Sean Akizuki's Super Sentai Blog

Ultrazord was a term coined in Power Rangers referred to as the "ultimate combination" and I'd like to share the moments when Ultrazords fail... and I was inspired by Ninninger's latest episode to write this post. In Fiveman, the finale featured the Max Magma failing against Vulgyre. They used the Max Magma hoping to destroy the Galactic Beast Vulgyre but they were only met in failure. Only by using the powers of the Sidonian flowers did they find the means to destroy the evil beast once and for all. I felt like this scene was more realistic than how Kyukyoku Daizyujin was handled in Zyuranger. In Ohranger vs. Kakuranger, although it's clearly out-of-continuity between the two shows but I cannot deny that the King Pyramider Battle Formation failed to destroy the Prince Buldont's supernatural monster which was called Impursonator in Power Rangers Zeo.

As I've said, I'm more interested with Kamen Rider than Super Sentai as of late (but I may not write a Kamen Rider blog, Igadevil has done a better job), so here's my latest post that I would use to express myself on the issue. The hero's name is TAKERU Tenkuji and the plot is that he's a ghost hunter. Looking at the picture above, looks like he's going to be using meditative techniques one way or another while fighting the supernatural side by side. I'll admit, I am really a lot more excited for the next Kamen Rider series than the next episode of Ninninger. "Wow! So the next Kamen Rider has the same first name with me?!" I'll admit, my first reaction to that was to spit some juice and go, "HUH?!" but there's not so much reason for me or anyone to be surprised. Kamen Rider Den-O's Ryota Nogami was played by Takeru Sato and when you think of it, Kenta Date (Mega Red) may be named after Kenta Satou (the actor who played ...

As much as I'm having mixed feelings with Ninninger considering that I wasn't so impressed by the earlier episodes, but the show tends to give me the "so bad it's good" vibe that I want to watch more of it, now for the dance! A combination of green and gold? Two yellows dancing!

Back then, I heard that Carranger saved Super Sentai and here's what TV Tropes (now whoever edited this, I really welcome you to comment here) said this: Gekisō Sentai Carranger (Extreme Rush Squadron Carranger) is the twentieth installment in the Super Sentai series, airing from 1996 to 1997. It's about a group of idiot workers at Pegasus Garage who use the power of car-shaped constellations to fight a group of idiot aliens called "Space Biker-Gang Bowzock". As the twentieth installment of the franchise, it's an Affectionate Parody of Super Sentai and all the tropes it has, while being a full Super Sentai series in and of itself. At the time, Super Sentai was under serious threat of cancellation due to falling ratings, and popular opinion is that the executives simply did not give a damn and allowed the writers to do whatever the hell they thought they could get away with... resulting in a series so ridiculous, comedic and inexplicably popular that it saved...

First, I would like to remind the readers to at first, please check this list of Super Sentai series I've watched from start to end  considering the disclaimer above. Now here's what I'd call a very iffy post considering that I haven't really checked out a lot of Super Sentai's long history and I still want to watch Goranger and JAKQ from start to end, no matter how old they are at least to see what my parents enjoyed. Now let's get it going with my rather limited knowledge, I'd just present this rather limited essay called, "Super Sentai DOES NOT always get better or get worse every year!" Now it's time for me to check on some of my limited knowledge of the issue of Super Sentai does not always get better. For a list of TV ratings which does not automatically measure popularity in the long run, check it out in here . I'll be open to some criticism on the matter consider to help update this entry for the better. This is a very limited vi...

Image taken from Pulpoltika, modified by me.... When it comes to discussing with the Super Sentai purists, I think it's time to really bring the legal law dictionary on their faces to stop their nonsense. When it comes to conversations with them that Power Rangers is not bootleg, you can get a load of nonsense. Well it's been a long time I haven't written something like this but sorry for those Super Sentai purists, it doesn't mean that I'm neutral or that I don't really like Power Rangers as of current that I'll join the Super Sentai purist bandwagon of haters. They can call me a traitor all they want, a retard but as said, I'd rather not waste my time directly arguing with them. Besides, what's wrong with me not really liking Power Rangers but not bashing it? I can always treat it as a flavor of my favorite brand of ice cream that I wouldn't look for but I'd eat it if somebody offered it to me like pistachio ice cream or ube ice cr...

If I have written about my discovery about other series that existed before Zyuranger , now I can write about the post-Jetman Super Sentai. The experience for me had me into a roller coaster of emotions starting from becoming a Super Sentai purist (on and off) to becoming a fan all over again and as of late, I'm neutral towards the franchise which I tend to consider a shadow of my favorite save a few shows. I'll admit that it's been a rollercoaster ride but I want to recall this moment when I started learning about Super Sentai. Everything started and kicked in the day I discovered about Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger from the Super Sentai fansite by Joe Rovang  (and warning, spoilers but proceed if you are a spoiler addict like I am), saw its cast and had a mixed reaction towards them. I thought about how I started creating a perceived Great Professor Bias towards Power Rangers, I remembered how I patronized a now down Geocities website dedicated to wiping out Saban off from ...

While watching some Dino Charge and I'm thinking it might really give Power Rangers a bigger boost, I always thought of the new villain Heckyl in Power Rangers Dino Charge FREAKINGLY resembles Enter. Surprised or not? Not really, Master Org in Wild Force looks like a modified Gorma Emperor costume though that series was under Jonathan Tzachor. Now for a bit of why I think Judd Lynn ends up thinking Gobusters is fantastic. Old news but I want to bring it up again due to Heckyl looking like Enter. My speculation revolves around the writer Yasuko Kobayashi herself. Judd Lynn was the head writer from Power Rangers in Space up to Power Rangers Time Force. Later he replaced Eddie Guzelian as the head writer of Power Rangers RPM (which was similar to Tyuyoshi Kida getting replaced by Toshiki Inoue for Kamen Rider Hibiki's second half) prior to making a bigger return during Power Rangers Dino Charge.

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 Sanctorum and 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, wh...

Image source is from Japanese Entertainment Fusion (JEFusion) Aside from the quality of acting , I always thought about the Super Sentai cast members and doing their own stunts in the show. So I thought about how Super Sentai like its American adaptation or localization namely Power Rangers has its ups and downs too. Now it's time for me to share my thoughts about the quality of action scenes of both franchises then and now based on the quote from JEFusion. I wasn't able to immediately react to this since I didn't have the right words (and I hope I do have them) to at least, express my opinion (both positive and negative) on the matter. So what's up with the interview of Chris Cantada and his interview with Kazunori Inaba (Takeru, credited as Ryousuke Kaizo as a screen name during Maskman's screening) and Kei Shindachiya (Ken Hoshikawa). I thought about the question about Power Rangers and how the Sentai purists must be overreacting or in denial. When I...

Well I remembered seeing the Power Rangers Turbo review of Doug Walker and yes, I can agree that movie was horrible but I still respect the fans who like the movie. I can still watch the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers movie and not get a headslam moment but... Turbo was a different issue. Again, you know my biases and some things that make me do stupid stuff right? Now moving on to this "mentally challenging" post. Take note, Carranger is only available with fan subs and no official DVD is available. For a related post, read my Doug Walker vs. Zyuranger post. Whenever I hear that Carranger saved Super Sentai and Power Rangers Turbo was a really down season, so I guess that's a shocker. Even I was shocked whenever certain people praise Carranger as a series that made Super Sentai recover from the backlash during Ohranger. I think it's a great series but at the same time, it's very worthy of making fun of considering that the series makes fun of itself in s...

Having finished Ohranger last night, I cannot help but write this blog entry on how Baranoia itself was a family riddled with ironies especially with Queen Hysteria. So let's begin shall we? The whole idea of the Baranoia in Ohranger was that there was some kind of war between two factions way back some millions of years ago namely Pangaea where two factions arose. Like the Planet Bio's Anti-Bio Alliance, Baranoia's royal family arose to rebel believing themselves superior over their creators because of their supposed lack of feelings but, I thought that the whole idea was ironic especially with how they operated with each other. Even at the beginning, the Baranoia in spite of their hatred for humans viewing them as weak, they did possess human-like qualities that maybe, even Emperor Bacchushund possessed or more importantly, Empress Hysteria. Even if Empress Hysteria had mocked humans for their feelings of love and concern, she showed those affections for both her husba...

Here's some Troper's opinion (though IMO, I think TV Tropes needs to really tell us who's editing what because as said, for discussion reasons and we're all subjected to make mistakes and different views) wrote this: Starninger could be a reference to the relationship between Super Sentai and Power Rangers: He is a westernized version of the other rangers and both find the other's methods unusual, which mirrors the fact that Power Rangers series are perceived as more serious and violent by Japanese fans while Sentai is seen as more oddball and aloof by Americans. Starninger notably comes off as ignorant to the way the rest of the team works, but is slowly starting to enjoy them, similar to how the American Sentai fandom is more of a recent development. While I don't really have a positive view of Ninninger but I still can't ignore the possible mythology gag. Now it's time for me to discuss somebody's opinion and whoever he/she is, I feel like t...

I would confess that my feelings for Super Sentai and Power Rangers is like me choosing between Japanese sushi and American sushi where while I usually prefer Japanese sushi, I can still enjoy some American sushi. Now it's time to share my rather ridiculous comparison and oddball confession of Super Sentai and Power Rangers to Japanese sushi and American sushi. So what does Super Sentai and Power Rangers have to do with a comparison with Japanese sushi and American sushi? Well if you know this, sushi was introduced into America then later, we have American-style sushi like California roll which was made to cater to the American audience. Likewise, the same happened with Super Sentai. They couldn't easily introduce it to America because as I'll confess, it tends to be a "weird Japanese show" for some people. The keywords were to localize and adapt, yes Power Rangers is not fake . When Saban and Toei finally had some agreement like royalties and everything, Ha...

Whenever I think about the Sentai I'm watching, there have been some episodes with some moral lessons but I thought Fiveman is one huge public service announcement. So really, I thought Fiveman is one season that's SO CHOCK FULL of moral lessons that's so much delivered with full impact even when Hirohisa Soda was already at his decline period, I felt like this show deserves to be awarded with an award for giving us Public Service Announcement in its theme. I think Soda himself as a writer really liked writing a lot of moral lessons of the week into his seasons, something I feel that might be needed all the more than just promoting the values of teamwork and family. Others have a widespread lesson like the basic of teamwork, importance of family, safety rules or perseverance but I thought Fiveman really was a huge PSA. I haven't seen much of GogoFive but I expect it to be a PSA-oriented season in itself. Granted, the Fivemen were all teachers and it had the kid of th...

Do you ever have the feeling that you are a fan of a Super Sentai season then you hear disparaging comments from a lot of Super Sentai fans? Again, remember that no Super Sentai season is ever perfect , forget about it! When I think about the fanbase, I would confess I just started out as that bandwagoning idiot, pretended to know-it-all then now, I hope I'm no more of that. So I felt like writing this post maybe to let off some steam from my former days. We all make mistakes and we must learn from them, right? In the Super Sentai fanbase or just Tokusatsu in general, there's always a lot of division among fans when it comes to favorite seasons. Now there's the beauty of having different opinions and two, seldom I feel the need to like an unpopular, underappreciated or underrated entry just to avoid bandwagoning. The more I remembered how many times I bandwagon or ride on other people's OPINIONS, the more stupid I became as a result so that's why some of my very ...

After seeing Nostalgia Critic review Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers movie and man, I wonder if he really ruined my childhood or is he just pointing out the stupid in just everything for comedy reasons? I couldn't consider him a pessimist considering that he happily makes fun of everything while stating the positive. I mean, no matter how he points out a lot of goofs in just about everything (and yes, he did make fun of Conan the Barbarian which I thought was funny even if I like the movie), he does point out the positive although at times, he hardly pointed out anything positive to films he personally dislikes. Now moving on to Doug and Zyuranger.... I guess the first thing that might happen is that Doug himself would first see the credits. He might do the usual, "Hey it's the dinosaurs of my childhood!" then well, you might actually expect him to say something like, "Wait a minute, what am I watching? This ain't Power Rangers! Oh wait, this is KYORY...

Considering that it's very hard for anyone to mention the name of Go-Busters without Power Rangers RPM ringing in my head (at least to me), I thought I might actually look at this one.  I thought of this comment by fellow Toku comrade UkiyaSeed of Orends Range taken from this very old post of mine : Okay, I spent like "forever" trying to find that comment while I was doing some blog "fall cleaning" instead of "spring cleaning" removing old shames to decongest my blog (semi-reboot has happened since the day I stopped pretending to know-it-all )... now I found that comment whether or not this is true. But I hope UkiyaSeed can give me the source to at least verify what he said. With that in mind, something pretty similar happened in Gobusters with Jin Masato's fate in the series. If you haven't seen Gobusters, I suggest you DO NOT proceed any further or risk deletion... JUST KIDDING!  If you are a spoiler addict like me, GO AHEAD.   Gobust...

Here's some Super Sentai moments where poisoned gas was used as a main plot or not... though this list I assume is pretty incomplete so feel free to throw in your comments on what I missed. In Dynaman episode 47 (now only if I saw more of Dynaman than just some raw videos and the Dynaman parody dub), there's the Poison Gas Weasel monster.  He was created to poison people but according to Power Rangers Wiki , the gas got tainted by the Retro Gene created by Professor Yumeno resulting to rather hilarious consequences. In Bioman episode six, Dr. Man plans to set a rather genius trap that involved Mt. Taikyoku and having an underground trap.  Dr. Man knew he can't face Bio Robo head on so he has Farrah create a trap that would release poison gas into the air.  It was revealed to be a trap for Bio Robo from the beginning to the end of the episode.

After watching Carranger, I thought that the show is really poking fun at many things as possible. I don't know if you agree with me but here goes my own list: 1.) Super Sentai villains and their habit of making convoluted and/or unbelievable schemes As much as I really love to point out and nitpick that the Bowzock are stupid but again, I usually don't expect Sentai villains to come out with something intelligent. I always thought that Super Sentai tends to explore the science of stupidity or how villains usually fail to come up with practical solutions. Carranger pokes fun at that idea with how the Bowzock carry on with their plans. Their mission is to blow up the Earth (which they keep calling Earf) but they never come up with anything intelligent. The plan goes from simply jumbling numbers, inflating stuff or creating an orchestra of cars... one has to realize they could have just fired a missile on Earth then the job is done! I can't stop laughing or just critici...

From  that fool pretending to know everything about Sentai  to a person who now admits the truth of the series he's seen from start to end , I might do some writing on my personal thoughts on Super Sentai's acting quality which will include the main cast doing its action scenes. Now it's time for me to do a rather limited post based on my observation. Old school Super Sentai all the way to Timeranger The reality is that the more I watch old school Super Sentai, the harder it is for me to appreciate the newer ones . With my previously stated confession, aside from the writing and music, I would also bring up the acting of old school Super Sentai for me is better during the Showa era and 20th Century Heisei era which would be the Goranger up to Timeranger arc. If I want to talk about big time names and appearances in Tokusatsu during the Showa era and the 20th Century Heisei era, I could mention some of them. You might think of the short recurring appearances of Hirosh...