Fiveman Episodes 21-24

 

EPISODE 21

I guess this is the kind of kid-centric episode you'd expect from a show about grade school teachers, but it still lacks something that other shows that have done a similar plot (our hero takes a beating to prove what courage is to some kids; kids proving their own bravery when in a crazy bad guy plot) have pulled off. (Momoko fighting Skull Dogler this ain't.)

Here, at episode 21, the show decides that the "Sibling Teachers" are kind of famous. Famous enough for three boys, failing at Phys. Ed., to email them (that's right, EMAIL THEM, in 1990!) asking for their help. Gym teacher Ken answers the call and, throughout the ordeal Zone dishes out this week, proves his point and improves his students. (But before you call him a good teacher, take note how he still refers to the kids by the nicknames their bullies give them -- especially calling the chubby one Konishiki*, ouch.) Their victory, Ken's struggle, this episode...it's just meaningless. These weren't students he knew but three randos, and he and the viewers will never see them again.

Couldn't they have come up with something a little more serious for the boys to conquer than a vault box? C'mon. Gym holds more horror than that. Climbing the rope -- *that's* some scary shit, man.

*In case you don't know, Konishiki is the name of a famous sumo wrassler.

 

 EPISODE 22

A half-baked episode that feels like two incomplete scripts stitched together. There's just something lacking here -- characters don't behave like people in this episode. It only gets a pass because Ryousuke Kaizu is the guest star. Picture it being, say, the guy who played Jiban, and we'd be in trouble here. But it's sad to waste Kaizu in such a way.

We're just dropped into a battle between the episode's villain, Queen Killer, and the Fiveman. Queen Killer's not with Zone, but wants to consume Earth's nature for her own needs, and wants to get to it before Zone destroys it. (If they still haven't by episode 22, Queen Killer, what does that tell you?) Billion recognizes her as a legitimate threat and makes clear he doesn't like her. I guess this is a good time to say that I like Billion; he hasn't been given much, but you easily get the character, his mindset, his past. He's a samurai who was probably a great warrior, but sold out and buries his guilt and shame and self-hatred by drinking, hoping for a good fight, probably hoping that that good fight is the one he dies in. 

Queen Killer is a masked costume, looking like something out of B-Fighter Kabuto, and it's a missed opportunity that she isn't a face role with some cool bit of casting, like Miyuki Nagato or Kana Fujieda. Voice actress Kazuko Yanaga is good, but I would have preferred a face role. Kazumi's offended by Queen Killer's disregard for nature and wounded. (She falls into a river. No, Inoue didn't write this episode -- although perhaps he should have.)

Red Mask happens to save Kazumi, and just happens to be developing some crystal with the power of the sun that our nature-eating monster soon takes an interest in. She destroys nature; he saves it! There's just a narrative lumpiness to this and nobody really behaves logically. Kazumi is saved by Red Mask; his enthusiasm about his project makes her think of her dad. No "Hi, strange lady I found in a river covered in blood. Um...what's your story?" "Hi, strange quack of a scientist who lives in the middle of nowhere. What the hell are you up to?" Just weird reactions and things like him physically carrying her back to bed which leads to a weird slap...

I think...I THINK...that maybe the show was going for some kind of meet-cute? Is Red Mask's character supposed to be a little kookier than he comes across? He ends up sacrificing his crystal to save the Fiveman and then splits off-screen, abandoning his lab and leaving Kazumi a note like "Hey, I'm going overseas to recreate the crystal and try to restore nature. Take care, you hear?" And Kazumi is like "When Zone is defeated, we can be reunited..." WHAT?! They're acting like he's an alien going off to save his world with his newly created invention or something, and the possibility of seeing him again is...well, impossible! He just cleans out his lab and leaves Japan... If you wanted to have them act like people, you would at least have some kind of goodbye scene set at the airport or something. This is just cheap, weird and uninvolving.

"But Shougo, these shows are made for toddlers whose brains aren't formed and they don't care about structured, sensical stories with logic!" That's not the point. The point is we know so many of the writers and staff on this show are capable of better because they've proven in the past they've done better. Don't let 'em off the hook!

I would like to highlight Kazumi's actress Kazuko Miyata again, though. She tries, man. She's often the only one going for real emotion. Here she gets in some good action, but since she's still recovering, Miyata makes Kazumi just seem so miserable looking -- she's sweating, she's bleeding. It's uncomfortable to watch!

 

EPISODE 23    

And now we arrive to the debut of the infamous Five-kun puppets. I always felt like people made a bigger deal about them than is necessary. Outside of this episode, they just provide commentary for certain moments in subsequent episodes, no different than the storyteller from Kakuranger. They didn't join the show as full time cast members -- they aren't Sentai's Cousin Oliver. It's not some stupid arc where the Fiveman are turned into puppets and they spend the next cour showing off crazy puppet action. No, it's this pretty reasonable episode and then harmless commentary stuff. They don't even last the entire show! I don't see why they caused a big deal...

Anyway, Fumiya is staging a puppet show for some kids, with some anti-Garoa commentary. Like any thin-skinned bully, this doesn't please Garoa, so Dongoros volunteers to act on his behalf. (See? This fluffy episode is a Dongoros plot, so nothing to get bent out of shape over.) He enlists a monster to take the form of the kaijuu puppet Fumiya's show used, claiming that dolls and puppets have souls, and so he basically uses the Fiveman puppets as voodoo dolls. If that's the case, the solution doesn't make much sense -- Fumiya realizes the monster can only harm him as Five Black, not Fumiya. Fumiya's still Five Black! Bah, whatever. It's still not the worst Fiveman's going to get. (Send help.)

The last scene is the stored Five-kun puppets springing to life and announcing their involvement with the show henceforth. I think maybe these things would have been a little easier to take if...say a kid was putting the box of puppets in that storage room. Unbeknownst to him, a shooting star passes through the night sky out the window, just as he's thinking to himself how much he wished the Five-kun puppets were real. And then... But that's a level of whimsy Fiveman doesn't have. As is, you're just left wondering what the hell's the purpose of them. It's like the producers thought there was potential for a spinoff or something -- you know when shows used to force a backdoor pilot into a show, and when you rewatch it with that knowledge you're like "Geez! They really thought they had something with THAT?! Lunatics."

 

EPISODE 24

Fiveman can't really do comedy well. It can't do drama well, either. Here's an episode that wants to begin comedically and end dramatically and Fiveman REALLY can't pull it off.

Zone wants to train some of the Batsler soldiers in the ninja arts; we follow the inept Batsura #339 as he tries and fails to make the cut. Along the way, Remi takes pity on him, and he decides to help the Fiveman stop this plan, falling in love with Remi before getting a dramatic death.

None of it works. First off, it's one of those plans that makes Zone look stupid, but they're dead serious about. (Have these Ninja Batslers transform into animals so they can infiltrate society.) Secondly, #339 is voiced by Hideyuki Umezu, aka Turboranger's Zuruten. So, he works for the goofy part, but when he's meant to side with Fiveman, you don't buy it and question his motives and expect a betrayal. (Umezu would have been a better replacement for Dongoros' voice instead of Katou, if you ask me.)

The worst part? When Remi takes pity on him and saves him, he asks her why. She says "Because a Batsler's life is the same as a human's." Tell that to the 3,424 Batslers you've killed so far in the show, Remi! (Geez, just after I compliment the show for avoiding something so cheesily predictable when Gaku saved Gunther, too.)

Fitting with the rest of this show, the Batslers are so non-descript that I'll forget what they even look like -- and even their name -- when I'm not watching the show. 

Fiveman Episodes 16-20

 

EPISODE 16

Lackluster episode in which the Fiveman rely on a (supposed) student of Remi's to take a picture of the Clock Up'd monster of the week, who speedily devours any item of food in the vicinity. It's a proto Pudgy Pig episode. How do they stop this dastardly fiend of a glutton? We see Gaku, the scientist, at one point in his lab coat, injecting a pumpkin with something. "Oh, they're putting sleeping medicine in there or poison or something to stop the monster, right?" WRONG! He's making the vegetables giant for the Fiveman to hide in so they can attack the unsuspecting monster as he digs in! So this episode's kind of a proto Zyu2, too, in its dumb solution to the fight.

The show finally woke me up with episode 15, only to turn around and serve a steaming heap of nothing within a giant vegetable like this?

 

 

EPISODE 17

The first episode since the first two that actually remembers that these guys are siblings. It's something that's supposed to make this show unique amongst all of the others -- these heroes know each other better than any other teams, they're meant to have that unbreakable bond, and that's what this episode's all about.

And so the Zone wonders how best to crack the Fiveman's unity. Doldora's plan is to pose as a caring woman to catch Fumiya's eye, and it's a plot that I think has a lot of potential for a more serialized show -- a villain getting a hero to fall in love with them to divide the team? Somewhere Inoue's kicking himself for not having the idea. But they do the best they can to cram this into 17 minutes and still be satisfying.

It sucks that it's a Fumiya episode, but I guess that Doldora is taking advantage of his youthful naivete. A lot of credit goes to Nishi for getting this episode to work, because she's really good as the too-good-to-be-true woman that you understand why Fumiya easily falls for her, and she's good at slipping back into her natural personality when she thinks she's achieved her goal and can drop her charade. And it's a nice, nasty trick that she gives her alias the name of Mama Hoshikawa (Midori), to further sink her fangs into Fumiya's heart!

 

EPISODE 18

It always surprises me when Inoue writes an episode focused on a kid. It just doesn't seem like him; he obviously doesn't care about the target demographic and writes what he wants, ignoring kids as audience members AND characters. The thing that the kid in this episode shares with an Inoue character, though, is being one of his Jerk Guest characters.

The kid is one of those Schoolyard Entrepreneurs, ready to do your homework or sell you something you don't need as long as you pay on time. He mirrors this episode's Zone monster, a greedy pig who fuels itself on money. Watching his old teacher Kazumi take a beating for him makes the kid realize the error of his ways and he gives up all of his money in an effort to save her. An episode with a kid AND a Lesson-Learnin'™ episode?! This is really, really unlike Inoue. Not a great episode, but the greedy kid is amusing.

I find it funny the way Fumiya pops up in this episode a couple of times dressed like an ass. It's like Inoue, after writing episode 10, realized he didn't like Kobayashi and is trying to embarrass him.

 

EPISODES 19-20

Flashman Envy returns! But Soda tweaks the script just enough so as not to be a total rip-off. Although? It would have helped to be a total rip-off, because at least Flashman found themselves in a desperate situation requiring a new mecha.

Oh, it begins well enough. We're introduced to galactic wanderer Gunther, who's traveling the cosmos looking for a good fight in his Five Robo-looking mecha. He soon makes his way to Earth to challenge the Five Robo; the Fiveman instantly recognize his mecha as being a work of their father's, which means Gunther stole it and that their parents may have actually survived the attack from the first episode.

In Flashman, you had Baraki wake up from a deep slumber, not trusting the Flashman, and you weren't certain if he was friend or foe. Here, Gunther's a definite foe, and I think he should have stayed that way -- for some reason, after learning that his robot DOES belong to their father, he switches sides. He tries to give Gaku some crucial info but is cut off by being turned to stone. Definitely not the impact of Baraki dying before delivering his message regarding the danger the Flashman are in.

Something about these episodes just don't work for me, and it's not just that I'm not a mecha fan. The Fiveman aren't in a situation requiring a new mecha, but here it is -- and it makes Super Five Robo while they're at it. Flashman and Maskman needed new mechas because theirs was trashed; Liveman and Turboranger needed new mechas for escalating threats. Fiveman? NO REASON. It was marked on Bandai's calendar, that's it.

It doesn't help that Part One is filled with some snoozy mecha battles, but Part Two fumbles the emotions for me. The Hoshikawas get a recording of their dad's voice through the mecha sound systems and it should be really emotional, but only Kazumi's actress is conveying anything. Everybody else sounds like they're listening to the P.A. reading the lines off-camera, as was probably the case. Remi goes "It's the first time I heard dad's voice," but...that ain't how she's acting.

And the last thing is the Gunther has the worst, stupidest, most embarrassing design in the history of toku. From the speedskater spandex suit to the fuzzy yellow hair to the tan-in-a-can make-up to the weird little visor tiara he wears (that looks like it's from Ginga Pink's mask)... You'd rack your brain trying to find a worse design. Try it. It's hideous. Hideaki Kusaka deserved better.

I'll give the episode this -- when Gunther's spent most of his screentime beating up the Fiveman, and then Zone attacks him along with the Fiveman, Gaku shields him from the blast. When Gunther asks why, Gaku says it's because he has answers to questions he has about his father. Whew! I thought for a second he was going to be a super nerd and be like "Duh! Because I'm a hero and seigi and stuff!" and it would have been so damn corny.

They miss another opportunity for whimsy by not playing up the idea that Star Five is the "sibling" robot of Five Robo. Everyone's asleep at the wheel here.

I just realized I have 28 more of these. 

Fiveman Episode 15

 

EPISODE 15

The first good episode since Episode 2, dealing with Garoa's hatred for Gaku. And it's not some meaningless, pointless, empty thing like Fire Candle's "beef" (more like "cruelty-free beef substitute") with Gozyu Wolf -- it stems from the encounter all those years ago, the wound Gaku gave Garoa -- the scar that remains on his face, the scar that remains on his pride.

Garoa lures Gaku to a location for a showdown with the growing of a Shidon flower -- the flowers the Hoshikawas were growing in the first episode, the flower Gaku was growing with his students, which were both destroyed by Zone attacks. This creates a bit of a plothole for a later episode, but for now it just remains nice symbolism. Gaku and Garoa both take quite a beating and each retreat; Garoa sulks and bleeds in a cave, angrily shouting away the other Zone members who come to check on him. (It's a cool scene, with fellow warrior Billion being the only one to respect his privacy.) Gaku spends day and night trying to strengthen his sword-fighting, worrying his siblings...

Garoa challenges Gaku to a final showdown; a cage match that only the survivor can exit. Ken decides to disguise himself as Five Red and fight in his brother's place, but Gaku soon learns of the truth and makes his way to duel Garoa, where he ultimately ends up re-opening the wound he gave him as a child.

It's a strong episode with cool, nonstop action, believable motivations, tension and emotional ties to the characters' pasts. And I think they should have killed Garoa off in this episode because it's all downhill from here for him.

Garoa never quite worked as the intimidating presence he was meant to be. I blame actor Takeshi Ishikawa. He has moments where he's really good at selling Garoa's rage, but there's something awkward about him. It really seems to me like he has a problem with the suit, he's uncomfortable, can barely move. So he can move kind of clumsily; he often makes weird faces. (Out of discomfort? Feeling like he's practically masked, so he's overexaggerating?) 

Garoa's supposed to be a tough-as-nails, hardened warrior. Garoa had a nice moment a couple of episodes back in which he asked Meadow to punish him, rather than every Zone officer, for their failures. Tough, competent. But the way Ishikawa can awkwardly come across, I feel, leads the show to making Garoa comedic and putting him into embarrassing situations. It's really out of place and really ruins the character and ends up making him seem like one of the worst, weakest villains in the franchise. And they completely drop the rivalry with Red! I feel like Garoa would have been the perfect Sentai role for Shinzo Hotta -- he would have been a little older; which I think would help the character, and he he nails that growling, stern, pissed-off boss guy.

The plothole, BTW, is that Garoa has a Shidon flower to grow and that Meadow turns it into a monster. In the final stretch of episodes, it's revealed that the weakness of "Meadow" is the Shidon flower. The show obviously wasn't so planned out.

Fiveman Episodes 11-14

 

 

EPISODE 11

Ho-hum. It's nice that they thought to include a student character, but this episode is just half-baked -- although it's a premise you can easily imagine working in a better made show that had care put into it and whimsy.

It begins with Ken saying he plays the lottery in hopes of winning and rebuilding their school; at the same time, an old student goes on a treasure hunt because he wants the riches to rebuild the school. Meanwhile, Dongoros wants to go on the same treasure hunt because he's a greedy bastard. You can picture an earlier show making the emotional connection between Ken and the student and the kind of crazy, dangerous, race-against-the-clock scenario of them getting to the treasure before Dongoros. This should be whimsical and adventurous! It should be The Goonies!

But it's cheap. It's all set at the rocky location. And, in the middle of the episode, we learn that it's not a treasure the map leads to, but...a stone which can make whoever holds it fly. And the Zone decide they should keep this out of Fiveman's hands because they'll somehow be REALLY fucked if Fiveman can fly, but not when they keep coming up with plans so bad they'd embarrass Rito Revolto. (I think Dongoros should have been like "Fuck that" once he heard the treasure wasn't gold or silver he'd been hoping for, but a rock.)

It's not like the kid guest star is bad or anything, but there's no real bond with Ken. (This show lacks heart! No money + no heart + no whimsy = Fiveman.) Think of Ultraman 80, the way Yamato taught a full class, but he had those five that were focused on and regulars. You could get a little more emotionally invested there. If Super wanted to go treasure hunting with Yamato, you'd care a little more. Not with this rando who seems more like a regular kid guest star than a supposed pupil the Hoshikawas had off-screen.

And the kicker is...Dongoros gets the treasure and it just rolls out from its location to the battlefield, blinds the villains with a light and...disappears into the sky. And nothing is said about it! It's all forgotten about! The Fiveman never even knew what this thing was. What the hell's the point of it? Where's the flying Fiveman I was promised?!? 

 

 

EPISODE 12

An episode that almost works but not quite. Again, Fiveman leaves out some of the building blocks of emotion and heart that previous shows had.

Arthur G6 takes a hit shielding the team and winds up an amnesiac, in pieces in a junkyard where a nerdy outcast hangs out to tinker with electronics. The kid apparently puts Arthur back together yet is shocked with Arthur's up and about and helping him deal with bullies? Was a page missing from the script or something? Once Arthur regains his memory, he enlists the kid to help him access the programming which will allow him to become the Earth Cannon.

Once again Fiveman brings an episode that's reminiscent of a previous show's more successful attempts. Here, you're reminded of the Bioman where Peebo loses his memory and befriends a nerd. I also feel like a better show would have given Arthur more of a reason to put himself in danger and take the hit for the team or have gotten drama out of it by having one of the team have just gotten into an argument with Arthur or something. But, no. Between their lack of chemistry and lazy scripts like this, the Fiveman at times barely feel like the stars of their own show.

 

 

EPISODE 13

Hey, Fiveman invented STOMP!

This episode may be called "Do Re Mi Fight," but the action I'm appreciative for here is the teachin' action, because it's nice of the show to remember they're teachers! Remi's subbing for a music teacher friend and, wouldn't you know it, the music they're rehearsing interferes with the latest monster's attack. We've seen this plot before, it's getting redundant to point out. (It's a Maskman and Liveman episode squeezed together.)

There's two things that bug me about this episode...

1) The bad guys think the problem is eliminated once they trash Remi's classroom. Like, they thought there was ZERO chance of ANY other type of music interfering with their easily distracted monster.

2) I hate that Gaku's the one who's looking around the classroom and realizes that they can turn any object into an instrument. That obviously should have been an observation of the team's MUSIC TEACHER.

 

 

EPISODE 14

This episode almost gets a right amount of heart and whimsy. Almost...

Another familiar scenario, in which a kid is bullied for telling tall tales, like she's friends with Fiveman. She learns her lesson after nearly leading the villains to their base and is rewarded with the Fiveman showing up and acting like they're her friend and she isn't a liar, so...she gets rewarded for her lying? (Yeah, yeah, I know it's that she learned better and vowed not to lie anymore and that's why they're helping her save face, but it still plays funny.)

The guest star is likable enough, but in an episode called "Cute Liar," you expect a really ornery and rambunctious character -- and that's where you get a lot of fun and comedy, but she's just pretty normal. She creates a rift between Ken and Fumiya, the former not wanting to trust her, and they unbelievably nearly come to blows about it. 

When I covered each Sentai member, I talked about how Ken and Fumiya seem interchangeable -- they'll both be depicted as goofballs but then hardheaded. To me, the elementary school Phys Ed teacher should be the fun-loving goofball who wants to play around, so I feel like Ken should have been on the kid's side here. (It's middle and high school gym teachers that are psychotic assholes.) They often put Fumiya in light, comedic situations and point out that he's the youngest, but Kobayashi always seems like a grump who thinks he's too good for the show (or is still bitter about losing Kamen Rider) and "fun" moments with his character don't work -- so just have Fumiya be the argumentative pissant all the time.

Fiveman Episodes 7-10

 

EPISODE 7

Anytime I try to rewatch Fiveman, this episode is a roadblock. I hit the preview and am like "Oh, no." I start the episode and am like "Oh, no." I finish the episode, and I'm like "Oh, no."

There's worse episodes out there. There's worse Fiveman out there. There's dumber episodes out there. There's dumber episodes of Fiveman out there. But there's just something about this episode that I can't stand. It's bad and dumb.

Dongoros pays a giant monster to terrorize Earth. Because he's cheap, he picks a kid, ha-ha. The whole episode is Kazumi and Fumiya trying to find out the kid's problem, and his problem is he's bad at math. So the whole episode is Kazumi teaching him math. (One of the methods is by getting him to subtract how many Zone enemies the Fiveman kill in their battle. Wholesome!) I have to say, though, that I like how the show always has Fumiya being able to figure out alien languages. It's been said that the show had originally planned for Ken to be an adoptive brother, but wouldn't it have been more interesting if Fumiya was maybe an alien child the Hoshikawas adopted, explaining his knowledge? 

The monster's design isn't cute enough for this scenario. And this episode is an early but good encapsulation for why Fiveman fails in most endeavors -- it's going for this cutesy, whimsical, offbeat vibe, but nobody's heart is really in it. Kazumi actress Kazuko Miyata tries her damnedest here, but a lot of the times, I don't feel like the Hoshikawa cast is caring and present enough to make these situations soar. Nobody is in sync, nobody clicks, nobody seems like they want to be here. Fumiya especially. The guy really seems like he hates everything and he'd rather be anywhere but filming this damn show. Don't give him anything sentimental or emotional to carry.

You want to be Flashman so bad, Fiveman? Well, you gotta listen to the complaints. Look at the Flashman cast. From Episode 1 they're just with it and on the same page and they really gel and you get the sense they all get along -- when I was a kid, I was under the impression the Flashman team were siblings. They ARE, in a sense, but not officially -- but they feel far more like a family than the Hoshikawas, Sentai's first family team. The Flashman cast are enjoying themselves, they elevate the work, they make the fantastic seem plausible. Now look at the Fiveman cast, who seem like they're being forced at gunpoint and don't really have chemistry -- and the only one with the presence to ever make things interesting is Keiko Hayase, and you know she's going to be shortchanged because Remi is Character Five of five.

 

EPISODE 8

This isn't a bad episode necessarily...it just has no oomph or emotional weight despite its tragic script. While it's a familiar scenario from writer Kunio Fujii, the fault is in the execution, and it's a shock that it's directed by such a great like Nagaishi when it falls so flat.

An alien prisoner of Zone's uses the last of her power to telepathically contact Gaku and arrange for an area where he can find and save her. The Zone use this opportunity to attack, and when things look bleak, the alien sacrifices herself to save Gaku. And...nobody cares.

The guest star IS sympathetic. You feel for the character, who is the last of her kind, as Zone uses her as basically a human battery to power Doldora's experiments, discarding her into a skeleton-filled pit when they have no more use for her. She's desperate to get out; the episode hammers home that she's the last survivor of her planet. You don't expect the show to kill her, but it does. Gaku failed in saving her, but she saves Gaku. And there's just no emotional impact to any of it. No tears for this young girl's sacrifice, no fiery rage for the perpetrator's of her demise, no swelling music... The episode ends with Gaku wishing for the girl's remaining crystal tear to return to her planet and be planted as a seed to restore it TSUZUKU.

This episode reminds me of that early Maskman episode Fujii wrote with the alien who contacts Takeru via his Aura Power for help. I never cared for that episode, because Maskman was meant to be grounded and here was a really out of place episode involving space and aliens for no reason. But that episode had an urgency, Ryousuke Kaizu gave a performance of intense determination, it was filmed well, it had tension and the alien was saved in the end...

This Fiveman has the gutsier ending of killing the guest off, but it's just such a flat episode with no emotion. All of the Fiveman just seem so...deflated. No connection to the material or each other, HOW THE HELL DO TWO OF THE CAST MEMBERS MARRY ONE ANOTHER WHEN THERE'S NO CONNECTION?!?!

"But Shougo, this wasn't an important episode, why get hung up on it?" Because that Maskman episode wasn't important, either, but Kaizu sure acted like it was! Effort is the key word here, and it's what Fiveman lacks. 

 

EPISODE 9

I know this episode's a kind of fan favorite -- more notorious for having the "evil" Sentai team, Gingaman, rather than anything truly noteworthy, and more notorious for them sharing a name with a later real Sentai -- but it's never worked for me. I *think* it wants to be a wild and crazy episode like Changeman 21, which straddles the line between serious and out there comedy, but...the "funny" portion of this Fiveman isn't funny, and its "serious" portion...isn't all that serious. (Ooh, the bad guys want to hijack the airwaves and hypnotize the world into worshipping Meadow.)

I know it's easy to play ghostwriter on an old episode or movie, but I would have preferred for this episode to be played a little straighter. Have the Zone send out a fake Sentai team -- it can be their ragtag group of aliens, but give them a Sentai-esque design to hide behind. By having them be Zone's rejects, our heroes immediately recognize them and know something's up. To me, it would have been a little more interesting if the Fiveman saw the public take to this new team and so they were able to think, "Hey, maybe we could leave the safety of the Earth to them and go find our parents* or resume teaching or..."

But, no. The Gingaman are those Zone extras (the BB Saloon crowd they ain't). Our heroes know they're bad, and it's the bad guys themselves who expose themselves and stop their own plan so...

I think this episode might have worked in a previous show, with a Soda who was more on the ball and a more game cast.

Oh, and that reporter woman is obnoxious.

*I know at this point in the show they believe their parents are dead, but still...you could have had one or two of them holding out hope and being like, "We could spend this time searching for mom and dad..."

 

EPISODE 10

I'm beginning to beat a dead horse, but here's a good episode that's marred by there being a lack of emotional connection. It's the first episode written by Inoue, and you're kind of thankful because it at least has a spark of life to it. The episode is also marred by the guest character, Zoba, having one of the dopiest outfits they spent all of four minutes designing and throwing together. (A shame, because the guest actor is pretty good.)

The big mistake of the episode is giving it to Fumiya. (Not the actor you want to give emotional stuff to, remember.) I wouldn't say he takes a liking to Zoba. He just for no known reason decides to put himself in danger and try to help him without much motivation. Zoba is a former royal, the last survivor of his planet, who has undergone cybernetic surgery in order to get revenge on Doldora, who led the attack, the first planet taken by Zone. Consumed with revenge, Zoba doesn't hesitate to attack anyone in order to replenish energy, which is by drinking human blood.

So he's kind of one of Inoue's tragic, gothic antiheroes. I know it's predictable, but give this episode to Kazumi. Hint at some romantic undercurrent, but you don't have to go there -- have it be that she responds to his sorrow over losing his younger sibling since she's the caretaker of her younger siblings.

Zoba has a speech where he tells the Hoshikawas about losing his family and they at least had each other. Fumiya begins this episode by playfully stealing food from his siblings at a cookout; you can look at this episode as Fumiya getting the focus because he feels bad for Zoba because he realizes how much he himself gets through because of his older siblings, that maybe helping him is a way of paying them back. (He steals his siblings' food but offers himself as food to this vampire he just met? Nandafuck?) I just don't feel that connection because Kobayashi just doesn't seem to work at that kind of emotional level.

At least it focuses on Doldora. Nishi is probably the best actress in the show, it's like an Atsuko Takahata situation in RX where a good actress and performance is being wasted in a show of lesser quality.

Fiveman Episodes 3-6

 

EPISODE 3

This isn't really a bad episode, per se, but quite a drop from the first two episodes. The first two episodes made the world of the show seem big -- from the Shidon planet to the packed school, to that island they filmed at in Episode 2. And this episode is a really reduced, isolated, small-scale thing focusing on Gaku and just ONE former student, and they're always just outside.

You still have to wonder why they even bothered making the Fiveman teachers only to immediately do away with that. The Japanese Wikipedia claims they moved away from it because they thought the younger members of the audience wouldn't care about teacher-student relationships. And if that's the case, I once again ask...why bother doing it in the first place? But I won't harp on that...too much.

It's always been clear that Fiveman was intended to be more lighthearted and kid-friendly after the late '80s Sentai shows focused on being "seishun dramas." I think that's a bit of a step backwards, that the shows had been aiming higher and evolving and the writers and staff were getting more comfortable with that style and now they're yanked back and tied down to wearing an outfit the franchise outgrew. Soda was obviously burning out, but I don't think he had his heart in doing a show like this at that point. And slap on top of that the way the show looks like it has zero budget and you end up with this half-cooked show that pleases nobody and nearly ended the franchise.

This episode is meant to show the parallels between Gaku and his student -- the lengths a teacher would go to in order to save his student -- and Billion and his cohort and the lengths a bad guy will go to in order to win, even at the cost of his good cohort. It's not entirely successful to me because Gaku's student is mischievous and not as amusing as the show thinks, so a bit bratty and unlikable, and the show is sugarcoated when it comes to the bad guys, so they don't go far showing Billion's cruelty. One of Soda's better shows would have established how close the two were with flashbacks at least. Billion doesn't act like Torarugin is anything but an ordinary monster of the week and not a former partner-in-crime. For me, it would have helped if Torarugin had been a face actor -- I really don't like his design.

Bottom line -- make Takeshi less of a shit, beef up the Billion/Torarugin side and maybe the episode would have worked more. 

 

EPISODE 4

I like this one -- I've always liked Remi and Keiko Hayase, and when I first saw this episode, I had a strange fascination with drunken fist. Win-win!

The problem is that it's a little too early to have such a funky episode, and Fiveman doesn't want to commit to the comedic heights of the concept. I'm not saying the Fiveman should be running around going "EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!?!?!?" and screaming and mugging at the cameras like recent idiots Zenkaiger. (Pointing out how funny the situation is supposed to be doesn't make it funny, new shows.) But there's a happy medium, and Fiveman kind of holds back and doesn't take full advantage of the scenario -- and a modern viewer is probably under the impression it's a case where an old show is presenting a situation that hasn't aged well, so it comes across as unintentionally funny, when...no, it's supposed to be absurd and amusing. Take the scene with the cars being drunk by alcohol-poisoned gasoline and they fight each other -- Carranger would have gotten way more mileage (awful pun not intended) out of that situation, but here it's a tiny blip, played almost as a news clip. And you're just like, "Huh. That was amusing." Fiveman has such Flashman Envy -- it needed to jump into the bonkersness the way Flashman would with something like that pumpkinhead episode, for example.

I don't like Akihiko Yoshida's "zany" music for this show; the way it's used here is as bad as the new idiots who mug and yell at the camera.

Drunk Five Yellow piloting Five Robo to do drunken fist. C'mon. You don't see that everyday.

EPISODE 5

The first sucky thing to note about this episode is that Dongoros is now voiced by Osamu Katou instead of Takuzou Kamiyama -- and Kamiyama is SO MUCH BETTER. Katou just sounds like an old man thug; Kamiyama has a weird snobbish yet smart-ass sound to him -- it just went so much better for the character Dongoros is supposed to be. (The greedy guy worried about spending too much on their war, keeping track of every Dolyen spent? A pretty funny character...now ruined with irritating and mismatched voice-acting.)

This episode's a weird one to me. You have Dongoros leading a plan (?) to kidnap babies, put them into eggs and hatch them as birdpeople. Fiveman has Flashman Envy, but when Flashman depicted Mess messing with babies, it would always be in dark, disturbing ways. Here it's shocking that babies are targeted, but it's not treated as the screwed-up plan it is. Fumiya and Remi jump into the spotlight to save the babies to avenge losing their parents as babies. OK, that could work as good motivation, but it's undermined by the two hatching a freaking Kakuranger scheme with Fumiya pretending to be a baby to lure the monster out. Tonal inconsistency.

And if all that's not enough, we have an alien egg that finds its way to Earth, looking for its parents, mistaking everyone it encounters as its parent and hilarity...ensues? They discover the thing probably lost its parents in a Zone attack, and it cheerfully leaves Earth after the day is saved. Yay? Where exactly is it going?! The thing's design is also pretty shoddy, and it's one of voice-actress Akiko Muta's less sympathetic roles.

None of this comes together to work as any kind of unifying dramatic theme. Thumbs down!

EPISODE 6

The first episode of the show to be written by Mami Watanabe. She wrote some Turborangers I liked, but...whoo-whee, although it's a Remi episode, is this one a stinker. It's like one of those tween Zyuranger episodes, that lull after the introduction, where they dump some stinky episodes all while you know Burai's around the corner and you're waiting for the show to get to THAT...

Doldora hatches a cockamamie plan to make people lazy and is VERY smug in her success. They would have gotten away with it, too, if not for Remi tricking them into thinking she's a hard worker, so they walk into her ambush. This is just only one episode after the Zone falls for Fumiya being a baby and walking into THAT trap. So, while a big head rules Zone, they don't have much in the brains department.

An all-too-brief kung-fu fight courtesy of Remi is this episode's sole highlight.

And it all ties up with a nice message of working hard to please your family, mankind, and your corporate overlords, kids. TSUZUKU!

Fiveman Intro & Episodes 1-2

 

Fiveman...

It's kinda been my punching bag for a while. I'd like to like this show more than I do. Hirohisa Soda's my favorite Sentai writer, it's his last show as main writer. When I first got back into toku in the late '90s, and I was sampling post-Liveman Sentais, I remember getting to Fiveman, seeing its credits, and being like "Ah! This has the feel of the shows I grew up with." Other than the first episodes and the last episodes, it was hard to find the entire show for a while, and when I first watched it all in '05 or so...I was happy to be watching the show in full, but I was massively let down. It was generic as could be, and not the greatest way for Soda to go out. 

Now, it's obvious it wasn't planned to be Soda's last show; it's Fiveman's poor performance that let producer Takeyuki Suzuki to clean house. Had they known, perhaps some of Fiveman's...let's say "familiar" beats...could have been more of a celebration of Soda's accomplishments and all he did for the franchise. Fiveman mainly has Flashman Envy -- Flashman's one of the best, most consistent, tightly planned and unique Sentai shows. It's a good show to want to imitate, but don't be so damn lazy about it. (Fiveman even steals Flashman's narrator, Eiichi Onoda. "But, Shougo, a lot of shows share narrators!" Yeah, well, these are the only two Sentais Onoda narrates. Coincidence? Nope!)

So, as it is, instead of loving homage, or a pastiche of past series, the show plays like a writer desperate to reclaim past glory, recycling ideas from better shows for this lazy and aimless one that's just on auto pilot and constantly reminding you of those better shows. With Maskman, Liveman and Turboranger, the franchise had left the space shows behind, so Fiveman's also a curious step backward in that regard, when sci-fi was no longer so dominant in the zeitgeist.

The thing's a frustrating mess. Super Sentai Fivefingerdiscountman.

But before I get started...

People always like to poke fun at the team's name. They're "Earth Sentai" because Earth is their home. "Fiveman" may have been a rejected name for Maskman, but its origins are the same -- a nod to Goranger. ("Goman" doesn't sound good, c'mon.) During this rewatch, during one of the episodes with Star Five, I had the idea that "Starman" would have been a pretty cool name for the Hoshikawas.

 

EPISODES 1 & 2

A truly excellent premiere. One wonders how the show had its act so together to deliver this and then just fall on its ass for the rest of the series. I'm thinking through not just Sentai or toku, but all TV to try to find an instance of a show having a good pilot, but the rest of it falls so far in quality... It's like, if these two episodes were its own little movie, like ZO or J, then it would be like "Fiveman's awesome! Why didn't we get more of that?" Well, we did...we got 46 more episodes, and it's all downhill from here.

These episodes are more of a continuous piece than even the Maskman or Liveman premieres; you can watch the first episodes of those shows just fine, but Fiveman's first episode is deliberately paced to flow into the second episode and make one piece. If you watch just the first episode of Fiveman on its own, you might be bored or wonder where the superhero action is or why people like me call it a great premiere.

But it's good that it takes its time. We spend just the right amount of time setting up the Hoshikawas on Shidon, the tragedy that strikes. The Hoshikawa Kids' escape is tense and dramatic, with nice little details like Arthur's printing the family photo as an upset Gaku clings to him, accidentally hitting the print button. Arthur's the MVP of this premiere -- I like his vow to raise the Hoshikawa kids, his disappointment at Ken rejecting him as just a robot, his sadness that he knows he couldn't be the parental replacement, but how damned hard he tried anyhow... (I've said before that the ONE thing Fiveman has over Flashman is that Arthur's a better, more meaningful character than Magu could ever be.)

It's always funny to me that the show made a big deal about the heroes all being teachers, and then their school is destroyed in the first episode, so they never do much teaching. (In the first "This Seems Familiar..." segment regarding Fiveman's FIVE-finger-discounting past Sentai shows, the destruction of the school by enemies from our heroes' past might make you recall Liveman.)

Bad guys Zone are like a mash-up of Gozma and Mess, but nowhere near as interesting or threatening as any member of those groups. Empress Meadow is a nice design, reminiscent of Star King Bazuu, only not at all frightening or intimidating. Overall, I don't really like anime designer Koichi Oohata's designs for the main Zone officers, and it's sad that they're the last real group of face villains as I recognize them. (I like the big group of face villains Soda gives you over the two or three that had been the norm for Uehara, or the one human + thousands of suits of later Sentais.)

Patience pays off for Episode 1's slow build-up as Episode 2 is front-loaded with action; this was the first time SFX director Hiroshi Butsuda takes over Sentai's effects from long-time director Nobuo Yajima, and the show tries to remind you of it every chance it gets. (Check out Five Red's flying attacks or the cool way the team transports into the mecha's cockpit.)

The OP and ED theme songs and credits are also top-notch, with emotional lyrics, cool visuals for the OP, nice dramatic bits dealing with the heroes' being raised by Arthur for the end. Seriously, so much care and effort went into these first two episodes and the credits sequences and...where does it go?!