Apparently This Was Zeba's Supposed True Face
I give my credits to this source: http://terz2025.blogspot.com/2011/09/emperor-zeba-behind-his-mask.html. Well here's my help to Fantasy Leader's post on this: http://valsagfantasy.blogspot.com/2010/02/faces-of-ra-deus-and-zeba.html. I always wondered what Zeba's face was supposedly like while I was a child watching Hikari Sentai Maskman, although I always did suspect he wasn't human to begin with noticing he had very scary eyes or that voice was just monstrous. This just was something to how in the world did the second Lethal Dobler manage to get a human disguise?! Hmmm I hope this photo is real of what they intended Zeba to be. Or maybe Lethal Dobler like some underground monsters did have the ability to become what we believe, the ability of human disguise.
I'm not really sure if this is real... I watched Maskman before. I never manage to finish it because it discontinued at our country... but I watched some clips I found at YouTube the ending part...
ReplyDeleteI didn't recall that Zeba reveal his face like that... from his normal form he already turn into a monster.. at least that's what I remembered...
Its either this was photoshop or maybe this was a rare pre-production photo for what they intended for Zeba...
*sigh* I miss the good old Sentai's before =)
Thanks for posting this ;)
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DeleteThis was an actual photo taken in publicity to promote the series as Flashman was ending. I have the issue of Televiland magazine with Sean unmasked. But in the meantime I thought it was much more mysterious to keep the mask on to make it more menacing.
ReplyDeleteI, too, have an issue of TV Land magazine that has this picture. (My latest blog post also has a picture of a figurine of the mask-less Zeba.)
ReplyDeleteI think they obviously had something different planned for Zeba at the start of the show. The man pictured is Takeo Shinkai, who is a regular actor and not a JAC suit actor -- he plays Zeba in the first few episodes in-suit before being replaced by JAC suit actor Hideaki Kusaka (who already played a lot of the costumed main villains, like Emperor Aton and Great Emperor La Deus).
It made no sense to me to use a regular actor like Shinkai when he was masked and dubbed by voice-actor Seizo Kato, it's kind of a waste, so I guess that's why they got rid of him. I've always wondered if Zeba was originally going to be a human who happened to infiltrate the underground in hopes to rule it. I also wonder if he was meant to have ties to Sugata, since it's only in those early episodes that Zeba uses a dark version of Aura Power (the Dark Holon), like maybe he would have been a former ally of Sugata's. (It always seemed to me like Sugata was meant to have a bigger role in the show, but his actor got tied up with the game show Takeshi's Castle.)
Even after he leaves the role of Zeba, Shinkai pops up in episode 16 as Kenta's kung-fu master. That seemed to me like it was a way of Toei being like "Sorry for the earlier role not working out!"
Same thing with actor Musashi Ishibashi who played Commander Hedda in BFJ. He was hired for the show then was replaced by another actor where as Musashi was playing a human guise of a monster. Then he seemed to got his job back and then played Hedda till the show was over.
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