Gosei Sentai Dairanger

""The Five Stars shining in the heavens!""

Gosei Sentai Dairanger (Five Stars Squadron Dairanger ) is the seventeenth installment in the Super Sentai franchise, airing from 1993 to 1994.

6000 years ago, the Gohma tribe and Dai tribe were at war, with five Dai warriors with extremely high Chi levels leading their efforts. Eventually both tribes disappeared, but the Gohma resurfaced in the modern day. Master Kaku, who doesn't wish to see them destroy the world, gathers five youths with high Chi levels to become Dairangers and oppose their schemes.

Its relationship with the American Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series is interesting: the mecha battles were used for most of Season 2; the Kiba Ranger suit was worn by the White Ranger, Tommy's new alter-ego after he lost the Green Ranger powers; Daijinryū became "Serpentera", a warzord used by Lord Zedd; and the Super Chi-Power Bazooka became the Power Cannon. However, the five main Dairanger suits were never used, making them the only post-Zyuranger Sentai team whose suits were never used on Power Rangers (as far as each of the main team is concerned).

The Dairangers:

 * "Tenkasei" Ryō/Ryū Ranger : An aspiring chef and Rookie Red Ranger who leads the charge against the evil Gohma.
 * "Tengensei" Daigo/Shishi Ranger : A pet shop owner, he's the second-in-command and the second-best warrior of the team next to Ryō. He's also very proficient in creating illusions.
 * "Tenjūsei" Shōji/Tenma Ranger : A former delinquent and the comedy relief with dreams of being a boxing champion. He can control gravity to increase his fighting abilities.
 * "Tenjisei" Kazu/Kirin Ranger : A smooth hair-dresser who ran away to Tokyo in his youth. His fighting style is Drunken Boxing with a little bit of time control.
 * "Tenpūsei" Rin/Hōō Ranger : The lone female of the team; Kaku's niece from China who moved to Japan to attend college. Like Ryō, she is a Dai Tribe descendant. She is very intelligent and difficult to con.
 * "Kōshinsei" Kō/Kiba Ranger : A Bratty Half-Pint who found the legendary Byakkoshinken, and joined the team as the youngest Sixth Ranger and the youngest hero in Super Sentai history.

Gohma Tribe:

 * Emperor Gohma XV: The Big Bad.
 * Shadam: Dragon-in-Chief. At first glance, he's merely the Gohma Emperor's number two,
 * Gara: Dark Chick.
 * Zydos: The Brute.

And the third party:

 * Daijinryū A dragon god who shows up near the end and unleashes a reign of terror to get the Dairangers and Gohma to stop fighting. Literally a Humongous Mecha that is over 500 meters tall.

Recurring Super Sentai tropes:
"Ryō: "Ryū Ranger! Heavenly Fire Star, Ryō!"
 * All Your Powers Combined: The Super Chi-Power Bazooka which is fueled by the six rangers' Lai Lai jewels, along with Kameo's.
 * By the Power of Greyskull: "Kiryoku Tenshin ! Aura Changer!"
 * Kō uses a variant phrase, replacing "Aura Changer" with "Kiba Changer," the name of his personal Transformation Trinket.
 * Calling Your Attacks: A variation - if someone has a special martial style, they'll announce that too.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: Subverted again. The codename system is similar to the Zyurangers (with mythical Chinese creatures instead of prehistoric beasts), only they used the Japanese names of their respective totem animal instead of English names (presumably so that Ryu Ranger wouldn't be confused with Dragon Ranger). Kiba Ranger, whose totem animal is a white tiger, doesn't fit this pattern, since his codename translates to the "Fang Ranger" (otherwise, he would've been "Byakko Ranger"). The Kiber Machines plays this straight though.
 * Combination Attack
 * Cool Bike: The Dairangers' bikes, the Kiber Machines, each matching their color with modified cowls relating to their mecha.
 * Evolving Credits: New mecha and characters (Kibaranger) show up in the opening.
 * Eyecatch: Dairanger started the tradition of having eyecatches featuring a single ranger rather than the whole team. In this case, they do a form with a Dairenrod (Byakko-shinken for Kibaranger).
 * Finishing Move: Dairen-oh has a nice variation where, after striking down a giant Gohma, it sheaths its sword.
 * Five-Man Band: There are two Kid Appeal Characters on the team.
 * The Hero: Ryō
 * The Lancer: Daigo
 * The Big Guy: Shōji
 * The Smart Guy: Kazu
 * The Smart Chick: Rin
 * Sixth Ranger: Kō
 * Home Base: A secret warehouse underneath Tokyo Station; it's nothing overly elaborate though. Basically just a meeting room.
 * Humongous Mecha: The second Super Sentai to feature Mechanical Lifeforms for mecha. In fact, one of them (Daimugen) actually transforms into a human.
 * Animal Mecha: Based on creatures from Chinese mythology this time.
 * A Mech By Any Other Name: The animal mecha were known as the Kidenjū, while the humanoid forms of the ones that can transform are referred as Kiden Bujin.
 * Transforming Mecha: The Ryūseioh and the Wang Tiger can switch between animal and humanoid forms. The series later introduces the Super Kidenjū Daimugen, a tortoise-based mecha that also has a "warrior" mode, which has the ability to heal the Ryūseioh or the Wang Tiger with an energy pool stored inside its body.
 * Motion Capture Mecha: Ryūseioh, being one of the lightest Sentai mecha ever, follows Ryū Ranger's movements (for the scenes where he's doing this, Ryū Ranger is played by the face actor rather than the stunt actor).
 * Combining Mecha: The animal mecha of the other four Dairangers could combine with themselves to form a flying chariot for Ryūseioh to ride on, or wrap themselves around Ryūseioh like an armor.
 * Sei Shishi + Sei Tenma + Sei Kirin + Sei Hōō = Tenkū Kiden
 * Ryūseioh + Sei Shishi + Sei Tenma + Sei Kirin + Sei Hōō = Dairen-oh
 * Mecha Expansion Pack: Like the extra mechas from the previous series, the Wang Tiger can replace Ryūseioh in combining with the mecha of the other Dairangers, while Daimugen can combine with all six of the other mechas for an ultimate attack.
 * Wang Tiger + Sei Shishi + Sei Tenma + Sei Kirin + Sei Hōō = Kiba Daioh
 * Ryūseioh + Tenkū Kiden + Wang Tiger + Daimugen = Jūkō Kiden
 * In the Name of The Moon: The longest for some time.

Daigo: "Shishi Ranger! Heavenly Illusion Star, Daigo!"

Shōji: "Tenma Ranger! Heavenly Gravity Star, Shōji!"

Kazu: "Kirin Ranger! Heavenly Time Star, Kazu!"

Rin: "Hōō Ranger! Heavenly Wind Star, Rin!"

Ryō: "The Five Stars shining in the heavens!"

All: "Gosei Sentai - Dairanger!"

Kō: "Kiba Ranger! Howling New Star, Kō!""


 * Law of Chromatic Superiority: Ryō is the first to get his Kidenjū, the Ryūseioh, which can face off against Gorma Monsters on its own. It's also the first Transforming Mecha given to a Super Sentai warrior.
 * The series was written with the intent that all five members serve as the main character, rather than just the Red ranger, breaking with the usual Sentai status quo.
 * Make My Monster Grow: The Gohma Monsters each have an Enlargement Bomb (essentially a grenade) which they use after being KO'd. The bombs themselves eventually got carried over to the US. This also came with a couple of subversions, listed later.
 * Monsters of the Week: The Gohma Monsters, who all have human forms. Their names consisted of a noun (usually their motif), followed by a social title or occupation.
 * Mooks: Kottopotoros, who act as servants to the higher-ranked Gohmas and appear to be wearing tuxedos.
 * The Movie: The Dairangers take on four revived monsters and a new one.
 * The Narrator
 * On the Next Episode of Catchphrase
 * Prop Recycling: Iron-Face Choryu's armor skirt was originally made for Burai from the previous season.
 * Psycho Rangers: The Copy Empress in Episode 25 could create clones of the Dairangers by merely taking their pictures. This actually allowed her to make more than one clone of each Dairanger.
 * Regular Caller: Averted: Whoever encounters a Gohma interference reports to the HQ through their Transformation Trinkets, where Master Kaku relays the message to the rest. With a simple radio, at that!
 * The Smurfette Principle: Hōō Ranger.
 * Supervillain Lair: Anyone who learned to use the Yo power can become a Gohma. So, in theory, anyone in the entire city can be an enemy...
 * The actual lair of the Gohma Tribe is a floating upside-down pyramid known as the Gohma Palace.
 * Theme Music Power-Up
 * Transformation Name Announcement
 * Transformation Trinket: The Aura Changer, which was later used for Magna Defender's morpher. (It's apparently very difficult to use in real life.)
 * Ko uses his own version called the Kiba Changer.
 * Weapon of Choice
 * Dual-Wielding: The Star Cutters and Star Swords.
 * Bifurcated Weapon: Star Cutter + Star Sword = Daibuster.
 * Rings of Death: The Dairinkens, sharp rings with handles in the middle, and often Dual Wielded.
 * BFG: The (Super) Kiryoku Bazooka.
 * Blade On a Stick: Perhaps their most famous weapons are the Dairenrods. They are also Morph Weapons that can become other weapons.
 * Ryō: Sekiryu Soryuken
 * Daigo: Shishi Konbou
 * Shōji: Tenma Nunchakus
 * Kazu: Kirin Ku-setsu Ben
 * Rin: Yari Houou
 * Kō: Byakkoshinken

Tropes specific to Gosei Sentai Dairanger:
"You all make me sick."
 * Abusive Parent & Domestic Abuse: Shadam, oh boy, Shadam. Whether it's his treatment to Akomaru or his lack of compassion to the mother of his children, he fits in spades.
 * Animal Motif
 * Cool Horse: Sei Tenma and Sei Kirin
 * Our Dragons Are Different: Ryūseioh
 * Panthera Awesome: Sei Shishi and Wang Tiger
 * The Phoenix: Sei Hōō
 * Applied Phlebotinum: Chi.
 * Arbitrary Skepticism: In episode 3 the entire team, except Daigo who is skeptical anyway, but doesn't dismiss the claim, is convinced that a puppet Shōji was attacked by was "radio-controlled or something" rather than the work of a Gohma. Later in the episode even Shōji convinces himself of it.
 * As Long As There Is Evil:
 * Badass Grandpa: Rin's grandpa Guhon. So badass that even 20 year old girls are all swooning over him.
 * Biological Mashup: In The Movie this is the assembled monsters' answer to the Rangers forming Dairen'oh.
 * Bolivian Army Ending:.
 * Camp Gay: Saboten Shogun, the monster of the week in #34.
 * Camp Straight: Kazu - although he's more of a Dandy.
 * Captain Ersatz: Iron-Face Chōryu is a blatant clone of Darth Vader, and his story is directly taken from Star Wars. He was once a great hero who sold out his allies to the bad guys, worked for them for a very long time, has a . Given that Dairanger also borrowed from the soundtrack of Star Wars, this can't be unintentional.
 * Not only that, but Chōryu's master, High Priest Saw (the Monster of the Week) had the human form of an old man in robes who shot lightning at Ryō. Who does that remind you of?
 * Chinese Girl: Rin. She's more prone to speaking Chinese due to this.
 * Couch Gag: Later episodes would begin with one of the three major Gorma generals throwing the Monster of the Week out of a large sack.
 * Crying Wolf: Used in Episode 32. Shōji, after failing to wake Ryō up using normal telephone, wakes him up using the Regular Caller telling that there's a Gorma Attack. Ryō got pissed when he realized he was suckered. And when an actual Gorma appeared, Ryō didn't bother to go thinking Shōji was lying again, until Master Kaku sets him straight immediately.
 * The Doll Episode: Featuring everyone's favorite King of the Large Hams, General Cactus! And an angry Daigo.
 * Did Not Do the Research: Has anyone else heard a tiger howl?
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Episode 18. How to deal with an annoying Bratty Half-Pint who barges into your apartment? Fool him into thinking his long-lost mom has come back to see him again, of course! Ha ha... ha?
 * Eldritch Abomination: Daijinryū, who destroys the Gohma Palace and a huge chunk of Tokyo to force the good and bad guys to stop fighting. When that doesn't stop the action, he.
 * Elemental Powers
 * Playing With Fire: Ryō
 * Master of Illusion: Daigo
 * Gravity Master: Shōji
 * Time Master: Kazu
 * Blow You Away: Rin
 * Make Me Wanna Shout: Kō
 * Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: The Dairangers and the Gorma Monsters have their own set of martial art skills.
 * Generation Xerox:
 * Gratuitous Spanish: Frequently spouted by the Birdcage Vagabond.
 * Groin Attack: Given that they use Rods on a regular basis, this comes up from time to time.
 * Halfway Plot Switch: Episode 3, sort of. The first half focuses on Kazu and Shōji, while the second half follows Daigo.
 * Hell-Bent for Leather: Shadam, Gara and Zydos.
 * Identical Grandson:
 * Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Tombstone President, Telephone Teacher, and Kamikaze Boss (AKA the "Three Gohma Stooges"). Rather than fighting the Dairangers, they'd rather have a motorcycle race or play soccer (they're not very strong in a straight fight). They try this three times, failing each time, and in the end
 * Instant Expert: Despite not knowing jack about Chi power or fighting, Ryō instantly turns Badass after his very first Henshin.
 * The Jimmy Hart Version: One background music is the Imperial March theme from Star Wars with a few notes sharped.
 * Larynx Dissonance:
 * Luke, I Am Your Father:
 * Make My Monster Grow: By design, it's possible to interrupt the growing process by preventing the Gohma from using the bomb (one got fenced in with Dairenrods, and a few got blown up in human size). There's also a limit on how long they can stay giant (this allowed a few Gormas to survive). And the bombs don't revive corpses -
 * Making Use of the Twin: In Episode 25, the Copy Empress made evil duplicates of the Dairangers. Kazu's was played by Keisuke Tsuchiya's twin brother, Daisuke. The roles were later reversed when Daisuke went on to play Blue Beet two years later, while Keisuke played his Evil Counterpart Shadow Beet.
 * Martial Arts Uniform: The Dairanger suits have this as a motif.
 * May-December Romance
 * Mundane Utility: The Dairinkens apparently make pretty good cooking knives, as demonstrated by their inventor.
 * Pops up from time to time in the Gohmas. Telephone Teacher can use her ability to make free calls from anywhere to anywhere, for example.
 * Mythology Gag: A little girl in Episode 3 dresses like Kazumi from Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman.
 * Three of the rangers share the same colors and beast motifs with their counterparts from Dengeki Sentai Changeman: Change Dragon and Ryū Ranger (both are red) Change Pegasus and Tenma Ranger (blue), and Change Phoenix and Hōō Ranger (pink).
 * Dairanger also has a martial arts theme similar to Hikari Sentai Maskman. The power source used by the Maskmen was actually "aura power", which is what kiryoku means in Japanese (more or less).
 * One Name Only: Despite being regular civilians, none of the Dairangers have any known surnames. Instead, they precede their names by mentioning their Star of Destiny when they perform their roll call (Ryū Ranger, "Tenkasei" Ryō; Shishi Ranger, "Tengensei" Daigo; ect.) . Their zodiac titles are usually written in quotation marks to indicate that they're not actual surnames.
 * Palette Swap:
 * Peacock Girl: Kujaku.
 * People in Rubber Suits: Played with - the heavier material on the majority of the Gohma costumes is torso-only (imagine a heavy vest with a built-in mask), with far lighter material (spandex or even loose clothing) on the arms and legs, likely to facilitate any martial fights.
 * Pun-Based Title: The title Dairanger, could be interpreted as a reference to the "Dai" tribe that the heroes are descended from, or as the "Great Rangers". It's also worth noting that Dairenja, the Japanese pronunciation of the title, shares a partial namesake with Dairen, the Japanese name of the Chinese city of Dalian. While Dalian is never directly referenced on the show, the name of the team's mecha, Dairen-oh, uses the same kanji used to write the city's name.
 * Sdrawkcab Name: The name "Wong Tiger" is derived from a backward reading of the kanji characters used to write Kiba Daioh's name. "Wong" comes from the Chinese reading of the kanji for "king", while tai and ga are alternate pronunciations of the kanji for "great" or dai and "fang" or kiba respectively.
 * Shout-Out: The Three Gorma Stooges, a Harmless Villain trio who simply want to defeat our heroes in competitions, rather than kill them.
 * Spell My Name With an "S": Lin, or Rin? You'd think it's "Lin" since she's Chinese, but the Media Magician episode plasters "Rin" all over the place.
 * The Starscream: Shadam, who's overall motive throughout the series is to kill the Emperor and take over the Gohma Empire.
 * This proves to be wrong, in fact he is technically the Man Behind the Man due to the fact that he had already controlled the Gohma tribe. The Gohma leader is technically already dead, the man sitting at the top is a clay replica. In fact, they are all clay replicas, Shadam just happened to be the only one carrying on the will of the past self.
 * Theme Naming: Unique in Super Sentai, the vast majority of Gohma are members of a society, and usually have two-part names consisting of a noun (the theme they're based around, very rarely a personal name) and a title/job.
 * Some of the characters' names are taken from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, such as Zhang Liao, Jia Xu (Master Kaku) and Zǐlóng (Shiryu, ).
 * Title Scream: Some episode titles are rendered like this (including the premiere).
 * Unnamed Parent: Ko's mother. None of the other Dairangers even bother to figure out her name, simply calling her "kaasan".
 * What the Hell, Hero?: Daigo delivered one to everyone for coming too late to save a child of the week, first by socking Shōji and Kazu with a punch on the face. And when even Ryō and Rin didn't even seem to show determination to keep the team, he delivers this:
 * What the Hell, Hero?: Daigo delivered one to everyone for coming too late to save a child of the week, first by socking Shōji and Kazu with a punch on the face. And when even Ryō and Rin didn't even seem to show determination to keep the team, he delivers this:


 * Where Are They Now? Epilogue: Sort of. We find out, at the 50th year anniversary of their final battle with over the Gohma, that they all did well in life and settled down with their families in peace.
 * This has lead to the joke that
 * Worthy Opponent: Ryō and Jin view each other as this.