*Googles Yoko Minamino and Maskman* Holy cow, that was her. Good find. :rock:
And apparently, the Sukeban Deka movie she starred in was in theaters the same year as when Maskman aired.

So it's a romance drama, huh.

I recall some people complain about the vagueness of "Fiveman", but I think "Maskman" is even more vague. All the Sentai are masked men!

Kageyama's work on Jetman was awesome for sure.

From the writer behind Bias and Vulgyre, good to know I can look forward to more crazy villain plot twists.

Yeah, I'd say the romance drama element is a significant part of the show, although it's not beat for beat Romeo & Juliet, but in a more broad sense.

My personal observation is that, given their gimmick, I think they settled with mask because when they transform they're masked in Aura Power, the very source of their strength as rangers.

In that case, the name Auraman was right there....

I wanted to get to the point where I had seen at least one Sentai show from each decade and all that was left for me was the 80s. I wanted to do Sun Vulcan, but since it is some kind of semi-sequel to Denziman I went ahead and tackled that show first!

Honestly though, Denziman is a dull, dulllll show. It's not like it wasn't funny or never had good episodes, but as a whole I found it to be a slog that didn't really have anything going for it that another Sentai show didn't do better. In particular it struck me as very similar to Goranger if you shuffled the character traits around, made the show less absurd, and just lowered the quality all around. A particular sore point is that Kiyama doesn't get a single episodes where he is focused on until half way through! The show also has the surreal, incomprehensible sort of video editing that I tend to associate with the early 80s Metal Hero shows, and that isn't a good thing. In the end, I think the biggest highlights were how discotastic the show was and seeing some iconic tokusatsu actors. Machiko Soga never has a bad villain role and it was interesting to see Gavan's actor take on a more comedic role as Denzi Blue.

Yeah, not too much to talk about with this one. I hope Sun Vulcan can at least interest me on some level when I get to it.

Daigoro is one of my favorite characters because anpan FTW. :lolol
Seriously, after you get used to the azuki bean taste, it's one of the greatest pastries/delicacies to eat.
Other than that, another thing I love about Denziman is the uniforms, very retro cool IMO. Helmets are probably hellish to replicate for those who are into making sentai helmets. :lolol

Daigoro was my favorite too, his comedic gluttony hit the same notes as Daita from Goranger for me and he had a lot of episodes focused on him. I liked some of his silly attack techniques too, like Blue Snake (how does pretending your hand is a snake always prove so effective?). He definitely gave me a craving for anpan even though I have never had it before too. I like sweet azuki beans so I'm pretty dang sure I would like anpan!

The Demziman suits ARE very charmingly 80s, but even more than them I love whatever Queen Hedrian was rocking. Denziman was the last of the trio of tokusatsu that Toei did as part of their Marvel collaboration, so the design is apparently based on Hela from Thor!

Honestly, if I were choosing which show would be the first Super Sentai, I'd choose Denziman. Simply because, unlike its three (four?) predecessors, its costumes are instantly recognizable as Super Sentai. I also love the dreamlike surrealism of everything Princess Denzi. And the dog is simply adorable, and much more involved in the plot than most pet assistants. So overall, I had a positive impression of the show.

I watched the first three episodes of Gorenger. I definitely enjoy seeing the Sentai tropes being born, as well as the show's inherent scale and emphasis on spy work (even if it's rather naive). Even though the heroes spend almost all their time on missions, and only Daito is distracted by curry, they still manage to show character and not seem interchangeable. So overall, I like it, although I'm curious to see what exactly they'll be doing for the rest of the 84 episodes.

The fact they cast a slightly scruffy older dog as IC instead of some ultra cute puppy honestly made him even more adorable. I read that the original dog that played IC died partway through the show, which is why he is largely depicted through stock footage and a puppet later on. The Sentai wiki says he died of natural causes during the filming of episode 38, which is oddly emotional since it was an episode about how people should treat animals with kindness. The whole situation also makes IC's sacrifice at the end of the story hit harder. I definitely get the impression the staff wanted to do a tribute to the little guy with that ending.