Takaaki Utsunomiya, Producer of Samurai, Pirates and Wizards

I remember how rough Go-onger was to get through when it aired, and seeing the first promos of Shinkenger. It...why, it looked interesting! It didn't look full of goofballery! And it was a samurai Sentai, do you know how long people have wanted a samurai Sentai!?!

Well, Shinkenger didn't end up being the samurai Sentai I always imagined -- it needed to go more hogwild with its premise -- but I enjoyed the show when it started. And then it happened -- the infamous lull from the early teens. Just a bunch of nothing episodes, and then...the godawful Genta joined the show. He was obnoxious and his intro episodes were brutal, but to cut a long story short, the show kept starting and stalling until about the early 30s, and I thought it was mostly solid from then to the finale. Shinkenger was frustrating to watch as it aired, but once it ended, and I could look over the series, I appreciated it more knowing what parts were stronger than others and that it made a nicer show when you whittled it down to the essentials.

It wasn't the samurai Sentai I wanted, and it wasn't consistently strong, but I felt like it was closer in tone to where Sentai should be than a lot of the newer shows have been. And I credited that to chief producer Takaaki Utsunomiya -- Shinkenger was the first series he was main producer of. I think it's a mistake how Toei likes to rotate producers each year, so Utsunomiya didn't work on Goseiger. And, honestly, even though I've softened on Goseiger, when that show was on the air, it made me appreciate Shinkenger all the more. I felt like Shinkenger was making progress, and Goseiger was a big step back.

So, I was excited to see that Utsunomiya was returning with Gokaiger. And, again, I feel like it was a step-up in what Sentai's been doing in the last several years. Gokaiger wasn't perfect, but I thought it was a fun show, and the first anniversary show to really felt like it was a big party honoring the anniversary. I thought Gokaiger was exciting, and I couldn't wait to check out the latest news and rumors when it was on the air -- what would they do next? Who would be the next guest? And, again, I credit Utsunomiya with a lot of Gokaiger's strengths. Hey, even though Jun Hikasa (producer of Gaoranger and Boukenger) always claimed that he wanted to do a show and/or movie that brought back a ton of older Sentai heroes, why didn't he? It's the producer's call, and he never bothered. Under Utsunomiya, Gokaiger managed to get at least one person from 35 years worth of shows. Even if some got shortchanged, that's still pretty impressive -- Toei could have easily told anyone who wanted to come back "Thanks, but no thanks." The Heisei Rider producers have no problem ignoring their Rider actors. (Remember poor Ryou Hayami, Kamen Rider X himself, begging on his blog to be in All Riders? Sorry, Ryou, but Momotaros was more important...)

Keep in mind how critical I've been of the Sentai shows of the last decade, and here's two shows I like. They're not perfect, but I definitely felt like Utsunomiya had the potential to grow into a great, great producer, and would eventually make AWESOME shows. But...Toei and their foolish rotating producers around. Before he had a chance to grow, Toei moved Utsunomiya to Rider -- he's the main producer of Wizard. I don't think Wizard shows the potential that I felt Shinkenger and Gokaiger did -- it's an empty show. I never thought I'd watch more than that irritating first episode, but I decided to try it again BECAUSE of Utsunomiya. It surprisingly became a little more watchable after that first episode, but it's just really pedestrian. Not as offensive as OOO or Fourze, but quite dull, and doesn't have much of a personality.

It's like...Wizard has some good ideas, and I think Utsunomiya wants it to be the type of Rider from the Kuuga through Faiz run, but...sorry, Utsunomiya, it's a post-Den-O Rider World. The only thing Den-O Rider Kicked was the Rider franchise itself, because it hasn't been the same since. Did you ever think Rider would get so cartoonish? (That's another rant for another post.) Den-O's stink is all over Wizard. It's bright, it's noisy. The priority isn't the heroism or the drama, but the colors and "funny" and the gimmicks. There are some interesting, dark and screwy concepts in Wizard, but everything is treated nonchalantly. (Which reminds me of Hibiki. Except this time, scriptwriter Kida is more of a pushover for Bandai, I guess out of fear of being fired again.) The show is yet another sitcom that has vaguely Kamen Rider stuff shoehorned into it, and it just doesn't work for me. The recurring characters are treated like the guests, and the guests -- who mostly have uninvolving storylines -- eat up all of the screentime.

It's obvious that Kamen Rider is Toei's "star" tokusatsu series, so when a Sentai staff member moves over to it, it's most likely a big deal for them. Wizard isn't doing that well in ratings or sales, so how's that going to affect Utsunomiya? Look at what happened to Jun Hikasa. (Or, my theory of what happened to him, anyway.) Hikasa moved over to Sentai after Metal Heroes died; his first show was GoGoFive, and he was enthusiastic, he wanted to do good work. He built up a lot of goodwill with longtime fans by making shows that appealed to them, too, and breaking rules like having a Pink leader in Timeranger. Hikasa was chief producer for GoGoFive through Abaranger, and while he had a couple of clunkers there (*ahem*Hurricanger*ahem*), I'd say he did well...

And then Hikasa was given Kamen Rider in 2004. Ho-ho, the big leagues! And what's he do? Blade. Blade, a sloppy show which doesn't have the greatest reputation, and which is pretty much still, to this day, mocked by the Japanese fans. So, my theory is that that really knocked a lot of steam and enthusiasm from Hikasa. He returned, tale between his legs, to Sentai in '06, and gave us the abysmal Boukenger. Boukenger, which just pisses on Sentai and barely acknowledges the anniversary. And after that, he gives us Go-onger. He realizes he's just phoning it in, and writes on Toei's website that he's retiring (as a Sentai producer) at the end of Go-onger. But he doesn't! He comes back for Goseiger! And we all know how that went down, don't we? (Most fans hate it; Hikasa quit the show halfway through.) And while Hikasa's made a bit of a comeback with Akibaranger, it's still hard to wrap your head around the fact that the guy behind GoGoFive, Timeranger, Gaoranger, and Abaranger made the freakin' atrocities known as Boukenger and Goon-ger.

So, my point? That I'm afraid that Wizard's going to do the same to Utsunomiya. Only, this time, Utsunomiya's talents will be snuffed out before he's completely reached his potential.

Have You Ever Felt Your Super Sentai Spirit?

It's obviously obvious, but Super Sentai is my favorite tokusatsu franchise. Even as a kid, I liked Changeman, Flashman, Liveman and so on more than Spielban or Metalder or Black. (I did really like Spielban, though, I feel I should say that.) I feel like Sentai offers so much, it's really flexible with its theme and can be anything. Changeman and Flashman share some similarities, but feel really different to me. Maskman was nothing like Flashman. Carranger is nothing like Turboranger, and Gingaman is nothing like Megaranger. Sentai's always reinventing itself, but tries to stick to what makes it Sentai.

(Before I continue, I know I have a reputation for trashing the new shows, but...Sentai, like any long running show, movie series or band, is going to release a clunker or disappointment. So, while there's something like Boukenger, which I just really do not like and am hard pressed to try to find something to like about it, there's also something like Gekiranger or Shinkenger, which I ranted about, but because the potential was there for it to be so much more than it was. I still liked Gekiranger and came to like Shinkenger more, so...)

However, despite its accomplishments, its longevity, the contributions its made to the genre as a whole, the talent it's launched, the genre fixtures it's responsible for -- I've been in plenty of nerd wars defending Super Sentai and feel like it doesn't get the respect it should. "Kamen Rider's more mature!" "Ultraman is artistically pure!" "Metal Heroes had more depth if you could stay awake while watching 'em!" There was a dark period there in the early '00s, when Sentai was being animefied and Kamen Rider was taking itself too seriously, that was brutal for Sentai fans, but Kamen Rider's gradually become animefied with the popularity and success of Den-O... "Animefying" is a style that's become trendy for the shows in Japan, something that Sentai -- for better or worse -- adopted first with shows like Gaoranger. Ahead of the trend?

What irks me is when people disregard older shows for being "episodic," when you can look at any show from a similar period -- even American shows -- and realize that, hey, it was just the way TV was made then. That didn't mean there wasn't anything of value there, that there weren't payoffs or revisited storylines. Viewers just had to have patience, because they were trying to also be accommodating to new viewers. Super Sentai gets trashed for being "formulaic," when...everything has a formula. Here's something I recently read actor Hugh Laurie say in Entertainment Weekly (issue #1207, 5/18/12), in regards to his series House:

"Of course, critics and Internet wags liked to say that the show, in its middle years, became formulaic. They had fun reducing an episode to its basic elements: Patient gets sick, team tries variety of madcap diagnoses eventually settling on the most improbable, hey presto, patient cured.
Well, yes, one can apply that technique to pretty much any human endeavor: All blues songs are the same, all operas are the same, all games of basketball are definitely the same (to an English eye anyway); in fact everything is the same, including critics, if you don't pay attention to their differences."

My idea of a truly formulaic, made-just-for-the-toys series is Masters of the Universe. Low on plot, there's no overall story advancement or character development in that series, and the show is plagued with dozens of characters created just to sell new toys. I think there's only a small amount of toku that's comparable to Masters of the Universe.

Also, filler? A term I think is always misused. Filler is when there's an episode that doesn't advance overall plot or character -- if nothing is added to an ongoing story, a storyline or dynamic isn't developed, or if you don't learn anything new about a character or show, then *that* sounds like a case of The Fillers.

And the two phrases I find most aggravating: dismissing it as either a junk "kids show" or "a giant toy commerical." First off, Toei recognized early on that these shows were appealing to not only kids, but other members of their family, so they started to be written to appeal to a wide-range, and the Japanese take more pride in crafting these shows than any "kids show." Secondly...every single television show and movie is a commercial. It's not uncommon for executives to refer to shows and movies as a "product." Do you think AMC puts Mad Men or HBO puts Game of Thrones on out of the goodness of their hearts? No, they want to make money. It's a product. They like to often remind you that it's show *business*. What makes the show good is getting writers, producers, directors, actors who care about what they make, which -- although it is something that's become increasingly hard with the bean-counting executives and sponsors interfering more and more -- is something Super Sentai (and, yes, plenty of the shows in the other toku franchises) has accomplished time and again.

I've often been accused of taking these shows too seriously. And, yeah, I guess I do. But I grew up with Super Sentai, I know what it can be like when it's at the top of its game, I know how creative its content can be as well as the creators can be in terms of filmmaking -- I've learned things about storytelling and filmmaking and acting (especially from great veteran actors and gifted suit-actors) from these shows. Super Sentai and toku have also spoiled me in terms of how I feel about American superheroes. Sure, I like Superman and the X-Men, and I love Batman, but...with tokusatsu, you have imaginative shows, stories with a promised resolution. You know the story will be wrapped up, and that most of the time it won't become a twisted, messy soap-opera like the long-running American comic heroes can get, especially when greed led the companies to spin one ho-hum storyline over the span of five different books. Also: villains. When you grow up with people like Guiluke, Buuba, Neferu, Kaura, Kiros, Dr. Kempu -- slaphead businessman Lex Luthor and guys like Doc Ock don't cut it. (In my opinion, Batman is the only one that has memorable and interesting villains. And maybe X-Men.) The Avengers is supposed to impress me when I just saw over 150 Sentai heroes team up for a big war of their own?!

So, I guess what I'm saying is...

SUPER SENTAI HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!

Green Warriors

Kenji Asuka/Mido Ranger

Poor guy's majorly overshadowed by the rest of the hero cast. When you've got two cool talents like Naoya Makoto and Risa Komaki and two big personalities like Hiroshi Miyauchi and Baku Hatakeyama, and you're playing the kid of the team, you've gotta make a big effort to let us know you're there. Kenji does not. (At least not that I remember.) I can't even remember much about him, other than having a bit of a complex about his young age, but that's something that many later Sentai put to better use.

Weird thing is, actor Yukio Itou goes on to play Kensaku, the first Battle Cossack, and I like him in that show -- he's more mature, confident, a bigger presence. Hard to believe he improved so much in just a few years. (I'm not bothering doing a post on Oranges, so that's my brief coverage of the first Battle Cossack!)

Bunta Daichi/Clover King

Has the distinction of starring in the first terrible, horrible-glimpse-of-goofy-things-to-come episode of JAKQ in which he investigates a fashion designer's murder (by a mannequin) by infiltrating a fashion show in drag. When caught, he's put in a loincloth and made to fight the robot of the week. Goofy, goofy episode...

At the other end, he's the focus of a pretty screwed up early episode, in which he befriends a girl who reminds him of his dead kid sister, and this girl goes on to be killed when Crime blows up the plane she's on. Early JAKQ, man. You youngsters who think Gaim is so great have no idea what toku that's actually dark and serious looks like, because you ain't willing to watch anything prior to 2006.

Overall, I like Bunta. He doesn't get a whole hell of a lot to do to make an impression, and the revamp of the show forces him into the peg of "the funny kid" character, but I still like him. I'd love JAKQ's cast if not for Yoshitaka Roboto as Goro. Damn, they needed someone better as Ace.

Tatsuya Midorikawa/Denji Green

Tatsuya's one of my favorite characters of the first few Sentai shows. He's the depressed, brooding guy, the quiet cool type. He uses the abilities he honed as a cop to benefit the team in their pursuit of Vader attackers. Actor Naoya Uchida is just awesome and does a great job. (He also contributes a couple of cool, mellow songs to the soundtrack.)

I also like that they bring in the Chieko character, a comedic character who knew him from work and brings out a different side to him so he's not ALWAYS such a downer.

Shingo Takasugi/Green Two (aka Gudeen Zuuuu)

I don't mind Shingo, but actor Takahiko Ohta isn't the greatest and he makes such strange choices that he makes Takasugi seem like a big weirdo, and not the capable second in command he's supposed to be. (They should have basically swapped Green and Blue's actors, IMO.)

Dai/Green Flash

As I've said plenty of times, Flashman kind of Xeroxes Changeman's heroes, but brightens them up. Dai's pretty close to Hayate -- the cool guy, the stand-up second in command, the fighter, the guy with the eye for the ladies -- but the main difference is that Dai seems kind of more innocent and sweeter, for lack of a better word. I attribute that to the Flashman heroes being kind of stunted, and because actor Kihachiro Uemura has a more easygoing nature.

In Yutaka Izubuchi's sketches for the Flashman's wardrobe, Dai's depicted as being a scowling Condor Joe looking type. It's easy to imagine Dai possibly being that kind of character, but the casting of Uemura changed that. That's not a negative, because the Flashman side of the show didn't need the angst, and Dai is good the way he turned out. Uemura's an action guy, so he makes Dai a convincing ass-kicker, but he's also just naturally likable, and a hero who you can have complete confidence in.

Fun story -- a few years ago, Kihachiro Uemura saved a guy who collapsed in Akihabara. As Akibaranger was still freshly aired at the time, and because Akagi's actor, Masato Wada, had been doing a lot of live events with people like Uemura, he saw the news item and dubbed Uemura "Akiba Green."

Jun'ichi Aikawa/Green Sai

C'mon. You know I like this guy as much as I do Black Bison. Jun'ichi himself...the kid of the team, so he just whines a lot. There's many reasons why Bison and Sai don't end up working in the show -- their bad actors just one of the reasons.

Daigo/Shishi Ranger

Ah, Daigo. Where to start with this guy. I ordinarily like the cranky, brooding characters, but Daigo never worked well for me. I don't hate him, and he doesn't break the show for me or anything, but he's just really unconvincing, and I think it's probably because actor Tatsuya Noumi seems like he's a jokester in real life, and probably better suited for a more comedic role. I think they basically cast him for his looks -- he looks like he should be a serious and tough dude, but he couldn't act like it.

Daigo's probably given the best of the recurring storylines with Kujaku, though. Yeah, I'd rank that over Ryou's storyline with Jin. While I think the Jin episodes are some of Dairanger's best...they make up a small amount of the series. Daigo and Kujaku are given more episodes and, more importantly, Kujaku has ties to the Gorma and the past conflict and so on.

Shouhei Yokkaichi/Oh Green

More than any other character, poor Shouhei's caught in the middle of Ohranger's tug-o-war identity crisis. He starts out as being the team elder, a strong brawler, but quickly becomes the goofball of the team. It's pretty much all up to actor Kunio Masaoka to make it work, and he does his best. He's good when he's serious -- and it's a shame he wasn't given more serious stuff to do -- but he also pulls of the comedy, with a style that harkens back to some traditional Japanese comedy.

And why wasn't he given the boxer mecha? Still a mystery.

Minoru Uesugi/Green Racer

The dude's insane, but you gotta love him. Major credit goes to actor Yoshihiro Fukuda, who brings so much comic frenzy and quirkiness to the role. (Thank goodness Carranger was so nutty and was able to cast someone like Fukuda, who probably ordinarily wouldn't get cast in a hero role.) Being from Osaka himself, I think he probably brought Minoru's comedically tinged Osaka origins to the role on his own, as well as influencing the writing. (Fukuda worships the Hanshin Tigers? Well, then, so does Minoru.)

The way Ohranger's Kunio Masaoka harkens back to an old style of Japanese comedy, Fukuda is really reminiscent to me of a very particular type of Japanese stand-up comedian. (I was surprised to find out Fukuda WASN'T a stand-up.)

Minoru's my favorite Carranger member, and is part of many of my favorite bits in the show. (A couple of which include: losing the Accel Changer while practicing victory poses, accidentally shipping the bazooka to an elderly woman who mistakes it for a toy she gives her grandson (where he and Signalman perform a comedy set to distract the kid from blowing the place up!) Good ol' Minoru.

Hayate/Ginga Green

Hayate's meant to be as cool of a breeze as the Earth power he possesses. Hayate's a good second in command...actually, he always seemed to me like he should actually be the leader of the team. He's certainly more experienced than Ryouma, but he even seems more qualified than Hyuuga to me. He's the stern guy who wants everything to run smoothly, but he's not stiff or without humor.

I liked his storyline of his love being lost to him, and his rivalry with Shelinda, but I thought both could have been expanded upon.

Shou Tatsumi/Go Green

I've always said Shou's my least favorite of the Tatsumi siblings. Some people think that means I hate Shou -- I don't hate Shou. I like a lot about him as a character, and I certainly like that he's the one Tatsumi sibling who doesn't let Mondo immediately off the hook for the crap he's pulled.

I think a lot of my problem with Shou is actor Atsushi Harada. He's not a bad actor, but he just kind of is always playing the same note. And it certainly doesn't help that he goes on to play the obnoxious, cowardly and useless Mihara in Faiz.

Shion/Time Green

Funny -- for all of my complaining about Timeranger, I never had much of a problem with Shion. The character has such a sad past, and he gets hung up about it, but he never seems as much of a joyless turd as the others can. He and actor Masahiro Kuranuki are just really sympathetic. Shion has a sadness to him in his isolation, while he's also extremely intelligent, but he's not closed off or snobby -- he's warm, he has a sense of wonder about pretty much everything. He's a nice character.

Sen'ichi "Sen-chan" Enari/Deka Green

Sen's a weirdo. I don't know if the actor's a weirdo himself or he's really trying to play up an eccentric genius and taking it too far, but Sen's almost Vul-Panthery in his weirdness. I would have liked Sen to be a little more serious, like he can't believe he's surrounded by such unprofessional idiots, but Dekaranger steered into the skid of comedy, so Sen becomes a quirky guy who's just constantly amused by his surroundings.

But I like Sen. I like a number of his episodes, like the one with the Most Dangerous Game criminals (where he pulls a Columbo "just one more thing" act), the one where he reveals his claustrophobia, the one where he reveals his feelings for Umeko by beating the shit out of that clown from Sailor Moon...

Makito Ozu/Magi Green

When Magiranger was on the air, I couldn't stand Makito and his rubber face mugging. I guess, in a toku world that's been destroyed by Den-O, that something like Yuuki Itou's performance starts to seem more subdued, because when I've tried to rewatch Magiranger lately, he doesn't bother me.

I'm disappointed that he's the eldest brother and such a goofball that nobody takes seriously. I don't know if that was the plan, considering he's the eldest and Red suit actor Hirofumi Fukuzawa was traded over to Green for the year, but that's where they went with the character. Kind of strange that Houka, the eldest daughter, is also such an idiot screw-up, while youngest Kai -- a hot head who doesn't know what he's doing -- is the golden child.

Mele

Ha-ha, joke's on you, sucker. She don't count. Nice try, those of you who try to argue this. "But Jan said she and Rio were like Geki Black and Geki Green!" Yeah, Jan's an idiot, and he was joking. He's probably also the one who started the whole "Gorenger" thing.

Hanto "Dokidoki Dipshit" Jou/Go-on Green

I don't understand the point of this character. The actor's awful -- probably the worst one in the show, and that's saying something. He's about 11 years old, he's pretty girly, but he's supposed to be some kind of chick magnet. He gains about 50 pounds when he transforms. His mecha's the most annoying one in the show, and that's saying something.

Chiaki Tani/Shinken Green

At the start of Shinkenger, I really liked Chiaki. I liked that he refused to brownnose Tono, he questioned everything, he was lackadaisical. He was the modern guy in a stuffy, outdated surrounding. And when Chiaki's dad showed up, he was pretty much the same, so the Tanis did things their way, which mixed things up. You get the sense they were ordinary folks when Takeru was pampered and someone like Ryunosuke seemed to have a privileged life...

When Chiaki mentioned early on that he wanted to surpass Takeru, I got bad flashbacks to Masumi/Bouken Black. The show never really remembered this motivation of Chiaki's -- thankfully -- but it did fall into the trap of having pretty much every Chiaki episode be about what a screw-up he was until his screw-upness narrowly saved the day and he learned his lesson to be better only until the next time it happened again. This repetition locked actor Shogo Suzuki into one note, and I started to get tired of Chiaki. But, as I've said, I came to like Shinkenger more once it was over and I could look over it as a whole and kinda ignore the lulls it had. They could have handled Chiaki better, but I liked him for the most part.

Magis/Gosei Green

What can you say about him? He's played by Deka Green. That's about it. You see Gosei Green's legs, you see Sen get killed. That's about it.

Don "Hakase" Doggoiya/Gokai Green

We all know that it's suit actor Yasuhiro Takeuchi who makes this guy great. Takeuchi makes hilarious and at times bizarre comedic choices that make Gokai Green stand-out. Actor Kazuki Shimizu could have studied Takeuchi and done more to match up with him. But Takeuchi was constantly making little additions to the scene as the character that stood out -- one that comes to mind is when the Gokaiger change into Turboranger, and they're in the pyramid pose and Green's (or Black Turbo's) knees are buckling.

But I like Don regardless. He's timid, practically cowardly. It takes him a while to find his inner hero, but it's in there. His reluctance isn't from a place of malice, but because he's weak and afraid -- and like the other Gokaiger, he's had a rough life trying to survive in a universe that the Zangyaku are constantly pwning. He's a brainy nerd, he doesn't have the guts of a Marvelous or Luka or the military training of a Joe -- he's had to get by in his own way.

I liked that Marvelous recognized what Don had to offer and his strength in areas that didn't include fighting, and recruited him on his team. And I like that Don was behind doing the team's repairs and a couple of the weapons. Gokaiger didn't perfectly explain everything, most importantly just how they came to use the Ranger Keys, but I like to think that Don looked into it and discovered the way to use the powers of the Keys and invented the Mobirates.

It's kind of silly of Aka Red to be like "Here's a trunk filled with some Keys, Marvelous. I'm about to go die Fist of Fury style. Bye-bye!" And that's it! He didn't explain shit to Marvelous. How did they realize the Keys had powers they could use? Doc Doggoiya, that's how.

Souji Rippuukan/Kyoryu Green

He's the only male character of the Kyoryuger team who didn't jump out of a loud, obnoxious anime, but I still don't like him. The actor's pretty weak and Souji wasn't given many episodes, IIRC. He certainly wasn't cool enough to have Dyna Black and Dyna Pink as his parents, I tell ya.

Hikari/ToQ 4

It was really hard to take Hikari seriously as the quiet, serious, smart guy when his character was supposed to be a kid. And ToQger was such a lazily written show, most of the characters didn't even have character. (I'm still astounded that this is a Yasuko Kobayashi show. She usually favors character over plot, and this show has neither.)

And if you're not going to bother writing anything, at least get performers who can carry the thing, and that's certainly not ToQ 4's actor. He's not horrible, but he's just not memorable. When it comes down to it, I'm pretty indifferent to the ToQ heroes (except for Tokkachi, who I hate, and Akira, who I like).
_____________________________________

And for the Green I'd pick to be on my team...

Are you ready?

You might be surprised...

Shion/Time Green! I really wanted to pick Dai, but if I ruled out Sara and the other Flashman because of the Anti-Flash, I ruled out Dai, too. I was going to pick Denji Green, but that's too close to the "Sentai Dream Team" I usually pick. (The "Dream Team" being the team you'd want to see in a special or movie, the characters you'd like to see interact; this game being forming a Seven Samurai-esque team of people you'd actually want to work with, whose skills you value, being the team you'd want to BE a part of and go on missions with.)

Shion's young, and while I ruled out a lot of characters -- like anyone from Megaranger -- for being too young, I don't think it applies to Shion since he's an alien, and obviously advanced. I wanted somebody super smart on my team, and figure he'd be a great asset since he has future knowledge AND alien knowledge. I considered Sen/Deka Green, since he, too, is smart, but I thought maybe his quirkiness could be irritating.

Dance Party BFJ

I often get asked why I like Battle Fever J so much. I just do. So, there! I've got a fever and the only prescription is more Battle Fever! Gotta have more Battle Fever, baby.

"But their costumes are ugly!" Says you, who likes the Boukenger designs. "They dance, that's dumb!" Says you, who likes Kyoryuger.

I love the Battle Fever suit designs. They look like no other Sentai team and no other Sentai team looks like them. (You can even make up as many extra characters as you can think of.) I can remember when I was a kid, seeing pictures of Battle Fever J in retrospective books, and just taking a liking to their designs. Basing a hero's design off of a flag could be uninspired and bland, but these suits were just so damned original and creative. Yes, Miss America's wig is weird, but...so is putting lips on helmets, but everybody loves those, right? I also really, really dig the realistic-looking weapons they each have -- Cossack's sai and America's throwing knives, for example.

Battle Fever J -- for better or worse -- really reflects its point in the decade, the current trends, and embraces them. I feel that it does moreso than any of the other '70s or early '80s Sentais -- these characters were 1979 and they didn't let you forget it! They name-check popular singers, hang out at dance clubs, play video games! And because of that the heroes seem to me like they're supposed to come across as being hipper than your average hero. They're supposed to be up-to-date, cool, in-the-know. Maybe it hasn't aged well, but it makes them a heck of a lot more distinctive and lively than some of their contemporaries. You never get much of a sense of what the Goranger or JAKQ are like outside of the job, but the liveliness of the Battle Fever's heroes creep through even on their missions -- not to say that they don't take their job seriously or aren't good at their job, but BFJ just has a looser vibe to it, trying to be COOL. (The way Dekaranger are supposed to be cool cops or the Shinkenger cool samurai -- this show has cool spies.) It's not "cheesy" or some nudge-wink attempt at being kitsch for kitsch's sake or whatever -- the show was genuine in its attempt at seeming cool, and is just one of those '70s things that young'uns and newbs look back on and laugh, but I take it for what it is. (Your Wizard and Kyoryuger shows won't age well at all, either, kids.)

To reflect Battle Fever's Marvel connection, Toei hired comic book artists like Shuuhou Itahashi and Yuuji Kaida to design the heroes. The top picture is of early Battle Fever design concepts, the bottom picture is of the suits before a few final alterations. Changes made for the best, I'd say -- those yellow eyes really don't work.

Since Battle Fever J for a while was considered the "first" Super Sentai series, people have made comparisons between it and Goranger, thinking of BFJ as a sort-of remake. For me, Battle Fever J is like...an improved upon Goranger. I know that's blasphemous to some Sentai fans, but that's the way I feel. Goranger, besides being too set in its ways, had a really wonky consistency to it. Look at that first episode, and then randomly select an episode just several ones down the line. Whiplash, right? Like, they couldn't possibly be from the same show? Battle Fever J can be goofy -- evil escargot, anyone? -- but I think there's just more a sense of cohesion about it. It can work as comedy, it can work serious. I think it has a little more fun with its spy premise -- I love the secret messages the team receives and passageways they use to get to their headquarters; the team going undercover and utilizing disguises. This being a Susumu Takaku-written show, I like the flair of "Japanese-ness" to it. (How awesome is their Shogun, man? Takes out a main villain on his own! As played by jidaigeki superstar Chiyonosuke Azuma, Kurama is easily one of the top mentors, keeping the team on their toes and often helping sell even some of the villains' more goofier plans by treating each threat seriously and with urgency. Like Changeman's Ibuki, he's one team commander that the heroes AND the villains should be afraid to cross.)

Also something I wanted to point out -- some people complain that, say, Battle Japan does a kung-fu dance, when it should be karate, or don't understand why Battle France does a Spanish dance. In a lot of the Sentai encyclopedia books, they explain that Battle Japan is actually supposed to represent all of Asia; Battle France all of Europe; Battle Cossack all of Eurasia; Miss America is supposed to represent America and Oceania. Is this an explanation by Toei after the fact? Maybe, but I think it's interesting to note.

Something that always disappointed me about Goranger was the villains. They start off spooky enough, even if they are initially a really watered down mock-Shocker. (Mocker?) But they became more and more absurd as the show went on, down to the spooky-awesome Mitsuo Ando being replaced as the Black Cross Fuhrer by the mugging Nobuo Yana and his oddly comedic take on the role. JAKQ's Crime was one villain, a wasted Masashi Ishibashi in a bad design. But Battle Fever's Egos? They're some creepy creeps. I like how eerie they make the Egos lair look; the cult-likeness of their secrety society, whose reach is far -- they often show how they have ordinary people from all walks of life following them or, at the very least, one of the Cutman grunts or monsters masquerading as someone with influence who the Egos have pull with. A lot of Egos plans are also not like the ordinary plans -- some are a bit more small scale, like infiltration for secrets or just setting out to get revenge on people who left them and/or won't follow them. Egos manages to be creepy, and come across like more of a covert, wide-spreading threat. But just as Egos has members everywhere, the Battle Fever also have their own undercover people. Also appreciated? You have episodes with the likes of Machiko Soga, Kin Omae and Shinji Toudou as the human forms of monsters of the week. And the regulars are tough-ass pro-wrestler Maki Ueda as bone-breakin' Salome, with Kenji Ushio -- wait, no -- Masashi Ishibashi? -- wait, are there two Hedders?

Ushio, Ishibashi.

The Hedder situation. The show originally started with awesome character actor Kenji Ushio in the role of Hedder. Kenji Ushio, offbeat villain actor extraordinaire! He's such a creepy, perfect fit for the role of Hedder, the devoted commander of the eerie Egos cult. Ushio, best known for his role as Ambassador Hell in the original Kamen Rider! Well, Ushio supposedly got busted shortly into filming, so he was replaced by Masashi Ishibashi. Ishibashi's a good replacement, he has a blast with Hedder, and it certainly makes up for what happened with his JAKQ role. But Ushio was just such a great fit, in my opinion. His quirkiness and giddy wickedness in the part could have led to a really memorable Sentai villain. Ishibashi does make for a more physically formidable villain, however, and makes Hedder feel more like the right-hand man he's supposed to be. Since it was still early into the show, Toei tried to refilm Ushio's stuff using Ishibashi to match for later broadcasts, but they couldn't quite redo it all, so there will be some odd moments where Ushio will be seen or Hedder will just plain morph from Ishibashi into Ushio sometimes. Every rebroadcast and release since the original airing has used the refilmed Ishibashi stuff, but here's something fun -- go download those Hawaiian subs of Battle Fever J. It's not the greatest video quality you'll ever see, but it's the only chance to see all of the Ushio footage -- I assume they had early prints. Whatever the case, it's neat to see. (So, a big thanks goes out to Justin Goo for putting those up for people.)

And maybe it's superficial, but I just like the way the show is filmed, by the reliable likes of Koichi Takemoto and Minoru Yamada -- while there can be some odd transitions and dizzying edits, it doesn't seem like any of the other '70s tokus to me, which gives it its own feel. And BFJ features cool, creative action from the underrated Kazutoshi Takahashi and Osamu Kaneda -- especially when Kaneda takes over, he lets things rip. The show just has a certain vibe to it that I think makes it stand out from the pack, it has a very lovable, great mix of a cast, and it's just a super entertaining, fun ride. Goranger's rough at 84 episodes, JAKQ is short but frustrating with its tonal shifts; while it takes the best of those shows, Battle Fever has its own clear identity, and makes for a worthy (first?) installment of the franchise.

Oh, and Battle Fever Robo ROCKS. (You know it's an awesome mecha if Shougo likes it. You know it's an awesome mecha if it still manages to be awesome despite the fact that the team enters it by flying into its pee-hole.)

Now, where's my Battle Japan Figuarts!?!!?

A Super Sentai Shout Out to Shout! Factory

With Shout! Factory announcing plans to release Dairanger -- which I AM excited about -- it got me a-thinkin' about where these releases are headed and I realized...it will be pretty boring, and probably business suicide to proceed in chronological order the Super Sentai shows which became Power Rangers entries.

So, I'd like to suggest -- as a way to keep business flowing and interest sparked -- that after maybe Kakuranger, they begin to jump around with their releases. I mean, imagine this -- next year, Dairanger is released. 2017 would be Kakuranger. 2018 would be Ohranger, which is a god-stinking-awful show and would immediately kill people's interest in buying any more Super Sentai. How bad is Ohranger? Practically everyone who worked on the show, who had been with the franchise for numerous years, walked after that year. How bad is Ohranger? Super Sentai fan and Nerdiest Idol of the Nerds Shoko Nakagawa doesn't like it. How bad is Ohranger? Power Rangers fans consider the Power Rangers season which used Ohranger footage, Power Rangers Zeo, to be superior. Power Rangers Zeo, aka the season where they opt to focus more on Bulk and Skull becoming defective detectives than they do on any Power Rangers action, because that's what little choice Ohranger left them.

My recommendation? Start jumping around and releasing shows that were turned into fan favorite seasons of Power Rangers. Kakuranger is a popular series, everybody likes ninjas and goof-assery and it's also representative of the end of the MMPR era, so that show's release is probably a given. (It also doesn't hurt that it has a recognizable action star in cast member Kane Kosugi.) So, skip Ohranger and release Megaranger next, which is not only a well-liked installment of the Super Sentai franchise, but was turned into Power Rangers In Space, which is probably the most popular season of that franchise. After that, do Timeranger, which became the well-regarded Power Rangers Time Force, both shows being attempts at showing how dramatic the respective franchises can be when they want to. While Power Rangers Ninja Storm is an unpopular season, most Power Rangers fans who have seen its source material, Hurricaneger, tend to like it, and since that show has been left largely untouched by fansubbing communities, there's actually a strong demand for Hurricaneger. Dekaranger and Power Rangers S.P.D. are both popular amongst fans, with a resurgence of interest in Dekaranger thanks to the upcoming reunion movie. And we all know how much Toei loves Shinkenger, so it's only a matter of time before they push for that one to get released...

Now, can we start talking about the idea of releasing Spielban and Metalder to show VR Troopers fans what the originals are all about?

Shougo B'Stard is a lifelong Super Sentai fan who is under no impression that his beloved Super Sentai classics from the '80s will ever see an R1 DVD release. Hawaii could have at least done Battle Fever J, though. Seriously, you released Inazuman, but not Battle Fever?!?!?! Who cares about Inazuman!?!

Giving dorky PR titles to Showa Sentai shows

So, the latest thing to rattle fans of Sentai and Power Rangers is the way that they're leaving in Showa/non-PR Gokai Change footage in Power Rangers Super Megaforce. (Super Megadumb name for a show.) I can't say I'm surprised, really. The folks at Saban have never really given a crap about the content of the source footage. (I remember when people thought Gingaman was "too weird" for Power Rangers to use, but I knew they'd use it, because Saban don't care. People also would argue with me that Shinkenger was "too Japanese" to ever be usable for Power Rangers, but I knew they'd use it. Saban's shameless -- look at how they thought it was perfectly OK to try to edit three dated, different Metal Hero shows into one terrible thing called VR Troopers. So, I figured they'd lazily use some non-PR suits and brush it off with some lame explanation like "these are Power Ranger powers from super mega other dimensions!")

I watched the episode which had the Super Megaforce Rangers change into Ryuu Ranger, Yellow Mask and Pink Flash. While it kind of sucks to hear Pink Flash get reduced to one of Power Rangers' lame-o mid-fight bad jokes (Prism Boots "will give you the boot, HIYAAAAAAAA!"), I was kind of disappointed that the writers couldn't bother to give the old teams names. They were just "Legend powers, hiyaaaaaaaaaaa!" Like, I've always wondered what god-awful names the PR folks would come up with for Showa teams. I imagine it would be something like this...

Goranger: "Power Rangers Mighty Spies, HIYAAAAAAAAAAA!"
JAKQ: "Power Rangers Poker Strike, HIYAAAAAAAA!"
Battle Fever J: "Power Rangers Salute, HIYAAAAA!"
Denjiman: "Power Rangers Digi Dash, HIYAAAAAAAA!"
Sunvulcan: "Power Rangers Safari Musketeers, HIYAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Goggle V: "Power Rangers Gymnast Force, HIYAAAAAAAAA!"
Dynaman: "Power Rangers Science Bang, HIYAAAAAAAAA!"
Bioman: "Power Rangers Bio Blitz, HIYAAAAAAAAA!"
Changeman: "Power Rangers Spaceship Rollers, HIYAAAAAA!"
Flashman: "Power Rangers Crystal Force, HIYAAAAAAA!"
Maskman: "Power Rangers Lazer Lightning, HIYAAAAAAA!"
Liveman: "Power Rangers Animal Lifeguard, HIYAAAAAAAAA!"
Turboranger: "Power Rangers Gear Grind, HIYAAAAA!"
Fiveman: "Power Rangers Space Camp, HIYAAAAAAAA!"
Jetman: "Power Rangers Techno Bird, HIYAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Dairanger: "Power Rangers Hiyaaa, HIYAAAAAAAA!"

And I expect Go-busters would have been something like "Power Rangers Special Spy Force," which would become "Power Rangers Super Special Spy Force" when they got the upgrades for season two. Wait a minute, that's not right. It would be "Power Rangers Super Special Spy Force, HIYAAAAAAAAA!"

Broken Wings Mend in Time

Tensou Sentai Goseiger, the 34th Super Sentai entry, has been a polarizing one from its debut. While most of the reaction is overwhelmingly negative, Goseiger has a small group of devoted fans. Is the show as bad as everyone says? Is there enough merit to warrant it a cult following? Still controversial, I wanted to say what I thought of it.

I was befuddled by Goseiger from the start. I was pretty excited by the news that veteran director Takao Nagaishi was going to be Goseiger's main director. Nagaishi first started directing Sentai with Changeman, and has been credited by numerous Sentai staff as really helping modernize Sentai's look and giving it a more dramatic flair. After directing several episodes of GoGoFive, he left the franchise in favor of the returning Kamen Rider. During the staff shake-ups as Kamen Rider was positioning itself as a fall production, Nagaishi was in kind of a limbo, and in the meantime directed a couple of Shinkenger episodes that were a welcome return to character focus after the show had fallen into heavy mecha/toy introductions. So, I was very pleased to hear of his involvement with Goseiger.

I was less pleased to hear that the main writer was Michiko Yokote, whose previous Sentai entry was the mixed Gekiranger. While I enjoyed Gekiranger, I never thought it reached its full potential and singled out Yokote's weakness at character as one of its main problems. (Michiko Yokote is the combined pseudonym of two writers; one who is said to handle plot, and one character. "Michiko Yokote" is actually the name of the woman who manages them.) And although he had done stellar work in the past, it was also strange to see main producer Jun Hikasa was behind the show -- Hikasa had said during Go-onger that he was moving on, so what was he doing back? That couldn't have been a good sign...

Goseiger had a shockingly bland debut episode. Spending no time setting up characters, it just throws you in, a noisy whiz-bang of randomness. Could this really be the work of such veterans? For a good portion of its first arc, Goseiger remained generic. Unengaging, run of the mill plots and cardboard heroes. It felt to me, at best like a tokusatsu show from the '70s or early '80s, when things were still creaky and they still hadn't perfected things, and at worst like an imitator of the Sentai franchise, like Toho's Chouseishin series. There's no real reason for the 34th entry, handled by pros like Nagaishi and Hikasa, to feel so generic, uninspired and unpolished.

One of the standouts of the show was the action team, namely Yasuhiro Takeuchi as Gosei Red's suit actor. In the early episodes, when you couldn't depend on anything else, you could at least depend on some damn impressive acting and action from Takeuchi. I personally credit him for the evolution of the Alata character, and Alata actor Yuudai Chiba's improvement. At the start of the show, Alata was shown to be an absent-minded, child-like nincompoop. His first action of the series was...to lose the card which grants him the ability to transform! Chiba's acting is also shaky here, clearly missing some marks. But Takeuchi, in his first in-suit role as a Red, ALWAYS presented Gosei Red as being competent on the battle field and serious in a fight.

Takeuchi, the show's biggest hero, who in my opinion is also the best Red suit actor since Naoki Oofuji.

Now, I'm one of the critics who complained about Alata early on in the show -- the shamelessness of casting Justin Bieber's Japanese lookalike as the lead superhero -- but the character does make such a massive improvement over the series, becoming the rock of the team with a Zen-like calmness, and I have to say that I think Takeuchi is responsible. I think staff caught on to what he was doing and maybe Chiba took notice and started hanging out with him (the way some past actors, such as Changeman's Kazuoki and Kamen Rider Black's Tetsuo Kurata would hang out with their suit actors), but Chiba eventually begins to match Takeuchi. The writers really shift how they handle the character, and it helps that Chiba's acting also gradually improves. Goseiger started with Biebs-kun being my least favorite cast member to ending with Alata being the hero I liked most.

As for the others? They're kind of just there. The actors aren't bad, just pretty nondescript, but the writers do them no favors. It's pretty obvious that for the four others, the writers gave up and they're just pretty much playing themselves. Initial descriptions described Eri/Gosei Pink as being the dependable older sister of the team, and she's anything but. Actress Rika Satou had a reputation for being one of the "stupid" players on TV quiz shows, and Eri not so coincidentally becomes more of an airhead. Moune starts the series as being a rough, ready-to-dive-into-a-fight warrior, but eventually becomes a cutesy, chirpy type to better suit idol Mikiho Niwa. (The ridiculed decision to have the then-tough Moune do battle by cheerleading was written in there because of Niwa's cheerleading past.) Likewise, Kento Ono never manages to pull off being the serious leader Hyde, and his character is eventually loosened up -- and no longer referred to as leader, a later episode all but officially renaming Alata the true leader -- and Hyde is never more likable than when he's thrown in a lighter situation. (And while I don't think Kyousuke Hamao is as terrible as Agri as most people say, he is just sort of blank faced and there.) Make no mistake, this is Alata's show...

...and Bladerun's. Bladerun is to the villains what Alata is to the heroes, and it goes back to my feelings about Yokote. It seems to me like characters are Team Yokote's weakness, and they can really only pay attention to just two or three at the expense of every other character. Gekiranger's been criticized for its heavy focus on just Jan and Rio, and Goseiger's focus is similarly on Alata and Bladerun. When Goseiger first started, I couldn't believe how forgettable the Warstar were. One of my first reactions was "Maybe this show will have different groups of villains to show the extent of the Gosei angels' protection." And the show thankfully went that route, but with just as mixed results. The YuumaJuu were written to be too obnoxious, and had their arc kicked off with a run of some of the show's lowest points. (I admit, I had to put Goseiger on hold around the point the YuumaJuu debuted -- I really thought the show would join the ranks of Boukenger or Go-onger, the two shows at the bottom of my list.)

And then, suddenly, producer Jun Hikasa decided to leave the series, allowing sub-producer Gou Wakamatsu to take control. Wakamatsu's previous Sentai experience was limited to working as assistant producer on a small amount of shows, such as Gingaman, and here he is at the last minute *running* a show? But, surprisingly, this is when the show makes an improvement that is pretty much consistent for the remainder of the series. The Matrintis villains arrive at this point, and although the Yuumajuu's Makuin and Kinggon grew on me (with the twist that revealed they weren't as foolish as they appeared), I think the Matrintis is really the show's only decent group of villains, and even in their short appearance, I feel they outdo Ohranger and Go-onger's attempt at robotic villains. (They're not quite the Metalder's Neros Armor, but much better than Baranoia or Gaiark.) The show also dials down the toy craze and finds more interesting scripts coming its way, such as the two-parter where Alata is thrown back in time to just before the Warstar invade. (Compare that to earlier fare, such as the episode where the Goseiger help a nerd get confidence to talk to a girl.)

Takeuchi's Gosei Red performance begins to rub off on Chiba -- Epic 16 marks a turning point for the Alata character.

Robogog's demise was disappointing to me, however, in that it committed a crime Goseiger regularly commited -- what I call "Seiya-Fighting." Now, I know Saint Seiya is a classic manga/anime, and I have a like-hate thing with it, but it always drove me bonkers how that show acts like it's going to be no-bullshit and there's going to be a cool fight, and they try like heck to build up to it, but then...the whole episode is Seiya (or one of the other regulars) just TALKING to their opponent, with a brief smack at the end deciding the fate of the fight. Often there would be an info-dump, but mostly it was empty trash talking or the hero talking to himself in disbelief. But what's worse than that...Goseiger would often Seiya-Fight FROM THEIR MECHA! They'd have conversations with their opponents in mecha fight, speaking, while seated, through their mecha! Double snooze.

Bladerun's reveal didn't come as much of a surprise -- and it's something I think would have been easier to care about with a face actor -- but it drives home Goseiger's biggest problem: the lack of world building in the show. It doesn't bother creating a landscape and background of the Gosei World, as other whimsical Sentai shows like Gingaman and Magiranger did, it didn't bother to create its own history or mythology. The Goseiger characters could have just as easily been cops or astronauts or garbage men ("Cleaning up the city is our duty, evildoers!"), they're so generic and their premise is never put to ANY use. Listen to the lyrics of the OP theme, how majestic and important it makes the Goseiger sound and you realize the show lacks the "epicness" it ironically calls its episodes. Such a shame, really, when you think of all of the cool, interesting things the show could have done. Also, I feel like the villains' gimmicks of having monsters based on sci-fi, monster/horror and robot movies -- a very cool, fun idea -- was largely wasted.

The Matrintis Empire, who in my opinion, were the best of the show's three villain groups.

Also, the Amachis? Get them out of there. I don't think a tokusatsu show has ever been as lazy and stupid in setting up the good guys' hang-out as this show is. Alata bumps into Nozomu and is his best friend, and his idiot dad is OK with housing this stranger and his four other friends? Get out of here. The show eventually, way after the fact, tries to explain that -- off-screen -- Master Head contacted Nozomu's dad and explained everything, but...yeah, I feel like that wasn't the plan. Why did the Amachi's have the Gosei-built Datas machine? Why does the kanji making their surname mean "heaven" and "knowledge?" I thought a better explanation would be that Nozomu and his dad were fellow Gosei people in disguise, guiding the newbie Gosei Angels that Alata et al were, or that they were humans with potential to evolve into Gosei Angels or something. But, nope. They're just random strangers! And not once is anyone on either end concerned.

A low point even for Goseiger? A low point even for Goseiger.

Goseiger's just a frustrating, perplexing, lackluster, bland mix. How did it get to be this way? Fans suspect behind-the-scenes turmoil. Not only Hikasa leaving, but Nagaishi, the main director? He ended up only directing FOUR episodes (the first two and episodes 21 and 22), and the throwaway V-Cinema special. Another bad sign? Goseiger had two episodes where the writer's credit was given to Saburo Yatsude, the collective pseudonym of multiple Toei staffers. While Yatsude has been credited with writing numerous song lyrics over time, this was the first time in the franchise's history actual EPISODES were credited to ol' Yatsude. I also always felt like the show was really just a placeholder as Toei prepped what was to be the big 35th anniversary series, Gokaiger. So, while the first dozen or so episodes of Goseiger are pretty hard to take -- very simplistic, very plain good guy versus very plain bad guy -- the show does improve. It doesn't become anything too special, and it's far from the best show, but it turns out better than you'd expect, and thanks to Takeuchi, will always at least have entertaining action.

Oh, yeah, and Gosei Knight and his whole green message was a total bore, so I didn't want to talk about him. It's NOT your "tarn," Gosei Knight -- ha-ha!

Yellow Warriors

I previously did the Reds and the Blues, so I wanted to next cover the Yellows, since Red, Blue and Yellow are the classic colors of Sentai Trios.

Daita Ooiwa/Ki Ranger

I'm going to be completely honest here -- when I first saw Goranger, I couldn't stand Daita. He talked weird, he sounded weird, there was a limited mileage on his whole curry-obsession and feud with Gon shtick. But, like Goranger the show itself, I got used to him and grew to like him. I think he has some backstory touched upon about his family being poor, and his taking multiple jobs to help them...? That makes you feel bad for him, just as actor Baku Hatakeyama's real life tragic story makes me feel bad for him, which I admit is one of the things that started warming me up to the character.

Daigorou Kumano/Ki Ranger

I remember absolutely HATING Daigorou. He's whiny, he's a weak actor. The show ONLY made me feel bad for him in his last episode, which is just the sign of crap writing to me. You should have been making me feel something for him all along, you know? Don't make him obnoxious, don't have him take over a fan favorite character and be irritating and then correct it in the last episode just to extract some sympathy.

I haven't watched Goranger for a while, but there's of course been stories of the hardships Ki Ranger's SECOND actor has gone through, too, so maybe that would change my opinion on him upon a rewatch. It's sad; I like those final twenty-something episodes of Goranger when Junji Yamaoka and the JAC take over the action, but I always kind of peter out well before then when I try to rewatch the show.

Jun Kiyama/Denji Yellow

Memory is fuzzy on Denjiman. It's a show I didn't expect to enjoy so much, so I've kind of been afraid to ever rewatch it. Sometimes you enjoy a show, but it's because it was entertaining at the time, or you wanted something new, but if you ever rewatch it, you find out that maybe it sucks or the cracks really show. I don't want that to happen with Denjiman.

But I don't remember Jun ever doing much. I remember it being cool that he put his intellect and scientific knowledge to use in helping crack Vader cases, but I remember the show kind of not keeping up with that. I thought it was something unique, to have Jun's science background and Tatsuya's cop background be put to use in such a way, but the show eventually just slipped into tokusatsu norm.

Asao Hyou/Vul Panther

Weirdo. OK, the first couple of times I watched Sunvulcan, I enjoyed Hyou -- he was the goofy guy. Even though actor Asao Kobayashi makes the most bizarre choices, he came across in a sort of Nicolas-Cage-so-weird-it's-cool way, but after Kobayashi got busted for being an alleged rapist, it's hard to watch the weird sonuva. His off-the-wall behavior and detachedness already made him an oddball, and then you read that news and the weirdness becomes creepy. You squirm when Hyou takes a liking to a girl, especially when it's a younger girl. It was mighty weird to watch footage of this ex-TV Asahi hero being arrested on TV Asahi. And despite one of its three members being a criminal, the Japanese still worship Sunvulcan.

Sorry if I made this too much about the actor, but it's not like Hyou had much going for him as a character, they relied on the actor's quirkiness so much. Oh, hey, it's the fifth Sentai, so he's given a love for curry just like Ki Ranger. Thanks for making that a thing, Toei.

Futoshi "Fatoshi" Kijima/Goggle Yellow

Fat guy. Likes food and animals. Food because he's fat, animals because they can be cooked and made into food, because he's ffffffffat.

In case you missed it, Goggle V tells you all you'll ever know about its heroes in the opening credits. That's what Yellow's portion tells you.

Seriously, though, actor Sanpei Godai is a likable guy -- and a toku vet, having made numerous appearances in '60s and '70s shows as a child actor and as a regular hero in Ninja Captor. I take a lot of pot shots at Goggle V, but I still find it to be a fun show. Goggle V's generic, but entertaining, and I didn't want to kick my TV over, rampage, and jump off a building while watching it the way some other tokus made me feel.

Kousaku Nangou/Dyna Yellow

Nangou's the goofy guy, so he gets stuck with a lot of the lighter plots or the kid-guest-starring episodes or having his youthful naivety used against him by bad guys. What makes him work is actor Tokita, who has a lot of fun in the role; he utilizes a lot of classic Japanese stage and slapstick styles, but is never annoying in the way some performers who attempt these styles can be. Tokita can also be serious and believable -- I think he could have been a good Red.

Mika Koizumi/Yellow Four

(For more on Mika, I've written previously about her here.)

Franchise producer Takeyuki Suzuki has said, at one point, he considered making Bioman a team of five guys. But then he had an idea -- not only have a heroine, as usual, but what if we add a second one? It hadn't been done before, and he said it opened up the possibilities for new storylines.

And so Bioman gives us the template that the franchise still puts to use, and people mock -- when it was actually forward-thinking of Suzuki at the time -- and that is the two-heroine Sentai team, where the one heroine is usually a "tough tomboy" and the other the "girly" one. But I think it's kind of lazy to write off so many Sentai teams like that. And when you look at the casting of some of those earlier heroines, like Risa Komaki and Michi Love, they were JAC ass-kickers! So, Sentai had already had some tough heroines.

But Mika was going to be new because writer Hirohisa Soda said he intended to make her a co-lead in the show, alongside Red. He had planned for her to play an important part in the show. It's unknown exactly what he had planned, but actress Yuji Yajima didn't stick around to find out.

It's sad, because Mika was cool. She was the first Sentai hero who was initially "No, thanks" to being made a hero, a prototype to Black Condor. Mika was moody, she was a brawler. Yajima was a JAC bad-ass, so she would have had no problem pulling off a female Black Condor. As disappointing as her final episode is, the writers made the best of the situation, and at least made Mika go out with honor -- she kept taking hits intended for her teammates. She's a character whose potential we have no idea of, but her departure made way for...

Jun Yabuki/Yellow Four

...who is awesome. Played by another JAC actress, Sumiko Tanaka, Jun brings the kick-ass action to the show, but also a funny, smart-alecky sense of humor. Whereas Mika always had to kind of bail out and protect Hikaru/Pink Five, being a replacement makes Jun seem kind of an equal partner, and brings out a sense of strength to the Hikaru character that hadn't been there with Mika.

Sara/Yellow Flash

I always thought Soda put his "Yellow will be a big part of Bioman" plans to Flashman, because Sara ultimately ends up being the center of the series. The tricky thing with Flashman is that they wanted to keep things a mystery for so long, that...it sometimes felt they were just cruelly jerking the characters around, in not letting them find their families or find out which one of them was related to the Tokimuras.

I know some viewers find Flashman frustrating in that regard, but I think it did as good of a job as it could have considering. Consider the way Spielban tied up its mystery of Spielban hunting for Ben and Helen near the halfway point or the way Kamen Rider Black can eat its own tail prolonging its Nobuhiko reunion. I think Flashman is way above either of those shows. Flashman has a lot of balls in the air, and it doesn't have many stumbles, let alone any dropped balls.

Sara's the heart of the show, an important character, and I really like actress Yoko Nakamura. Sara's intelligent and can fight, but she's also kind of dour. Nakamura makes Sara cool and calm, but also brings the character a sad quality. Sara's one of those characters you want to help and save. Along with Bun, I think she's the one most affected by the team's situation, and feels the isolation the most.

Sara's also the centerpiece to a huge part of the series; in the finale, Keflen offers to save the Flashman in exchange for being left alone. I always thought that was such a great, brilliant turn for the episode to take. Keflen COULD have most likely saved them. And while the team is frozen by this proposal -- are they considering it, are they horrified by it? -- Yellow Flash takes it upon herself to destroy Keflen's gene synthesizer, which would have made the procedure possible. She didn't like the moral implications of it. And you might think "Easy for her to do, she's the only one who met her parents." But she didn't, really. She never got to sit down with the Tokimuras with the knowledge they were her family...

The team spent most of the show under the impression one of the guys was the Tokimura; when Setsuko regains her memory that it was a daughter they lost, Sara and Ruu get little time to enjoy the thought before the fight with Mes gets out of control. The Flashman are down to about ten hours of being able to say on Earth by the time Sara confirms she's the Tokimura, and she goes immediately into that last battle. The Flashman try really hard to finish that final battle and leave Sara some time to meet the Tokimuras before they go, but Ra Deus' final form was just too tough of an opponent.

Haruka/Yellow Mask

Haruka's unfortunately not given a lot of episodes, but I still think she's really cool and an underrated heroine. (Probably the only serious ninja character in a Sentai so far. Everyone else is a goofball!)

Haruka was raised by a strict dad in the ways of ninjitsu, and that provides an interesting take on a heroine who's challenging gender stereotypes. Haruka's tough and can kick-ass and looks tomboyish, but there's that episode where she really has her heart set on buying back that doll she had as a kid that her dad made her get rid of. There's always a lot of criticism over female characters who the writers will try too hard to make "badass" at the expense of their femininity, and I think Haruka's a good example of how to try to pull it off. She doesn't get many of her own episodes, but she's a solid character played by a likable, fearless actress. (Take a look at that jump in the opening credits. Awesome.)

Jou Oohara/Yellow Lion

If Yuusuke is the team's courage and Megumi the brains, then Jou's the heart of the team. He has the biggest heart, putting faith in Gou, Senda's clone Rei, robots, aliens... He goes to the mat and takes a lot of beatings for his friends or anyone he places trust in, and that faith eventually benefits the Liveman's goal in alliances formed with characters like Gou and Arashi.

Shunsuke Hino/Yellow Turbo

The likable goofball of the team, played by an actor who just looked like he enjoyed his time on the show and was as likable as his character. Shunsuke's the funny one, but gets moments to shine in more serious episodes, like the Toshiki Inoue-penned episode where he tries to reunite Bouma siblings on the anniversary of his own brother's death.

Remi Hoshikawa/Five Yellow

The best member of the Fiveman team. While she's shown teaching weird and untraditional (and goofy) music classes, don't let that fool you -- she might not have the most superheroic of school subjects, but Remi's an ass-kicker. Actress Keiko Hayase (or Megumi Sakita or Ryou Narushima, depending on different times of her career) was a member of Yasuaki Kurata's talent agency AND the Japan Action Club, and was truly the Last Action Heroine of Super Sentai.

Let us not forget that instant classic episode where Remi gets hammered in order to fight that monster using the drunken boxing style. (Eventually piloting Five Robo drunk in order to do the same thing.)

Raita Ooishi/Yellow Owl

It's weird -- this guy didn't used to bother me. But the last few times I've rewatched Jetman...yeesh.

Raita's supposed to be the Everyday Jiro, the lovable regular dude. He's an average farmer, he's a pacifist, he just wants to be left alone and plant his vegetables and live a normal life. He's not a fighter, he's not the most athletic, but here is he, forced to fight a war he's been shoved into. Like Ryuu, it's a good character on paper, but, like Ryuu, they needed a better actor, because...

Tomihisa Naruse tanks it. He plays Raita as having this attitude about him, this kind of chip-on-the-shoulder air, and he WHINES every single one of his lines, in that godawful voice of his, and he makes Raita hard to take and hard to like. Really, you want Raita to be the one who is senselessly murdered in the finale.

Raita barely gets any focus episodes, but two of the episodes he's given are some of the worst episodes of Jetman, so he has even more going against him. The first episode is that one where the writers decide to go beyond the limits of their own ridiculousness and have Raita randomly decide that he, too, is in love with Kaori. As if that's not bad enough, he then goes back in time and falls in love with Kaori's cavegirl doppelganger, marrying her, and ickily getting to live out his twisted fantasies with this poor Kaori Cave Nug. (He also fucks with history by going down in folklore as a god-like owl hero on top of it.)

The second scoop of poop on the Raita shit sundae is the Tomato King episode. A lazy "eat your veggies, kids!" episode that's out of place in Jetman, done in such an eyerolling and horribly stupid way that Fiveman would have rejected it.

But...that voice, man. It's like if microphone feedback could talk, had a sinus infection and was then kicked in the testicles.

Boi/Tiger Ranger

Like the other members of the Zyu team, Boi skates by mainly on the likability and talent of his actor, Takumi Hashimoto. It's funny to see the little brother from Jiraiya grow up to be a hero -- and then there's that funny little homage when Boi studies ninjitsu, in an episode written by Jiraiya main writer Susumu Takaku. That's probably Boi's best episode, because I seem to remember him getting a lot of the goofier episodes.

Boi gets points for using his Dino Buckler as a makeshift brass knuckles, though, and for having Hashimoto bring some nice out-of-suit action.

Kazu/Kirin Ranger

Despite not liking the Tsuchiya brothers, Keisuke fits this role, so he's not entirely bad here. The Tsuchiyas are too bland for leads, but Kazu's not a lead. (Dairanger avoided disaster by swapping him with Keiichi Wada, but B-Fighter wasn't able to avoid disaster since they cast Daisuke as the lead hero. Look where that got them -- a show that could have been a good throwback to the early Metal Hero style, but was dull and made worse by a dull lead.)

Oh, yeah, Kazu. He's not really given much. I like his backstory in that he puts on the air of being a cool and unflappable guy, but it's a cover -- he's a country bumpkin masquerading as a hip city guy. They could have gotten some good character moments out of that, but they leave it, and it's the most we learn about Kazu as a person. He's just pretty much back-up, the Dandy who uses Drunken Fist, and then he winds up saddled with stories related to the whiny Kameo. He's a bit of a bastard to Kameo, which might bother some viewers, but not this one.

Seikai/Ninja Yellow

Saizo done right. Meaning, he's actually funny, his actor's actually capable. I guess the big difference between the two is that Saizo's a dummy, but kind of well-intentioned, and Seikai's a bit more of a jerky punk.

Seikai's the smart-ass slacker of the team; it's kind of amazing they even talked him into being on the team. The guy's more disagreeable than Black Condor! Gai whined about being a Jetman, but you know deep down he loved the glory. Seikai doesn't give a shit about that, he just wants to pig out, play his games, ogle the ladies and go about his business.

Juri Nijou/Oh Yellow

As with most of the other Ohranger members, Juri really suffers as a result of the show's schizophrenia. She's initially a tough character who has no time for BS or Momo's excessive girlishness. If every Sentai team has a "strong man" on the roster, then Juri seemed to me like the first "strong woman" -- look at how she beats Youhei/Green at arm-wrestling in the ending credits, Green often being the "strong man" member -- but the show just goes all over the place and she's given stupid shit to do like exercise with the mecha and fight her brainwashed teammates by getting naked. Whatever, Ohranger, you schizo nutcase.

Natsumi Shinohara/Yellow Racer

Probably the only dependable member of the Carranger team. She has her own issues, but she'll be there for you in a fight, ready to dismantle villain vehicles with her tools.

Chisato Jougasaki/Mega Yellow

The show really lucked out in casting Eri Tanaka, because I think she takes Chisato higher than the character might have gone. She gives the character just this upstanding strength, warmth and intelligence, but she also still seems her age. She's compassionate and a moral compass. Definitely someone you'd want on your team.

Hikaru/Ginga Yellow

Gingaman, wanting to be a kind of throwback, gives us the first "youngster of the team" in several years. I like Hikaru, but he's unfortunately not given much. Even with past "kid" team members, if they weren't given many episodes throughout the show, you could at least count on them for comedic effect, or to drum up some tension when clashing with an older member. But Hikaru kinda just slips into the background.

Daimon Tatsumi/Go Yellow

Meet the cop who cannot be stopped. Daimon's a madman, I honestly don't know how he became a cop. The city was obviously in a situation similar to Police Academy where they opened the doors to anybody who came along.

I like Daimon and actor Kenji Shibata, but his craziness undermines that Daimon is supposed to be the naive little brother of the team. Like, I think the episode where a kid is caught in Go Yellow's line of fire is one of the better renditions of that trope, but it's also kind of like...duh. Daimon's insane, of course he's just going to shoot around indiscriminately. If Daimon's reaching for a firearm, it's your fault that you stood around to find out how that was going to turn out, fool.

What kind of siblings were the Tatsumis that they never made sure Daimon was on his meds?

I kid. I like Daimon, I think he's a lot of fun. And there's another sad Yellow story in actor Kenji Shibata's health crises (he's had brain tumors and one of the surgeries left him paralyzed on his right side).

Domon/Time Yellow

I've gone on about how little I like the Timeranger cast. Domon bothers me the least, but then he gets saddled with that Honami stuff. Honami is irritating as shit and the whole thing with him knocking her up and going back to the future gives me the willies and probably fucks up timelines more than ANYTHING the Londarz did. While I was impressed that Gokaiger worked Honami and their Bastard Out of Time into the Timeranger episode (although they ditched the name Domon Jr.), it still creeped me out, so it wasn't as touching as they thought it was.

Gaku Washio/Gao Yellow

This guy's awesome. I mean, I've always questioned why he went from a pretty hard-ass, strict, no-nonsense character to a mainly comedic one. The heroes needed someone serious and the show suffered for the change, but actor Kei Horie makes it work. I think it's obvious how much fun the five had making the show, so I think that just started to come through. I don't think it was a Go-on Black scenario where the actor couldn't pull off being serious, so they made him a joke. Horie reminds me a bit of Changeman's Kazuoki in that he can be funny, but can still be the cool guy with equal skill. Think of Daigo in Dairanger in that they tried so hard to make him serious that when he was supposed to be funny he couldn't pull it off. Horie, Kazuoki, Liveman's Nishimura, these are guys who could accomplish both and be believable.

It's sad that Gaku's never really given his own strong storyline, though. The main five share the show and it's all about their Pokemon mission of collecting animals. No matter what point of the series, though, Gao Yellow's considered the cool guy -- look at how he shares the screen with Red Falcon in Gaoranger VS Super Sentai -- but his big time rival is freaking Yabaiba?

Kouta Bitou/Hurricane Yellow

The least annoying of the Hurricaneger, but what's that say? Look how annoying the other two must be when you take into consideration Kouta's Incredible Hulk wig and a voice so high-pitched, he sounds like a tweenage Quentin Tarantino. I'd tell you more about him, but I have no idea about him, because only dogs can hear this dude.

Ranru Itsuki/Abare Yellow

I remember at the time liking Ranru for being presented as being competent and for at least being older than a couple of her predecessors had been. (After the Hurricane kids and young Gao White and should-have-been-older Yuuri, it was nice to have a more mature seeming and looking heroine.) I kind of didn't like those moments when they wouldn't be honest to the character, though. She was meant to be a tough, tomboyish tech-head, and then they reveal she was a failed idol. Like, what? Get the hell out of here.

But, whatever, Ranru's still cool and has a lot of shining moments. One of my favorite parts is in the finale, when Ranru takes it upon herself to raid the Evorian's lair in hopes of finding Black and Mahoro, who are impaled by Dezumozoria and basically kind of giving up. They had been questioning whether Mahoro's child is really Asuka's or actually Dezumozoria's. Ranru/Yellow shows up and is fighting against the odds and tries to reach through to them and describes how she thinks the baby shares features with Asuka. It's a nice little moment that pulls Asuka and Mahoro out of darkness.

Ranru kind of reminds me a little of Natsumi/Yellow Racer; Ranru's more layered than her, but I think Natsumi's a little cooler. How cool is Natsumi? That she's a member of a team like Carranger, but can still be cool.

Marika "Jasmine" Reimon/Deka Yellow

As much as I've come to like the show, I still have some issues with the cast -- I think a better cast would have really elevated the show. Ayumi Kinoshita is OK in the role, although she's overrated, but Jasmine could have been really cool with a more skilled actress. You have Jasmine's oddness, in the way she uses a really geezery way of speaking; you have the mysteriousness of the character, in that she has powers and was hinted at being an alien(izer); you have the character's tortured background, in the way she was tortured by her abilities and saved by the SPD.

There's a lot of cool stuff going on for this character, but Kinoshita doesn't hit all the notes, and because of her, the show just ends up treating Jasmine like nothing more than window dressing. It doesn't help that the show ends up not taking anything seriously, of course, but Jasmine's bar was already lowered by the casting of Kinoshita.

Tsubasa Ozu/Magi Yellow

I like the character of Tsubasa; the middle kid with the attitude problem, who's actually more caring deep down than you'd think. The problem, as is the case with a lot of Magiranger, is in the performance. Hiroya Matsumoto is just awful here; he makes bizarre faces, he yells every line, he makes a lot of gestures that never match what he's saying. You know what's magical? That Matsumoto eventually improved, because he's awesome in Go-busters, and only after Go-busters can I watch Magiranger and kind of give his goofy performance a pass.

Really, how did he improve? You know how many shit actors there are out there that NEVER improve? Bill Paxton has been atrocious for a few decades now, but has never improved AND still gets work. Weird.

Natsuki Mamiya/Bouken Yellow

I grew up with action specialist heroines like Yellow Four, Change Phoenix, Pink Flash, Yellow Mask, Diana Lady... I like heroines who can kick ass and are cool and competent. So when the cutesy or ditzy heroines come along, I roll my eyes.

The big 30th anniversary series, the one with the return of a "serious" Red and a human villain! Surely, this show will break the recent trend of cutesy and/or ditzy heroines, right? Wrong!

I will say that at least Natsuki has a kind of explanation for the way she acts -- her being another race and with stunted growth or whatever her deal was. But I think they could have still made her cute or funny or whatever WITHOUT having her be a total lobotomized goof. "The Strong Adventurer." Sure. Imagine how fun a character with that moniker could be if she were a kind of comedic character who wasn't aware of her own strength or ability. She didn't need to be a dummy!

Ran Uzaki/Geki Yellow

I like Ran a lot, but there's a lot of times where it just seems to me like the show didn't know what to do with her, so they tried to make her all things. She was the isolated grump at first, then a dedicated bad-ass, then she's supposed to be cute and a princess and... It definitely seemed to me like Gekiranger kind of regretted having just one heroine, so they forced various personalities onto her. But Gekiranger's a big cartoon and actress Mina Fukui is good and really likable, so it never felt like much of a distraction or that the character was too schizo, but Fukui deserved a more solid characterization. She's one of the last toku actresses who really could pull off a cool, rough fighter type. She seemed like a heroine, and not a vacuous idol who's trying to break into the industry.

Saki Rouyama/Go-on Yellow

Remember what I said about liking heroines who can kick ass? I remember complaining a lot about Saki and thinking she was a disgrace, but...

Everyone's a disgrace on the Go-onger team. OK, that's no excuse. But it would have helped to keep in mind that she's really, really young. So, I should have cut her some slack, instead of wanting to punch her in the face every time she did that "Smile, smile!" shit. But it's hard to try to give her some slack when she's followed by...

Kotoha Hanaori/Shinken Yellow

A much better way to do a young heroine than Saki. (I know I shouldn't compare Shinkenger to Go-onger, since Go-onger is a cartoon and Shinkenger is an actual show, but I do think a lot of Shinkenger is a reaction to Go-onger.) Kotoha's young, she's a bumpkin, she's a little in over her head since she's not even supposed to be on the team, and that just makes you want to root for her even more. There's also these hints that Kotoha, when she's at her best, has the potential to be the best one on the team, which is cool.

Kotoha brings a lot of heart to the show. And actress Suzuka Morita is extremely likable in the role, making Kotoha even more endearing, which is one reason why it's such a disappointment to see her wasted in the awful new Space Sheriff stuff. It kind of puts a mar on her, IMO.

Moune/Gosei Yellow

Actress Mikiho Niwa got on my nerves a little, and the character's inconsistent. She was supposed to be tough, but Niwa couldn't pull it off, so they made Moune a generic goof like Eri. So, they wanted Moune to be Five Yellow, but she ended up being more like Go-on Yellow.

Ruka Millfy/Gokai Yellow

The actress can be a bit of an oddball -- and she reminds me too much of the lead actress from the Chinese horror movie Dream Home for comfort -- but I like Ruka and her no BS-ness. Of the three "cool" Gokaiger -- the ones in the classic Sentai Trio colors of Red, Blue and Yellow -- she seemed to me the most like a pirate. It's easy to picture Ruka on a bunch of adventures across space, kicking ass, stealing treasure, and out-drinking any Poseur Space Badass like the Guardians of the Galaxy bunch.

Yumeria Moegi (Youko Yamada)/Akiba Yellow

Hilarious in her devotion to her hobbies. And terrifying in the way she'd turn into a death metal singer whenever something wouldn't go her way.

I've mentioned before that I was skeptical about Akibaranger when it was announced. They said some things about the heroines that gave me the impression it was going to be a sleazy piece of shit like Lion Maru G. And I thought a character who was constantly cosplaying, especially as a cat, had the potential to be grating. But she won me over from the first moment in the opening credits, the horrified face she makes when the wind blows her costume away. And that's nothing compared to what this character has in store for you.

You know how, with Batman, they're always going to that well of "Bruce Wayne is the mask, Batman is the true identity"? That's truer of Yumeria. By day, she's an average office worker, one who in season two is married into a rich family. By night, she's her true freaky, geeky self. Youko's the mask, Yumeria's her true self.

Yumeria's also the focus of what's perhaps Akibaranger's only genuinely touching episode, when she honors her deceased mother by bringing her back with the power of her imagination. It's a funny episode (guest star Rika Matsumoto has a blast as the mom), it's a sad episode, and it's probably one of the best tokusatsu episodes in recent memory.

Youko Usami/Yellow Buster

She's a weird one. But, like Red Buster, I think her actress is just too young and too sucky to really pull off the character. Again, Go-busters might have turned out differently if the casting had been better.

Mio/ToQ 3

She's just kind of there to me. Can't say I like her, can't say I dislike her. It seems like the Japanese fans love her, though, and I have no idea why.

Nagi Matsuo/Ki Ninger

Who-gi Whats-uo?

Now, once again is the part where I choose which Yellow I'd want on my team. My first thought was Jou/Yellow Lion, but I have the rule not to use more than one member from a team. (Since Blue Dolphin was my first pick for Blue, it made me see just how much I love the three original members of Liveman. How awesome are they?)

Then Sara/Yellow Flash popped in my head. I really wanted her on my team. She's smart, she's strong. She'd be a good pick -- but I sadly rule out any Flashman member because of the Anti-Flash syndrome. (Although if there's a person to find a cure, it's Sara.)

I really liked the idea of Chisato/Mega Yellow and came close to picking her until I realized what an asset Haruka/Yellow Mask would be to a team. She can kick ass, but is fun, she's a dedicated warrior and her ninja skills would really come in handy. She shamed three of Tube's supernatural ninjas and has the reliable old ninja ability to self-clone, giving you an army within your Sentai army.