Sean Akizuki's Super Sentai Blog

Back in 2012, the Gokaiger hype was over and there came Gobusters which had very low ratings. There was still the Gokaiger hype, a lot of Super Sentai fans were still screaming, "Gokaiger! Gokaiger!" and when a hype hits, you should expect that the next show might actually get underrated. I would even think that the Gokaiger hype might be a good reason why Gobusters wasn't so well-received. I don't blame fans for liking Gokaiger for being the biggest anniversary season with the most number of guest stars ever while Gobusters came after a major anniversary season.

I'll admit this isn't really a blockbuster work of Yasuko Kobayashi who while she was responsible for writing Gingaman, Timeranger and Shinkenger - all beloved works. The head producer Naomi Takebe (who is also in charge of Ninninger) was also responsible for some of my other lesser favorites like Kamen Rider Kiva, Kamen Rider OOO and Kamen Rider Gaim. Unlike Shinkenger, Gobusters tends to be viewed…

After several senior actors guesting as their old roles like you had like Takumi Tsutsui as Toha Yamaji/Jiraiya, Teruoki Ogawa as Sasuke/Ninja Red and Shun Shioya as Yousuke/Hurricane Red so I am not a bit surprised to see Hiroya Matsumoto. Okay I may not be doing episode reviews but I'll share a bit of my thoughts here.

I developed a new opinion. I figured out that I might cherish Ninninger more than Magiranger even if both shows tend to suffer from too many power-ups. Considering that Ninninger may not belong to its own timeline, it's only normal that Tsubasa made a guest appearance in contrast to Sentai seniors appearing as different characters. His guest appearance as his Magiranger makes a whole lot of sense considering Yakumo is a magical ninja which I'll admit, I was impressed that we get to see a badly needed do your own stunt scene in this one.
If you saw a lot of old school Super Sentai, you may notice Super Sentai actors from previous shows or those who will app…

During the time I watched Megaranger, I just thought there was one episode that resembled the two parter arc in Bioman involving Satan Megas. We do have a battle of scientists in Dr. Kubota and Dr. Hinelar who were once close friends like Dr. Shibata and Dr. Man. Now for the similarities.

The two android girls have a scene of crossing the street. Miki crosses in the morning while 167 (she wasn't given a human name to cover her true identity) crosses the street at night. Both of their robotic natures are discovered. Miki activates her energy when she's in danger and 167 isn't hurt when she's ran by a car. But unlike Miki, 167 develops human feelings on her own.


Both androids start to think they are human but later discover that they are mecha humans. Shuichi meets Miki thinking she was just a human being. Shun falls for 167 believing that she's a normal human being. 167 doesn't even know her own name.


Another similarity is where both Dr. Man and Dr. Hinelar get…

I may not be a huge RPG lover but I remembered playing Dragon Quest VIII for the Playstation 2 and I am looking forward to owning a Playstation 4 together with Dragon Quest Heroes (English version). Honestly, this was much better than the story mode time in ToQGer IMHO as the Ninningers enter into the game themselves while foiling a game related monster. References to Tsubaraya's hero Gridman (or Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad) anyone?
The first one is where there is the quest to liberate a kingdom. It just reminded me of how often that my RPG-playing video gaming peers would talk about Final Fantasy's and Dragon Quest's cliches.
I guess to save time or what, they decided to use a 16-bit Super Nintendo-like graphic since making 3D graphics would take time and well, you know Tokusatsu special effects do have a tight budget. I thought it was nice to throw back to 16-bit gaming and honestly, I miss a lot of my old games.

Now here's where things get a bit more interesting…

It can't be denied that in every genre, there's always a copying of ideas from within or from without. While I may not be fully familiar with the Takeyuki Suzuki era, I know that the head writers were Hirohisa Soda (Goggle V up to Fiveman), Toshiki Inoue (Jetman), the late Noboru Sugimura (Zyuranger to Ohranger, mostly used for the Zordon arc).

So let's get started with this speculative entry shall we? Just note that first, Power Rangers would copy from Super Sentai then later, Power Rangers would also  end up giving some ideas to Super Sentai as what I see as an act of gratitude.

I. Possible influence on post-Suzuki Super Sentai?

Looking at Super Sentai after Ohranger, we could start with some series that I thought had some influence from Takeyuki Suzuki and the writers who worked under him. Note I don't think all series got influeced by Suzuki's era in much but I'll share what I observed. When one starts a trend, there is always the tendency to follow. I woul…

Due to the existence of Kamen Rider Ghost with the first Kamen Rider to be named Takeru in script, I thought I might write on two red rangers who were also named Takeru. It's no secret that they are both my favorite characters in both shows. I would like to discuss about my two favorite red rangers and remember, there may be spoilers so don't read unless you don't mind getting spoiled.

Takeru/Red Mask's basic introduction

I would consider this guy as one of the top-tier reds perhaps due to my favoritism or preference for older school Super Sentai. I always felt like that back then, there was better acting, less power ups and more focus on writing but as the momentum came, Toei started adding more new gimmicks to keep Super Sentai going with more merchandise. Back to topic, I could discuss about him and his role in his series, Hikari Sentai Maskman.

He became my first favorite red ranger in Super Sentai. I thought about the fact he's badass, he can get distracted fr…

Looking back at my personal biases, I always thought about the fact that I used to think that serious would mean good. I can discuss with just Super Sentai and in extension, Power Rangers, to stress a point that a more serious Super Sentai season doesn't mean it's better. I can discuss some eras based on my rather limited knowledge on Super Sentai series I watched from start to end.

Hirohisa Soda's era and Toshiki Inoue as Jetman's headwriter
I haven't seen much of Hirohisa Soda's era but I am very familiar with Bioman, Maskman, Liveman, Turboranger and Fiveman from start to end on how they went. So if anybody can really share more about the rest of Soda, I would be happy but I can actually talk a bit of how my opinions were molded by Soda's era plus Jetman to at least discuss my thoughts on more serious and less serious Super Sentai seasons.

I can start by talking about the Soda era. As a writer, Soda started off with some less serious seasons like Goggle V…