Unsung Heroes of Toku: Naoko Kamio

Naoko Kamio was born on November 16th, 1961. Her earliest known work as a stuntwoman was in Liveman, where she was on the all-purpose action crew. She remained a fixture in Super Sentai in similar small parts -- grunts, extras -- before finally landing her first heroine role as Mega Pink in 1997's Megaranger.

The role of Miku Imamura was a special and unique one amongst tokusatsu heroines, and actress Mami Higashiyama nailed the character. But it was very crucial to have a good performer in the suit, as well, and Kamio delivered, capturing the character's youth, spunky attitude and plucky determination. After Megaranger, Kamio spent most of her time on the Sentai franchise as the double for the heroine actress out of suit, and going back to playing grunts and monsters. While she continued to double actresses out of suit, she was often mainly relegated to substitute for whoever was the in-suit performer for a heroine. (This has led to some confusion as to who she plays. For example, she substituted Gokai Pink for one episode, so some profiles will have her listed as playing Gokai Pink, when that was Mizuho Nagawa's role and it shouldn't be taken away from her.)

(I'd also just like to note here that Kamio is credited as doubling for Nanami out of suit in Hurricaneger. Yuuki Ono played Hurricane Blue in suit. So...stop pretending like you did all of the stunts, Nao Nagasawa! You didn't even do everything as Nanami -- Kamio doubled you!)

By the mid-and-late '00s, Kamio was given a few unique roles that helped make her stand out amongst other talented suit actors. While the roles of Gekiranger's Sha-Fu and Robotough or Goseiger's Datass lack the cool and glory of a full-blown superhero, she still put forth the effort into playing these characters and making them unique. (Who'd think Mega Pink was in Sha-Fu's suit?) The Datass suit doesn't look like a fun one to be in, but she recalled the giddy robo helpers of yesteryear. (Which means, for this '80s fan, Magu.)

Most impressive of all, in my opinion, is Kamio's roles in Zyuohger and Lupinranger vs Patranger. In both series, she plays the main (male) villains. While Zyuohger's Genis doesn't have the intricate design of Turboranger's Ragon, for example, it's still a massive suit which requires the character to be immobile. Kamio's working the top half of the character, and she gives Genis the command his character should have, but also his laconic and detached demeanor; she completely sells the guy as a killer who's killed for sport so many times that he needs new ways to be entertained by it. She makes the character more notable than the voice actor, in my opinion.

Sharing the same main writer as Zyuohger, Lupinranger vs Patranger's main villain, Doguranio Yabun, is a bit similar to Genis. He's shown to be a bit of a frail senior, one who's meant to watch potential successors as they execute plans in the hopes of taking over his gang. Like Genis, Yabun's a bit desensitized and it's hard to impress him, but Kamio makes the character uniquely his own. (I was surprised when I found out she was in suit; I really thought it was an longtime male member of the Japan Action Enterprise -- I was certain it was Hideaki Kusaka or Riichi Seike. And, yeah, when Yabun finally stood up, you could see he was short, so it would rule out Kusaka, but that costume is so bulky, I thought it just made the wearer look short. It really does not look like a pleasant costume to wear.)

A complete 180 from those roles are her roles in Kyoryuger and Ryusoulger as cute prankster-type characters Luckyro and Kureon. While I'm not a fan of the Luckyro character, it's definitely not Kamio's fault -- she plays the part well, conveying the character's youthful joy. Kureon is similar in that it seems to be a boyish monster, but Kureon comes across as being more mean-spirited, taking delight in the torment he causes, sometimes kicking back to watch mayhem unfold, and sometimes just bouncing around with excitement at his plans. (Note the crazy, endless youthful energy she gives these characters, especially Kureon, at age 51.) Another youthful creature she's played is Kamen Rider Kiva's Bassha, who she plays as at times playful, at times deadly, but also rather dandy.

Kamio finally got a full-time hero gig once again with Kyuranger, playing Koguma Sky Blue. While I tend to find kid heroes lame, she really helped save the day by making Koguma Sky Blue actually tough and cool, and I loved the power the character had to grow semi-giant. Kamio is of short stature, so I imagine it had to be fun for her to play this role and remind some people, 20 years after her first full-time hero role, that she could kick ass.

While it's not confirmed, I think it's fairly obvious that Kamio is in-suit as Shinken Red in the second episode of Gokaiger, when the young boy takes the Shinken Red Ranger Key and transforms. If it indeed is Kamio, how funny is it that she briefly got to play Shinken Red, which was one of the last in-suit performances of her husband's, Hirofumi Fukuzawa? (Shinken Red's probably his best role, IMO, and a role that probably meant a lot to him as a swordsman.) She also plays ToQ 4 whenever it's the kid version of Hikari transforming.

Kamio's a very versatile, skilled suit actress, with an emphasis on the acting part of the job. I think, if she weren't a woman, she'd have more main roles, and would be as popular with viewers as someone like Yasuhiro Takeuchi, another talented and versatile suit-actor. Some people think it's due to her height that she doesn't have more main roles, but...Takeuchi is known for being short, and he's often cast as the double for people much taller than he is. It's all in how you film it. Tsutomu Kitagawa, a favorite suit-actor of mine, is on the short side, but he still has more regular hero gigs on his resume than Kamio. Nevertheless, with her villain roles especially, she HAS proven herself, made her mark, and has accomplished a lot, making some of those roles more memorable than they probably had any right to be. For that, she is one of Shougo's Unsung Heroes of Toku™.

Viva Chiba

Sonny Chiba. The man. The legend. The fuckin' man. I'm a huge fan of his movies and admire the heck out of him -- he's a consummate entertainer. He can act, he can fight, he can sing -- he's at home in chop-socky exploitation movies, war dramas, yakuza melodramas, serious samurai epics or sweeping genre movies. He can do it all, and has. He always brings his best, expects others to bring their best, but also is loose enough to know when to not take things seriously -- in Street Fighter, I find his character Takuma Tsurugi to be extremely despicable for most of the movie. But then Chiba can turn around and be lighthearted and goof around in something like Yakuza Deka or The Executioner. He's just good at what he does, is dedicated, and a total pro.

Chiba was contracted with Toei, so when he started the Japan Action Club in the early '70s, Toei's productions benefited from it. With a hell of a knack for scouting talent, Chiba wanted to create action stars like him -- people who were physically talented and could do action, yes, but people who could ACT and ENTERTAIN, as well. It's Chiba's ethos that made the Japan Action Club what it is; even before I got into Chiba's movies, I was a big fan of the Japan Action Club through what I saw of their work in tokusatsu alone. You not only had talented performers like Kenji Ohba, Jun'ichi Haruta, Risa Komaki, Mitchi Love, Hiroshi Watari, Sumiko Tanaka, Mai Ooishi, Naomi Morinaga, Hikaru Kurosaki, Akito Oosuga, Yuki Yajima, Koji Unoki, Toshimichi Takahashi, Satoshi Kurihara, Yoshinori Okamoto, Makoto Sumikawa and so on wowing you with their acrobatic action each week, but a whole list of performers who would wow you with their costumed acting each week. (Chiba should also get credit for recognizing women can kick ass and be action stars, too -- shout out to action star Etsuko Shihomi here. Well before Michelle Yeoh won acclaim for doing so, Shihomi was headlining her own ass-kicking adventures.) Not to mention, discovering and putting Hiroyuki Sanada onto the path of superstardom.

The Japan Action Club's always been the best tokusatsu stunt group to me because of the way they're actually performers. They're not just stunt guys who have the suit thrown on; as per Chiba's goal, they're trained to be all around entertainers, actors, performers. When so many people mock the suit-actors in tokusatsu -- dismissing them as "dudes in spandex or rubber" or whatever -- I've always appreciated the talented ones. (I've always been a Suit-Actor-head. There was a time when I'd talk about them and get a "Who cares who's behind the mask" reply. I'd get called names for trying to guess who was behind the new heroes' mask each year. The same thing once happened when it came to toku writers, directors and singers.) What they do is not unlike traditional mask acting. The Japan Action Club raised suit-acting to an art form. Take a look at a lot of the pre-JAC suit acting, or a lot of non-JAC suit actors: you have martial-artists who are barely able to move in costume or, at best, are more interested in looking cool in their pose. Martial-artists who don't know how to act, so they'll just point and nod their head to every word they say. The JAC's giving you a full performance, a realized character grasped by an actor of equal importance to the one portraying the character out of suit. You ever see a crazy action scene in a tokusatsu and wonder about it -- hey, why can these characters, without their powers, just jump from location to location, or flip-around, or jump into trees? That's the dynamic action the JAC brought to toku, a bit of a ninja element.

The JAC changed Toei's tokusatsu shows, made them better, made them something more. And it can all be traced back to Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba. Besides being an impressive talent in his own right and putting out entertaining movies and shows, he changed the landscape of this little corner of TV, the niche of henshin heroes with his inspiration and dedication. He's not only a hero of the screen, an action hero, but a hero of entertainment.

So, I've long wanted an action figure to honor Chiba. In the early '00s, some company came out with a couple of 1/6 figures of two of his characters -- the ninja Hattori Hanzo and the samurai Yagyu Jubei -- but not only are they super expensive, but they look like nutsack. After seeing this dude create a custom figure of Chiba's Street Fighter character out of G.I. Joes, I was inspired to make my own 3.75 inch figure. I prefer that size of figure because of the retro flavor -- if they had made figures of any of Chiba's movies in his heyday, chances are they would be like these classic Kenner style of toy.

I thought it would be cool to make a figure of Sonny Chiba, but not have it tied down to any particular movie or show. I basically just wanted it to evoke Chiba, the action star. Two of my favorite movies of his are The Executioner and The Killing Machine, so I had those in mind, but they're not meant to be either character from that movie. Just...Sonny Chiba, Japan Action Hero. Funko's ReAction line of retro figures offered two of the perfect body types, but the perfect head was a little tricky. Funko didn't have a whole big selection of Asian heads to use -- pretty much only Sulu from Star Trek could have been usable, but he's got a real dopey expression and stupid haircut. Taking inspiration from that Street Fighter custom, I went with a non-Asian head, but one I thought fit, and had an appropriately pissed off expression.

While Chiba had to leave the JAC behind in the early '90s, the spirit and dedication (mostly) still live on. While I fear the state of tokusatsu will eventually snuff out all of the talents the suit-actors can bring (toku heroes now play with toys instead of fight with them, so action scenes have lessened), the Osamu Kaneda-led Japan Action Enterprise, for now, maintains a high quality in suit-acting and stunts. While other action groups have caught on to what makes the JAC/JAE so special and caused them to up their game, the JAC/JAE are often imitated, but never matched. I still think the JAC/JAE are the best of the action groups used in toku. And it's all thanks to Chiba.

Viva Chiba!