Sean Akizuki's Super Sentai Blog

Well I'll do some Jetman and my childhood, which was the last pre-Zyuranger Sentai.  The Tagalog dub was decent except with a few errors compared to that the Bioman English Dub.  Now for my remembered childhood... The first thing that came into my head is... Gatchaman?!  What's next?  And I thought it was weird how the yellow ranger was a guy and the blue ranger was a girl.  Since my mom saw Goranger (as Star Rangers) she mentioned that Kiranger was a guy.  So I wasn't all so surprised.  Moving on... So yeah, it felt like Aya Odagiri was more based on Sylvie Pandora than Dr. Nambu.  And I just thought I had my weird coincidence later in life.  My so-called first crush and longing for her, meeting a girl who looks like Ako and meeting two people who are like Raita and Gai.  For the Gai character, we fought over some girl who looks like Ako.  For Aya Odagiri, well I did remember falling for a girl who looks like her before and s...

I've just watched up to 20 episodes of Gingaman subbed (I viewed some raw before so yeah, I can't understand since I'm more of  an English speaker and I can hardly speak Mandarin and Cantonese which is supposedly my birth language), so really I'm sounding more American than Asian at times.  Now for my first impressions on Fantasy Sentai Gingaman ahem Seijuu Sentai Gingaman!  It's sad to see them leave the forest and they have to face the Balban.  And the Balban for some reason love to turn planets into jewels. Now for the characters: So here's Fantasy Leader ahem... Ryouma.  So I thought about this that I did know his brother is still alive (from reading about it) but the show does a good job in making it look like Hyuga is dead.  I mean, the voices Ryouma hears are just like some kind of imagination.  For me, I'm really liking him from Kobayashi's red rangers though it's too early for me to say he's my favorite Kobayashi Red. Hayate... ...

Here are two similar plots from Maskman and Fiveman.  One was written by Kunio Fuji and the other was written by Toshiki Inoue.  Although quite different, both Kiros and Billion had blinded female admirers.  They had a different angle but shared that similarity. In Maskman episode 33, "Takeru, Severe Their Love" we have Eri who was in love with Kiros.  When Eri was in danger, Kiros slew a dangerous ground beast which indirectly saved Eri's life.  Eri swore to love Kiros because of that.  In reality, Kiros only wanted to test his strength.  She was blinded by her naive nature to Kiros' deceitful nature.  Luckily, she got away alive at the end of the series. Billion's case was more cruel considering it was an earlier Toshiki Inoue writing.  In episode 39 "Please Love Me", Billion gets into one moral event horizon.  He manipulates a girl he supposedly saved named Sora to do his cruel bidding.  He pretended to like her and gave he...

For my third Sentai series it was Fiveman.  So pretty much, it was the first I finished from start to end... and the Tagalog dub here was more or less better done. Fiveman was my third series and the first with a sibling team, later repeated in Gogo V and Magiranger.  So I did think the premiere episode was pretty scary with how Zone attempted to demolish the Sidon flowers which the reasons were not revealed in the finale. So I always wondered why did the Silver Imperial Army Zone was out there to destroy planets because I didn't really pay attention, until I remembered Meadow said she wanted eternal life.  I always wondered how in the world would the Fivemen eventually combat Meadow later on?  I had my thoughts also why on Earth didn't Zone age a bit after the Fivemen grew up?  I guess time ran differently for these guys.  And I thought Garoa and Billion were badass.  But too bad later, Garoa got watered down a lot! Fiveman was a show where I...

Well I guess Fantasy Leader's post on Gingaman and his childhood now made me want to write on Maskman when I was a kid. So it's kind of blurry but here goes... This was basically another chapter of me watching crap-dubbed Sentai. So yeah the names were Michael Joe (Takeru), Leonard (Kenta), Adrian (Akira), Eloisa (Haruka) and Mary Rose (Momoko) which were all presumably dubbed to make it easier for kids to understand. This was also the first time I really liked the red ranger of the show namely Takeru. Unlike Ryuta in Bioman, I didn't immediately like Akira until later. Unlike Bioman, I found this one scary. The scene where Zeba shows up made me pee in my pants. So I was a pants wetter back then. And if one person scared me a lot it was Zeba. I mean, that guy really has a commanding presence even in the Tagalog dub. And after seeing the show in Japanese audio, Zeba is even scarier. And I thought he really creates an atmosphere of terror, he's one awesome vil...

I just thought it's weird how before I saw Bioman, I did have these thoughts similar to Doctor Man himself... Creating a super army of robots that will do my bidding.  I kind of wanted to imagine of myself as the greatest genius in human history, ready to open a new era of science under my rule.  Well too bad I suck at higher Math.  I wanted to become Dr. Sean, greatest genius in human history, the ruler of the Neo Science Empire at the age of seven to eight.  I once saw myself as the "greatest scientific genius that will soon start a new era"... ha ha but it never happened! I wanted to create an explosive device that once it erupts, Mt. Pinatubo will explode, it will cause the whole of Luzon to be it by an intensity eight earthquake causing massive panic among the population.  Kind of my crazy imagination to get even with the government so I can take over it. Replacing people I dislike with mechanical copies of themselves who will do everything I say.....

I guess most of the people know by now that Bioman is my first Sentai. Having been born and grown up in the Philippines, I grew up watching this under the stupid broadcasts of stupid networks. Now for my childhood revisited: The first episode. Basically the start of it all. I always wanted to compare Peebo to C3PO and I found the whole episode what in the world their names were. Episode 2 did feature the names in the dub as Kenny, Sammy, Frankie, Cassie and Kimberly before I knew them as Shiro, Shingo, Ryuta, Mika and Hikaru. And I would say the TV broadcasts were so irregular it's a pain. Back then, I was too used to just having one robot. Took me some time to accept the existence of multiple robots! And I love the Bio Robo vs. Mechagaigan battles. One thing that bothered me in the show is WHY IN THE WORLD DO THE BEASTNOIDS KEEP SURVIVING? I simply knew them before as the Cybernoid fighters with the names Falconoid (Messerjuu), Zeroid (Juuoh), Aquanoid (Aquagaiger) and P...

In Fiveman the whole season was basically dominated by the mysterious woman known as Meadow.   She was presented as a mysterious woman who appeared in the sky to give orders to the Zone Empire.  Towards the finale arc, Meadow suddenly went red and really furious.  Then we have this sudden relation... In episode 47, one can see the sudden revelation when I mean for the whole season, there is no hint to Vulgyre, he just suddenly appeared.  Bazoo had some hints but no, not Vulgyre.  After the energy of the Sidon Flowers afflicted the Vulgyre, it revealed that Meadow was just an illusion.  So it made me think why did hte rest all still decided to follow their leader?  Billion could care less though.  But the rest?  I mean such a revelation was too shocking that Dordora went crazy after that... which allowed Vulgyre to merge her with Zaza. In the finale episode, we realize that the original Meadow was a Sidonian woman from the very first pla...

I did remember the article from Orends Range about why Power Rangers is not a rip-off , UkiyaSeed did mention that American and Japanese culture is widely different.  So localization is needed by Toei via Saban then Disney then Saban and Nickelodeon to get it done.  Now for some cultural differences aside from the obvious kimono in Japan: Degrees of violence. While Super Sentai has reduced violence to a considerable extent post-Timeranger but you can't deny that there is still more daring action.  An example is in Boukenger when Sakura and Natsuki both used machine guns.  But you don't see that in Operation Overdrive with Rose and Ronnie, who I think could actually still pull that kind of scene of but Disney most likely won't allow it.  Other comparisons might be Naoto's death vs. Eric's supposed death (which was probably scrapped off at the last minute).  One may also see Mikoto's death in Abaranger and the use of bullets in Dekaranger.  In Shinken...

Bioman may have lived to its title of "bio" for life, considering they are sworn to protect life.  There is a relationship of man, machine and feelings in the show show with these plots: Peebo and the Biomen.  The Biomen were humans gathered by Peebo who is a robot to battle the robotic minions of New Empire Gear.  Peebo despite being a robot has been shown to have human-like emotions then again so are the villains of Gear.  Peebo has his friend Joy who he didn't realize had died until episode 8, in episode 10 he cried over Mika's death, in episode 37 we see Peebo show greater amounts of fear when Silver first arrives. Machines with feelings.   In episode 14, we have Hikaru befriending the Neural Brain which paid off since he helped them defeat Anchor Kans at the cost of his life.  In episodes 19-20, we are introduced to Prince who in the second half is revealed to be a human-like android created by Dr. Man to be his "son".  In episodes 43-4...

Maskman was also a show having the conflict of ideals. Here are some of them: War vs. peace. Tube was a kingdom divided into two factions- those who want peace with the surface dwellers vs. those who don't. Zeba represented all hatred embodied into one demonic being. Igam as the "prince" of Tube represents those who don't want peace so she follows Zeba blindly, even if she's supposed to be the true ruler of Tube. Light vs. darkness. Maskman is not a light task force for nothing. There's the conflict of light vs. darkness. In episode two's climax, Zeba releases the Dark Holon which sets the world without adequate sunlight. In episode three, the Aura Power bursts out light to restore light to the world. In episode 15, the Carol Love flowers are the only ones that could counter the Hell flowers. In the final episode, Zeba releases the dark particles around the world. The Igam twins are united as one, which counters the darkness allowing the Maskmen to d...

In Bioman, there is the conflict of technologies. We do know Dr. Man is one incredibly ambitious scientist who believes himself as the rightful ruler of humanity.  He wants to take over the world and make himself the ultimate scientist.  The proof he wants to be on top of the scientific world, he was the Technotown in Tokyo destroyed.  When the Bio Robo appears, he feels challenged and ever since then, started to fight the Biomen from beginning to end. We see later more of him like his dark origins to how and why he became a cyborg.  Of course, it's obvious he's really human. In episode two of Bioman, we discover the fact that the Bio Robo and Peebo were sent to protect the Earth from another war.  We do know of a war that happened in Planet Bio, which the full reason for the war was not known until episode 37.  Meanwhile we do realize that the Biomen do have their use of their technologies to combat Dr. Man's demonic science.  Green Two and Blue...