Fiveman and Jetman Revisited

Originally posted on January 6, 2011.

I briefly talked about Fiveman and Jetman in the first part of my Nostalgia Trilogy. After a few months writing it, I slowly remembered some of my fond memories watching these 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 is Fiveman Earth Defense Force, 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. Back then, I thought that Super Sentai is a rip-off of Power Rangers, and was prove myself wrong after seeing the ending credits of Power Rangers Wild Force that listed Gaoranger in the credits.

Back to Fiveman, I am not sure what fascinated me to watch Fiveman. Was it because of the unique visors? Or the logos in their helmets found above the visor? Or was it because Arthur G6 is 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. Guess I now have an idea on why I like incest relationships.

As for the characters, I don't find them that memorable. Well aside from Red doing kendo or Blue swimming or Yellow practicing kung-fu, those characters never left quite a mark to me back then. Because I often see this team as the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers clone, and I always like the original MMPR roster compared to the Fivemen. This is why I prefer the other Super Sentai show that I watched as a kid, the Gentleman, I mean, the Winged Task Force Jetman!

Like I said in the Trilogy, back when I was a kid, I was pissed that Yellow is a dude and Blue is a chick, because I have this notion that yellow is equal to girls, while blue is equal to boys. Aside from that, I hated those pop-up wings in their suits, which later grew on me because of the characters. Ryu's back story fascinated me as a child. Gai's bad boy attitude justified why he gets the color black, and Raita, well he is the only one with weight problems, making me root for the guy. As for the girls, Ako is the tomboy while Kaori is the girly-girl.

Because I don't care about watching Super Sentai shows in order as a kid, I recall that the first episode of Jetman that I watched featured the Ramen Jigen, a Ruby monster thing or the Juice episode. But whatever is the first episode of Jetman that I watched, the Ramen Jigen one traumatized me as a kid that it caused me to stop eating noodles for some time, and double check if the cup noodle that I am holding is haunted or something.

Love hurts... literally.

Aside from that really traumatizing episode, there are some episodes that left quite a mark on me, those episodes that talk about Ryu and 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. Aside 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. Even if he looks really intimidating with his exterior, he still has a soft side by playing the piano. One last 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 aside 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... and caused me nightmares back then. Oh, and Gai playing the sax was memorable.

Jetman was 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.

Anyway, what's your childhood or your first Super Sentai show? Hit on the comments below and tell us your fond memories watching it!

UPDATE (2/15/13): Fixed some wordings, changed some videos, added and removed some images.