Review: Super Sentai Series Chronicles

[Igadevil]

Here's something a little different, a mini book review!

"Super Sentai Series Chronicles (Volume 1, 1975~1987)" apparently has been out since August, but I hadn't seen it until recently. The book is a complete guide to the heroes, mecha, main villains, and weekly monsters from Goranger up to Flashman. There's a ton of great color pictures and plenty of info as well, I have some of the other "Chronicles" books, and they are really cool.

Cover Here

The second volume will cover Maskman~Carranger, and comes out next year in March.

 

[Shougo B'Stard]

"Super Sentai Series Chronicles (Volume 1, 1975~1987)" apparently has been out since August, but I hadn't seen it until recently.

I saw an ad for it in a NewType a few months back and for some reason couldn't find it. That and I'd be a little hesitant since these books usually recycle the same old stuff that's been printed before. But, 200+ pages on ten shows sounds like it should cover quite a lot, unlike most of those other sentai book collections.

So, do Changeman and Flashman get good coverage? Those are the ones I'd be interested in most.

 

[Igadevil]

I'd say each show gets pretty good coverage, with a big chunk of the pages for each focusing on the monsters, with stuff like their weapons & powers as well as what attack was used to defeat them. There's a lot of photos, well into the several hundreds (I think the book claims 2700, but I'm not counting them all! :laugh: ) and a lot of info packed in tight on each page. In between series chapters there's usually a side column talking about things like toys, manga, voice actors for the non-human main villains, etc.

Given that this is like the second or third Sentai book I've bought, I wouldn't be the best judge of how much is "been there, seen that", but here's some crappy photos I took of some of the Changeman pages: (don't mind the glare)

Main page/Team Attacks

Changeman Profiles

Mecha

Page 1 of the monsters

In addition there's also supporting characters and major villains, and somewhere in each chapter there's a blurb on the movie(s). Most every chapter runs like this, and surprisingly, Goranger doesn't take up half the book with all those Black Cross guys!

 

[Shougo B'Stard]

Cool, thanks for the sample pages. I'm going to have to check this book out. I was afraid it would be 80 pages of Goranger!

BTW, is that picture of Bioman's Silver in your sig from that book? That's a pretty cool shot.

 

[Forever Knight]

I've always wanted to get those Sentai & Rider Chronicle books.

 

[Igadevil]

Yeah, Goranger only takes up about 25 or so pages, mostly the monsters. I think it's pretty even for each show overall, and some of the side columns even mention shows up to Magiranger (like the aforementioned villain voice actor one) so there's a good chance the next book might have a bit more on the earlier shows.

This pic of Silver came from some Japanese image board a while back. There aren't a whole lot of photos of him in the book aside from the basics (his robot, gun, etc.) since he's got to share page space with the rest of Gear. :laugh: I always like Silver's design, I wonder if the Medicom figure is still out there.

 

[UltraMatt]

Where might one be able to purchase this book then?

 

[Igadevil]

I haven't seen it on HLJ, although they get the other Chronicle books so maybe they got/will be getting this one. It's on Amazon Japan, if you know how to order from them.

 

[kyo28]

You'll have a very good chance of finding it here as well (and they deliver outside Japan!):
s-book

 

[Misfits923]

The bookstore at the japanese marketplace by my school has it. I've been meaning to ask them how much it is, and then figure out if I have enough money to buy it