Changeman Episode 52

 

2/1, Episode 52 -- "Buuba Dies on Earth"

This episode's a biggie, and Changeman is full throttle from here on out, so let's get right to it...

Bazuu is PISSED that Gator defected, and is taking it out on Giluke. Can you believe that silly, little, green pickle guy is the FIRST person to successfully defect from Gozma? Who would have thought? Ahames seizes the opportunity to steal Giluke's thunder, getting the go-ahead from Bazuu to lead the latest attack; I said last week that she starts playing as dirty as Giluke, and boy does she. She might not be able to make a Space Beast Soldier like Giluke can, but she still comes up with a dangerous plan that risks the life of one of her officers...

The plan? She enlists the help of Space Beast Soldier Dariru, who initially disguises himself creepily. It ends up that Dariru is of the same race that Bazuu used to attack and take over Shiima's planet of Amanga; Dariru's people give off an energy that feeds negatively off of the Amanga people, creating a destructive force for whomever or whatever is unfortunate enough to be caught in the middle of that energy. (Ahames, per her usual M.O., is specifically targeting the Changeman.) Shiima's furious at not only seeing this species of monster, but by Ahames' callous disregard for her life -- this plan, in the end, is going to end up killing Shiima. (You gotta love just hold cold Ahames is in her exchange with Shiima. "You'd send me to my death?" "What of it?" COLD!)

And this is where Shiima's pretty much had it. Despite her earlier protests to Buuba that she'd never consider rebelling the way Gator did, Buuba knows her better than she would have ever thought -- Gator HAS planted the idea of abandoning Gozma in her mind. After the events of episodes 46 and 49, and then Gator's defection, her thoughts are filled with ideas of stopping fighting and going home, thoughts that are telepathically picked up by the likes of Nana, the Gator family and Ibuki. Nana, once again with disregard for her own safety even after all she's been through, is the one who takes it upon herself to reach Shiima and save her. But Buuba doesn't need to be a telepath to know what's on his comrade's mind...

If you were under the impression Buuba was just mindless muscle for Gozma, then this episode will teach you otherwise. (Well, other episodes did it, too, like episode 48, but this time it hits home with a poignancy.) It seems all the battles they fought together has created a closeness, because Buuba takes it upon himself to save Shiima. He sees the sadness and pain she's in. He recognizes that she has something to fight and live for, and he really doesn't. I like to think that Jill's appearance in 48 is what motivated Buuba here; his love for Jill was rekindled, his memories of his pirate crew were revived, the betrayal by Giluke, it all served as a reminder of the life and freedom he had before Bazuu got his claws in him. Now, his love is dead, his crew is gone, Gozma's getting more and more cruel in their willingness to sacrifice their main crew. A wanderer, a ronin, a man of mystery, forced to fight for Bazuu's cause because he didn't have a cause of his own. Buuba, obviously a proud warrior -- Klingon-like -- probably thought fighting and winning was enough, but no more.

So Buuba does the only thing he thinks he can, which is to strike down Shiima with a maneuver he refers to as "the sword of life." Shiima appears dead, which not only pisses off Ahames -- Shiima was important to her plan, after all -- but it also pisses off Tsurugi! Tsurugi, the one who put his ass on the line for Shiima in episodes 46 and 49, believing in her, believing in the good in her. Buuba knows that, with this act, he's a dead man. One way or another, by Gozma or by Changeman, he's walking to his death, entering his final battle. It's a good day to die. (I suppose I should mention here that designer Izubuchi has said that Buuba's design was inspired by Klingons. However, I'd like to point out that a lot of the Klingon warrior/honor culture -- which some have described as being "bushido-like" -- didn't become a part of Star Trek lore until The Next Generation, which was a few years after Changeman. Kind of weird how that worked out.)

Which leads to THE scene. Buuba's final battle with a very, very angry Change Dragon. It begins with a sword duel, without a music track. (It's interesting when they choose to use music or not in this show; no music can make a scene seem tense or, in this case, emphasize just how brutal these two are fighting, and the damage they're causing one another.) The shots, the stakes, the seriousness -- it's like a samurai duel from a classic film. Buuba's fighting with his all, and he and Dragon are pretty equal in terms of hits. And then, the classic shot...the fatal blow is struck with the backdrop of a setting sun. With these final few strikes, music does play, but not your everyday Changeman music, but classical. Dragon gets in a final slash as Buuba falls before the sun, rolling down a hill.

Now, this scene is awesome, and one of my favorite final duels in a tokusatsu. It's a pretty well known scene to the Japanese Sentai fans. (The booklet for this DVD volume referred to it as one of Sentai's "most famous scenes.") It's an amazingly choreographed fight and a beautifully staged shot; over the years, numerous tokusatsu shows have tried to imitate it, but they've never duplicated it. One thing that makes a huge difference between this fight and subsequent imitators -- the emotion behind it. It isn't just "Oops! This is episode 52, time to kill a regular!" There's an emotional backbone to it, there are layers of motivations. Another thing that makes a huge difference -- AN ACTUAL SUNSET! This is the real deal. There's too many tokusatsu shows with awful artificial sunsets, period, but when they have artificial sunsets as the backdrop for a duel, no doubt trying to recreate Changeman's magic? It's really pathetic. This final duel, with so much drama and emotion behind it, is really aided by the blood red skies.

It was supposedly a bit of a painstaking process, just for a few seconds of screen-time. It's strange to think, but you have to wait for the sunset, but once it happens, you only have so much time to get the shot. So, it's time-consuming, yet has to be done quickly. Most people credit episode director Takao Nagaishi and director-of-photography Masao Inokuma for this scene. And, of course, I credit those guys, but I also think action-director Junji Yamaoka should be given credit. Yamaoka's always taken care in the way he visually stages a fight scene, but you know what else tells me that Yamaoka's probably the driving force behind it? He himself goes on to try and duplicate this scene in later shows, and he's the ONLY ONE TO ALWAYS USE GENUINE SUNSETS. In Flashman, with Red Flash versus Kaura, in Jiban when he gets killed, in Blue Swat with their final fight with Jisp -- Yamaoka was action-director for all of those shows, and they all had crucial final battles that took place before the setting sun, which was authentically filmed before an actual setting sun. Now, look at Dairanger or Kakuranger or Kabuto, which each have a few sunset duels which are embarrassing and atrocious and not cool because it's all an effect. (A bad effect -- the sun in those shows looks like a drawing.) Thank goodness that the Changeman staff recognized the importance of this fight and deemed it worthy enough to go to such lengths. It obviously made an impact, because it's still remembered. (When I first saw Gaoranger VS Super Sentai, I loved that the sword-fighter segment was kicked off with the Dragon VS Buuba fight; all of the other segments went chronologically, so it was a nice way of recognizing the scene's importance. Also, the way it was recreated in Akibaranger as Akiba Red's dream battle says a lot. Akibaranger director Ryuta Tasaki once referred to Changeman's sunset duel as a masterpiece.)

As Buuba lies dying, Shiima springs upward, transformed and revived. She makes her way to Buuba, crying, thanking him...now, in her own voice. The move Buuba used, the "katsujinken," meaning "the sword that gives life" is part of a marital-arts philosophy with a few varying interpretations. When Shiima tells Buuba that he only pretended to kill her, he tells her otherwise, saying that he did, and that she's resurrected as the person she should be. I think he's taking the metaphorical side of the philosophy and making it literal, which I think is something that's confused some viewers, but I don't think he actually killed Shiima. I think it's something more spiritual, more symbolic -- he gave of himself, he sacrificed himself for Shiima, and it spoke to her soul, it reawakened her. In the martial-arts philosophy, there's the sword that gives life and the sword that gives death. Buuba's weapon, the Bulbados, has seen its share of combat -- it's been stained with blood, it's ended plenty of lives. This is the first time it's given a life, in that he's freed Shiima from her hatred, from Gozma, given her the opportunity to reclaim herself, her life, and get on with helping her people.

I always liked that Buuba summons up the last bits of strength and rises, making his way towards an understandably concerned Ahames and Dariru. He's obviously going to attack, but falls over and dies in a glorious blue explosion before he can make it to them. Buuba did not give a shit that day, my friends. He was going down swinging and he was taking whoever he could with him.

But the last scene is really strong. It's nighttime, which gives it a downbeat mood. A makeshift grave has been made where the Bulbados fell, with a grateful Shiima weeping and our five heroes joining her, Tsurugi bringing flowers. Sometimes, it really doesn't work for me in a tokusatsu when the hero beats their sworn enemy, but ends up mourning them. Think of the end of Sunvulcan, when those three weirdos salute Amazon Killer after they kill her. Why does Ryou decide to become Jin's best bud in Dairanger, when he just REALLY wanted to rip off his head the last time he saw him? How dorky did the GekiJuuKen school look in forgiving Rio? But I think it works here. Tsurugi understands the sacrifice Buuba made, what a kind of sorrowful person he was and how much he meant to Shiima. And he's seeing the changes that are happening within the battle and with the aliens and the Gozma and wonders how Buuba might have been different if those changes had come sooner. Gozma's conquest, the war they bring with them, has been long and bloody, and it wasn't until they set their sights on the awesome Earth that things changed, that Bazuu and Gozma started tasting defeat. Earth was the game changer, no wonder it gave us the Changeman, huh? (The show's too subtle to hit you over the head with that one; that's all me, baby.)

I feel I should take this time to honor Buuba actor Yoshinori Okamoto. He brings so much to the role of Buuba that it's pretty amazing and impressive all that he was able to accomplish with the role. If you know me, you know that I complain about the Sentai villains who are suited -- I like when visible actors play the villains, like Munemaru Kouda as Dr. Man or Shouhei Yamamoto as Giluke or Yutaka Hirose or Akiko Amamatsuri or Kenichi Endo. I don't find the suit villains like Wolzard or Yami no Yaiba or Doukoku as interesting as the villains played by actors. But Okamoto is so strong as Buuba that I don't even think of him as a masked/suited villain, even though he's pretty damn close. All you can see of Okamoto as Buuba is the eyes, but like any good actor, he knows that the eyes are his strongest tools, and he manages to do so much with the character, convey so many different emotions. Good casting informs the writing, and I think Okamoto's talent and what he brought to the role helped shape Buuba into being the strong, memorable, fan favorite character he is, instead of being a generic henchman.

Being a Japan Action Club member, he of course brings a great physicality to the part, and provides countless amazing action scenes, but Okamoto is also just a good actor, and he really shines as Buuba, and I think his talents and what he did with Buuba is what led to him becoming such a fixture to the franchise, one of its classic performers. He's recognizable to fans, which is saying something for a guy who really rose through the ranks of the Japan Action Club, beginning his career by being just a suit-actor and stuntman. And Okamoto took the role of Buuba seriously, and he's still fond of the character to this day. He has stories of how damned hot that suit was -- sweating his ass off even in winter -- and he even reprised the role of Buuba in 2011, in Gokaiger stage-shows, where the final sunset battle between Buuba and Change Dragon was recreated.

Okamoto has said that on the same day of filming Buuba's death, he himself got into a serious car accident, which required several months of recuperation. (He's mentioned that he broke teeth and his face got cut up.) However, shortly after the accident, he left the hospital so he could make it to the studio to do the voiceover work for Buuba's dialogue in the episode. The accident was near fatal, leading Okamoto to supposedly remark that "Buuba took [his] place [for him in death]."

The episode's final narration nicely sums up Buuba, but it's pretty depressing and a bit on the pathetic side. But it's appropriate, and I love the somber way narrator Nobuo Tanaka reads it. "Changeman's fierce opponent, the space pirate Buuba, dies on Earth. His age is unknown. His birthdate is unknown. The planet of his birth, also, unknown..."