Follow the Sun! A Sun Vulcan Thread

[Silvertooth]

Checking out some old school sentai: Sun Vulcan the 5th Super Sentai from way back in 1981, and would help spawn Ben Dunn's Zetraman team from Ninja High School.

It also contains quite a few firsts and innovations. It's the first three-man team, and all-male to boot. It's got one of sentai's oldest robots, just after Battle Fever's samurai robot and Daidenjin from Denjiman.

Also... its rather doofy at times. There's a lot of special effects and action scenes that feel like they're still trying to get a handle on the action and wire scenes. Vul Shark in particular seems confused as to how to pose and look heroic. Still, its fun to see the early forms of what we normally take for granted in sentai take shape.

The subs are being done by Gao Soul Forever, commonly known for, naturally, their Gaoranger project. Watch, and you *will* believe a sharkman can hover.

 

[Kouji Kabuto]

Sun Vulcan had it's share for firsts. Sun Vulcan Robo was the first COMBINING sentai robot. Fever Robo did not transform and Daidenjin was a ship becoming a robot.

Shin Kishida played Commander Arashiyama perfectly. A pity he died less than a year after Sun Vulcan ended.

Sun Vulcan was also the only sentai series to directly reference it's predecessor. Watch eps 4 and 5 to see what I mean.

Note that the katakana for Sun Vulcan would be "sanbarukan" where "san" is a homonym for "san" or three. If you google "planet vulcan" you'll see that before Einstein put forth his theory of relativity, there were some points in the orbit of Mercury that did not seem to fit with calculations based on newtonian physics. There was a proposed planet between the Sun and Mercury - and the proposed name was Vulcan. However, using Relativity Theory, Einstein corrected the errors in Mercury's predicted orbit and proved that there was no need for a hypothetical planet between mercury and the sun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(hypothetical_planet))

 

[Covar]

I'm three episodes in. It's pretty good, if not a little dated. It's weird watching a Sentai without spandex costumes. I think it would be interesting to see some of the classic suits done with modern tecniques (i.e. spandex, visors instead of dots in the masks).

 

[Kouji Kabuto]

We could just consider the mask holes as part of the costumes, like in Ultraman...


anyway some history,

First show to feature visors: Denziman.
First show to have spandex costumes and no scarves: Dynaman
First show with two female members: Bioman

 

[FieryRed]

Sun Vulcan is the first sentai series that I've ever watched (or have the recollection of), so it does hold a significant nostagic value for me. Although I prefer having female sentai characters than not, I think it's cool that Sun Vulcan is the first and only sentai series that is without any women in their team (although they do feature a young lady diving into the swimming pool in the opening). I might have to download some of their subbed eps just for old times' sake.

 

[GekiBlack]

I watched episode 1 and i love it but damn Sun Vulcan Robo looks kinda blocky and is it necessary for 'em to repeatedly say the finisher attack ... Once is enough but three times ... :laugh:

The fight scenes are pretty well done but ... too much jumping around, which i need to get used to for now :laugh:

Anyway, i am looking forward to see the late Machiko Soga in the later episodes but damn, so far so good :thumbs:

 

[Kouji Kabuto]

I watched episode 1 and i love it but damn Sun Vulcan Robo looks kinda blocky and is it necessary for 'em to repeatedly say the finisher attack ... Once is enough but three times ... :laugh:

The fight scenes are pretty well done but ... too much jumping around, which i need to get used to for now :laugh:

Anyway, i am looking forward to see the late Machiko Soga in the later episodes but damn, so far so good :thumbs:

If you think sun Vulcan robo is blocky. You should see daidenjin. Also you can see machiko soga in ep 4 already but hedorian is fully brought back to life in ep 5

 

[G.K.]

Ok I saw the first episode yesterday. Part of me wants to say that this show has absolutely no interest in pacing itself whatsoever. However thats only in comparison to newer sentai. specifically in the Zord/mecha fight. If this were new sentai each weapon would prolly get debuted in a diffrent episode. The mecha itself would prolly not appear till episode 2. This isn't an nipick as I actually kinda enjoyed the change of pace. More an observation than anything else. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the show.

Also Seeing the main villian with his lady hit squad

Made me think of this
[hide][ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWaIxmnERMQ"]Skip to the 34 second mark [/ame][/hide]

And for that reason I couldn't remember the bad guy's name because my brain would only aknowledge him as bitches.

 

[Silvertooth]

I watched episode 1 and i love it but damn Sun Vulcan Robo looks kinda blocky and is it necessary for 'em to repeatedly say the finisher attack ... Once is enough but three times ... :laugh:

The fight scenes are pretty well done but ... too much jumping around, which i need to get used to for now :laugh:

Anyway, i am looking forward to see the late Machiko Soga in the later episodes but damn, so far so good :thumbs:

Stock footage is just a sign of the times with early sentai, namely to pad out the episode to the required length. I actually noticed this with Dynaman, where halfway in its a solid wall of stock footage (Full introduction, full combination scene, etc)

Seeing Machiko Soga in her early days is pretty awesome. Even when Rita Repulsa has a metal afro she can make it work, she's that good at playing villains.

I think the last time I brought up Sun Vulcan, it segued into gender issues. Now that I've seen a few more episodes... I don't know. While Hellsaturn's all-female general line-up is unusual, they are all quite useful and badass. I'm also wondering how Amazon Killer will be when she shows. Also, I think the all-male sentai throws off modern sentai viewers.

In any event, here is the mighty Vul Shark!

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[whitetigerx83]

Thank you for making this thread! I've been watching the GSF subs and am loving the series. It's quickly becoming one of my favs. I'm not sure why but I just really like the overall feel of the show. I think a lot of it has to do with the production of the show. Between the music, rapid cuts and camera zooms the show just exudes action. Plus I really enjoy Black Magma and their undercover agents. My favorite part of the show is definitely Jaguar Vulcan. Who doesn't love a gigantic Jaguar flying ship?! I'm up to ep 5 and can't wait to check out 6.