Sean Akizuki's Super Sentai Blog

Ah Gatchaman! Though this is not sentai, I feel like this series deserves to be placed in my blog. It's because Gatchaman is the series that inspired Super Sentai in many ways. Although Gatchaman was a series by Tatsunoko and NOT by Toei Ltd. - it did give Toei the inspiration for future installments. If you've noticed the 1970s Anime Gatchaman itself has the same team format as Toei's super robot five-team combiner series such as Combattler V, Voltes V, and Golion (template for Lion Voltron). Gatchaman was pretty much, technically speaking, a five-man Super Sentai team except that they were not color-coded. Rather, they were coded by their birds namely Eagle, Condor, Owl, Swan, and Swallow. Quite interesting The Gatchaman Trilogy The series itself was pretty much the seed of a lot of shows. The show presented a team of five heroes fighting the Gallactor Empire which was led by Sosai X and his right-hand man Berg Katse. Berg Katse is a comedic, catlike villain who ...

While watching Zyuohger, I noticed something that the motif behind Yamato Kazakiri is the third eagle swordsman . Every time there's a bird related ranger in motif there seems to be a Jetman throwback. Gaku Washio/Gao Yellow had retractable wings and a two edged sword to fight foes. Then I think of the fact that some of Jetman's characters are inspired by Gatchaman's characters. Even if the show was so 70s, the concept still gets carried on with newer ideas to mix with the old.

Chojin Sentai Jetman was definitely one of those unique Sentai for me. But one has to take note that it's also a Gatchaman tribute so what could have happened when they conceptualized Gatchaman ahem Jetman? Here's what I believe really happened: Now we have Takeyuki Suzuki the producer of a good portion of the Soda era (Goggle V, Dynaman, Bioman, Changeman, Flashman, Maskman, Liveman, Turboranger and Fiveman) and he was also the producer of Jetman, Zyuranger and Dairanger. Let's take a look at the pre-Jetman works to what he could have conceptualized. So it's obvious that four out of five Jetmen are based on Gatchamen. Ryu Tendo is Ken the Eagle (changed to Hawk for some reason), Gai Yuki is Joe the Condor, Raita is based on Ryu the Owl (weird huh) and Kaori is based on Jun the Swan. Ako Hayasaka is a female version of Jinpei but unlike the latter, she is a teenage school girl. So I guess they wanted to deviate a bit but Jetman is obviously a Gatchaman tribute! Pe...

Since Jetman is loosely based on Gatchaman so there has to be some markings of Gatchaman in the show. We have the following "Gatchaman" marks in the show.  Toshiki Inoue must have gotten several elements from all three seasons to which he thought would work. The most obvious is the bird motif and fact that Black Condor is a motorcycling hero is a reference to Joe in Gatchaman. The power struggles that happen between Ryu Tendo and Guy Yuki is another mark- which is kind of similar to Ken and Joe in Gatchaman, both between polar opposites against each other.  Joe was sort of a playboy in Gatchaman. Ryta/Yellow Owl like Ryuu of Gatchaman are both the strongmen of the team, loves to eat and are country boys. He's a less dramatic version and more of a comedy relief like Bulk would be in MMPR but he's a ranger. Kaori/White Swan's attraction to Ryu/Red Hawk and her struggle of confused feelings with Gai/Black Condor is similar to Jun/G3 in Gatchaman but ...

Here are the following mecha from Tatsunuko's Gatchaman that inspired future sentai. After all, it seems that Gatchaman inspired the late Shotarou Ishinomori (of Kamen Rider fame) to create Goranger. The Eagle Sharp in Gatchaman II seemingly inspired the Variblune fortress in Goranger seeing the looked alike. The Gatcha-3 in Gatchaman F inspired later designs like the Patgyro in Dekaranger and the Green Hover in Gogo V. But its design was also used in the Metal Hero series B-Fighter in the form of the Reddle Hover. The Gatcha-4 in Gatchaman F seems to have inspired Variblune. The Gatcha-5 in Gatchaman F inspired the making animal-based mecha eventually taken into Go-Onger's mecha. The New God Phoenix in Gatchaman II was an inpisration of the Icarus Haken as well as the Jet Garuda. Gatcha Spartan in Gatchaman F has the idea of five vehicles combining into one ship was first used in Jetman and later Timeranger. Pictures taken from: http://www.chronicsite.com/gatchaman/mechs.htm...

The Jetman Manga Epilogue is kind of a tribute to Gatchaman in some way like the Jetmen using open helmets similar to that of Gatchaman and that Radiguet somewhat resembles Egobossler (but with the absence of a Sosai X equivalent) as well as Ruma being force-grown is similar to that of Gel Sadra in Gatchaman as well. Also there was the unused concept of the replacement for Joe Asakura. In Gatchaman, Joe Asakura was supposed to be replaced by a new member but he was instead, restored as a cyborg. In here Gai Yuuki is pronounced dead (but what happened to him is unknown in the super sentai universe) and he gets replaced. The manga also had other inconsistencies like the return of the Neo-Jetmen (which they gave their energies to the Jetmen for them to fight Vyram back) as well as the return of the Jetmen's mecha (they were badly damaged but then they could have been repaired but then in sentai, some mecha do get destroyed like those in Carranger a series that came after Ohranger). ...