[Fish Sandwich]

~Fish's Zenkai Tour!~

Episode 12 – Choujuu Sentai Liveman



People sure do seem to love Liveman, huh? Granted, I don't always have the biggest picture of The Fandom at large, but in my experience, with astonishing consistency over all the years I've been interested in Super Sentai, whenever anybody wants to gush about how awesome the Hirohisa Soda era of the franchise was, Liveman is almost guaranteed to be the series that immediately comes up.

It's not exactly hard to see why? First of all, we've finally got another team with an animal motif, and that concept hasn't gotten any less great since Sun Vulcan. On the contrary, it's arguably gotten better this time around, with all the growing the franchise has been doing in the intervening time. Helmets now stylishly reflect each character's trademark creature through the entirety of their design. You've got the theming extending to the pretty pictures on their chests; to their unique weapons; to their mecha!

Oh man, Live Robo! What an icon! Can you believe it took us twelve whole shows to get a Sentai robot with a lion head on its chest? In fact, they're so rightfully proud of that impressive miniature Land Lion – with its organic stride that's so unlike any of the myriad jets and tanks up to that point – that Land Lion is the only mecha to make it into the premiere. They were still willing to hold off on the robot proper for the sake of smoother pacing, but that big metal cat was so impossibly cool and fresh that they forcibly eject Yellow Lion from the main battle just so he can have an excuse to drive it around. Clearly their priorities were in order.

Oh, oh! And the premiere itself was pretty dang good up to that point! Obviously the lion kinda takes steals the show in the end, but while Land Lion's presence symbolizes the continuing evolution of the franchise on a visual level, the writing to get there further demonstrates how much more willing Sentai was becoming to focus on having genuine pathos backing all the explosions and lasers.

The atmosphere of Liveman's first episode felt very different from even the past few shows that have already been heading in this direction. The plot is concerned with the emotions of its main heroes above all else, taking as little time away from them as possible. Your typical Sentai show from this era would have at least one scene of the villains all standing around in their base to establish their names and desire to rule the world, but Liveman ditches that to have a question instead. A rather iconic question at that, thanks to the opening narration. "Friends, why have you sold your souls to the devil?" It's such a great thrust to kick off a narrative, so attention grabbing and memorable that I could've easily opened the post with simply that line as the thing I knew about the show going in. Because of course I know that line, and if you somehow didn't yet, you probably just got way more interested in Liveman.

While we've been inching our way there, Liveman frames its story on a considerably more intimate level than had really been done before, keeping the bulk of the obligatory evil organization as more of a background element here to put the spotlight on three of the classmates of our academically-minded protagonists, leaving the cutting edge island school they all attend behind in the middle of the night to join up with the bad guys, shooting two of their other classmates dead in the process. The script doesn't shy away from the grief of this whole situation, with the main trio weeping in the rain in the aftermath of the incident, and them shown to still be mourning the loss two years down the line, as the big satellite project they were all working on has finally come to fruition. Naturally, this is the perfect timing for the villains to rub salt in the wound by finally showing back up to wreck that too. Not only does Liveman still do the exciting thing of having the team's first transformation be in the midst of danger, the aforementioned expository villain scene is moved there too, with it now coming out of the mouths of characters who are already dramatically engaging thanks to that setup.

It's just a killer start to a series that has a way of gripping you and not letting go. Big surprise coming from such a beloved and important Sentai, I know. When it comes to Liveman, it's less a matter of whether or not I'm excited to watch the whole series one day, and more a matter of it simply being good? Like, it's honestly something I just accept as a fact at face value, as ridiculous as that sounds. Maybe I feel it's hard to go wrong with a team of animals with the stated mission of protecting all that lives; maybe I'm inclined to trust the show that introduced the concept of two combining robots that combine with each other to Sentai. Who knows? At any rate, Liveman's first episode didn't give me much reason to dispute the consensus.