3/16 -- Dengeki Sentai Changeman (The Movie) Premieres
Imagine being a Changefan in '85 -- you could have seen the movie in the afternoon and head home for the latest episode!
Sentai movies have always been called glorified episodes. It's a criticism that's hard to argue against. Some of them do feel like regular episodes or slightly extended episodes, while some of them try to go for a big spectacle -- you might not be getting the greatest story or anything that will alter the events of the series or the show's status quo, but you'll be treated to some damn fine fights or visuals.
This first movie aims to be a tense race-against-the-clock deal; the threat of mysterious earthquakes and having to solve the mystery while also getting people to safety. I think it's entertaining and has some good, big action -- Tsurugi fighting on top of a moving train Octopussy-style and Hayate getting in some Space Sheriff-y bridge swinging -- but, maybe it's me, but I feel like most toku movies never take full advantage of being allowed a theatrical. You expect something bigger and more universe-expansing from a Changeman movie when this race-against-the-clock had been done as plain old episodes in shows like Dynaman and Bioman.
Still, one of the more watchable Sentai movies.
By the way, speaking of Octopussy, Change Dragon stops the explosive at the last second, which is something that's happened to James Bond quite a few times. I know Tsurugi's actor, Haruki Hamada, is a James Bond fan (he even got to narrate some Bond commercials for Quantum of Solace), so I wonder if he appreciated these similarities.
3/23, Episode 8 -- "The Girl is a Vampire"
Changeman doesn't have many weak episodes, but this is one of the few. I always thought this was just a less than stellar episode, sad to say. It's interesting to find out Yuuma gets so agitated at false claims against him -- he lost sleep over wanting to clear his name -- when you think he's just some smart alecky, frivolous guy who doesn't care what people think.
There's a nice development where Kyoko, the kendo girl who at first mistakes Yuuma for a night attacker comes around to trusting him enough to let her go full vampire and follow the Space Beast Monster's call in order to locate him -- which is a damn risky plan. With Kyoko, there's also a tiny fragment of the show's overall goal of showing the scope of war, the innocents affected, those who will unknowingly be pulled into the battle. But...there's just not much else going on in this episode. While a planet of vampires sounds freaking awesome, Docura is forgettable, and he's one of Yutaka Izubuchi's lesser designs.
It's nice to see more night shooting, though -- the show's been doing quite a bit of that. This episode isn't like G3 Princesses level of bad or anything, just generic.
One bright spot is the action scene with Pegasus at the end. Pegasus suit actor Tsutomu Kitagawa shows off a lot of his awesome acrobatic skills in a creative sequence that involves POV shots of the monster taking flight with Pegasus. I remember reading Kitagawa got injured doing this scene, his visor busting and glass getting in his face.
3/30, Episode 9 -- "Shine! The Lethal Miracle Ball"
Another episode that's unfairly criticized. I never really understood why people have a problem with this episode. You get a nice little background on Tsurugi, explaining why maybe he can be a little cold early on, since he was responsible for an accident that seriously hurt his friend. And the show does a reasonably good job of working in actor Haruki Hamada's past skills as a baseball player. (He was a serious ball player in school and had considered a pro career before getting wrapped up in acting.)
I always thought the Bombball was a neat homage to the soccer ball attacks of the early Sentai shows, only way cooler. Space Beast Soldier Ozu was a pain in the ass and the best way to attack him was to rely on Tsurugi's bullseye pitching. What's the problem? People are OK with Sentai heroes dancing or singing to kill a monster, but mock this? Bah!
There's another cool Dragon VS Buuba showdown in this episode, which results in Dragon destroying Buuba's scythe weapon. Don't mess with Change Dragon. His bad side is a dangerous place to be.
4/6, Episode 10 -- "The Dreaded Driver-less Car Army"
This episode gets mocked for Gozma's plan -- "Heh, taking over the world with stuffed animals driving cars, that's not as grim and epic as giving people mushroom haircuts!" The possessed stuffed animal thing, for whatever reason -- I blame Poltergeist -- was a thing for a while in various '80s toku. Besides, despite how much faith Giluke has in the plan, Shiima and Space Beast Soldier Hausto use the possessed car thing as a diversion to lure out Changeman: their REAL plan is for Hausto to capture Changeman and imprison them in a weird no gravity dimension he can create. And you know what? He succeeds! He captures all of the Changeman! It's only thanks to Change Dragon being a bad-ass that they escape.
Kazuoki Takahashi does a lot of his own action in this episode, marking the beginning of his love of getting in on the action work himself. He ends up doing a lot of crazy cool action from here on in Changeman and in the subsequent series he appears in; he dives into action scenes with such devotion that I spent a long time mistakenly under the impression he was a Japan Action Club actor like Jun'ichi Haruta or Hiroshi Watari. There's some cool action in this episode all around, period.
Also worth noting is that, after episode 4, Shiima finally learns how to properly disguise her voice. It fools Hayate, but this would be the only time she does.
This episode also marks the debut footage of what I call "The Car." The '80s Super Sentai -- I think usually the shows with Junji Yamaoka as action director, period -- tend to always use this one piece of stock footage of cars crashing, with the final shot a zoom in on a burning car. For some reason, my memory associates it with Changeman most, I think Changeman in particular is guilty of using this same shot over and over again. I kind of built up this dumb story in my head that it's the same car, and the same owner, who just always happens to be in the wrong area at the wrong time. "I just got it fixed and these Gozma guys had to attack again! Oy!" Think of the teacher Onizuka hated in the GTO anime, whose new car was always getting destroyed (usually by Onizuka).
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