Choujuu Sentai Liveman

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The full team, and yes, the blue one is a girl for the first time.

"My friends! Why have you sold your souls to the devil?!"

Chōjū Sentai Liveman (Super Beast Squadron Liveman) is the twelfth Super Sentai show, airing from 1988 to 1989.

Three students from Academia Island, an elite school funded by the U.N. for the purpose of researching space flight, are tempted by promises of power from the evil Great Professor Bias. They flee Academia Island, killing two of their classmates in cold blood during their escape.

Two years later they return as officers of an evil organization called Volt. Having changed their bodies, minds and names, they use their new powers to destroy Academia.

In response, three of their former classmates use cutting-edge power suits (originally designed as a new form of space suit) to fight against Volt as Liveman.

The Heroes:

The Villains:

  • Great Professor Bias: The Big Bad. The leader of Volt who believes that humanity should be ruled by the intelligent. Far from being a Card-Carrying Villain, he encourages and motivates his subordinates to learn from their mistakes and increase their intelligence.
  • Guardnoid Gash: Bias' right-hand robot. In charge of making defeated Brain Beasts grow to incredible sizes.
  • Dr. Kemp: The Dragon. Formerly Kenji Tsukigata, Dr. Kemp is a vain and power-hungry man who considers himself Bias' star pupil and can transform into the monstrous Beauty Beast Kemp. Later gets a Mid-Season Upgrade into Fear Beast Kemp. Yūsuke's rival.
  • Dr. Mazenda: The Dark Chick. Formerly Rui Senda, Dr. Mazenda is a cold-hearted woman who converted herself into a cyborg to eliminate her human emotion and preserve her beauty forever. Later upgrades herself to Machine Mazenda. Megumi's rival, Yūsuke's former crush.
  • Dr. Obular: Formerly Gō Omura, he considers the human form to be inferior and mutates himself into the monstrous "perfect lifeform" Obular. He has a major inferiority complex, which motivated his transformation. Jō's rival.
  • Dr. Ashura: The Brute. Formerly Arashi Busujima, an underworld crime boss. Bias artificially increases his intelligence to transform him into the genius Dr. Ashura, making his brainpower as formidable as his fighting abilities.
  • Guildos: An alien from the technologically-advanced planet of Guild. He joins Volt after hearing of Bias' reputation from across space. Actually a robot built by Bias to spur on his students by acting as a rival.
  • Butchy: A pig-like alien from the planet Chibuchi who- like Guildos- joins Volt to share his extraterrestrial intelligence and study under Bias. Acts as the Plucky Comic Relief. Also like Guildos, he is a robot built to motivate Bias' students.
Tropes used in Choujuu Sentai Liveman include:

Recurring Super Sentai tropes:

  • All Your Powers Combined: Introduced the idea of a Big Freaking Gun merged from the heroes' individual weapons with the Triple Bazooka.
  • By the Power of Greyskull: "Liveman!" Or, you guessed it, their individual names. (Generally "Liveman!" when transforming as a group, and their name individually.)
  • Calling Your Attacks
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: The codenames for the Livemen consists of having their respective colors as the head word and their animals as the tail, a pattern later used by Choujin Sentai Jetman. Liveman is also notable for being the first Sentai series to feature:
    • A female blue ranger (all the previous teams with female members had at least one pink, with the occasional female yellow and only one white)
    • A black and a green ranger at the same time (not counting X1 Mask's one-episode appearance in Hikari Sentai Maskman).
  • Combination Attack: The Spark Attack
  • Cool Airship: The Machine Buffallo, which was the last time that there was a single-purpose carrier for individual mecha. After this, they could combine or had alternative purposes, like the Vic-Trailer and Giga Bitus.
  • Cool Bike: The Moto Machines, a set of three bike (one for each of the original trio).
  • Cool Car: The Live Cougar jeep, originally built for the team in general, it later becomes the signature vehicle for Black Bison and Green Sai.
  • Eyecatch: A 360-degree shot of the Live Robo (looking ready to kick some giant ass) going out; the Liveman logo superimposed over a shot of Earth before the team appears below coming in. Both with their own little jingle.
  • Finishing Move: The Bimotion Buster, even after the Triple Bazooka was introduced.
  • Five-Man Band: Double Subversion. The series starts off with five young students working on the same project together, but two of them are killed off during the very first episode, leaving them as a three-man team. However, the surviving three are later joined by their deceased friends' younger siblings.
  • Home Base: The tortoise shaped GranTortoise. It's friggin' big, too - proportionately at least twice the size of the Humongous Mecha stages available at the time.
  • Humongous Mecha: For the first time in Super Sentai, two giant robots could combine into a stronger giant robot. The Live Robo wasn't originally designed to combine with anything else, so the fact that the toy designers were able to make it work at all is amazing.
    • Animal Mecha: Introduced the concept to Super Sentai. Jet Falcon and Aqua Dolphin resemble their namesakes only somewhat. Land Lion, on the other hand, looks exactly like a giant lion with guns on its back. Averted with the Bison Liner and Sai Fire, which were just semi-trailer trucks with tractor units resembling the heads of their respective namesakes.
    • Combining Mecha: One for the original trio and another one for the two latecomers.
      • Jet Falcon + Land Lion + Aqua Dolphin = Live Robo
      • Bison Liner + Sai Fire = Live Boxer
    • Mecha Expansion Pack: Live Robo + Live Boxer = Super Live Robo
  • In the Name of the Moon: Albeit as basic as they come; rarely does their role call consist of more than:

Yūsuke: Choujuu Sentai...
All: Liveman!

Tropes Specific to Choujuu Sentai Liveman

  • Absentee Actor: Tooru Sakai (the human form of Gō Omura) only appears in nine episodes, despite being shown prominently in the opening intro during the first few seconds. From the third episode and onward, Omura assumes a monster form called "Beastman Obuler" (a costumed character voiced by another actor) and remains that way during the remainder of his tenure in Volt. When Omura reverts back to his human form, he leaves Volt and only shows up for a few guest appearances afterward.
  • Action Girl: Colon. Actually, until Tetsuya and Junichi join, she's basically all the backup Liveman has.
  • Actor Allusion: When Liveman started, Daisuke Shima was an Idol Singer with a Hot-Blooded rebel image, and the character of Yuusuke was written to match. Later on, under the insistence of Shima himself, Yuusuke developed into a traditional leader.
  • Affably Evil: Great Professor Bias until about 3/4 of the way through. Then the "affable" goes right out the airlock.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Butchy... does not take finding out he's a robot, and that all of his (apparently happy) memories of being a Chibuchi resident were fake, very well. He is destroyed just after (arguably) completing a Heel Face Turn.
  • Anatomy Arsenal: Dr. Mazenda outfits her cyborg body with a ridiculous amount of weaponry, including at least three different Arm Cannons.
  • And I Must Scream: Dr. Kemp has his brain removed from his head while he's still alive, so it can be used in Bias' Fountain of Youth. His body turns into a mindless Brain Beast, and his consciousness remains alive in the immobile brain, unable to see, hear, feel or do anything.
  • Badass Normal: Arashi Busujima. A tough-as-nails gang leader, he beat one Brain Beast into submission and blew up a weapon/attack-absorbing one with a suicide charge.
  • Bound and Gagged: The first literal happening in Sentai (previous titles didn't use gags), in which Megumi is the victim (when she's taken hostage to force Yuusuke fight a swordsman-type Monster of the Week)
  • Butt Monkey: Before Darker and Edgier hits on full throttle, this is Jou's role.
  • Cast from Hit Points: Guildos can endlessly revive his personalized Guild-zuno. It's not initially clear he's doing it under this trope... until Green Sai basically forces Guildos down to zero on his own.
  • Chinese Vampire: One Monster of the Week transformed the souls of Academia's departed into these.
  • Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Played straight and subverted hard towards the end. Dr. Mazenda willingly made herself more cybernetic, and embraced its dehumanizing effects to preserve her youth and beauty. Though eventually she reconsiders - ironically, it's only after she becomes Robo Mazenda that she recovers her humanity.
  • Darker and Edgier: Overall, the first three-quarters of the series a bit (especially compared to the Heisei shows), but not so much they can't crack jokes from time to time. The last quarter or so, starting with the revelation that Guildos is a robot, is one long dark story arc - no humor, lots of death and explosions.
  • Death by Origin Story: The deaths of Takuji Yano and Mari Aikawa during the very first episode.
  • Devil in Plain Sight: You'd think people would less surprised at Mazenda and Kemp joining Volt considering every conversation with them was about how humanity in general was inferior to them.
  • Dragon Their Feet: Professor Bias is rendered senile in the finale, so Gash has to fight the Livemen by himself.
  • Do-It-Yourself Theme Tune: The opening and ending tunes are sung by Daisuke Shima, who plays Red Falcon.
  • Dumb Muscle: Busujima Arashi was this prior to his education at the hands of Bias, to the point of not being able to do math that went higher than he had fingers - 8+4 in particular stumps him. (The actor pulls this off so well that Arashi and Ashura are completely different characters.)
  • Dynamic Entry: several times during the show - especially the mecha - but also something Colon has to do by default owing to her lack of firepower.
  • Education Mama: Omura had one mean Mama who eventually goes all out to help her son gain back his self-worth.
  • The Eighties: Much of the show, but the theme song especially. The end of the opening sequence has a moonwalking Colon. Not to mention the early CGI seen in the transformation and Bimotion Buster sequences.
  • Engrish: The Live Blasters are labelled "Librastar".
  • Everyone Went to School Together: The other main hook of the show - the original three Liveman members and Volt generals are pretty familiar with each other, if never out-and-out friends. Often played up for drama, once or twice for humor.
  • Evil Former Friend: Kemp, Mazenda, and Oblar. The third one pulls a Heel Face Turn though.
  • Evil Genius: All of Volt.
  • Evil Is Visceral: Not as prominent as in most examples, but Volt often invokes this style.
  • Freudian Excuse: Omura. Seriously.
  • Freudian Trio
    • Ego: Yūsuke
    • Id: Jō
    • Superego: Megumi
  • Genius Bruiser: Dr. Ashura, and Dr. Oblar before him.
  • Hammerspace: It's possible to summon up just a Liblaster from a Twin Brace, but this is only done once when Yuusuke needs to point a gun at a possible intruder.
  • Hand Cannon: While Mazenda literally has cannons in her hand(s), Gash has his Gashgun. The handle and barrel are practically in a straight line, and whatever ammo it uses is enough to knock a Liveman onto their back. And is apparently too powerful to use on someone he plans on taking a brain from...
  • Heel Face Turn: Obular, who loses his memory once his Applied Phlebotinum fails, and ends up becoming a priest.
    • Actually, all the Volt commanders make some form of this, with the exception of Guildos - Omura is just the only one who lives. Butchy gains some form of friendship with Megumi and tells her goodbye before dying, Arashi actively fights against Volt and does a suicide run on a Brain Beast, Mazenda changes herself into a robot and drops herself off of a cliff as a final middle finger to Bias, and in his last moments Kemp (reduced to a brain in a jar) rebels.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: The only character who actually dies this way is Busujima Arashi, formerly Dr. Ashura. Colon is aware of her status as a robot, and pulls something close to this about once every 10 episodes or so, but she survives until the end.
  • Homage: The original trio have the same colors and similar animal motifs as their counterparts from Sun Vulcan.
    • Vul Eagle and Red Falcon are both based on birds of prey.
    • Vul Shark and Blue Dolphin are both based on large aquatic animals
    • Vul Panther and Yellow Lion are both based on big cats.
  • Hope Spot: For a second, it looks like Colon might actually beat Kemp-zuno and save the day in the Live Robo. Then she discovers that she can't operate it effectively by herself...
  • If It Swims, It Flies: Averted by Aqua Dolphin (tank treads on land, although it can also make dolphin-like jumps out of the water and land safely) and Gran Tortoise (never leaves the water). ...Then then there's the flying Machine Buffalo.
  • Immortality Immorality: Mazenda (part of her motivation for turning herself into a cyborg was so that she would remain beautiful forever) and, to a greater extent, Bias, who manipulated everything so that he could extend his immortality.
  • Improbably High IQ: All the members of Volt have ridiculously high IQs. In fact, Bias' goal is to raise their IQs to 1000.
    • There's a problem with this, though - those numbers are Bias' scores for their brains (he wants a 'thousand-point brain'), and it seems that they're closer to test scores.
  • Infinite Supplies: GranTortoise apparently provides this.
  • Instant Expert: This show, surprisingly for a Super Sentai, mostly doesn't play it straight.
    • They built their own equipment and mecha, and have been training for two years, so they know how everything works from the first episode.
    • Live Robo, on the other hand, they can pilot only because they're very smart.
    • Same goes for Volt. Kemp, Mazenda, and Obular have had the same two years to get to know their own abilities. Arashi, in becoming Ashura, is given a (reversible!) genius boost.
  • Insufferable Genius: Most of Volt - Gash has the good sense to stay in the background.
    • With some Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine's "Conga" thrown in as well.
  • Karmic Death: Impressively, ONLY Bias and Gash die this way, when a senile Bias ignited the Zuno Base's thrusters when there was no chance of getting off the ground. The show is notable in that none of the generals are directly killed by Liveman, who do their damnedest to save them somehow.
  • Let Them Die Happy: As the crashed Brain Base explodes around them, Gush tells the now senile Bias that the explosions are fireworks celebrating his conquest of the Earth.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Their casual clothes. Averted in the middle of the series, when they were given different clothing, but later returned to their original clothes in the final episodes.
  • Market-Based Title: Since Choudenshi Bioman was the first Super Sentai series shown in France, this one was called "Bioman 3: Liveman" there.
  • Mid-Season Upgrade: Not just new mecha but new team members.
    • Also new weapons for Red and Yellow that can combine with Blue's weapon to form another BFG. Possibly subverted since the BFG is smaller and weaker than their first one, and Red's new weapon is basically his old one with a longer, flashier looking handle (allowing him to do a two-hand grip and the "Falcon Break" attack).
  • Mirrored Confrontation Shot
  • Mister Seahorse: Junichi due to a Monster of the Week.
  • Oh Crap: Kemp, when he sees the Five-Man Band assembled for the first time. And Ashura, when he sees the Super Live Robo for the first time.
  • Only Sane Man: When Bias temporarily mind-controls everyone on Earth towards the end, only Yuusuke, untransformed and aboard the Brain Base, can stop him.
    • Colon, on the other hand, gets ready to mix it up in the Live Robo.
  • Phlebotinum Breakdown: After Yuusuke succeeds in stopping Bias, then in the midst of planet-wide mind control, with a Falcon Blade to the gut and several Liblaster shots to his Brain Room, Bias grows really, really old, having artificially prolonged his life with the brains there. Somehow.
  • Phlebotinum-Induced Stupidity: shows up from time to time - Ashura's extra intelligence makes him a slightly less effective face-to-face fighter than Arashi, for example. Bias accidentally turning into a child after using Kemp's brain to rejuvenate himself is the most notable though - he's not any less intelligent, but instead has the recklessness you'd expect from that form.
  • Product Placement: Jou's apparently a Seicross fan, and has a My Pet Monster doll on the rearview mirror of his car.
  • Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Great Professor Bias.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Dr. Mazenda and Arashi. Kemp, in his last few seconds of life, comes round as well. Butchy doesn't get as far as Redemption, but his last moments makes it clear that he would have, if not for Bias blowing him up.
  • Redemption Equals Life: Gou
  • Ridiculously-Human Robots: Colon. She's obviously mechanical, but it's kinda hard to tell if she's giving exposition or reminding the audience when she announces, towards the end, that she's a robot and therefore immune to planetary mind control.
    • "Human" might not be the right word here, but Guildos and Butchy were sufficiently lifelike enough to fool the three super-geniuses in Volt and Liveman.
  • Robot Girl: Colon. Not Mazenda, until she turns herself into Robo Mazenda, specifically to keep Bias from taking her brain.
  • Robot Maid: Colon, assigned to run the GranTortoise base, seems to have been intended to be this. In practice, she was over-engineered to have a near-human personality and enough defensive capability to support Liveman in battle.
  • Small Girl, Big Gun: The rangers are under the sway of a mind-control gas early on. Colon saves them with the antidote... fired from a bazooka.
  • The Smart Guy: Initially averted - the protagonists and antagonists all qualify for the trope - and then deconstructed, more or less starting with Obular's breakdown.
    • Volt as a whole kinda shows what happens when you let this trope be the thing by which everything is measured.
    • That said, Yuusuke and Jou were near the bottom academically - and yet they still built their own mecha.
  • Special Effects Evolution: The quadrupedal Land Lion looks awesome for 1988, and is the first of its kind in Sentai Mecha. Your impression upon seeing it in the first episode will be "YES".
  • Stock Footage: About halfway through, the Live Robo and Live Boxer combination sequences started getting cut (to make room for more story, apparently). There's no in-story explanation, so it looks like they can suddenly summon the mecha fully combined - either Fridge Logic or Fridge Brilliance (since the manual combination sequence isn't necessary for a successful combination).
    • Otherwise played straight with the Bimotion Buster and Gash's Giga Phantom sequences.
  • Stone Wall: Colon has no offensive weaponry, but once took a hit to save Yusuke and give him the morale kick he needed.
  • Stunt Double: A notable exception in Yutaka Hirose, who played Dr. Kemp. Hirose is a trained stunt actor and did all of his own stunts, including those as Beauty Beast Kemp and Fear Beast Kemp.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: Doesn't the transformation theme sound a bit like the opening music from Magnum, P.I.?
  • Techno Babble: The explanation given for Chaos Phantom Energy, which apparently powers Volt's stuff. (The way it's shot - the camera closes in on Kemp's lips and twitches as he gives a manic description of it - is the "Babble" part of it.)
    • Basically, Chaos Phantom Energy is given off when... stuff blows up. Really.
  • The Cameo: Dorothée, not that you'll care if you're not French.
  • Three Plus Two: The series starts off with three members like Sun Vulcan, but then two new members are added in Episode 30. This practice would be repeated in some later Super Sentai shows (namely Hurricaneger, Abaranger, Gekiranger and Go-onger), but in those cases, the new heroes were planned from the start.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Given that he's the youngest of the five and that there wasn't much to show that he could do this, it's very surprising to see Jun'ichi/Green Sai continuously destroy Guildos' personal Guild-zuno until Guildos himself basically self-destructs from the strain of reviving him[4].
  • Turtle Power: The Gran Tortoise, of course.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Actually powers a Brain Beast at one point, which it drained off from nearby sources - Liveman, innocent bystanders, Dr Kemp... The only solution turned out to be to not fight Volt with entirely justified rage, and fight to protect people. ...and for Kemp to stay a good distance away from the Ikari-Zuno during battle.
  • Villainous Breakdown: ALL of the Volt members get this one way or another, for certain definitions of 'breakdown'.
  • Wham! Episode: "Huh - Live Boxer looks really bulky and boxy compared to Live Robo... wait, they COMBINE?!?!" It's a given nowadays, but it's very difficult to overstate just how impressive this was. And it wasn't even planned from the start!
    • Wherein we learn that Guildos and Butchy are robots. This is where the show changes course and starts getting dark.
      • This is in-universe as well. Liveman notwithstanding, even the Volt commanders look uncomfortable at this revelation (Mazenda particularly) and Butchy is sobbing after learning that they were robots.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Colon is generally treated like a human female for plot purposes (the ludicrously high level of her AI isn't touched on), albeit one with the added benefit of being mechanical, and therefore more chances at Heroic Near-Sacrifices.
    • With the exception of Dr. Oblar, all the (formerly) human Volt doctors stay on as face characters and are all humanized in one way or other when they "leave" Volt.
    • Even Butchy gets an episode to prove this, and he's non-human by every definition of the phrase.
  • Wicked Cultured: Bias and Kemp shoot for this.
  • Xanatos Gambit: The entire plot is a scheme by Bias to maintain his Immortality by raising one of his subordinates' scores to 1000, creating a Fountain of Youth.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Bias has a habit of doing this. He destroys Guidos and Butchy when they discover their true nature. He strips Ashura of his intelligence when he discovers sensitive documents in the Volt mainframe hinting at Bias' true goal. And finally, he sends Gash out to kill Mazenda and Kemp when they achieve scores of 1000, since he needs their brains to power his Fountain of Youth.
  • You Killed My Father: Black Bison and Green Sai are the younger siblings of the two who developed the power suits and were killed by Volt.
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Megumi in her original civilian outfit.
  1. ↑ At the time, "Rhino" wasn't a common loanword in Japan, so they went with the more recognizable "Sai" instead.
  2. ↑ Jin = Person, Ma = Machine
  3. ↑ Splits from a gun into a sword and shield.
  4. ↑ Specifically, of the 9 times Guildos does his Cast From HP thing, Jun'ichi forced 6 of them on his own. Of the other 3, Colon got in one kill, the other four did a combination attack, and there was the obligatory Bimotion Buster kill.
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