I briefly talked about these two shows in the first part of the Nostalgia Trilogy, and after a few months or so, I slowly remember some fond memories regarding these two Super Sentai shows, and so here it is, I am going back to the good ol’ 90’s in which I am pissed with Jetman’s pop-up wings.
First up, Fiveman; this is to be exact, my first Super Sentai show that I watched. The very first memories about this show is the opening sequence in which each of the five men will pop out, the theme song will play and see Red practice kendo… while snowing (!) while the rest are just doing their stuff, so yeah.
Take note, back then I thought Sentai is a rip-off of the Power Rangers and I was proven myself wrong after seeing the ending credits of Power Rangers Wild Force with Gaoranger credited. I am not sure what fascinated me to watch Fiveman. Was it because of the unique visors? Or the logos in their heads? Or was it because of Arthur turning into the team cannon? Either way, I was hooked with Fiveman and since I have no idea that they are a sibling team, I often pair Red with Pink and Yellow and Black or Blue, just for the heck of it.
Are the characters memorable to me back then? Well, asides from Red doing kendo or Blue swimming and Yellow practicing kung fu, those characters never left quite a mark on me back then. Because it felt like this team is like the MMPR team and I always liked the MMPR team compared to the Fivemen. That is why, I prefer the other Sentai show that I watched when I was a kid, Jettoman, I mean, JETMAN!
Like I said in the Trilogy, back when I was a kid, I was pissed that Yellow is a guy, Blue is a chick (Since I have this strong notion that all Blue Rangers must be dudes and all Yellow Rangers are chicks) and they have wings pop-up out from their suits. But it later grew on me because of the characters. Ryu’s backstory is fascinating even with his stoic leader personality, Gai like my notion with all guys in black back then is quite a bad boy, Raita is the only one with, well, weight problems making me root for the guy, Ako was the tomboyish chick and Kaori is the princess.
Since I don’t care much about the episode numbers, as far as I can recall, the first episode of Jetman that I watched is about either the Ramen Jigen, (That caused me back then to check if the cup noodle that I am holding is hauted or something...) the Ruby monster thing or the Juice episode. But from all the episodes that Jetman had, the episode/s that made quite a mark on me are the episodes that talks about Ryu and his relationship with his girlfriend, Rie/Maria. The fact that she turns out to be alive and is one of the bad guys makes this love story complicated, and the fact that Kaori loves Ryu and that Gai cares about Kaori complicates stuff! I love this kind of complication back when I was a kid and until now!
Asides from the Ryu’s extremely complicated love story episodes, Raita’s focus episode left quite a mark on me and the fact that the girl he likes knew that he was Yellow Owl was the best part of it! This is when I conclude, even if you have weight issues, as long as you are awesome, you can impress the chicks! Well, that was my crackpot thinking of the episode back then but now, I think of that episode as that even if you have your hindrances, you can do anything as long as you tried hard, if not, try harder.
Asides from the Jetman, the bad guys aka Vyram left quite a mark on me. Asides from Maria (which I had a secretly has a crush on because I thought that if I had a crush on a bad guy, it will make me a bad guy), Radiguet’s appearance left quite an impact on me than the head from Fiveman. Seriously, it really freaked me out back then! That robot guy who likes to smoke is one of my favorite villains asides that even with his exterior, he still has a soft side by playing the piano. And one thing that is memorable with the bad guys is that I can’t figure out whether Tran is a boy or a girl!
The mecha of the series is quite memorable to me asides that they had an automatic mecha and that none of the mecha are cars or something but birds people! Birds! It is pretty rare in one series that all vehicles are flying. Oh, the folding head sequence of Red Hawk’s mecha quite left a mark on me that caused me to imagine, can real airplanes do that?
The ending theme video of the series is memorable to me asides from the opening theme. I mean, who wouldn’t the forget the colored eggs forming one single egg and cracked with Hironobu Kageyama’s vocals started playing on the background! Also, the paper cutout images of the Jetmen in their civilian form (especially Ryu looking like he was that Galileo’s sketch, that caused me nightmares back then) and Gai playing the sax was memorable.
Jetman is indeed my childhood Sentai show since I had quite a lot of fond memories with this show. Speaking of memories, I am not sure if I had watched Turboranger or Maskman since after seeing the opening sequence in which a car is being folded into half suddenly caused my head to remember a Sentai with that gimmick. But since I never heard of Maskman’s Filipino OP, I guess I had watched Turboranger back when I was a kid… or had a glimpse of it.
Special thanks to Super Sentai Images for most of the well, images!
