Shouldn't Chaiyo be bankrupt by now then?
Why would they be? People are actively licensing from them. They've probably made some bank off of the recent Ultraman and Ultraseven sets, and an Ultra Q set is forthcoming.
Is it wrong that I feel a little bad for Prism Ace himself?
I don't think so. I'm pretty sure this is why the Akibarangers have to die in the ending, so they face some actual consequences for intentionally murdering another hero. Dying in a battle with an enemy they invented purely as an excuse to go kill Prism Ace is a pretty fitting irony.
Then you had the "Watch TV Asashi every sunday!" Which just seemed like shameless advertising for the main sentai series.
I really kind of wonder if this plot grew out of the "Oh gnoes, Sentai will be canceled!" hysteria that swept the fandom when we were getting regular reports about how terrible Go-Busters's ratings were. Given that Arakawa is a pretty famously slow writer, I bet a lot of these scripts would've been written last year, at the height of that.
If you look at it that way, it's clearer how Akagi's last words are a joke: he's pointing out that if people would just watch Sentai every week, they'd never need to panic about the franchise being canceled. In that regard, maybe Arakawa (via Akagi) is chiding the Japanese fans who refused to support Go-Busters?
Maybe he wanted to take a jab at Toshiki Inoue, killing the main characters after the threat is over totally sounds like something he would do.
I don't think so in this case. In general, I wouldn't expect Arakawa to take "jabs" at Inoue, since the two are reputed to be friends. Arakawa certainly referenced a lot of Inoue's Sentai writing pretty lovingly this season.
For a long time now, toku shows are stepping stones for aspiring actors and idols, and while Luna's characterization was an exaggerated case, that mindset is not all that uncommon, and not all that off the mark.
Yeah, I don't think Luna was meant to insult the departing Akiba Blue specifically. I think that, in general, Arakawa is satirizing the fact that nobody respects or cares about the hero shows... until they need them to advance their career. In that regard, given Arakawa's experiences, she might be more of a stab at Odagiri Jou than anyone else.
And my question is "Why Megaloman?"
My question is, "Why so rude?" Seriously, why did you assume we were ignorant morons instead of looking up actual details of Megaloman's show? Then it'd be quite clear to you why it's Megaloman and not these other guys. You're clearly capable of doing that, if you already know about guys like Godman and Greenman.
Remember, we write our notes for an audience with no knowledge that any of these guys exist, and there was no need to confuse them with such extraneous information. We only wanted to tell them basic facts about things relevant to the Akibaranger episodes themselves. Heck, a lot of our audience didn't know anything about the Chaiyo case at all, and frankly, the lion's share of my research for episode 12's notes went into that.
Looking at the Megaloman notes, though, I see a pretty important part of the logic was maybe not emphasized enough. Megaloman WAS NOT chosen based on his appearance alone, as you have assumed. He was chosen because Megaloman's show is broadly known to incorporate influences from Super Sentai (I believe to compete with Battle Fever J, which was on at the same time). I have edited the notes to emphasize this, so they will not traumatize any other rabid Godman fans who happen to see them.
The show combined its Science Police surrogate with the idea of Sentai's five-man hero team, with the leader growing into a giant instead of the team summoning a robot. To my knowledge, there are no Super Sentai elements present in the likes of Greenman, Godman, Mirrorman, or Ambassador Magma. These characters all either predate the franchise itself, or its enduring popularity. They would have no relevance to Super Sentai, and there would be no reason to pattern an Akibaranger character after them. It's very logical for it to be a "giant hero" who was
also part of a Sentai knock-off, though.
I
completely reject that Zero and Tiga's appearances are relevant to Prism Ace's design at all. I do not believe for one second that the character is meant as a mockery of actual Ultraman. Arakawa's life's dream is to work for Tsuburaya, for pity's sake. It's obvious that Prism Ace is a mockery of crude imitation "heroes" that try to capitalize on the success of better, more expertly-crafted works.