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05-18-2021, 07:36 PM | #8571 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
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~Fish's Zenkai Tour!~
Episode 11 – Hikari Sentai Maskman The logo for the team is a pentagon with the number five in it, and it's also the series that introduced the glorious ideal of the five-piece combining robot to the franchise, appropriately called Great Five. It drives me insane that I'm NOT talking about the show literally called Fiveman right now. That's what Maskman means to me personally as someone who hasn't seen it – just a sense of confusion about why it took them a couple years to come up with a title that fits this show's designs so well. And you know, I'm really glad I'm doing this project, because if I wasn't, I might've taken so much longer to get the closure I did looking the show up and finding out it didn't take them a couple years at all, because the working title for this show was "The Fiveman" the whole time! Turns out it's the people working for Toei that are truly insane, because they apparently spent most of the 80's constantly discarding all these Sentai ideas during the planning phase, only to then refuse to change other elements of the shows that directly reflected them! So, putting that long-held frustration aside, how was the premiere? Well, first of all, I continue to be impressed by how Hirohisa Soda keeps finding different approaches for these scripts. You'd think it'd be hard to avoid writing all these first episodes in basically the same way, but I think he was probably conscious of that trap, and actively working to avoid falling into it. There are some notable shakeups in the structure for Maskman. For example, not only is there no giant robot action, there's no transformation sequence either, which feels sort of weird, even though it doesn't affect the plot or anything. What absolutely affects the plot, however, is the clear focus on a particular character, Red Mask, also known as Takeru. And I mean, just Takeru, apparently, because my old frustration with the "five" thing has now been replaced by the mystery of why this show does the "only given names" thing again when these characters are just regular Japanese people as far as I can tell? Like, I could tell you Takeru's family name is Shiba or Tenkuuji, and even though I can't prove myself right, nobody could prove me wrong either. But then, now I'm getting off track, much the way Takeru has to get off the race track he drives his cool car around when his girlfriend of mysterious origins rushes onto it in order to warn of the oncoming invasion of the underground empire. The interesting angle Maskman picks, that I can imagine being really unique and interesting over the course of a series, is putting a romance pretty front and center. The fact that it's a romance between a hero of the surface world and a woman originally sent from underground to act as a spy makes their situation dramatically complicated, of course. This is all communicated fairly smoothly just in the one episode, with some quick flashbacks establishing that these two have a history together, and a tragic separation that's shown to spur Red Mask on once he joins the climactic fight scene after the other four have already arrived. It didn't totally wow me in the moment, but now that I'm sitting here writing about it, I'm realizing I actually really appreciate a lot of how this one was put together. It doesn't try to cram anything unnecessary in that would mess up the pacing, to the point that the whole martial arts/spirituality Aura Power shtick that's a central motif of the series is only brought up as a cliffhanger, enticing the viewer with yet more layers to the story that haven't even been touched on yet... outside of Hironobu Kageyama screaming about it during the opening's chorus, at least. (I kid, I kid; it's another good song!) Not my absolute favorite premiere so far or anything, but another very promising start to another show I'll probably quite enjoy eventually.
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Last edited by Fish Sandwich; 03-05-2022 at 05:32 PM.. |
05-18-2021, 07:56 PM | #8572 |
Some guy. I'm alright.
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Michigan
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Maskman is another of the few Sentai that I'm actually interested in watching at some point, and reading about how it shakes things up keeps that desire alive.
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05-18-2021, 08:24 PM | #8573 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
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Posts: 10,558
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Maskman has the most confusing first episode. It almost feels like episode 13ish the way it starts off suddenly with Takeru/Red Mask and Mio running. No origin whatsoever last I checked so it confused me. The premise, an underground empire called Tube wants to take over the people upstairs, us. Thus the Maskman team is formed, a dream team consisting of experts in karate, kenpo, wushu, ninjutsu, and taichi who also can harness aura power during a fight. But the real plot is Takeru/Red Mask and his hero's quest to rescue his damsel in distress Mio aka Princess Ial.
Like I said before, Ryosuke Kaizu who was a guest role in Flashman as an aspiring boxer/food stall owner becomes the red ranger of the show. Issei Hirota who went on to appear in Jiraiya as Toppa was Akira/Blue Mask, the baby bro of the team and Wushu prodigy. In real life Hirota is a legit Wushu practitioner that he had some involvement in the wushu stuff if I recall and the Shishiranger suit actor took some advice from Hirota because of that. Another familiar face is Kanako Maeda who went on to play Kanna in Jetman after this. Maskman was the first of the franchise to give all members their individual mecha components which combines to Great Five. Also the show was the testbed in a sense for the Tsuika Senshi trope started by Zyuranger and Dragon Ranger Burai in the form of the one-shot Bangai Hero X1 Mask.
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Last edited by Sunred; 05-18-2021 at 08:28 PM.. |
05-18-2021, 09:18 PM | #8574 |
Stronger Than You
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: nyet
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I don't know a thing about Maskman (Though the 5 emblem and their mech being called the Great Five angers me as much as the Turboranger being both their carrier as well as the proceeding series).
However, I can say that their theme is a banger.
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05-18-2021, 09:22 PM | #8575 |
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Quote:
Eh, it was during his college years plus it was an 8mm film from the early 80s so understandable. Regarding Anno's involvement seems like he was just the mecha designer for it and the director was actually Takami Akai who apparently got booted outta Gainax after being caught exchanging some fighting words on 2ch during the early episodes of Gurren Lagann. Fun fact, the instrumental they use for the theme song is Sun Vulcan's theme.
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05-19-2021, 12:40 AM | #8576 |
TokuKnight89
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Central Louisiana (Cenla)
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Quote:
The logo for the team is a pentagon with the number five in it, and it's also the series that introduced the glorious ideal of the five-piece combining robot to the franchise, appropriately called Great Five. It drives me insane that I'm NOT talking about the show literally called Fiveman right now. Quote:
P.S.: Liveman was in-between Maskman and Turboranger. |
05-19-2021, 02:33 AM | #8577 |
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Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 2,554
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Fair warning: from this point onwards, with very few exceptions, a lot of shows will take two episodes to establish themselves (or in the case of Turboranger, three).
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05-19-2021, 11:29 AM | #8578 |
Stronger Than You
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: nyet
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Still a proceeding series, just not the immediate proceeding series
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05-19-2021, 03:25 PM | #8579 |
Member
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Just finished another episode of Go-Busters. 38 down, 12 to go.
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05-19-2021, 07:08 PM | #8580 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
...You know, unless that first week was a clip show with no credited writer, in which case I might feel like I'm doing a disservice to Hirohisa Soda by pretending that's the start of the story.
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