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While watching Jiban, something struck me : the main villain cast was almost completely female : with the exception of Dr Giba, who was male and in fact spent most of the series in its lair, all the main villains were villainesses: Marsha, Karsha, and later Madgarbo and Queen Cosmos. While none of them were really women (Madgarbo was a suit villainess and while Marsha, Karsha and Queen Cosmos were played by live actresses (Marsha being played by Ami Kawaii, the future Lamie/Scorpina of Zyuranger/MMPR), they were in fact monstruous mutant like creatures), it meant still that most of the time, Jiban faced only female regular enemies. While it's true that Yoko was a main female heroic character, it feels strange to have a main hero mostly opposing female villainesses in a Japanese toku show, especially given the conservative mentality in Japan. In that regard, something similar had been done in Denjiman and Sun Vulcan (which, interestingly, shared the same producer).

Did really Japan had a thing for evil women in toku, and did you have to be a villain to be able to kick ass in a toku show which isn't a sentai not named Sun Vulcan?
 
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There was also Shaider where save for Commander Hessler the field commanders were female. Po kind of sort of counts because he is a transvestite. Kamen Rider Amazon also had all female foot soldiers for the first half of its series.
Did really Japan had a thing for evil women in toku
Coincidence.
did you have to be a villain to be able to kick ass in a toku show which isn't a sentai not named Sun Vulcan?
Um, what?
 
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Madgarbo is almost Igam with better visuals. I still keep thinking that's a male monster before reminding myself that she isn't.
 
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There was also Shaider where save for Commander Hessler the field commanders were female. Po kind of sort of counts because he is a transvestite. Kamen Rider Amazon also had all female foot soldiers for the first half of its series.

Yes, Shaider can count as well, besides, the girls were reminiscent of the Zero girls of Sun Vulcan (same producer, same head writer). Po is a complex case, especially since his actor is obviously male. However, it must be noted that the female fighters of Shaider were obviously below Hessler in the hierarchy, and were almost like female mooks. Amazon is interesting as the only case of a series with female mooks, but at the time, female antagonists were very rare.

But indeed, starting with Sharivan, female enemies were very frequent in the Metal Hero franchise: another big example is Spielban, with even the Big Bad being a female (but of course, it's expected from Machiko Soga).
It really seemed that since Metal Hero usually didn't have Metal Heroines (with the exception of Spielban, Jiraiya, in a way Solbrain, and the sentai like Blue SWAT and B-Fighter series) the franchise did make up by having more badass villainesses.


oh, and what I meant earlier was "did women had to be villainesses to kick ass in a toku show which isn't a sentai series not named Sun Vulcan?"
 
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in a way Solbrain

What do you mean, in a way? How is Jeanne not a clear heroine? She's the only one who even gets a costume out of the three Rescue Hero shows.

Not that a costume is all that it takes to be heroic, mind you, but I digress.
 
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Yeah, I know about SolJeanne: however, I've seen a bunch of Solbrain episodes; my issue is that despite having the costume, she doesn't use it as a fighter, and more often than not, I feel that the cop (played by Bioman's Prince actor) does more than she does, despite having no suit. Hence my "in a way, Solbrain".
 
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