like it pains him to be in the show.) Youhei gets a couple of cool episodes -- like the one where he falls for the trap of Hiromi Yuhara's Rin guest character. But he also gets a couple of sweet episodes, like when he comes to see Yamaguchi in a new light after looking out for her when she's turned into a kid. Youhei's alright, but it's really Kenta Satou's show, so the other Turboranger kind of pay for that.

Ken Hoshikawa/Five Blue

The team strong man and P.E. teacher, but I feel like he acts goofier than intended, and that he sometimes comes across more immature than Fumiya, when he's supposed to be the tough guy second in command. 

Overall, he's just kind of generic. He and Goggle Blue should get together for some drinks sometime. It would be a nice, quiet meeting, where they won't have anything to talk about because they're a couple of the most insignificant specks of Sentai heroes. They could thumb-wrestle over who's the most forgettable, and then maybe go play hockey together.

I kind of feel like maybe actor Kei Shindachiya and Ryouhei Kobayashi should have swapped roles, and maybe that would have worked out better for both of them.

Ako "Give me your lunch money, kid" Hayasaka/Blue Swallow

I always liked Ako, she's an entertaining character played by a solid, likable actress. She's my second favorite Jetman behind Condor. There had been a string of comedic and/or prankster Blues or Blues who were the kid of the team, and Ako's the first female Blue to fall into that category, which is a bit of a rarity for a toku heroine.

She's not given many episodes, sadly, but I still like a lot of the ones that give her focus. Like, even if the episode's message is eye-roll inducing, the one with her teddy bear is still sweet. Her strongest moment of the series, of course, is probably the two parter with the Dimensians and her friendship with Dan that started with irritation, but they grew closer before tragedy struck.

She's a tough-talking teen who, on one hand, was probably on the path to becoming on of those rough bullies that you find in every high school drama, if not for being a Jetman. But at the same time, I think it's that strong-headedness that helps her cope with some of the crazy stuff she sees as a Jetman member and the experiences she's pulled into, as well as the strong personalities that surround her. She's tough, but has a good heart, quickly abandoning her greed in order to do good. It's a character who could have been more than grating, but actress Sayuri Uchida plays her with a mischievous glare in her eye, and she makes you instantly take a liking to Ako. So, it's kind of unforgivable just how unnecessarily far Inoue goes in order to make the character so horrible in the novels.

Dan/Tricera Ranger

Dan doesn't seem like he gets a lot to do. I liked the actor more in Jetman, but he just doesn't get much in Zyu. We know he's the impulsive wise-ass, but that role's been done by better, and it doesn't quite work with what squeaky-clean, simple folk of yesteryear the characters are supposed to be.

Oh, and he has one of the absolute worst suit-actor matches in the history of the genre. I don't buy for a second that Dan is Tricera Ranger. I really think the suit actors for Tricera and Tiger should have been switched.

Shouji Balboa/Tenma Ranger

Shouji! I love this guy. The first out and out biker punk Sentai hero, someone who was on the wrong track, but was saved by the discipline he found in boxing. Shouji's kind of like a mixture of Ryuu/Diamond Jack and if Daisuke Shima had gotten to play a character closer to the image he had in his early music career. Shouji's not a dick, though, he has a sense of humor on a team that kind of can take themselves way too seriously. But he can definitely kick ass when he needs to, and has that weird street code of honor.

Sad thing is, Shouji's kind of stuck with some of the lesser stories in the show. In throwaways, he's given the generic terrorized-by-a-magnetic-monster thing. His recurring story involves the often obnoxious Three Idiots.

Saizou/Ninja Blue

Saizou! I hate this guy. Seikai is this character done right, with an actor who knows how to play him. Hiroshi Tsuchida is just awful, one of the worst, hammy, mugging, overkills-it-so-bad-it's-like-he's-in-a-silent-movie actors you'll find.

Yuuji Mita/Oh Blue

I find Yuuji to kind of be the most generic of the Ohranger team. They try a little too hard to make him represent so many past Blues that it doesn't gel and create a character with his own identity -- he's cool, but he's the gullible kid, he's a tough guy, but the lovelorn softie. I don't think actor Masashi Gouda was able to really handle the way the writers pulled his character around, so he comes off looking worst of the cast. And I like the five Ohranger cast members, they just needed another show.

Naoki "Dead Eyes" Domon/Blue Racer

I like Naoki as a character. The straight man, a nice guy, super polite, the one on the team who's the most responsible and mature...and he's also basically a kid. It should be just one funny and enjoyable character, but actor Yoshihiro Masujima just doesn't work. He's cardboard, he's dead-eyed. Part of the appeal of the character is that he's so young, but Masujima is TOO young -- 15 at the start of the show. They needed someone like a Takumi Hashimoto, who's older, but perpetually, like, 18.

Shun "The Dick" Namiki/Mega Blue

I have a bit of a soft spot for the five Megaranger, I think they're all just such fun characters. The thing about Shun, though, is that he's kind of a dick. And I kind of forget just what a dick he can be until I rewatch it. In the mind's eye, you're like "Oh, yeah, Shun. He's cool." But then you rewatch it and you're like "Wow! What a dick!"

Shun's supposed to be cool and logical and intelligent and know where he's going in life, but he's one of those people who doesn't really have a filter and, for as smart as he is, doesn't really think before speaking. Which means: dick. He's especially mean to Kenta, but lucky for Shun, Kenta's already beat him to the punch -- one of the funny things about Kenta is just how little he cares what people think of him. Kenta's happy, he really doesn't give a shit what you think.

I've criticized actor Masaya Matsukaze for being a weak actor before, but I think he's kind of the reason why you don't outright hate Shun as much as you possibly could. He finds a levity in the character, makes him a bit more of a smart-ass with a mischievous streak than an outright...dick.

Gouki Zoolander/Ginga Blue

The complete opposite of Shun/Mega Blue. Gouki isn't cool, he isn't the sharpest Seijuuken in the Ginga Forest, and he's not rude. Actor Shouei brings a little too much of a dim male model to the character, but he's likable. It works for Gouki, Gouki's just a kind dude. The phrase typically used to describe him by fans is "gentle giant."

Shouei is also probably the best match for Jiro Okamoto of any actor Okamoto has doubled for; it's the one role of Okamoto's where you can actually visualize the actor in suit. Them two's tall bastards, is what I'm saying.

Nagare Tatsumi/Go Blue

This guy's alright by me. He's kind of almost like the male version of Megumi/Blue Dolphin -- the brains on the team, the rational one, the one who's going to think things through. (I don't think he's as cool as Megumi, though.) I like that the show has him be the closest to being like his dad, Mondo, because he's the one cast member who I always thought actually looked like Mondo's actor.

I always thought it was weird that the show didn't do more with his rivalry (attraction?) to Denus. They dance around it in that early episode and then bring it back dozens of episodes later and that's it. Kind of a missed opportunity there to get something juicy from the two warring families.

Cameron "Ayase" Frye/Time Blue

He could have been an interesting character -- even if he's one of Yasuko Kobayashi's many heroes-who-are-dying-of-unspecified-diseases -- but I find it hard to care about the character for two reasons. First: actor Yuuji Kido is a glazy-eyed board. I think he and the show think that's "cool," but he just can't pull it off. Secondly, it's hard for me to care about characters whose big dream is to be a good car racer. That's just really boring to me, really 1930s superhero comic book before they worked the kinks out, so you could expect that kind of vague, generic stuff.

Kai "The Kid" Samezu/Gao Blue

The five Gaoranger are fun, but I don't remember Kai being given much to have him stand out. I liked that he had a complex about being treated like a kid, and the way he kind of big brother'd Black because Black was such a crybaby, that was funny. He mastered Daimon Tatsumi's Milk Tornado Bomb attack, which is something.

Oh, and another case of a suit actor being a horrible match for the actor. (Yasuhiko Imai's never a good match for anybody, really.)

Nanami "No, no, not her" Nono/Hurricane Blue

Don't like Hurricaneger, don't like her. You know what I just said about heroes who want to grow up and be racers? The female version of that is characters who want to grow up and be idols. Spare me.

Nanami's shrill, but aren't they all on this show? I could also never really tolerate Nao Nagasawa, who always just seemed to me like she thought she was a gift to tokusatsu. (And I especially hate her for pretending like she did all of her own in-suit stunts.) Most overrated tokusatsu performer.

Yukito Sanjou/Abare Blue

The cool headed brain on a team with members that are led by the heart or [dino] guts. Yukito's one of my favorite Sentai characters, period. I feel like he represents a cynical Sentai fan like me. I'm always complaining about how sugary and wacky and cartoony modern Sentai is, and he's a guy who's smack dab in the middle of a Sentai that is mostly that, and he has to contend with all of that stuff. He's kind of the anchor of the show, the cold splash of reality check. He's the identifier for the older viewer. He's the one who's able to sit back and see the latest Evolian plan and be like "That's stupid. What the hell's going on here?"

Because to say Abaranger is quirky is an understatement. There's a lot of weird shit flying around on that show, so you really, really need a character like Yukito to try and make it fly. And he works! I've seen this type of character done poorly, where they're not as amusing as the writer thinks they are, that they're TOO self-aware and the writers use it as a lazy crutch. But Yukito's the one who acknowledges the crazy, sometimes stupid shit that occurs and cracks wise about it before the audience member can. He's a nice counterpoint to Emiri, who's another self-aware character, but one who LIKES being in the midst of what she recognizes as a crazy movie or show. Yukito kind of can't believe this is now his life. Weird that these two ended up getting married.

Ryouga was the bright optimist, Ranru was chirpy, Asuka -- for all of the atrocities he witnessed -- was a damn nice, polite guy. Abaranger definitely needed someone a little sour like Yukito, who was the sane one whose reactions to his surroundings was the most real. And he worked, and actor Shou Tomita really fit the part.

Houji Tomasu/Deka Blue

On one hand, I like Houji for being the serious, professional one of the team. But I feel like Houji really walks the line of being a bit of a jerk. For as professional as he thinks he is, he really bungles that one case early on where they're rescuing that kidnapped princess played by Red Buster's sister. Characters should have some flaws, but they shouldn't go around boasting how awesome they are at everything and make that kind of impatient, rookie mistake and just forget about it and go back to being boastful.

Houji only really becomes likable thanks to Ban's influence. It's like the Shinji-Ren thing in Ryuki. You have the cool, serious guy who gets softened by the cheerful knucklehead, but while any character growth on Ren's part is undone by that stupid reset in the finale, Houji does become a more likable character.

The big problem with him, though, is actor Tsuyoshi Hayashi. He's a likable enough guy, but not the strongest actor. He works as the stiff, by the book dude, but things get shaky when he's supposed to be emotional. (Which is one of the reasons why the fan favorite "Hardboiled License" episode doesn't work for me.) Oh, and when Houji drops some English? Hayashi makes it creepy, not cool. His voice drops an octave and he ends up sounding like Buffalo Bill. "Parfect, baby...NOW, PUT THE FUCKIN' LOTION IN THE BASKET!!!!"

And, again, suit actor Yasuhiko Imai is a terrible match. I never buy that Houji's the guy in suit.

Urara Ozu/Magi Blue

Urara's one of the only Magiranger who seemed to have a head on her shoulders. She was basically running the family. (Don't kid yourself, Makito -- you're the eldest, but you're a dummy.) Sure, it was stereotypical that she was the default "mother" of the team, but...someone had to run that family, man. We know it wasn't Makito, and it sure wasn't going to be Houka! The thing I liked the least about Urara was her nonsensical, forced marriage to Shine. It was a dumb, lazy way to make Shine a member of the family, but it was just creepy and didn't work.

Souta "Double-Oh Negative" Mogami/Bouken Blue

Probably the only tolerable person in the entire series. The actor was likable, the character was a good mix of lighthearted and serious, he seemed like a nice guy who showed some conscience on a team full of selfish psychos. The problem was he was way too young and young looking to buy as some cool, 00-agent. It was downright laughable.

The casting of that show all around was pretty bad. (Masumi wasn't believable as some dangerous, criminal tomb raider; Sakura wasn't believable as an elite soldier.) That same year, I'd look over at the Kabuto cast and see members of that show who I thought would have been better on Boukenger. Like, I think Tomohisa Yuge would have been a more appropriate Souta, Anna Nagata a better Sakura, and Hidenori Tokuyama a better Masumi. Also: Hirotaro Honda would have been a way better Gaja than Hiroo Otaka.

Gah, Boukenger's so bad it's infuriating.

Retsu "Peeing Retsu!" Fukami/Geki Blue

People knock Retsu for not having much personality, and it's kind of hard to build a case for him. He's not offensive or anything, he's just sort of there. But you get more of an idea about Retsu once they bring his brother, Gou, into the show. He was a weak kid who was always in his brother's shadow, who had to pull himself up and prove himself once his brother vanished. And I always liked that he was pretty much the only one who actually trained to get the Kageki power-up. I mean...Ran learns to skateboard, and that was enough to get her the power-up? What the heck was up with that? And Jan had to only, like, play Pogs with Gori. WTF, man.

One of the most memorable things about Retsu is the absolute nonsense they give him to say in English. "I made it!" "Take a pop!"

Ren "Wikipedia" Kousaka/Go-on Blue

Ren's one of the few Go-onger who didn't get on my nerves. He's not, like, a great character or anything, but he's likable, he tries to have some smarts about him (even if being the smartest Go-onger is like being the smartest of the Three Stooges). It's funny that he's the "mother" of the team, and he doesn't really care about that, he owns it. The actor's a bit of an oddball, though. Stiff and aloof, kind of kid actor-y. It almost seems like he's looking off to cue cards sometimes.

Ryuunosuke "Crybaby Piss Kid" Ikenami/Shinken Blue

I initially disliked Ryuunosuke when Shinkenger was first airing. Actor Hiroki Aiba's earlier performance is just terrible. He's loud, he's overkill. But he tones it down as the show goes on. I think there's times when a performer might suck early on, then it seems like they might see themselves on TV and be like "Jesus! What am I doing? Why hasn't anybody stopped me? I gotta shape up!" and then they'll improve. What also helps Aiba? Shinken Gold being such a bad actor that everyone else around him instantly looked like subtle and seasoned pros.

But I like Ryuunosuke as a character. He can be a dummy, he can be a bit of a worrywart, but he's skilled, he's courageous, and can always be counted on in a fight.

Hyde/Gosei Blue

Goseiger being a Michiko Yokote show worked like Gekiranger: the majority of the writing effort went into Red and the main villain. So, Alata and Bladerun got a lot of screen-time, but the others were left adrift. Gekiranger had actors who could make the most out of the scraps they'd be given, but the majority of the Goseiger cast seemed like deer in headlights. (We know it was a troubled production, with producer changes and a chief director who was in declining health.)

Hyde was meant to be the real leader of the team, the stern, stone-faced, serious guy. The thing with Goseiger is, whoever cast the show was like Naomi Takebe -- not casting who was right for the role, but who had IDOL FACTOR. Actor Kento Ono didn't quite cut it as that serious leader, so his personality shuffled around a bunch until he was just basically like the Hank McCoy of the team. He had advice, he was a source of guidance, he would have been a logical leader, but you just know he was really, like, 12th on the roster, because he's a little boring. Personally, I liked goofy Hyde from the episode when Alata was trying to get him to laugh, and he ended up pulling jokes with Gosei Knight.

Joe "Joseph" Gibken, ESQ/Gokai Blue

I've always liked the idea of a Sentai hero being a villain who defected. Imagine if, say, Obular became one of the Liveman. There have been villains who turned into allies for our heroes and there have been villainous Rangers who became good, in the Dragon Ranger mold, but not really a full-on member of the villain organization who turned against the organization and became a transforming hero. It's a cool idea, and Gokaiger producer Takaaki Utsunomiya must think so, too, since he also used it for ToQ 6 in ToQger.

I liked Joe, but thought they could have done a little more with him. Barizorg, honestly, isn't the most interesting character to wrap your regular hero's entire story arc around. (Barizorg's design is terrible -- he looks like he's pulled a giant condom over his head, Howie Mandel-style, and the actor is a stiff, lifeless bore, and he has terrible line reading.) Actor Yuki Yamada didn't get a whole lot of different stuff to do -- a lot of people accuse him of being stiff -- but I thought it worked to the character's advantage. He's an outlaw, facing the people he betrayed, his friend getting maimed to ensure his escape. He's not going to be a chipper guy.

One thing I don't like about Joe? Suit actor Yoshifumi Oshikawa's weird-ass decision to play him as some dandy fencer. I think Joe should have come across in-suit as some really rough, bad-ass Navy SEAL type. Imagine the way Jiro Okamoto played Kamen Rider G4 -- something like that.

Mitsuki Aoyagi/Akiba Blue

I liked how she represented the segment of fans who think they're too cool for whatever shit they're into, but they're secretly just as guilty and dorky as the rest of those who they think they're so above. That was a funny track for writer Naruhisa Arakawa to take.

But I really liked that she was into the action of the shows and how she really got into things after meeting The Legend Kazuo Niibori.

Luna "M-O-O-N, that spells Luna" Iwashimizu/Akiba Blue

I can't stand her. Annoying actress, annoying character, annoying mangled hand gesture that was supposed to be cute or whatever, plus her always saying her name like she was a lobotomized Pokemon. Ugh.

While it helps to have the third character not be as fanatical or deeply devoted as Nobuo and Yumeria -- you need that character, a straight man to play off the comedic ones -- Mitsuki, the secret fan, was the better version. Some people think Luna was a stab at the idols who use tokusatsu as a stepping stone, but I kind of don't think that even Akibaranger had THAT level of self-awareness. She was just a dumb, stupid character. Thanks a lot, Kyoko Hinami, for choosing a pointless gravure idol career and leaving the show, so we had to put up with Luna! *stupid mangled claw gesture*

Ryuuji "Frankenstein" Iwasaki/Blue Buster

At first, I liked the idea of having an older actor cast in a Sentai again. But, man, Ryouma Baba? He spends a good portion of the earlier part of the show seeming about as lively and natural as a member of the walking dead. Complete zombie. He's the only one of the main three who seems to get a hang of things as the show goes on, though...

His character kind of bored me, though. He's like Geordi La Forge or something. The tech guy who just really gets on your nerves and bores you. I liked his weakness, though, the overheating to the point of Berserker Raging, and I thought it was cool when he let himself reach that stage in order to fight Escape.

Go-busters is a mess. There's some good ideas lurking around there, but you really have to sift through a lot of junk to get to them. It should have been interesting that Ryuuji was the oldest and kind of son-like to Kuroki and was basically responsible for raising Youko (and Hiromu, to a point), but nobody feels like they're connected in that show. They don't feel like they have a shared history or closeness.

Nobuharu Udou/Kyoryu Blue

Hate him. His stupid look, his bad jokes. He's not funny in the slighest. Hate him.

Tokkachi/ToQ 2

Hate him. His awful acting, his pushing up the glasses with his thumb. Hate him. I think he might be the worst Blue.

Yakumo Cloud Kutou/Ao Ninger

His actor is one awkward weirdo, but Yakumo is the only tolerable one in the show for me. The others star in fan-fics I write that all inevitably end with Sonny Chiba coming along and cutting them down in cold blood. That whole magic school thing is beyond stupid, though. But, sadly, the rest of the show is so stupid that it's somehow NOT the stupidest thing in the show. That's not an EEZEE thing to accomplish.

So, which Blue would I want on my Ultimate Sentai Team? I'd like to cheat and just say Megumi/Blue Dolphin, but I'll try not to. So, I guess...Yukito/Abare Blue. He's smart, handy, good in a fight, he's the cold splash of reality check you might need. Plus he had no problem pouring his billions into the bases and equipment for the Abaranger team, and that could help. You'd also have an always on-call chiropractor.

Thoughts on Zyuohger

I'd like to be excited about Zyuohger. I like that Junko Komura's getting a shot at being main writer, but I remember being interested in the news that Riku Sanjou was doing a Sentai and he ended up crapping out Kyoryuger, a show I can't stand. And even though I think I've probably enjoyed more of Komura's standalone episodes in Gokaiger and Akiba S1 than anything Sanjou has done...I feel like Toei's gotten to a point where they've taken on the thinking of every lazy, obnoxious bastard on the internet who thinks they're cool and likes to dismiss all this stuff as "kids' toy commercial, luzl." There's too many corporate fingers in Toei's toku pies nowadays that I don't think it even matters anymore who's writing it or producing or directing it -- everyone's kept on such a tight leash by the unimaginative bean counting jackasses that it's made all of their shit start to look the same.

I can't be excited about Utsunomiya returning as producer. Sure, I liked Shinken and Gokai, but he killed and killed again all that goodwill with Wizard and the terrible, terrible ToQger. And while I'm not expecting Zyuohger to be a cameo-fest and huge anniversary show like Gokaiger, it's kind of sad that it seems like they might not be doing anything to acknowledge the anniversary (40 is more notable than 35, IMO), the way Kamen Rider's pretty much dropped ever doing anything special for an anniversary. Ideally, they'd do something like Ninninger -- have past animal Sentai heroes show up for team-ups now and then, but, you know, do it in a GOOD way. (And that better include the mythological beast shows, so there can be some Changeman and Dairanger appearances!)

The suits are generic, and remind me a little too much of ToQger's. (Since green's one of my favorite colors, I have to mention how much I hate the really light green that ToQ and Zyuoh use. It just looks bad to me.) The mecha's stupid, but at least I don't care about mecha. Even though writer Komura says Liveman is her favorite Sentai, I'm not holding out hope on cool villains like Volt -- toku's given up on having cool villains. (ToQ's Zet came closest to being the best toku villain in a long while, but the show had no idea what to do with him.)

The best piece of news so far is that Susumu Terajima is playing the mentor. I've always liked that guy and have been waiting for him to pop up in a toku finally.

Yeah, thanks Ninninger. I went from starting the year trying to keep an open mind about the new show, since the past few years of Sentai have sucked so bad, to not even being excited about the 40th anniversary series. Damn, is Ninninger awful...

This isn't the post you're looking for.

I've seen far too many posts and videos lately trashing the original Star Wars movies. (The latest example: http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-curmudgeons-guide-to-star-wars.html) Now, my love for Star Wars has severely diminished over the years. But even so...I feel the need to address some of the complaints filed against it.

1) It's not a kids' movie. No matter how toyetic it became, no matter what revisionist history Lucas is spinning way after the fact -- he didn't intend for it to be a kids' movie. Kids love it, for sure, but that's obviously not what he was setting out to make. In fact, people who were adults in '77 say they remember it being considered a film for adults.

2) I don't understand where all of the "bad dialogue" stuff comes from. You know what has bad dialogue? The Matrix. Star Wars isn't like the most poetic stuff you'll ever hear, it's just rather flat to me, not BAD, not eye-rolling. They're not referencing tired, lame pop-culture that they should have no idea about, like Life cereal and Wizard of Oz.

"I have a bad feeling about this" isn't popular because it's a great line, it's popular for the way someone like Harrison Ford delivers it, at the NO-DUH, CHARACTERS parts of the movie where they'll say it. As in, "J.J. Abrams is creatively bankrupt. I don't know about this The Force Awakens...I have a bad feeling about this." Star Wars is one of the most quoted movies of all time, with numerous classic lines. What other movie with "poor dialogue" has accomplished this -- Suburban Commando?

Plus, that line only became quotable after fans noticed it was said in all three movies. It's quotable because of the repetition, not the wording.

I really blame Harrison Ford for this idea that Star Wars had "bad" dialogue. You know what he was complaining about? The technobabble and the mystical stuff. But people took him out of context and ran with it, wanting to sound cool.

3) I think how much you love Star Wars has to do with at what point in your life you encountered it -- if you've been exposed to harder sci-fi, you're probably not going to care for it. I know a lot of hard-core sci-fi fans dislike anything approaching science-fantasy, I know of some people who take pride in that they got into sci-fi with things like 2001 or Alien or Blade Runner. Star Wars isn't that, obviously. But I think there's something to be said for just what a phenomenon it was. It wasn't the studio buying people off, it wasn't anybody playing follow-the-leader -- Star Wars kicked open the door for blockbuster entertainment. It CHANGED things. And it was all a mixture of elements coming together at the right time like the advancement of movie technology and video games and people at that point looking to the future. Nobody saw Star Wars coming in 1977...it was a genuine juggernaut that struck a chord. There's nothing nowadays to compare it to, because Disney's already paid off all the critics and bought out all the theaters for the new one.

I'm a Trekkie now, but I can see why Star Wars appealed to so many people back in the day in a way that Trek never could, because Star Wars has that WOW factor, the spectacle, along with the hero journey and pseudo philosophy. (Hey, people like to knock it for being cliched, but...cliches become cliches for a reason, and that's because they work.) Keep this in mind -- Star Trek's answer to Star Wars was Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Has anybody made it through that movie?

There's also just a craft to the old Star Wars that is really underappreciated. I totally think Lucas lucked out in making the movie with a British crew, and that's where a lot of the attention to detail came from, but look at it in terms of scope, the creatures they brought to life, the planets depicted. It was a far cry from 2001's "They've gone to plaid!" or Star Trek's soundstage-with-the-pink-paper-sky and funky-forehead-aliens. I mean, I love Star Trek -- I love The Original Series -- but what we think of as these heady, cerebral scripts were really in fact just talky shows for the sake of masking they had no money or ability to do what they wanted to do!

We were only TOLD of worlds and their people and their wars, rarely ever shown. And who's worse -- Lucas for his hodgepodge, watered-down Eastern philosophy or Roddenberry using his show as a soapbox for morals and messages and ideals he didn't even hold himself to? ("MONEY IS BAD...but I'd like to sell you this IDIC pin and some books.")

What movie before Star Wars tried to do what it did, at such a scale, with such craft, utilizing so many styles of effects and costuming and puppetry and with the big Japanese influence? It made movies big. It made movies FUN. There's pre-Star Wars and there's post Star Wars. What was the most exciting live-action superhero/sci-fi/adventure/fantasy movie before it -- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? If Star Wars was so "bad," so "overrated," would it be one of the best examples of a movie completely accomplishing what every good movie is SUPPOSED to -- capturing imaginations and transporting audiences to another world? (In Star Wars' case, several worlds, worlds that audience members want to live in.)

Star Wars had such a Tunguska-like impact that it influenced ITS OWN INFLUENCE (Japanese culture, specifically the tokusatsu genre) for decades.

And the acting, why do people trash the acting? You have a British heavyweight like Alec Guiness, you have an old pro like Peter Cushing, the well-loved Ford, you have Hollywood royalty as the Princess...consider what a good job Carrie Fisher does now that we know she was stoned out of her gourd! I get why people think Mark Hamill is whiny, but he's really just overselling the bored, resentful youth side of Luke in the first one -- I don't think it's a BAD performance.

You know what I like more than Star Wars? V: The Original Miniseries. To me THAT is an entertaining, emotionally satisfying piece of sci-fi, and Star Wars done right. It would not exist without Star Wars. Sit and think of what Hollywood and the entertainment industry would look like without Star Wars.

The Sword of Time

I've mentioned previously that, while my family was in Japan in the late '80s, I didn't really get back into tokusatsu until the late '90s -- my high-school offered Japanese classes (which still shocks me), which led me to do an internet search for all of those awesome shows I had watched when I was a kid, as well as a rummaging through boxes packed away that still contained some VHS tapes of toku shows and different toku books I had.

The internet's crazy in the way I was able to find out not only about the shows I watched, but the shows that came before and the many shows after. The internet can be a sewer, but it can also be responsible for some good, cool things, some crazy things. I don't think a lot of youngsters today really think about it. This might be a lame example, but...when I was a kid and the latest Hollywood blockbuster had its toys lining a toy store, you had about a couple years, tops, if you wanted to buy them. They were available when the movie was in theaters, then they moved to the bargain bin, and then they were gone. With the internet, you can look up pretty much any toy, no matter how old, and find a site that's selling it. That's insane to me!

Anyway, when I was first getting back into tokusatsu, Megaranger was winding down. My first priority was to research the shows I had grown up with -- I liked looking up about the actors and what they did after the show. This is late '97, so all of my favorite toku shows -- Changeman, Flashman, Maskman, Liveman, Spielban -- were barely hitting the ten year mark. They were still NEW...ish. I have this weird kind of mentality that, from being out of the loop for so long, that the shows that came after Liveman are still "new" -- they feel new to me by not having been in Japan to see them. So, something like Jetman was only about six years old, but it still seemed a lot like the shows I had grown up with. I thought the "newer" shows -- the Sugimura Sentais -- were weird as hell, and while I later got into his Dairanger and Kakuranger, that initial weird feeling I had still kind of colors my view of them.

But, still, I marveled at getting to find out about the shows I missed -- old and new -- while always hoping to see people from my favorite shows pop up in a new one. I ALWAYS held out for someone from Changeman returning in a new show or Yutaka Hirose playing a villain in a new show. Year after year would go by, and it seemed like the new shows lost interest in having guest stars (which meant cameos) or human villains (which meant awesome guys like Yutaka Hirose).

Get to the point? OK. That was the late '90s, when there was still a good chance of my favorite actors appearing again. Most of them were all still working in showbiz. Now? All of my favorite shows are pushing the 30 mark and A LOT of the people I like have retired, so...realizing that was a bit depressing. I didn't mind my favorite actors not being in a new show in the early '00s, because you had Toei Channel or awesome magazines like Toei Hero Max or the DVD booklets which would round up old, retired cast members for interviews. You got to see what they look like now and find out what they're up to. But, NewType never really dug that far back and Toei Hero Max has been in the crapper for a while -- gone are the days where they try to assemble full-team reunions, now they're stuck just doing a bunch of Ishinomori retrospectives and plugging the new shit. And since every Sentai has made its way to DVD, there's obviously no more chances for DVD reunions/interviews. (The only chance, and it's slim, is if they start doing older Sentai shows on Blu-ray.) Every toku has been rerun multiple times on Toei Channel, so they don't really do special interviews there anymore, either. There are fan events, but they tend to focus on the same group of people. (Mostly '90s people -- the Dairanger guys are the George Takeis of tokusatsu, they'll attend any and every event.)

When you think about how long tokusatsu's been around, you'll realize that there's been a ton of actors involved. Between how many actors there are, how poorly Toei kept track of things in the old days, and how many actors used stage names, I feel like there's a lot of actors that people probably lost contact with, so you might not even know if they're all right. (I doubt anybody would know about Bioman's Yuko Asuka passing away if it wasn't for JAC actor Takanori Shibata happening to post about his visit to her husband, Seiki "Juspion" Kurosaki, since they both just lived a quiet life away from showbiz.)

Basically, it just depresses me to think that the shows I love, the shows that mean most to me, are now...getting up there in age. A lot of the hope I had for actors returning or characters returning or even the franchise returning to its roots are slipping further away. Gokaiger handled '70s and '80s poorly, but Sentai's 40th anniversary will be even worse. Auction sites used to have several pages of items for these shows, now they'll hover at around two pages. It's really strange for me to watch the first Kamen Rider series, which I always thought myself seemed "old looking," a world apart from the '80s shows I grew up with, but recognize a ton of locations those '80s shows used, making MY shows closer to the "old" '70s than the more modern works that I see them as.

Also, it's kind of frustrating to see Japan finally catching onto the Nostalgia Wave -- which the internet created -- and dipping their toe into doing full-on reunion specials like the Hurricaneger 10 Years After thing. Where was this for good shows that deserved those updates?!?! The only special Hurricaneger could have that would be worthy of them is Hurricaneger: Six Feet Under.

This doesn't even just apply to toku. Mostly all of my favorite movies are from the 1980s. I think it's obvious how influential that decade was for movies; most '80s movies were creative, original, pushed the boundaries of imagination, filming techniques, ratings. I'm part of the VHS generation, and VHS made those movies live longer lives than most movies do and Hollywood is still fracking the decade for its productions. I don't know what it is, but it just hit me one day that something like Karate Kid or The Goonies or Back to the Future is 30 and over. (Back to the Future is as old as 1955 was when the movie was out...!) It's just weird to me that those movies, MY movies, that are eternally young to me, look as strange to a youngster today as, you know, some weirdo Technicolor musical from the '60s looked to me when I was young. That movies with "big" messages like The Breakfast Club are irrelevant to today's audiences. (I still think it's kind of sad when the cast members for that movie are hauled out for awards shows and reunions like museum pieces. You can almost hear the "Who cares?" in the minds of youngsters.) Like, it's heartbreaking to see MY Batman movie, the 1989 movie -- you know, the one that people at the time whined was too dark, the one that made Batman cool again, the one that took Batman to his roots to erase the memories of Adam West's campy show -- be called "campy" itself.

A lot of this got hammered home to me throughout the year of running the Changeman 30th anniversary stuff. Like...just how old the show seems, how most of that cast is retired and/or not active on social media. I imagine, if one were to do something for, like, Dairanger or Ohranger, it would be easier to pester people and get stuff out of them since most of those cast members are shameless attention whores and/or have an online presence.

In a nutshell: time is weird and can be mean and Shougo feels old.