Sean Akizuki's Super Sentai Blog

  Some time ago, I wrote about why I prefer  Choriki Sentai Ohranger over Power Rangers Zeo . As this year is Gekisou Sentai Carranger's 30th anniversary (and sadly, Yuka Motohashi has joined Thuy Trang so soon after she lost her battle to cancer) -- I wanted to write this one. Sure, I wrote about how Power Rangers is better than Super Sentai for the American audience . Now, I thought about revisiting Carranger and Turbo on one aspect: the LATTER'S NARRATIVE CLUTTER. One of the many reasons why I don't like Power Rangers is the NARRATIVE CLUTTER. Some people may remember how Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers actually had three seasons; Zeo was just a continuation of Mighty Morphin' Season 3 (and it made the teenagers look like they would never graduate until Turbo ). Then of course, there's the really atrocious Power Rangers Turbo movie, which would connect into the TV series. I remember watching that film back in 1998 before I learned about Carranger's existenc...

Super Sentai may be on hiatus, but I felt like still giving it the honors every now and then. This photo can be so sad, just thinking of how Yuka Motohashi (who played as Natsumi Shinohara in Gekisou Sentai Carranger ) left us so soon due to cancer. Carranger's 30th anniversary happened this year, and that show could've been the anniversary. Instead, there was the contender because Choriki Sentai Ohranger was actually the 20th anniversary of Himitsu Sentai Goranger . The references were hard to dismiss like the military trend with Goranger , Dengeki Sentai Changeman , and Ohranger . It was also on 1995 when Goranger became more recognized as the first true Super Sentai series! Apparently, there was some kind of identity crisis. Should a Super Sentai series celebrate its anniversary by year or by entry number ? Do the mathematics.  Ohranger was the 20th birthday of Goranger . Carranger was the 20th Super Sentai entry. There was some kind of crisis. Not to mention, Carranger also...

  It's no secret that I have had shifting preferences between Turboranger and Carranger . It's really THAT obvious that Carranger does take some pointers from Turboranger even if both shows have some glaring differences. Both Turboranger and Carranger also suffer from lower ratings. Turboranger was the beginning of the decline of Hirohisa Soda. Soda would later do some episodes for Carranger as a secondary writer. Carranger hardly raised ratings up since Ohranger's low ratings. Both shows suffered from rating drop yet were somewhat vindicated by history. Carranger DVD sales by Shout! Factory led to the Megaranger DVD sales. Turboranger may have also been vindicated over time as more people got to really follow it in spite of the glaring flaws.  Back on topic... I'd like to show five areas where I think Carranger did better than Turboranger... Carranger DID have a more Turbo team than the teens with a ttitude for Turboranger I may be a fan of Turboranger but I feel the w...

Right now, I'm doing some Kosoku Sentai Turboranger rewatching after Wandering Moonbeams finished the subbing before Shout! Factory could ever grab the license. I was thinking that while it's difficult not to think about Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers while watching Turboranger - Gekisou Sentai Carranger also comes to my mind! Carranger eventually brings in Engine Sentai Go-Onger to my mind as well. I usually love the slapstick of Go-Onger but Carranger just makes the former look like it's a bloated mess. Just because I don't like Power Rangers doesn't mean I'm going to spare Super Sentai from some of my own personal opinions. Carranger was a show that actually didn't save Super Sentai - it was Denji Sentai Megaranger that did the job of saving Super Sentai after two years of low ratings! Carranger is a show that you probably can't easily absorb though the DVD sales were a success. So, I saw Go-Onger first... Granted, I saw Go-Onger first and decided ...

The fact that Kosoku Sentai Turboranger has been subbed brings two more series to mind. These series are Gekisou Sentai Carranger and Denji Sentai Megaranger . I heard Turboranger had its struggle, got unfairly maligned (and was underappreciated), and may have been vindicated by history after all to the point of overappreciation. Turboranger was the first Heisei era Super Sentai as well. Turboranger was also a show that was full of experimental concepts such as teenagers with attitude (hence the true trope codifier, not Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers ), automobiles for mecha (though the secondary mecha was a turbojet), and enemies that were sealed for centuries until they were released into the modern-day setting. The series was the start of the Heisei era while it signaled the end of the Hirohosa Soda era . Soda's era finally came to an end with Chikyu Sentai Fiveman - the series that nearly ended Super Sentai! Yup, you'll probably still hear more people preferring Kyukyu...

I can't deny that I do change my opinions every now and then -- it's just like I tend to prefer older vs. newer shows based on how good things go for me, I tend to think newer Kamen Rider is better than newer Super Sentai then I'm recently taking a short break from Kamen Rider Zi-O (to at least recharge my Rider vibes) then the same can be said about two shows. One is Kosoku Sentai Turboranger and Gekisou Sentai Carranger -- which one really shifted into Turbo is somewhat based on personal preference. So why do I frequently end up comparing Carranger with Turboranger even if the said show was from 1996 and Turboranger was in 1989 making them seven years apart? It's because of the Car Magic theme, Power Rangers Turbo was based on Carranger and Gokaiger had one episode where the Gokaigers accidentally used the Turboranger powers instead of the Carranger powers. Hmmm both Riki and Kyousuke made guest appearances. Riki was in the Hero 199 movie and Kyousuke in the tribut...

What I missed or didn't miss is that the Carranger DVD release and the upcoming Megaranger DVD release happen in the year 2017. In short, both DVDs are released during the 20th anniversary of both Power Rangers Turbo and Megaranger. Both shows were also under the production of Shigenori Takatera who was also the man behind Gingaman, Kamen Rider Kuuga, the first half of Hibiki and Daimajin Kanon.  Gekisou Sentai Carranger I remembered some rants I made about Carranger. My first Carranger rant was that I thought Toei and Shout should have considered a Turboranger DVD release . It was because Turboranger may have something Mighty Morphin' fans can relate to. But it seems that Toei's decision might be led by this that they released Zyuranger because it was what Mighty Morphin' was based from. Then you have Dairanger, Kakuranger, Ohranger and now Carranger. Carranger didn't really raise the ratings back to normal and that it was really Megaranger that did. C...

Knowing that Ohranger now has an official DVD, we know that DVD release of Carranger is coming. So it's time for another crazy rant. Okay, I like Carranger better than Turboranger but I could talk about a possible shift. When I'm talking about shifting into Turboranger, I'm not talking about Power Rangers Turbo but rather, which show will we go for? Will it be Turboranger or Carranger? Let's do some comparisons with both shows that use car magic to fight evil.

It's no secret that next week's Zyuohger episode will be the big celebration of Super Sentai's 2,000th episode. I remembered Kamen Rider OOO was celebrating that episodes 27-28 are the Kamen Rider franchise' 999th-1,000th episode . What I missed or failed to notice is that Super Sentai had it's 1,000th episode released with Carranger episode 20, "Test Drive The Ultimate Famous Cars". What's interesting is that Carranger is also Super Sentai's 20th anniversary and the 1000th episode was released on the 20th episode of the 20th season.

So I read from Tokusatsu News Network a couple of days ago that Jetman, not Carranger saved Super Sentai . I still remembered the shock I had when I realized this fact: Fiveman wasn't well-received and the show was problematic during its airing. I even think that as much as I want to see Fiveman all over again, I still think that GoGoFive is miles better as a family-based Super Sentai. There was the Hirohisa Soda era where he served as the head writer for Goggle V, Dynaman, Bioman, Changeman, Flashman, Maskman, Liveman, Turboranger and Fiveman for nine consecutive seasons. He started to show signs of burning out during Turboranger and met his inevitable burnout during Fiveman. Fiveman nearly cancelled Super Sentai so I guess Jetman was meant to be a "finale" but instead, it opened up another era. Producer Takeyuki Suzuki soon worked with Toshiki Inoue for Chojin Sentai Jetman. The Soda era came to its closure with the great writer meeting his inevitable burnout. I...

After watching Carranger for some time, I thought that the show had some really badass action. Turboranger had some badass action but I felt Carranger may have taken it to another level.  The mission was to recover RV Robo after they had VRV Robo. Gynamo resumes command and has used RV Robo to defeat the Carrangers. In this episode, the monster of the week Z.Z. Gyuri was tasked to grab some cucumber kimchi for de-facto leader Zonette.

Destroying a monster out-of-suit is one of the rarest things in Tokusatsu. Most of the time, that feat can't be easily accomplished. But in a few cases, they were accomplished by the likes of Ken Hoshikawa vs. Amoeba Rugin and Eiji vs. Ouga (but it wasn't as good). Here's one scene that really is a very rare scene that's hard to find. Just as Gorutsuki is about to make Zonette fall in love with Gynamo, we see Kyousuke do a jump punch then protect Zonette. While it's been too standard and common for rangers to do some attack then morph but this one ends up with heavy, heavy action. 

After watching some Christmas specials in today's Super Sentai which is usually one-parters or at times, two-parters and as for Ninninger, it's a three parter. This is definitely one Christmas trilogy that I'd say was indeed a real fight before Christmas. Reckless Dash Exhaus has prepared a diabolical, not funny scheme that could spell the end of the Carrangers. There's a lot of epic flavor in the battle which results to a lot of well-planned schemes. Zonette does get involved in trying to stop the scheme as her crush on Red Racer will ultimately lead to her redemption. 

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...

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...

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...

Them eyes.... and them wrenches! While watching Carranger with subs and in a more sequential order, I also wanted to at least watch rewatch the first nine episodes of Bioman again. So what's up with comparing Mika Koizumi to Natsumi Kinohara? While Mika was pretty short-lived no thanks to the actress Yuki Yajima leaving the set so abruptly, fortunately the actress Yuka Motohashi didn't leave the set all so soon and she stayed from episode one up to the very end. Got to admit, this isn't really my idea to start with since I got the idea from Fantasy Leader (now Sentai Bandicoot) so long ago, and somehow, I really can't change my opinion too much after watching Carranger. I thought Mika's concept was a pretty interesting one with a snappy, sort-of a rebel type of lady who cares for her teammates. But unlike Mika, Natsumi didn't attempt to run away on her own but she had the whole team with her. I mean, none of the Carrangers wanted to accept their destiny. Ev...

Here's a similarity between Turboranger episode 11 and Carranger episode 9. The main difference was Kunio Fuji wrote the Turboranger episode and Yoshio Urasawa wrote the Carranger one. Now for the startling similarities.  Turboranger had the story of the Ruffian Bouma who Zulten released into the modern day. Unknown to everyone in Ragorn's empire but Zulten, Ruffian Bouma had already defected away from the empire.  In that episode, Zulten tried to use Ruffian Bouma to defeat the Turborangers. When all else fails, Ragorn destroys Ruffian Bouma who is then enlarged by Zulten. After a giant robot battle, somehow Ruffian Bouma returns back to his senses. The Turbo Robo then flies into space then drops the dying monster there.  Ruffian Bouma becomes a star. A similar plot was carried into Carranger. While Carranger is considerably what you'd call a very lighthearted season but you still have serious moments like these. In the story, Speed King Max was long missing as...

Signalman in Carranger is an obvious parody of Robocop . Considering that Carranger itself is really more focused on cars than Turboranger and that they fought the Bowzock gangster, so I guess the producers thought that maybe creating a Robocop parody would fit the show pretty well. In 1993, Janperson was created as a fully robotic version of Robocop. For some reason, I want to believe that Robocop even if he was an American-made character, ended up getting a huge soar of popularity in Japan. Jiban was also a Robocop-inspired hero except that he defeated monsters of the week while Janperson was more true to the Robocop theme... except Janperson was never a human revived into a cyborg.

When I think of Bioman and how short-lived Mika was, fortunately the concept did not die with the character.  I felt like Bioman was a season to experiment here and there.  Bioman was the first Super Sentai series to have two females (and back then, I had NO IDEA that most Sentai series had only one girl in the team back then), the first female yellow ranger (one died, another came in) and you can consider the first (and only) Super Sentai team to use the Beastnoids lacking human-sized monsters (Dekaranger hardly had human-sized monsters but no Beastnoids that keep retreating) and the first to have a mad scientist (Dr. Man).  Now I can discuss about Mika's concept and how it really lived on even if she didn't last long... that is the concept of a female yellow ranger who's snappy, rebellious (but not really) and badass! The concept was sort of relived with Haruka herself in Maskman. I felt like Mika's concept was relived in Maskman, one of my favorite series. Haruka...