Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Stunt Suit Actors for Female Rangers

People always ask how many stuntmen have played female warriors and how many actual women have played the female warriors. I hate the convention of the color blue for boy and pink for girl but I used this time for the chart to be easy to understand. In this chart, Pink represents stuntwomen and Blue represents stuntmen who have had to 'stuff' their chest.

The men Midori Naito, Hiroshi Ueda, Ryoji Kurihara, and Shoji Ohara played Momo Ranger in Goranger and Minoru Yokoyama played Heart Queen. Lisa Komaki played Miss America and so did Eiko Onodera, she is Tsutomu Kitagawa's wife, Kitagawa has played Ninja Black, Battle Kenya, Shishiranger, Bat Li, and Godzilla suit since 1999, to name a few. Kitagawa played Miss America for the tough stunts. After that, Mr. Michihiro Takeda played the pink warriors (Denji Pink to Pink Five) and then guys Yuuichi Hachisuka and Masato Akada played the females from Changeman to Jetman. Shinobu Shimura also doubled as Goggle Pink and Dyna Pink, don't know if Shinobu is male or female. It wasn't a woman back until Zyuranger with Kiyohito Nakagawa. By Zyuranger, it was a stuntwomen once again until Carranger, where both female warriors were men. For Megaranger, MegaPink and NegiPink were women while MegaYellow and NegiYellow were men. GingaPink to TimePink were done by Motokuni 'Mr. Pink' Nakagawa.

GaoWhite was done by Yuuichi Hachisuka (above), who has also done DekaBright, MagiMother, Mele's Beastman form, Gosei Pink, Hime Shinken Red, and Gokai Yellow. Then until Hurricanger, it was women again. Boukenger had men (Nakagawa and Hachisuka) and then Gekiranger, women again. Motokuni Nakagawa has also understudyed for Oh Pink, Pink Blocker, Mega Pink, Gao White, and Deka Yellow. Female Keiko Hashimoto (DekaYellow) also understudied for Oh Yellow. Interestingly enough Yuuichi Hachisuka played White Swan and his twin brother Shoji Hachisuka played Blue Swallow in Jetman, but Yuuichi was replaced by Masato Akada from episode 25 until the end of the series. Shoji took over for Yuuichi as BoukenYellow in Gekiranger vs. Boukenger as Yuuichi played Mele. Mr. Masaru Oobayashi who played Yellow Racer, has played Vankyuria in Magiranger and Dayu in Shinkenger, but has also played male Rei in Boukenger and Master Elehen Kempo in Gekiranger. Also worth mentioning, female Naoko Kamio has played a Hanaranger, MegaPink, and Snowijel but has also played the male Master ShaFu and gender-neutral RoboTough in Gekiranger. I think it is also worth mentioning that Kamen Rider Femme (Keiko Hashimoto) and Kamen Rider Larc [Yuuki Ono (Hurricane Blue, MagiPink, DekaSwan and AbareYellow)] were played by women; except for Kamen Rider Shuki--who was played by Naoki Nagase. Female Mizuho Nogawa has played MagiBlue, Go-On Silver, Gosei Yellow, and Gokai Pink---she reprise all three roles at least once in Gokaiger.

For the Power Rangers, most of the female rangers are portrayed by men, namely Namihei Koshige, who has played the Yellow MMPR Ranger (He started in 1995) to White Aquitar Ranger to Yellow Jungle Fury Ranger and most likely the RPM Yellow. He is one of the rare stunt actors that started in MMPR and has been there for New Zealand other than producer Koichi Sakamoto. For Power Rangers, a whole team of people play one ranger. Sometimes a woman (Bridget Riley, Minerva Adams, Sophia Crawford, Motoko Nagino, Nami Hanada, Jun Yamashita, and Hiromi Sunaoshi) would but the majority of the work has been done by men. Funny enough most of the gender-changed yellow rangers (Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed, Time Force, Wild Force) were played by men, except for the American MMPR Yellow Ranger.

Check out the stunt section on my website SuperSentai.com

3 comments:

gkeNz said...

how do you know about Power Rangers suit actors? Do you have connection with the crews?...

Super Sentai and Kamen Rider stunts are easy to know, but I think Disney keeps a real secret about PR Stunts...

Lavender Ranger said...

I got the names from Japanese wiki and had the names translated. And one of my insiders gave me the RPM call sheet, thats how I know just a few names, not all the names.

I have no connection with no show, no crew, just a fan.

gkeNz said...

Oh, I see.
Thanks.