That Weird Feeling When I First Discovered More Of Older Super Sentai Series In The Pre-Zyuranger Era!

Picture of the elderly Gorangers is from Shogo B'Stard... now moving on!

I would always consider it funny the moment that I would start a series of discoveries with Super Sentai when I was around 15-16 years old when I started having access to dial-up connection, way before Direct Service Line was introduced. The time I discovered the term "Super Sentai" was when I read that Questor Magazine article titled, "Sentai: It's Not What You Think" and later I'd land on fan sites such as Rovang's Sentai Sanctorumand Jillun's website to learn various things about Super Sentai and I think I went WOAH when I realized Goggle V is older than Bioman, that my parents also watched Super Sentai (that phrase was said by Tac in the Timeranger clip show) and how Super Sentai evolved overtime.


I still can't forget how weird I found this show the first time I saw it!

If I want to really say the very first exposure I had with Goggle V was back in 1998, when that annoying Tagalog dub with so much of a stupid schedule aired in RPN-9. I still couldn't forget the tagline that the TV station said to "Forget about Power Rangers." I will admit that the whole broadcast was a piece of sh*t not only with bad dubs but also how irregular the broadcasts were. I mean, I still can't forget how RPN-9 didn't even continue airing Dragon Ball Z after some time. WTF, I still won't forget how stupid those broadcasts were. For Goggle V, I'll admit I had a culture shock like not all its members piloted the robot, the use of cloth instead of spandex, shorter than usual swords and just about everything about this series opened my gateway to Super Sentai in the 80s. Granted, I saw this series only after the irregular broadcast of IBC-13 with Bioman, Maskman and Turboranger while I would later see the endings of Fiveman and Jetman on ABC-5. So, Goggle V was a shock to me with its odd and unusual style but pretty entertaining nonetheless.


The Gorangers, when they were young... (sings to Yesterday...)

I always had the O_o expression when I realized about the existence of Goranger, where they all wore cloth instead of spandex and how Dynaman was the first Super Sentai to do so. Also, I started learning about the basic facts like back then, most Super Sentai series only had one female in the team and the first one to have two females instead of one was Bioman. If I'm not wrong, blue and yellow are colors that is considered both for males and females in contrast to pink which somehow remains a female only color. I would also learn that there wasn't any "Megazord" back then and that this team, was basically fighting only human sized monsters or that Goranger had 84 episodes.


JAKQ, started out with four, ended up with five!

Then I would learn of JAKQ's existence where it started with four rangers and ended with five or that I laughed when I learned that they used them capsules to henshin. I said WTF to that. I wanted to comment how Hiroshi Miyauchi bore resemblances to Filipino actor Eric Quizon or two, oh my he's much better than Jason David Frank since he's worn four different outfits playing four different characters (Aoranger, Big One, Kamen Rider V3, Zubaat) and he would later be a Super Sentai mentor in Ohranger. So really, aside from learning a lot about how Ohranger was a military Super Sentai in contrast to Power Rangers Zeo, I would really have this trip back to the past.


Well guys... here's your suits! Just wear them and you get your powers!

Oh boy, I couldn't help but think of how I criticized the Battle Fever J costumes when I first saw them. I would call these costumes as "dorky" then I went, "OMG it's Kenji Ohba!" who was introduced to be through the Tagalog dub of Space Sheriff Gavan who got dubbed as "Skyranger Gavan". I wanted to poke fun at the weird culture of the 70s to 80s when I first saw them but learned to appreciate them. I would also learn of how Marvel got involved with Toei in the past which also introduced me to the Japanese Spiderman.


Call for the Megazord! Wait, no fancy combination?!

I always thought that Super Sentai robots started out as combiners. I would learn that Battle Fever J was the very first show to introduce a "Megazord" in the Battle Fever J Robo and that the robot fought the robot duplicate of the monster of the week, not an enlarged monster which was first introduced in Denziman. I would also learn of the first transforming robot in Denziman or the first combining robot in Sun Vulcan. Speaking of Sun Vulcan, I went O_o when I first heard that they only had three members, the red ranger got replaced mid-series (Which is odd, I mean I saw Jason getting replaced by Rocky!) or well, I just had a culture shock!


When I learned about Changeman (and there was this bootleg toy that called Changeman as "Space Rangers" and another erroneously as "Power Rangers in Space"), I said, "WTF there is no yellow ranger. That's an odd color scheme." Come on, I told myself, Battle Fever J had an orange ranger instead of a yellow one, why did I go O_o with Changeman having no yellow and had a female white ranger. Hmmm... while I wasn't too surprised that Kaori is White Swan NOT Pink Swan, this one shocked me since I am too used to seeing yellow rangers here and there.


Also, I thought Maskman was the first Super Sentai show to feature two giant robots but no, I got myself shocked when I learned of Flashman. I read about how the Anti-Flash Phenomenon happened and seriously, I want to see more of this show. I also thought that as a spoiler addict, woah, so this is the first bittersweet ending huh? So really, where can I get more subs of this amazing show?


As for Liveman, I still had a hard time (at first) adjusting to its color line-up or how the show started out with three rangers and having two more join the later cast. I even said, "Man, this is very atypical." and having been not so flexible, I thought that storywriting had a long way to go. In fact, I even thought I started warming up to Liveman's storytelling style only after I saw Power Rangers Ninja Storm on Cartoon Network from start to end. Somehow, I still find that a very weird moment in my life. Only after watching Liveman did I see it for the masterpiece it really is.

So really, what's your experience with discovering about older pre-Zyuranger series?