If you are fans of the '80s Space Sheriff or Metal Heroes series (Gavan, Sharivan, Shaider etc), here comes a very great news. TOEI Company is doing a huge remake on their metal heroes franchise and that culminated in Space Squad movie. Gavan had making appearances since 2011 with Gokaiger as their super sentai comrades. The trio space sheriff, Gavan, Sharivan and Shaider then got their respective movie for each. Gavan had also scripted in Kyuuranger series, as Kyuuranger is a Space theme super sentai.
However, the biggest surprise comes to this movie, Space Squad : Gavan vs Dekaranger. This crossover finally confirmed that, after all, the two big universe of super sentai and space sheriff are connected. Dekaranger is a space police and Gavan too. Logically, when a mega villains arise, the two world will need to works together.
Space Squad Gavan vs Dekaranger put together the new , Gavan Type G, to fight along Dekaranger and team to stop a new Genmako Space Criminal Organization. The movie went quite well. This crossover successfully integrated the two team with all their trademark to give super sentai and metal heroes fans a big joy to watch. Here my photo review to the movie :
The Casts:
Doggie Krueger is now the Earth Branch Chief - voice by Tetsu Inada
Deka Green - Enari "Senchan" Senichi - portrait ed by Yousuke Hayashi
and Deka Pink Kodou "Umeko" Koume (Mika Kikuchi). The two lover are getting married , happened in this movie. Senchan and Umeko love story had been lasting in many movies before.
Shiratori Swan is now Earth Branch Chief Mechanic for Dekaranger. Actress by Mako Ishino
This is the crossover movie between Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger (2016) and Shuriken Sentai Ninninger (2015). Both Zyuohger and Ninninger received a slightly negative reception among super sentai fans because their show had been inferior compared to their predecessor. With this in mind, how the two series achieved in this versus movie?
Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger vs. Ninninger: Message from the Future from Super Sentai is the translation for their official title : 劇場版 動物戦隊ジュウオウジャーVSニンニンジャー未来からのメッセージfromスーパー戦隊 (Gekijō-ban Dōbutsu Sentai Jūōjā tai Ninninjā Mirai kara no messēji from sūpā sentai). Unusual to the other crossover movie, in Zyuohger vs Ninninger, the storyline is rather different, quite interesting actually. The premise is something like this: A boy from the future time travelled to the current Zyuohger world. Just like John Connor in Terminator world. The boy, who happened to be Takaharu Igasaki (Ninnin-Red) son, come from distance future to warn the potential conflict between Zyuohger and Ninninger. As expected, the two sentai team had been fall into villain's plot to get them fighting each other. In the end, the movie resolved the truth and the two team do a great action together. As in tradition lately, the 2017 super sentai, Uchu Sentai Kyuranger made appearance with the complete nine rangers.
Here the screen capture for the movie Zyuohger vs Ninninger, 2017:
the first encounter between Zyuohger and Ninninger take place beside the lake
the two team then finally aware of the real villain who using them.
Uchu Sentai Kyuranger finally premiere on Sunday February 12, 2017. The 41st Super Sentai series will succeeded Zyuohger, which is the 40th Super Sentai. As we all experienced, the general consensus for the last three super sentais, from Kyoryuger, are mostly below expectation. The ToQger in 2014, Ninninger in 2015, and Jyuohger in 2016, all left super sentai fans a mixed feelings. Thus, quite a big expectation fell upon Kyuranger.
Especially, as per known design, Kyuranger is getting extra ordinary design. This is the first super sentai team to have nine ranger, announced right from the start. The fresh theme and motive is space and planetary, and also star sign. Making Kyuranger already having a nice start build up.
The first episodes actually written very well. Story are fast pace but yet have enough room for building up the story. Let's see some of my screenshots below:
The first scene shown alien invasion. The villains is translated as Space Shogunate by Powerranger Wikia. The foot soldier design looks close to Gokaiger and Go-Busters.
Opening theme is ":Lucky Star" by Project R , sing by Tomohiro Hatano.
With nine rangers, the opening clip is dense with actions.
Kyuranger is one of the rare sentai series to open with line up of Yellow, Green and Black ranger.
The new super sentai, Kyuranger is about to launch in couple of weeks, so let's refresh our memories with my list of favorite super sentai opening songs and themes. I only listed the opening songs, there are zillions of end songs, in between songs and others that enriched the world of super sentai.
10. Susume Goranger - Go Ranger 1975
This is where it's all begin. The opening song of Go Ranger 1972 is true classic. It's so '70s Japan with toku style brass, funky guitar. Sings by Isao Sasaki who get very tenor voice and Mitsuko Horie as the female counter part.
09. Dai Sentai Goggle V - Goggle V 1982 Lyric : Koike Kazuo Composer / Arranger : Watanabe Michiaki Singer : MoJo, Koorogi '73, Goggle V is the first recognized sentai in Indonesia and South East Asia. The song is also memorable with still lots of brass and pumping bass line. 08. Choudenshi Bioman - Bioman 1984 Choudenshi Bioman (超電子バイオマン) is also most popular sentai in the '80, worldwide! This opening song sing by Takayuki Miyauchi. The chorus is epic and required strong spirit to shout it out.
07. Choujin Sentai Jetman - Jetman 1991 Performed by Hironobu Kageyama, the Jetman opening song is rather the turn point to classic '80 sound. Jetman's opening song is modern by the time performed by singer that having more pop voices and less brass. It's has heavy metal with shredding electric guitar solos. 06. Secret Kakuranger - Kakuranger 1994 Performed by Tu Chee Chen. And we arrived in Kakuranger opening theme. As the revolution in Tokusatsu soundtrack song begin, the music for Kakuranger is extremely different that its past. Secret Kakuranger has thick Japanese music elements. Fit with Kakuranger ninja theme. It's also sing by singer with J-Pop voice rather than the tenor singer in the '80s.
05. Mirai Sentai Timeranger - Timeranger 2000
Performed by JIKU. Talking about revolution in super sentai opening song, Timeranger wins big time. This opening song is so extremely future feel. The singer is fully taken by female voices. The music is combination of crazy jazz feel and rock. The chromatic down notes in the chorus is strange to be in super sentai song. See this one live and you can feel how powerful this song is.
04. Mahou Sentai Magiranger - Magiranger 2005
Performed by Takafumi Iwasaki. The song is composed with thick orchestra to echo the soundtrack of magical world. It's influenced by Harry Potter world, Magiranger opening song successly brings us to the magical world.
Listen to the violin version :
03. Go Go Sentai Boukenger - Boukenger 20006
Performed by NoB (Yamada Nobuo). By now, the opening song of super sentai is already quite standarized. Still Boukenger opening song is pretty neat and spiritful. The style is heavy metal with full power chord guitar. Chorus are memorable.
Hear it with piano version, which is very fit with the instrument:
02. Hurricaneger Calling - Hurricaneger 2002
Performed by Hideaki Takatori. Hurricaneger incorportaed Japanese elements to their opening song. You can feel the Japanese scale in the song and it's epic. The song is greatly videographed in the clip with Hurricaneger using the umbrellas.
It's work nice for flute version :
01. Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger - Dekaranger 2004
Performed by Psychic Lover. Yes, Dekaranger opening song with it's epic opening guitar riff is the no.1 super sentai song. This is the household song for super sentai, this is how super sentai show should be started. The style is full metal band setting, Psychic Lover got it super right.
It's the best song to do cover with guitar :
Notable mentioned : Juken Sentai Gekiranger 2007
Performed by Takayoshi Tanimoto, this song fall in between Dekaranger and Hurricaneger. It's still following Dekaranger and Boukenger style which is metal with big power chord but now with exotic scale to reflected Gekiranger kungfu style. Very nice one indeed.
