Remembering Sentai's Replacement Rangers

In the earlier Super Sentai series, there were replacement rangers and their predecessors. Here they are:

In Goranger, we had two Ki Rangers. Daita Oowa was the first and Daigorou Kumano was the second. Daigorou Kumano served as a temporary Ki Ranger because the actor Baku Hatakayema (who committed suicide on July 13, 1978) was acting in a play so they got a temporary replacement that would be killed off as soon as Baku Hatakeyama returned.

Battle Fever J had two Battle Cossacks. They were Kensaku Shiraishi and Jin Makoto. From what I heard, the actor Yukio Itou got married so his character Kensaku Shiraishi got killed off from the script. Jin Makoto is introduced as a badass cowboy replacement.

There were two Miss Americas in Battle Fever J. Unlike Kensaku Shiraishi, the first one named Diane Martin (strangely her actress is also named Diane Martin a half-Japanese, half-American actress), she wasn't killed off. Instead she was mortally wounded to the point she couldn't fight again after she recovered. Her replacement was Maria Nagisa. I personally compare this to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers season three's event of Kimberly Hart getting replaced by Catherine Hillard.

Sun Vulcan was the only one with a red ranger replacement. Ryuusuke Oowashi (played by Ryuusuke Kawasaki) left for some reasons unknown and was replaced by Takayuki Hiba (played by Takayuki Godai. This was also done in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers season two when Rocky De Santos replaced Jason Lee Scott. From Henshin Hall of Fame, it was probably due to contract. Takayuki pretty much introduced the red ranger swordsman trend.

I think this was pretty controversial. Nobody knows why Yuki Yajima (who acted as Mika Koizumi) left the set. Some say she was pregnant, others it was with payroll issues. It's most likely payroll issues that made her leave and from what I heard, she's living a normal civilian life and the character was voiced by the uncredited Mayumi Tanaka. This pretty much caused an argument to who is the better Yellow 4.

However it seems Mika Koizumi was the last ranger to have a replacement.

Comments

  1. Based on what I read from Henshin Hall of Fame, Vul Eagle was replaced because of contract. It was planned early on that he will be replaced due to his singing career and he want to focus on it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment