~Fish's Zenkai Tour!~

Episode 5 – Taiyou Sentai Sun Vulcan

https://i.imgur.com/NjTSpVT.png

You have no idea how hard I had to resist the urge to call the show "Sausage Fest Sentai Sun Vulcan" up there. Like, if you want my prior knowledge and opinions of this show, it's all in that dumb nickname I came up with years ago and have never had a chance to use until now. The thought of a Sentai that's basically the All-Dudes Squad has always been so weird to me, especially as someone raised on Power Rangers, which has a history of going out of its way to add even more women than Sentai sometimes has. (This is something I was very happy to see them remember for Dino Fury, by the way.) It's like all I can think about whenever I see Sun Vulcan. I look at these guys and picture them hanging out in their secret tree house base, which no doubt has a sign hanging on it that reads "1+2 = NO GIRLS ALLOWED".

And you know, in retrospect, that may have been ironically narrow-minded of me, because taking this chance to actually engage with Sun Vulcan a bit more, I very quickly started realizing how much cool stuff is here that I wasn't paying any attention to. Honestly, this is probably my favorite premiere since Goranger?

This show has got style for days, first of all. The raw production values felt way higher than anything else so far for reasons I can't quite put my finger on easily, and in terms of the motifs, it's got one of my favorite general setups ever. Shockingly enough, it took this long for us to get an animal-themed Sentai show, and I adore animal-themed toku heroes. That's a concept that I find lends itself perfectly to the very exaggerated, theatrical nature of tokusatsu, and watching Vul Eagle, Shark, and Panther all jump around posing their arms and whatnot to recall the beasts they're named after is plain cool and exciting. Each of them has a clear and distinct feel to their movements that springs so naturally out of that simple choice. I can't stress this enough – the animal kingdom is *the* ideal place to turn for strong character iconography, and Sun Vulcan gets major props from me for being the first Sentai to realize that.

I don't think I ever knew why the show went with the whole sun theme prior to this (even despite the insanely catchy opening song spelling it out for me), but now it's obvious that it was chosen as the symbol of life on Earth, and that of course means the designated bad guys for this season are the machine empire Black Magma, a dichotomy that literally can not be more perfect and easy to understand. I'm very impressed by all the theming here, if you can't tell. It's super considered and punchy in a way I feel surpasses the previous shows. And then even simply on a design level, we've got a combining giant robot now, and suits that ditch the somewhat unflattering horizontal stripes for sharp and stylish V-shapes, which are infinitely cooler. I might even go so far as to say you could pass them off as a modern team with barely any updates needed, even? The main villain's design is none too shabby, as well.

And on top of all of this, the premiere episode itself is another really strong one, taking Denziman's frantic pace, but applying it to the original Goranger special operative formula, because it turns out spies are still pretty cool after all! It's more of a straightforward military bent this time, and I think they once again really capture that romanticized ideal of a cool organization. We're back to highly trained protagonists using trinkets to activate covert secret base entrances, the crux of the plot revolves around the villains performing espionage, and, hey, we've even got a yellow who likes curry again. It's almost like a greatest hits album of Sentai to this point in some ways, with stuff like a fun montage of the protagonists introduced fending off assassins sent after them, like a more macho power fantasy version of the Gorangers' intro, but combined with things from Denziman like another talking dog, and, crucially for me, another giant robot fight right in the premiere. You can never go wrong with giant robot fights!

So yeah, Sun Vulcan is a show I went into here with no particular expectations, and unlike with Denziman, I honestly am pretty pumped up about it now. With that one glaring exception mentioned upfront, everything here really gelled with me, and I can easily see myself enjoying the rest of this show whenever I get around to it.

I think the reason why the Sun Vulcan suits hold up so well is because pretty much every animal-themed Sentai since then has kinda used them as a base? It's especially prevalent in Vul-Eagle, of whom many Red Rangers would take the basics of their suit design from.

Now that you mention it, yeah, they might even have the same thing going on as Goranger's designs where they nailed it so much the first time that there's never been any significant room for improvement. Pretty much the only major thing they figured out afterwards was that it looks cool to use the visors as an implied open mouth. So maybe they're not quite as immediately perfect as Goranger, but still, that's awfully close for a first attempt!

Ah yes, the one Stan Lee tried to make a show out of by using the fight footage to save money. (Hilariously, he was working with the same producer who went on to green light Haim Saban’s much more successful attempts years later).

Jokes aside, the thing I remember most from this episode is the scene where the chief reveals he knew there was a spy in the base. And when the spy tries to escape, he seal off the corridor and jettisons her into a minefield. That’s hardcore. (Sure enough, he goes on to be pretty much the real hero of this series).

From what I can gather the problem seemed to be not so much that it being all men is bad, but more just that it didn't add anything in that particular case and seemed a bit pointless to me. I just find it wrong that no English-speaking commentators ever seemed to have a problem with things like magical girl shows that don't have male transforming characters, granted it's anime and a different type of thing so arguably not so in your face but you are still teaching restrictive gender roles to kids and yes it's not like the men's rights movement in America is headed in a great direction either lol (it is generally young men similar to my demographic I'm more likely to care about than like old fathers, no offence!) but I just think that people should stop seeing it as a left and right thing when people won't always necessarily have for example a certain opinion on different races or something just because of their one on gender, and also I do think it does depend on the individual case and demographics can also play a part, it's not like it's all men or all women in the entire world either!

...Sorry if that ended up getting political, it's just a topic that genuinely can get to me, though I have (hopefully) mellowed with age.

I'm not surprised Fish is getting into Sun Vulcan. I found that show to be boring as sin (Though apparently it picks up once the new Vul Eagle is introduced).

Suits are good, though. I'll agree there.

Oh yeah, that whole story! It's always so crazy to me thinking that Marvel was kinda lurking around in the shadows of these last couple shows, and I wish it were better documented than it seems to be. I really love the idea that Stan was trying so hard to get all these exciting live-action superhero shows made, to very infrequent success (he's even straight up badmouthed the domestic Spider-man show we got, and Stan Lee loved to shill anything with Marvel's name on it, natch), and then looked over at Japan and realized they pump exactly what he was looking for out left and right. (He was much happier with Toei's attempt at a Spider-man series, natch.)

It really was pretty hardcore though

I remember you saying this, actually! Who knows, probably helped to keep my expectations from being too high. :lol

Well since it’s Yasuko Kobayashi’s birthday today, I thought I’d watch something to Mark the occasion. So I went with “Timeranger vs GoGoFive”, even though the movie is written by someone else (Ryōta Yamaguchi, if anyone’s curious). I chose to watch it because she worked on both shows being represented in some significant capacity.

Sun Vulcan Robo is a good design, and the color scheme is awesome making nice use of blue and silver as well as the intricate yellow and red details. The intro section of the opening theme with the horns and guitar is nice too.

Finished Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger, and I must say, it's a fun one. I can see why it got a 10 Years After special. The cast is solid, and in general, it's energetic and memorable.
I feel it's largest issues are the Gozen character and how Shurikenger acts in regards to their orders. The main cast is constantly kept out of the loop of basically everything, ordered around, then admonished for having the audacity of calling everyone out for it?
And then when Gozen shows up, acts like a prick, and I'm supposed to care when they die? Yeah, nawh.

Still, that aside, I really dug it. It did have a bit of a problem of having the Gouraigers suffer a noticeable drop in power once they became good, but it didn't bug me too much.

No. The reason no one cared about male representation in magical girl media is because a.) the genre was denigrated for a very long time as being "for girls" as if such was explicitly negative, and only really captured a male audience through the deconstruction of the genre in shows such as the rightly acclaimed Madoka, and b.) male representation is the social default, so to use an example such as the above, to suggest that we shouldn't ask for non-male characters in traditionally male genres because there are already shows "for girls" comes across as saying that others should not seek to see themselves better represented in media, whilst also complaining that your vanilla ice cream does not taste enough of vanilla.

I don't wish to sound as if I am picking on you, because I don't intend to do that, but the idea that there is a completely equal scale, and that men might suddenly suffer if more female or non-binary characters are introduced into media is an idea that I would really sit down and think about if I were in your position. I might be misinterpreting what you say though, as I'm not exactly clear on what you meant towards the end of your post, and you don't have to listen to me because, if anything is apparent from our short conversations, it should be clear that I am akin to Medea, lol, and will go to great lengths to express loathing for heteronormative social expectations, but going forward, it hurts no one to have more varied casts—it does not "ruin childhoods" or take away media from the past, it simply presents a new way... in which companies can sell products to larger demographics now that apparently non-male viewers are a desirable market.

Regarding Sun Vulcan though, I've never heard of anyone being outraged that the core team from a show made in 1981 were all men. Gosh, you know, that's a lot of shows from 1981. It's important to have context, to be aware of social conditions, and it's equally important to say that now, several decades on, without changing the past, we can definitely tell broader stories.

IDK, tomos, all art is political, and all issues are political, as our boy Orwell says. Make of that what you will.

I honestly just always figured it was a joke and that people found it funny that it's the one Sentai team in all of history to have no girls in it. Very easy joke fodder!

It certainly would be... a take... to zero in on this one specific show. I'm also pretty sure that when made it was made the idea of it being commented on and discussed in 2021 was inconceivable.

Perhaps I'm out of touch with the broader fandom (spoiler: I am), but I still find it hard to believe Sun Vulcan is such a hot button topic.

Oh, it's not; it's just that when you're looking at all the Sentai teams and you see there's a single one in existence that doesn't have a girl, that's kinda funny

Just in case the two separate stupid nicknames and the following paragraphs of glowing praise for the show as a whole didn't make it clear, I was simply poking fun there specifically because it is, indeed, kinda funny.

It's not. Honestly, the only real thing of note about Sun Vulcan's history is how much involvement Marvel truly had.

Tapping in here real quick to confirm that people aren’t made awfully mad about Sun Vulcan. I’m pretty sure most people see the lack of women as a product of its time and or don’t care cause things have changed so much.

Also I uh think most people are like Die and don’t truck with Showa.


Also in response to tomos and Dreamcast (my tablet auto capitalizes Dreamcast that’s fantastic): people do complain about a lack of boy in magical girls. Mostly it’s because they (and I) think that showing boys in the show as heroes can show to young boys that they’re allowed to be feminine and feel feeling and such.

Your tablet is doing it right, haaha!

That I can understand definitely. What I can't get behind is what I felt the initial suggestion to be, "Ew, you want girls on our boys team ergo you suck because you never put boys on your girl team", but in a situation where it comes to providing positive depictions of male characters who actually have real feelings and aren't just engines of masculine self-loathing, yeah, I can definitely get behind that.

I always try to refrain from talking about this stuff because I feel that whenever I do, it's so easy to become characterised as a killjoy, so I'm also really glad that no one does really care about Sun Vulcan's line up, which is what I assumed, and what I thought was the joke... I just faltered when I got scared that people might have actually held this view, not Fish of course, but that a reference was being made to a group in fandom who did voice such views. I'm glad that we're not all crazy.

That boys can appear feminine is what I actually meant, yes! I think negative gender roles hurt men and women, I do actually want a half male/half female sentai team and non-binary characters I don't have an issue with, it's more just that I don't relate to a lot of arguments on either women's or men's rights which I suppose again is likely because of demographics, for example I'm still only 28 and the south west tends to have a bit of an ageing population!

I'm pleased we're on the same page!

I feel that the idea of men's rights is spurious at best, it's hard for me to look at the notion of such a movement and not equate these people with the same men that tell us the moon landings were faked. I'm not exactly fond of second wave feminist ideology, despite having grown up reading a lot of writers, such as Greer, who now sadly seem to voice a lot of anti-trans* rhetoric—however, all of that aside, what matters is I am definitely in agreement with better representation; the more options we have the better off we all are! It hurts none of us to have more shows with different combinations of characters and the very idea of such makes me super excited.

Almost 20 minutes into the Go-Onger and Gekiranger crossover movie and I'm already seriously enjoying it.

EDIT: Just finished watching the movie and it's definitely among my Top Favorite Super Sentai crossover movies along with Megaranger vs. Carranger, Timeranger vs. GoGo Five, Gaoranger vs. Super Sentai and Abaranger vs. Hurricaneger. I also really liked Magiranger vs. Dekaranger, Boukenger vs. Super Sentai and Dekaranger vs. Abaranger. For now, I'm done with the Super Sentai crossover movies and it's onward to Samurai Sentai Shinkenger.

~Fish's Zenkai Tour!~

Episode 6 – Dai Sentai Goggle-V

https://i.imgur.com/9tDcO6j.png

"The one with the ribbons or whatever?"

If you had asked me to describe Goggle-V off the top of my head before watching this premiere, that's about as good a description as I could give you. I mean, sometimes it definitely seems like that's all Toei themselves even remember about the show, given how references to them down the line generally play out.

Here's the thing about that though – it's not at all hard to see why that's the distinctive element Goggle-V gets boiled down to, because thematically, it's a little all over the place and complicated to describe. Please bear in mind how much I praised Sun Vulcan for the digestible concept of all the animals under the sun fighting against technology as I attempt to summarize the follow-up to that.

Essentially, the show is about a struggle between the forces of Evil Science, and those of Good Science, which is simple enough on the surface, but the way that has to be filled out is where things get muddled. The team's suits incorporate notable ancient civilizations as a motif, connecting to the greater technology theme by representing the wish to never see what humans have built up destroyed again. This is admittedly kinda neat for how weirdly emotional it is, and it's also something that is not at all self-explanatory. A strong point of most Sentai suit designs is how looking at them can give you immediate context for what the show is about, even with no prior knowledge, and yet with Goggle-V, that process is completely backwards, which is hard not to see as a flaw. The team's fighting style also features an emphasis on rhythmic gymnastics, of all things, hence the ribbons, which ties into the larger themes because... uh... I think just because Toei wanted to spice up the fight scenes.

You can maybe see why it's hard to pin this show down to one broad idea now? Like, why aren't the ribbons a valid choice? Even the title of the show is some second choice afterthought. The working title that they were likely never even planning to use, Mirai Sentai Miraiman, actually reflects the show's technological focus way better, and the final name is only "Goggle" V instead of "GoGo" V to avoid brand confusion with something Honda was selling at the time. This is a real story! I found that out trying to figure out what the heck goggles had to do with this show, and I still don't even know why they're named after eyewear. It's a bit of a mess, is what I'm saying!

But now that I've spent most of this post totally ragging on Goggle-V, I should probably hurry up and mention that I thought the premiere was pretty good! Nothing to complain about, even.

We're basically back in Denziman territory, with a group of civilians, presumably with attitude, who are recruited to stop the baddies for the year, and using that formula again after that gap with Sun Vulcan made me realize how much I actually prefer this approach. It's a lot trickier to establish personality when your protagonists are all gruff military prodigies than when they're people from completely different walks of life. Even without time for establishing deeper personalities, as is the case in a fast-paced first episode, simply seeing the protagonists having different hobbies or careers instantly makes them distinctive, and there's obviously a lot of value in that for a Sentai. Not much about this formula is different from the last time they used it, but like I said, that's mostly a testament to how perfectly Denziman already had things nailed down.

That aforementioned technological focus is Goggle-V's biggest distinctive element, and something I found rather charming. As I touched on with the whole secret agent fascination, hero tokusatsu is in large part about appealing to the dreams of children of the times, and it's neat to see the burgeoning recognition of just how much the rapid march of scientific progress was capturing the attention of the youth. The support squad at the team's base is literally called the Computer Boys & Girls, which I tell you, without the slightest hint of irony, might be one of the most genius ideas a toku show in 1982 could have. Being a little kid who gets to push buttons to help out the heroes is such a perfect fantasy to offer to the target audience like that. This is the era when personal computers were still a luxury item for a household, you know? Something kids would see in magazines, or at that one particular friend's house on weekends if they're lucky. They were mysterious, and cool, and kids admired them.

I know those first paragraphs made it sound like I was decrying this show for bad theming, but that's not my point. Goggle-V has complicated themes, but many of the choices the show made were still very considered and strong. It was fun to finally give this one a slightly closer look.

First thing that come to mind with Goggle V is that Haruta is Goggle Black, Goggle Pink seemingly was one of the reasons some folks got into the show in Japan at the time, and gymnastics. :lolol
But yeah Fish, this show's all over the place. Like they could not decide if they wanna be Proto-Ohranger or Gymrangers.

Well hey, they were totally onto something there, if Kimberly is any indication.

Its been a while since I've seen Goggle V but from what I remember, one of my biggest problems with the show is that, despite having a bunch of cool ideas, it never really does anything cool or special with them.

Its a perfectly fine show in its own right and the rangers, while certainly not deep, have enough character to keep things from being boring, almost all of the unique elements it sets up in the first episode, the relationship between people and technology, the ancient civilizations, the entire concept of comboy, are either completely ignored or handled in such a generic for the time way that it makes the first episode kind of hilarious in hindsight.

I remember Comboy in particular disappointing me since, as somebody who likes it when they incorporate kids into tokusatsu in ways that allow them to actually contribute the the story beyond just being walking plot devices, the idea of a team of rangers acting as mentors to a team of super smart elementary schoolers seemed like a really fun concept that ultimately changed nothing about the standard showa formula beyond giving them an excuse to have a bunch of kids around who do nothing that can't be accomplished by either the female 'assistant' character and/or the kid of the week.

Again, Goggle V is a perfectly fine show in its own right its just... there's a reason why ribbons are the only thing Toei seems to remember about this show.

I mean, Zanekiaher’s OP, in its quest to squeeze in a lyrical shout out to every Sentai, actually went with something else for Goggle V.

Anyway, this is the first Sentai to be head written by Hirohosa Soda instead of Shozo Uehara. As you might’ve surmised during your Kakuranger watch last year, he’s one of the most prolific Sentai head writers there is (heck, according to someone on Twitter who did the math, he has the most series to his name, with 9), plus the longest unbroken streak spent writing for Sentai (Arakawa has too many years off to match him).

A bit like Denjiman though, I can't hate Goggle 5 too much, even though it's not that great or anything I do like the look of the show in terms of earlier 80s sentai. I mean it was at least the earliest sentai to be shown in a couple of countries, so there is that!

Up to episode 18 of Shinkenger and I'm honestly questioning if this series is really all that good as a lot of Sentai fans supposedly said it is. Yeah, I know. Blasphemy. :rolleyes

I felt Shinkenger was pretty dull. Not bad, just a bit on the boring side.
Then again, I watched it when I was heavily depressed, so who knows, maybe I was just being extra mean. Dunno

I liked it because we had a cool and brooding red ranger for a change, a mediocre sushi chef who is super smart that he came up with his own digitized version of a mystical power, and the rest I won't say cause do not wanna spoil things for you. Also the casting was great.

That's just how you know Mike Sugiyama doesn't play around with his lyrics. :lol

Oh, and speaking of musical trivia, I might as well note that Goggle-V was also the last Sentai that Chuumei Watanabe would do the BGM for alllllllll they way up until Zenkaiger came along this year. Definitely a bit of a changing of the guard going on around this point.

Kyo (Dino Charge) has shipped so I will resume this once I finish Go Busters

Also Kira Mage Ranger has concluded so I will see if I can get it next month.

Both are Mylasian sets with English subs.

Stick with it. It drags in the middle, but the endgame is one of the best in all of Sentai. The last 15-ish episodes are straight fire.

I am seeing this through to the end. Don't worry. I even watched the Shinkenger movie and their crossover with Go-Onger while going through the episodes.

I'm currently up to episode 42.

Finally finished Shinkenger. It's a decent series but vastly overrated in my opinion.


There are elements of the show I do like as in the samurai theme, some of the mecha, the ranger suits as well as the weapons, and the fight scenes plus its opening theme song. There are even couple of episodes I did end up enjoying. Juzo in particular had a great first appearance and is a very good villain who is unfortunately very under-utilized. Dayu suffers from the same issue which is a real shame since Romi Park did a great job with one of the few characters especially on the villains side of things that's actually interesting. If I have pick a favorite(s) among the rangers of this series, it's easily Mako and Chiaki. I even liked Genta and given how at least half of the Shinkenger fanbase disliked the character, that's really saying something. I do understand them not liking him though. I honestly don't find him as annoying as I thought he would be and it helps that he is the one who usually brings some much-needed life to the show that I honestly feel gets rather dull at times.

Sadly, there are times in the show where it feels like it's going through the motions where you're practically just waiting for the obligatory giant mecha battle just to get the episode(s) out of the way. I want to like Shinkenger, I truly do. All in all, out of the Sentai series with Yasuko Kobayashi as the head writer I've seen so far, Timeranger is still her best work.

And now it's onward to Tensou Sentai Goseiger.

Goseiger tends to be a divisive series. Some are ardent lovers of it, others absolutely despise it. I feel it's pretty good, though it definitely slogs at some points.

'sup.

It's kind of just not so good by default for me despite not minding some of it back then and I did think the middle group of villains were the weakest IMO, props to the show for somehow in a way managing to still have a marginally dark tone despite some elements of it though.

I'll stand in favour with Gosei also. I think it has a lot of charm, and like tomos says, it approaches some weighty themes despite how it might have been perceived based on first impressions alone.

Goseiger is my second favorite. Very fun show. Very unique characters. Has a lot of continuity, which really surprised me when watching it. And it manages to make the "Never give up!" message of Megaforce work, by simply punishing the Rangers each time they don't live up to their own ideals. And all the villains have interesting dynamics.

Love that show!