Dairanger in Super Megaforce #2: Theories

UPDATED 7/28/14 11PM EST

Original Japanese blog of Namihei Koshige

http://www.aac-stunts.co.jp/nz/2013/06/power_rangers_mega_force_super_mega_force_1.html

              

XxAKAREDxX  (George Hansen Jr.) of Rangercrew translated this:

Power Rangers Megaforce and Super Megaforce
 As the season cranks to an end... it's time to open up a little.

We began filming Power Rangers Megaforce in September of last year, and took a two month winter break. Since February we filmed nearly every day until mid-June before our wrap up. The schedule may extend, but with Oshimaku filming us, we should and on a safe note.

With a lot of changing between directors of the first and second units, and stunt coordinators there was a lot of confusion. Sometimes I was in Yellow, and at other times an X-Borg Robot, sometimes I was on a trampoline, and others I was in Pink pretending to be the wire master. One segment I filmed with swords was cut. It was a season like THAT.

The season before was less fun being a direct adaptation of Shinkenger storylines, down to the exact detail. The director said to use as much Japanese footage as possible (to save money.) Very little action footage was required, so it wasn't as fun as this time around. This season we used some footage from Goseiger, then we film new footage, and then we cut to footage from Gokaiger. I call it a three-stage-transformation. Power Rangers Super Megaforce has a more original story, and there is more action than in the past few seasons. It's not as flashy (referring to pyrotechnics) as in recent history, but there is far more original stunt work.

In Gokaiger they made new footage of heroes from before and after Zyuranger, but for Power Rangers there is no reason to, so they cut out a great number of Sentai teams. These teams cannot be used in the show based on copyrights, so they used suits from Zyuranger onward. It was a quick fix. (mimicking) "Which series was that from? I've never seen that suit before!" Some workers had trouble figuring out which suit was which. There will however be surprises hidden in the story.

During the first half of production on the series I dislocated my shoulder, so I could not do some of the heavy action scenes. After an intense group of combat weapon practice we were ready for gun and sword double weapon use in the second half. I hurt my shoulder a bit again during weapon practice after my sword was knocked from my hand.

After a while my shoulder became better, but for a while it was loose. I hurt it one more time during a forward roll in practice. It's just like me to do that.

After all the looseness and pain I got it fixed, and it hasn't popped out since! It's alright. ♪

Among the others there were sprains, spasms, bruises, and muscle strain. In the end we cheered because we did a great job! Good work everyone!

Next year we begin to film another season, and we will work harder than ever! I think this is our intent. 

As I have stated before on this blog, the Dairanger keys were spotted with the American Ranger Keys at SDCC and then later one of the keys was replaced with Lunar Wolf Ranger Key. And they were also spotted in the SDCC and Licensing Expo trailer.

Above picture thanks to Henshin Justice Unlimited.

Above picture of the SDCC teaser thanks to SabanPRClips at YouTube

I didn't know if the Dairanger will indeed be used in Power Rangers Super Megaforce. I did like it to be true because it would be exciting to finally see them included. I was hoping to see how their existence will be explained or not explained. My theory is that the reason that only Dairanger is being used is because Saban owns the rights. They own the rights to the White Ranger and Thunderzords, so why not the Dairanger suits? Namihei above says that there is a copyrights issue to use the Pre-Zyuranger teams.

Ishimori Productions (started by Shotaro Ishinomori--who created Goranger) is credited for Megaforce in the opening credits, making people wondering if Pre-Zyuranger teams will be used or will not. I think it is to cover their butts with using Legend War footage from Gokaiger in case some pre-Zyu heroes pop up but maybe they can't use them up front because of copyright. Basically they still own the likenesses of anything after Zyuranger (including Dairanger) hence it being okay. Like Namihei said, there will be surprises within the story so maybe that's Dairanger. 

 

As of the episode "Silver Lining Part 2" of Super Megaforce, the Dairanger suits premiere in the second episode "Earth Fights Back" and the episode "Samurai Surprise." Gosei says the powers hadn't been seen on this planet yet.

 At the Comic Con 2014, the Dairanger appeared once again but in the banners. Only Green and Pink. Green showed up at the Comic Con 2013 on display. Pink was in the treasure box but only I noticed. pictures thanks to Megaforce Cast.


The Houhouranger (Pink Dairanger) Ranger Key even appeared in the Super Mega Cannon promotional photo and appears in the cover art, back and front.

@BigMike8109 took this photo of the back of the Super Mega Cannon box. It clearly is Houhouranger. 

Related: http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2013/07/dairanger-in-super-megaforce.html | http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2014/07/which-ranger-keys-will-come-with-super.html | 

Height and Sizes of Actors and Suit Actors (Power Rangers and Super Sentai)

Now there is a lot of debate over the heights of the Rangers but I don't think it matters. It doesn't bother me because the height of the Rangers from the actors to the suit actors have changed and varied so drastically through the years. Some people might not agree with me, hell maybe none at all. 

First example is Denji Sentai Megaranger where the Mega Pink is the shortest. Her suit actress Naoko Kamino later was a substitute for Gao White, Deka Pink, Bouken Pink and Gosei Pink---the last two being played by men. 

As you can see the suit actress reached the yellow band on Mega Red's shoulder but the actual actress reached his head.

In Power Rangers in Space, the Pink Ranger's head reached half of the Red Ranger while Patricia J Lee (Cassie) reached about the same to Christopher Lee (Andros). But she wasn't as short as MegaPink. Many times when using the sentai footage, it looked like she shrunk.

In Goseiger, Gosei Red was the shortest red ranger in a long time. Gosei Red Alata Chiba Yudai's height was 173 cm, which is about 5'8" & suit actor Yasuhiro Takeuchi is 170 cm, 5'6.92"--almost 5'7". This was the only time Yasuhiro ever played a Red Ranger, he mostly did Green, Black, Yellow and other colors. Gosei Blue is the tallest.

In Power Rangers, the Red Ranger is slightly taller than Gosei Red. 

 
Andrew R Gray (Troy) is 5'11," which is about the height of most Red Rangers. He is 4 inches taller than the Sentai suit actor and 3 inches taller than the Gosei Red actor Chiba Yudai. John Loudermilk (Noah) is indeed the tallest but Andrew isn't as short as Alata.

Look at the heights here. Above is Goseiger footage in Megaforce and the bottom is Power Ranger exclusive footage in New Zealand. They are all in the same positions: Yellow, Blue, Red, Black and Pink but some heights are similar and some not. In Goseiger, Blue is way taller than Red, in Megaforce, Blue is still as tall but almost the same height as Black. While in Goseiger, Black is taller than Red but shorter than Blue. In the pictures provided, Gosei Yellow reaches Blue's shark tail but Megaforce Yellow reaches a bit higher than that. Megaforce Pink is significantly shorter than Megaforce Black conpared to Gosei Pink. Gosei Pink reaches the top of Gosei Black's visor while Megaforece Pink reaches the bottom of Megaforce Black's visor. But Super Sentai uses one or two suit actors, while Power Rangers uses multiples and more than one and they vary in height.

UPDATED 3:42 PM EST

Phil, who just commented on this post brought up the good point of Catherine Sutherland, who replaced Amy Jo Johnson--who was much shorter than Jason David Frank. Catherine was about the same height as JDF, she was much taller than Amy Jo. They didn't change the suit actor from Kimberly to Katherine but the suit actress for Kimberly did leave after the movie and beginning of season three. Anyway, when they went back to pre-shot footage or Zyuranger footage, Kat was shorter than Tommy. Once in Zeo and Turbo, they got an actor tall enough to be side by side Tommy but when they went to Ohranger or Carranger footage, she was as short. But this point goes with other times an Actor was changed like MMPR (Aisha, Rocky and Adam taking place of Trini, Jason and Zack) or Turbo (TJ, Ashley, Carlos and Cassie taking place of Tommy, Tanya, Adam and Kat). They didn't change the suit actors when those changes happened, I don't even think they changed them from Kendrix to Karone in Lost Galaxy.

Super Megaforce Spoilers: Stunt actors training for sword and gun use

UPDATED 3/6/13

I just did a post on stunt people and now news from the Power Rangers stunt people. This is from the suit actor and stunt Namihei Koshige, stunt and choreographer with minor details on Super Megaforce. Namihei has played mainly female characters since season 2 or so like the White Aquitar Ranger, Pink Lightspeed Ranger, Pink Time Force Ranger, Yellow Dino Ranger, Pink SPD Ranger, Pink Samurai Ranger and much more. 

.@SilurianRanger on Twitter helped translate the important parts:

"Next week stunt team will be receiving scripts. He states that the stunt team will be using the plot in these scripts to enhance fight scenes, and characterizations. There will be more rehearsals than normal to perfect this, then the cast will join to learn this new fighting style.

The more spoiler filled segment in the final paragraph comes from the segment before the URL, and the video itself. He says, "It will go from ray-guns and colored weapons to a mix of sword and gun fighting." I suspect that this is leading to Gokaiger adaptation. If you then watch the video you can see where I think this is the case. The stunt team will use props for practice next week, as in the past."

http://www.aac-stunts.co.jp/nz/

Kyouryuger Suit Actors

I love suit actors and I haven't checked out who the stunt actors are until now. It seems that Hirofumi Fukuzawa who played Red warriors for a whole decade (from Gaoranger to Gokaiger) has retired. He wasn't in Go-Busters so I thought he was on a break or something. I am glad Mizuho Nogawa is back as a female warrior. Yuuichi Hachisuka who played Yellow Buster, Gokai Yellow and Gosei Pink must be on a break as a ranger (hopefully), he is back to villain.

KYORYU RED

Yoshifumi Oshikawa has mostly played Kamen Riders but also Go-On Blue, Shinken Blue, Gosei Black, Gokai Blue and Red Buster.  Like Yasuhiro Takeuchi before him who played Gosei Red, he got to play a Red Ranger as Red Buster. Now he plays Kyoryu Red.

KYORYU BLACK
Yasuhiro Takeuchi has played a lot of different characters (different colors), he also did a little bit of the Dragonranger. He played Dragon Ranger, Ginga Green, Go Green, Go-On Green, Shinken Green, Gokai Green, Oh Blue, Blue Racer, Time Blue, Gao Yellow, Hurricane Yellow, Bouken Blue, Geki Blue, and Gosei Red. He will now play Kyoryu Black.

KYORYU PINK

Mizuho Nogawa has played MagiBlue, MagiMermaid, Go-On Silver, Gosei Yellow an and Gokai Pink. She played Escape Evolve in Go-Busters. Now she plays Kyoryu Pink.

KYORYU BLUE

Masashi Takada plays Kyoryu Blue. I am not aware of anything else he has done. 

KYORYU GREEN

Kosuke Asai plays Kyoryu Green. He played Cheeda Nick and Go-Buster Ace in Go-Busters. He also played Basco's true form in Gokaiger. 

Torin: Jiro Okamoto

He played Gorisaki Banana, MagiShine, Shinken Gold, Gosei Knight, Barizorg, various big villains and various Kamen Riders (Ohja, Ryuga, Odin, Leangle, Den-O Ax Form, Black, Black RX, Shin, ZO and J. 

Chaos: Hideaki Kusaka

He has portrayed too many to mention--but to name a few, he has played Doukoku (Shinkenger), Tottobatto (Zyuranger), and Gunther (Fiveman) for the bad guys and Kabuto Raijer, Abare Black, Deka Master and more for the good guys.

 Dogold: Riichi Seike

He played Geki Violet, Go-On Black, Zuuban, Juuzo (Shinkenger) and Buredoran (Goseiger).

Canderilla: Yuichi Hachisuka

He has played Five Yellow, Mega Yellow and Bouken Yellow, Go Yellow and Ginga Yellow,Change Phoenix, Pink Flash, Pink Mask, Blue Dolphin, Pink Turbo, White Swan, Time Green, Gao White, and Gosei Pink

Luckyuro: Naoko Kamino

Yes, she is a female. She played Mega Pink, Gao White, Bouken Pink (sub), Deka Pink (sub), Gosei Pink (sub), RoboTough, Datas and Master Shafu. 

Related: http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2012/03/go-busters-and-akibaranger-suit-actors.html | http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2011/02/gokaiger-suit-actors.html

Stunt Guy: Kefi Abrikh

 UPDATED 12/29/12 
Pictures of him in the suit without helmet was removed per request of Toei and other companies.

 Kefi Abrikh, a young French lover of action movies and martial arts, studied and practised kung fu jeet kune do and freestyle acrobatic martial arts in Paris for 7 years. He later decided to go into action movies. 

Fascinated since childhood by animation, the Japanese culture and live Sentai series, he studied the language and went to Japan at the age of 21. In Tokyo, he was really fortunate to be trained by Takanori Shibahara and his team of stunt performers.

He made his debut as a stunt performer in the entertainment industry and particularly in Japanese Characters shows, a genre of entertainment very popular in Japan. He also acted in television dramas and series of super-heroes. He stood out and was integrated the circle of Japanese cinema. He has become the first French stunt performer who still works in Japan today.

He was in stageshows for Magiranger, Shinkenger, Kamen Rider (as Shadow Moon), Kamen Rider Hibiki and Kamen Rider Den-O. More here.

 

He embodies the character Ultraman Xenon, super heroes ally. Tokusatsu TV series produced by Tsuburaya Productions and Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting Co., Ltd.. Broadcast on Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting from July 7th, 2005 to March 25th, 2006 in Japan..

A major role in the movie Kamen Rider Hibiki and the Seven War Demons (The Movie), he was wearing the costume of the character Toki rider of Hokkaido. Feature film produced by Toei Company.

Photographer: Lucie Vales


Photographer: Kanako Okada

Website:

 http://wild-europe.com/kefi_abrikh-fr