Sean Akizuki's Super Sentai Blog

It's the silver anniversary of GoGoV  and I feel I haven't given the series enough appreciation. GoGoFive has one of the most evil villains to ever exist known as Grand Witch Grandienne. I purposely wrote her as Grand B*tch Grandienne because her actions are way too evil. I feel Super Sentai nightmare fuel today isn't as good . Grandienne wasn't always there but when she's there -- she's one of the most evil villains in the franchise. Grandienne's actions prove that she's one selfish, self-centered MOFO. Grandienne would even pit her own children against each other just to accomplish her goals. GoGoV had more freedom to make Grandienne as evil as she could get. Earlier scenes of Grandienne showing up (and some of these scenes were spliced into Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue ) reminded me of Meadow's apparition in Chikyu Sentai Fiveman . The difference was  Fiveman ended up writing off Meadow as merely an illusion set by Galactic Beast Vulgyre. Meanw...

The New Empire Gear has comedic moments from its members. One might think of Monster and Zyuoh as a dangerous version of Dumb and Dumber. Episode 12 had Mason unleash such a ridiculous scheme that I agree with Farah and Monster. Why Doctor Man even approved of that idiotic balloon bomb operation was something. However, Bioman episodes 25-26 are two episodes that are way too scary. Doctor Man's human origins were already revealed in episodes 19-20. These episodes seem to take Nightmare Fuel Up to Eleven.  The story arc focuses on revealing Doctor Man's true son Shuichi Kageyama. Shuici was introduced to Koichi Nakamura in the first half. Doctor Man wants to find out if the boy is truly his son and not just some lookalike somewhere. IRL you might notice some people who have Toku lookalikes. Lee Seung Gi looks like a younger Hidenori Iura. Doctor Man wanted to be sure if he was looking for the right boy. Doctor Man dons a human disguise to look like his former self and confirm if ...

I guess some people have already guessed that Dr. Man was a human being but not the Big Three. Doctor Man had a hint saying to Mason he didn't design him to fail. There are hints that Doctor Man was well, a man. Here's where the clues start to drop in! Episodes 19-20 introduce us to Prince Prince calls himself the son of Doctor Man. Mason found it unbelievable because New Empire Gear was composed of androids. Mason never knew that his master was a human being. Okay, that's kinda weird since the name Doctor Man is such a dead giveaway! What do you expect when Super Sentai purposely writes plots that aren't supposed to make sense? Prince comes out of nowhere and Doctor Man says, "This my my only son Prince!" Mason gets shocked not knowing that Doctor Man was a human. Mason is amazed that Prince is such a genius and says, "Truly, he is Doctor Man's son!" The Prince story arc introduces Doctor Man's descent to madness. Prince is programmed to thi...

  I posed a challenge by asking how many old-school Super Sentai series one watched . It's also important to ask how updated is the person. It's because there's the possibility of GENERATION GAPS . Realizing Voltes V was from the 1970s made me think that I had a better connection with Golion from the 1980s. It's easier to watch a show not much older than me than a show way older than me. I watched Kamen Rider Amazons which was very 1974 -- 40 years ago today! I could relate better to Kamen Rider Amazons which was in the 2010s. The same goes for the first two Super Sentai series -- namely Himitsu Sentai Goranger and JAKQ Dengekitai . These shows can be as ancient because Goranger is going 50 years old next year. JAKQ was in 1977.  There will be some spoilers! Watching Goranger can be challenging due to how "the first" can be THAT LONG and THAT OLD A lot of earlier series extend to absurd lengths. Mazinger Z had 98 episodes compared to  Great Mazinger and Grendi...

  Metal Hero is a franchise that's canceled but never forgotten by Toei . Super Sentai and Kamen Rider carried over the influence. Metal Hero was discontinued like the Super Robot Anime series by Toei. Megazords sell better than the Super Robots. Metal Hero probably failed to create a unique identity. It jumped from one concept to another -- the Space Sheriff Trilogy with some clones. One could also talk about certain entries in  Metal Hero being more mature than Super Sentai . Eventually,  Robotack was in 1998 and it was the final installment. However, Toei ended up creating Kyukyu Sentai GoGoFive with a lot of Metal Hero references  -- something that was repeated in Tokosou Sentai Dekaranger . Watching  GoGoFive made me think of Chikyu Sentai Fiveman most . It can be easy for me to ignore Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue but not Fiveman . Both  Fiveman and GoGoFive are family-themed. There are times I feel that the family theme overshadows the rescue theme...

Super Sentai might be a Japanese franchise but it has copied from American pop culture. Nothing's completely original. Toei Ltd. created a Japanese Spider-Man in 1978 based on a Marvel license. Getting inspired by American pop culture isn't surprising either! One of the craziest things Toei did was to create a villain that was a LITERAL BRAIN! The concept was never revisited probably due to it being way too bizarre or just plain unpopular. Earlier Super Sentai has a lot of strange plots aside from crazier violence. Taiyo Sentai Sun Vulcan (a show probably hit by the Super Sentai curse if it ever exists) had its frontman Hell Saturn. Hell Saturn was already hinted to have been answering to a higher power. However, this higher power never revealed itself UNTIL the finale. He was either called the Omnipotent God of Black Magma or the Black Solar God. What made it ironic was that Commander Arashiyama deflected its own blast at him -- destroying him. It was a 1980s show after all. G...

After a long wait -- the Big Bad Wairudo Spindo shows up. I remember when Mr. Smith wrote an article on American influences in Super Sentai . It's not surprising if one notices that Toei once had a license with Marvel. The Japanese Spider-Man TV series was a licensed adaptation vastly different from the source material. Meanwhile, Saban Entertainment created a Spider-Man cartoon adaptation in 1994 -- my favorite Spider-Man cartoon adaptation.  I get amazed every time ADULT MOVIES are either adapted or referenced in a SHOW FOR CHILDREN. Who can remember the Aliens vs. Predator toyline or Conan the Adventurer -- both based on R-18 fantasy franchises? These villains are probably named after violent movies because they're villains!  The big boss Wairudo Spindo  The Japanese character Waru means bad person. Spindo may refer to SPINDLE. What's interesting is that the  Fast & Furious  American movie was released in Japan was Wild Speed -- which may further enforce ...

  I decided to take the challenge of watching more of Himitsu Sentai Goranger and Dengekitai JAKQ . I remember criticizing Power Rangers for the civilian superpowers until I started seeing older series. Series like Choshinsei Flashman and JAKQ actually featured civilian powers. It's not exactly a staple. Some of them are left unexplained in earlier seasons. Later shows started to flesh things out aside from explaining why the villains are evil. Such a concept may have been copied from other American pop culture influences like cyborgs and superhumans. Super Sentai and Power Rangers both copy from pop culture and modify them for their target audiences.  Goranger introduced no such concept in 1975. The late Shotaro Ishinomori developed a team composed of five superheroes. A Questor magazine back in the 2000s mentioned that Goranger was an interesting experiment. If a solo hero can be a hit then why not try five? The concept was successful that Goranger ran for two freaking ...

Super Sentai is Toei's longest-running Toku series. Other franchises had a reboot. Kamen Rider had a reboot during the Showa era (which had gaps in between) then Kamen Rider Kuuga rebooted the whole franchise -- maybe we can say Kamen Rider Decade did too or was it Kamen Rider W ? Metal Hero had a reboot treatment when the Space Sheriff Trilogy ended. We can also think that a reboot happened when Winspector came after Jiban . Super Sentai probably has had reboots in its very long run to fit in with the times.  I decided to update this post feeling this post needs to be updated! The first possible reboot was done with Battle Fever J  Goranger and JAKQ weren't all part of the Super Sentai franchise. The first entry before the retcon was Battle Fever J . JAKQ got rushed during 1977 and only ended up with 35 EPISODES. JAKQ was too serious for little children! The Super got introduced into the Super Sentai franchise by 1979 because of the first Megazord -- Battle Fever R...

It's a good thing that Super Sentai is getting more recognized thanks to the Power Morphicon events. I may not like Power Rangers but to call it an act of cultural erasure, credit grabbing, etc. is a very business-illiterate statement! I wrote an article at JEFusion discussing the cultural differences between the two shows . I was still in the closet about disliking Power Rangers but now I'm out of it. It might be best to say I DISLIKE IT but I refuse to join that crew. It was a great deal trying to compose that post -- which in turn helped explain why I don't like Power Rangers . However, I refuse to blame Power Rangers since it's been more of a MARKETING DECISION by Bandai and Toei! Super Sentai has its limitations as a franchise too . If Power Rangers is established as an AMERICAN franchise -- Super Sentai is established as a Japanese franchise. In short, both franchises are set to reflect the values of each country. Power Rangers tries to imitate the Marvel/DC super...

These days I don't really care about the Super Sentai VS. Movies . Most of them tend to be like the Dragon Ball Z movie series -- a series of What-If scenarios. Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger is already a fun continuity error. Many events in previous Super Sentai series can't be connected. I rewatched Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters after I finished Power Rangers Beast Morphers . This reminds me Power Rangers' use of continuity vs. Super Sentai's mostly self-contained plots are probably due to CULTURAL DIFFERENCES . This TV special is no different as several plots make them NON-CANON. There are going to be several non-canon events. One can have fun and point out the glaring continuity errors. Who can remember how events unfold in most Super Sentai crossover movies? This one spared no effort to let you know it's just another crossover film. However, the existence of the Dino Curry in these movies might be someone's favorite excuse for justifying that there's actually a S...