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- If Tsuu Shogun was initially not aware that his creations were affecting the real world, what was his intention with the Akibarangers? What's the point of attacking them?
Eh, maybe he's just enjoying the delusion, same as the Akibarangers did when they first transformed. Dude wants to be a Sentai villain; heck he cosplays as that in the "real" world.
- If Itassha Robo was destroyed in the delusion world, shouldn't it be just fine in the real world?
Yeah, and it's not the last time you'll see it. But if they just stood there saying "well it's fine" that'd break the delusion wouldn't it? It's all about what you believe at that moment. Thinking about the real world brings you round.
- Great parody of Changeman episode 52 with that sunset duel. Is it really that iconic?
I don't know about that scene in particular but I've heard that Changeman in general is seen as one of the defining 80s military sci-fi Sentai. I've seen that episode and that battle certainly stayed in my mind.
 
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Hey Black Fang, I hope you don't mind if I hijack your thread for a quick question of my own, but I'm actually rewatching it myself, and I was reminded of something that bugged me when I first watched it.

In episode 5 of the second season, Akagi remarks about how he "was probably too old" to do something regarding Zyuranger. Now, while in the first season, they make light of how he's 29 and still in Sentai a few times... Zyuranger aired over twenty years prior to this comment being made. At the absolute worst, unless I'm misunderstanding what it was he was waiting in line for, he would have only been 10.

Was this just a poke at how kids at that age feel they're "too old" for certain things, and how it's "not cool" anymore? Or in Japan, are you really considered "too old" at just 10 to still like Sentai? I get it might be the latter given how important it is to fit in and all of that, but it stood out to me the first time I saw it and it does again now.
 
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I don't know about that scene in particular but I've heard that Changeman in general is seen as one of the defining 80s military sci-fi Sentai. I've seen that episode and that battle certainly stayed in my mind.

That scene was once a big deal, one of the fan favorite big battle scenes in Sentai. I always thought it was telling the way it kicked off the "sword heroes" section of Gaoranger VS Super Sentai, rather than that clip package going in chronological order like the rest of the clip packages in that movie did. Also: in the Gokaiger live shows, Yoshinori Okamoto reprised his role as Booba and recreated that duel with Gokai Red, so it's made a lasting impression to be referenced 26 years on in even just a stage show like that.

What really bugged the heck out of me about Akibaranger, though, was that it insinuated that it -- and other sunset duels -- was done by special-effects trickery when action-director Junji Yamaoka painstakingly filmed that Changeman scene at an actual sunset. (Yamaoka does this a couple of other times with pivotal battles in Flashman, Jiban and Blue Swat.) There's plenty of scenes done before a fake sunset, as Akibaranger did theirs -- Kakuranger's showdown between Ninja Blue and Ami Kawai comes to mind -- but Changeman's was authentic.
 
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At the absolute worst, unless I'm misunderstanding what it was he was waiting in line for, he would have only been 10.

Was this just a poke at how kids at that age feel they're "too old" for certain things, and how it's "not cool" anymore? Or in Japan, are you really considered "too old" at just 10 to still like Sentai?
Yeah he was saying that he knew he was getting too old for Sentai at age ten. I figured it was a jab at how modern Sentai are aimed at 3-5 year olds with the expectation that they'll grow out of that and into mecha anime long before they reach ten years old. IIRC Zyuranger aired on Saturday evenings so it was kid friendly but perhaps not quite exclusively for kids.
Also: in the Gokaiger live shows, Yoshinori Okamoto reprised his role as Booba and recreated that duel with Gokai Red, so it's made a lasting impression to be referenced 26 years on in even just a stage show like that.
That's awesome :anime:
As opposed to those other non-military Sentai.:p
Would you really call the ToQgers a military unit? Modern Sentai are about as close to being soldiers as Kamen Riders are to being bikers. :laugh:

Not all the 80s Sentai were military units - Liveman for example. Changeman starts by showing military personnel undoing trials to join a brand new secret elite unit, and the five who pass the insane tests (that involve completing a several miles long run through a desert while being shot at by a man with a machine gun in the back of a helicopter) are let into the secret of the impending attack by Gozma and given the powers to stop them. The characters are meant to be actual servicemen.

I don't think any of us can really appreciate how bewildering it must have been to the fans tuning into the first episode of Zyuranger. Sentai had mystical elements in it before - Queen Hedrian had magic powers and Aura Power is essentially Qi - but it had always heavily featured those science fiction and warfare aspects...and suddenly it's become a show about 4 princes and a princess fighting to stop fairytale and folklore creatures from menacing children at the behest of an evil witch. :sweat: I can't help but wonder if all those endless 'saving the kid of the week' plots were just there to reassure the audience that they were still proper henshin heroes that did typical henshin hero things like protecting children from evil?
 
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- Is Prism Ace parodying Ultraman in particular or giant heroes in general?
 
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^This, but since Ultraman is the most well known, elements from that were used right down to the real villains being a sneaky foreign company with questionable paperwork and the like (Chaiyo anyone?). Tsubaraya might be Toei's competition, but they do not hate them, remember the real bad guys are just the imitators working behind the scenes that falsify things.
 
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- Is Prism Ace parodying Ultraman in particular or giant heroes in general?
Akibaranger's writer has apparently been quoted as saying he'd love to write for Ultraman some day, and the foreign company takeover stuff does seem very much based on Tsuburaya's real life woes.

I know you said you were watching the TVN subs, but you should take a look at the release notes OverTime issued with each episode. They really help with all the references in the show.
 
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