originally posted January 24, 2006
GKA Times:Thanks to alot of in depth questions and insighful answers from Mr. Raymondl the Times will be forced to extend this interview for one more entry of answers from this life long fan of the heroes of henshin.
"Lets Go!-Super Sentai
GKA Times:Sentai is preparing it`s 30th anniversary, how many of these Sentai seasons have you seen? And what do you think of the early shots of the new one.
RL:That's right--not only is it Super Sentai's 30th anniversary, but also the 35th anniversary of Kamen Rider, and the 40th anniversary of Ultraman! 2006 will prove to be an exciting year for tokusatsu! How many Sentai seasons have I seen?
Um, let's see..something like...all of them. I've been watching Sentai since the very first day GO-RANGER premiered in 1975 in Japan. There was a big build-up to this new program, and all of the kids on the block ran home to watch the program. The next day, every kid I was playing with wanted to play GO-RANGER--me included! I haven't missed any seasons of Super Sentai or Kamen Rider. I've missed sporadic episodes of Ultraman, but not since 1980.
I've pretty much watched nearly every episode of every tokusatsu program on the air since 1971 either first-run in Japan or via video (or for your older readers--film reels, which is how I watched KIKAIDER for half a season). Since I haven't seen any episodes yet of BOUKENJA, I'll hold off giving it any real opinion, but I think the concept is fresh and new and not rehashed--like animals or dinosaurs. No more dinosaur or car-related Sentais, thank you very much.
GKA:Of course I have to ask this if I want an in depth interview, what do you think of the Power Rangers?
RL:Ha ha ha! I knew the POWER RANGERS question would pop up! That's quite all right--I actually have a mixed opinion on PR. I don't completely hate it like some people, and I certainly don't think it's better than Sentai--I'm grateful for it and at the same time, I don't think it's very good quality-wise.
I appreciate that PR introduced Sentai and by a vicarious extent, the world of tokusatsu to the American public. A lot of people watched PR and it sparked interest in the genre, and many people looked beyond the program to find its origins in Japanese tokusatsu and grew from there. I believe that without PR, a lot of folks would not have discovered tokusatsu and would be missing out on a great form of entertai
At the same time, I think the product that Saban originally presented could have been more faithful to its original content. As evidenced in Hawaii, tokusatsu that was either dubbed or subtitled proved to be successful with the airings in prime time of KIKAIDER. As long as the quality was entertaining, Japanese tokusatsu programs could translate here well.
I think that Saban could have made PR a bit more like Sentai and not pander down to the viewers. I realize that Saban was aiming for children, and I totally agree with Saban that the kid's audience is their primary goal, but I have a problem with the lack of quality dialogue, poor casting jobs with the inexperienced performers, and not putting any care into making believable storylines.
The inclusion of Bulk and Skull were totally unnecessary and brought down the program, which I had hoped to be more Sentai-like and not so--goofy. Now the general public thinks tokusatsu is a joke and only limited to children, and if PR didn't perpetuate that stereotype, maybe tokusatsu would gain a greater foothold in the States.
I understand that in the early stages of the program, they could not put in the budget of matching the filming styles between the American scenes and the Japanese fighting scenes, but once it got popular and profits were rolling in, Saban (and now Disney) could have put in more quality into the program plotwise and hire better actors. Now, I don't mean totally copying Sentai, but do something of equal quality but original to the American version.
A lot of people have told me that PR: TIME FORCE was one of the better ones and after watching a few episodes, it was nearly a total plot-lift off the original TIME-RANGER, one of Sentai's better entries. That's not the way to make PR better I think. I believe that the PR team could make a storyline that's original to PR that would equal the excellent storytelling in TIME-RANGER or JETMAN if they bothered to try.
I could go on, but I'm not upset at PR--I just believe that television should get bett
er as time passes because the producers, the writers, the SFX team, etc, should have gotten the hang of it by now and not use what didn't work in the past, namely jokey scenes and poor acting.
I think the PR team should be comfortable by now to make their own stories and realize that the audience isn't so juvenile and make a good show that makes viewers care about the program and look into it more. Maybe if PR made a totally new Rangers show featuring members NOT originally from Japan, it might work.
But I'm sure Bandai wouldn't want that--they wouldn't sell more toys. I think PR & Sentai can work together, but I think PR still has a long way to go to be even half as good, but there is always potential. I will always be grateful to PR for introducing people to tokusatsu, but the consistent juvenility of the program makes the general public believe all tokusatsu is like PR, and that's not true. Maybe PR needs a shake-up that makes people talk about it again.....
GKA:And further yet, what do you think of Sentai and Power Rangers sharing their Battlizer powerup in the Magiranger vs Dekaranger teamup. Or the Rangers stunt choreographer Koichi Sakamoto filming some Magiranger Fight scenes.RL:I think the use of the American-created Battlized armor for Deka-Red in MAGI-RANGER vs. DEKA-RANGER was long overdue! Since PR uses almost everything of Sentai, why not reciprocate the deal and use one or two PR ideas in Sentai? I think all it does is make Bandai richer by selling another action figure to a new audience in Japan! I don't mind some occasional cross-usage...it's like PR took all of Sentai's baseballs home to play with, and if Sentai wants to use one of PR's footballs once in a while, that should be OK, right? Ha ha ha! As for Sakamoto filming MAGI-RANGER scenes--that's just as OK!
GKA: With a love for both American and Asian heroes you must have went nuts when you heard that Marvel comics was working with Toei on those early Super Sentai series.
RL:I didn't mind too much about Toei asking Marvel Comics to help out with Sentai. As I wrote on our board, BATTLE FEVER-J was originally not a Sentai program, but started up as CAPTAIN JAPAN, which was supposed to be similar to Captain America. When that concept didn't come through, Toei simply re-used the idea of Sentai that Ishinomori Shotaro created with "Himitsu Sentai GO-RANGER" and "JAKQ Dengekitai", so Marvel's influence on Sentai is neglible at best.
I think Marvel got the better deal out of it by importing MICROMAN and some of the Super Robots over as MICRONAUTS and SHOGUN WARRIORS, while all Toei really got was their version of SPIDER-MAN. The "CAPTAIN JAPAN" idea fell through, so I don't really consider Marvel as having any direct influence on Sentai's genesis, seeing that Ishinomori came up with the idea 4 years earlier, and all Toei did was re-hash the concept.
GKA:Do you like mecha in your hero shows?
RL:Mecha in my hero shows depends on what kind of hero we are talking about. It obviously does not work with KAMEN RIDER to a large degree (the closest success was Auto-Vajin from KAMEN RIDER FAIZ, but luckily, the robot had little airtime), and it is almost a necessity with the SUPER SENTAI line.
It did work out well for the Space Sheriff-styled shows, which "Kyozyu Tokusou JUSPION" used to brilliant effect, but then it wouldn't work with more non-super powered heroes like CONDORMAN or JIRAIYA. It would definitely be out of place with period-piece heroes like SHIROJISHI KAMEN or Henshin Ninja ARASHI, so the success factor in having mecha on hero shows depends on the hero's motif--mechanized shows like WINSPECTOR or JIBAN are already skewed towards mecha, while it would look out of place with ULTRAMAN.
GKA:From this Ninja`s point of view, Sentai has been lacking in quality Reds since GoRed. I liked Ban whenever he didn`t yell. But the current trend of reds seem to have been too hyperactive and boylike to be taken that seriously like Reds of the 80s and 90s
What do you think?
RL:Mmmm...that's a question with no real good answer. The old-fashioned, more professional-like Red Sentai leaders have been gone for a long time (since Hoshino Goro / Oh-Red in OH-RANGER), and at times there are flashes of that kind of non-hyperactive Reds (like Tatsumi Matoi / Go-Red in GO-GO FIVE and Asami Tatsuya / Time-Red in TIME-RANGER), but for the most part, today's generation of viewers have had nothing but the over-loud, hyper Reds.
You have to remember that today's tokusatsu programs are breeding grounds for upcoming young stars, both male and female, and most of them are hired to be "ikemen" or "pretty people" with little acting experience. Since the Red member is always the key focus main character of any Sentai program, they have to hire a really "attractive" guy (for the legions of older, middle-aged women who watch these shows with their kids) and that key person has to stand out--hence the over-anxious, boisterous Reds.
It's certainly not what I seek in the lead role, and sometimes, the loudness factor actually diminishes my liking for the Red member, but then I have to remember that these shows are aimed at children and that my tastes are a bit out of age demographics for these type of shows. I have no choice but to accept today's Reds that need Ritalin, but for the most part, Toei has been really careful not to make them too annoying personality-wise.
They are loud and yell too much, but overall, the Red members tend to be the most heroically written Sentai member, so that's always a saving grace. I think the days of the cool, calm, collected, and calculating Red leaders like Kaijyo Tsuyoshi / Aka-Ranger from GO-RANGER are gone because of the emphasis on hiring model-type guys rather than getting a more mature, established performer.
Toei isn't the only one guilty of this, though. Toho has consistently hired the most annoying leader-types in their "Choseishin" series, with Sazer-Tarious from GRANSAZER and Lio-Sazer from SAZER-X as being way over the top in delivering dialogue and being generally no more heroic than the other members, losing the charm that Toei has with the Red Sentai members.
"Rider Kick!"-Kamen Rider
GKA:I know you loathe rumors as opposed to hard facts, but it`s pretty widely accepted that Ishimori Shotaro was quite displeased with Saban`s Masked Rider series. What are your thoughts?
RL:I can't blame Ishinomori being upset at how Saban churned out MASKED RIDER. It's no rumor that he was livid at it--that's a cold, hard fact. The fact that not only the show was butchered to pieces storywise, Saban couldn't even keep the correct Rider and their accompanying cast intact in one show.
MASKED RIDER was supposed to be Saban's version of KAMEN RIDER BLACK RX, but to use scenes from KAMEN RIDER ZO was a bit too much, seeing that RX & ZO look the same as if you put in Jose Canseco on a TV show and used footage of Oprah Winfrey and tried to pass them off as the same person.
Ishinomori held KAMEN RIDER rather close to his vest, usually handling casting of the Riders himself and always writing the series opening episode and guideline bible for each Rider until his health gave way. By the time Toei sent out RX to Saban as MASKED RIDER, he wasn't in the best of health and to see his creation butchered was probably a major insult to him.
I think that MASKED RIDER is perhaps one of the worst-made shows ever in the history of television, because of the ridiculous scene splicing, the inability to merge the Minami Kotaro scenes with that awful kid actor, and the inclusion of that Ferby-looking thing with the multi-cultural family, just to be politically correct.
From production values, to story plotting, to continuity control, to acting performances, MASKED RIDER was awful from the moment it started, and I don't blame Ishinomori for being irate at it--it was a justifiable emotional response. I've seen better movies made in the 1950s & 1960s as drive-in monster fests that are superior to MASKED RIDER, and trust me, I've seen a lot of bad movies.
Since I don't have as much emotional attachment to the Rider character as Ishinomori, my only way of not supporting that version that Saban made was to simply not watch it, but for Ishinomori, you can't help but be mad at what someone did to your creation.
GKA:Now that Shotaro-san has passed, are the proceeding riders anything by comparision to his?
RL:I thought that after the passing of Ishinomori, Toei and his successors at Ishimori-Pro did a good job with KAMEN RIDER AGITO and KAMEN RIDER FAIZ, and they are close, but not good enough, to encapsulate the "Ishinomori formula" that ended with KAMEN RIDER KUUGA.
AGITO and FAIZ were really good on their own, but hardly up to the dramatic level of KUUGA, since Ishinomori had some hand in Kuuga's genesis, but from mid-way of the KUUGA series, astute viewers could see that it wasn't quite an Ishinomori-styled plot. Still, KUUGA is highly regarded as one of the best Rider programs ever made, and for its first run without Ishinomori, Toei did a great job with AGITO, and I think that FAIZ is about as "radical" as I'd like a Rider to be by straddling the thin line between Ishinomori-styled story concept and a new interpretation of the franchise.
Ishinomori probably wouldn't have OK'd FAIZ if he was still alive because of the heavy reliance on mechanical gimmicks, but for the most part, it was a fresh new concept that still had the classic Rider style angst in it. As for RYUKI, BLADE, and HIBIKI--well, that's another story and those strayed too far away from the initial Rider concept, but BLADE tried its best to veer back towards it, but didn't quite do the trick.
I know a lot of your readers might not like the fact that I think that RYUKI, BLADE and HIBIKI are too far-fetched from the established Rider mythos, but if you showed any of those programs to a novice watcher, they wouldn't associate those programs with the other Rider shows.
So, do I think the New Generation Riders compare to Ishinomori's vision of Rider? It depends--are we talking about AGITO, RYUKI, FAIZ, BLADE, or HIBIKI? That's when the lines of opinion get blurred. I think that AGITO & FAIZ are the closest to his idea of Rider but still new enough to introduce fresh concepts to the franchise, but they still aren't the old Riders.
GKA:Was Hibiki a bad move on Toei`s part?
RL:Was HIBIKI a bad move on Toei & Ishimori-Pro's part? Well, with their main advertising sponsor pulling out of the program early on, the head writer and some staff members getting fired, and poor ratings & toy sales, I'll let you and your readers figure that one out! :) Let's just say that if they had a chance to go back and fix things, Toei and Ishimori-Pro would probably take that opportunity in a heartbeat......
GKA:Was Hibiki the first time Toei tried to be "hip" with a Rider series?
RL:No, definitely not. HIBIKI isn't the first time any Rider show tried to be "hip"--every Rider program has tried to emulate the times they were in. The idea behind the original KAMEN RIDER being a motorcycle enthusiast was based on the era where Japan had started to make quality vehicles after decades of making inferior cars (yes, there was a time when "Made in Japan" meant shoddy construction and poor materials--hard to believe nowadays...) and there was a boom in motorcycle purchases.
KAMEN RIDER X had a lot of psychic-styled villains because of Japan's interest at the time with the paranormal and ESP concepts. KAMEN RIDER SUPER-1 drove that huge Harley Davidson bike because the American cop program "CHIPS" featuring two motorcycle-riding police officers on the Los Angeles highway patrol was popular in Japan.
KAMEN RIDER FAIZ used the cellphone and digital items in the series due to Japan's ever-growing dependency on such devices. HIBIKI wasn't trying to be "hip" per se, but tried to go "backwards" with the Japanese-centric concept with the kanji writings, the oni motifs, the fancy named weapons, but it's far from being "hip"--I think the old Japanese ideas used in HIBKI didn't attract today's Japanese kids, who are more used to Game Boys, PS2s, cellphones, and digital cameras than they are with ancient demons who use sound as weapons.
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