Choujuu Sentai Liveman: Difference between revisions

[[File:Chojusentai_Liveman_3618.jpg|frame|The full team, and yes, the blue one is a girl for the first time.]]

 

 

''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.

 

 

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.

 

* Jō Ōhara - [[The Lancer]]. A fun-loving, confident sportsman who fights as '''{{color|gold|Yellow Lion}}'''.

* Megumi Misaki - [[The Smart Guy|The Smart]] [[The Chick|Chick]] and [[Team Mom]]. As '''{{color|blue|Blue Dolphin}}''', she uses a [[The Archer|bow and arrow]].

* Jun-ichi Aikawa - [[The Heart]] [[Three Plus Two|who also joins the team mid-series]] to become '''{{color|green|Green Sai}}''' <ref> At the time, "Rhino" wasn't a common loanword in Japan, so they went with the more recognizable "Sai" instead.</ref>. The [[Kid Appeal Character|youngest and most idealistic]] of the team; may actually be the strongest.

 

* Guardnoid Gash: Bias' [[Battle Butler|right-hand robot]]. In charge of making defeated Brain Beasts grow to incredible sizes.

* 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. {{spoiler|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]]. {{spoiler|Also like Guildos, he is a robot built to motivate Bias' students}}.

 

 

* [[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)

* [[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 [[Gekisou Sentai Carranger|Vic-Trailer]] and [[Seijuu Sentai Gingaman|Giga Bitus]].

* [[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.

** [[The Hero]]: Yūsuke

** [[The Lancer]]: Jō

*** Bison Liner + Sai Fire = Live Boxer

** [[Mecha Expansion Pack]]: Live Robo + Live Boxer = Super Live Robo

'''All''': Liveman! }}

* [[Instant Expert]]: Played straight, subverted and averted; see below.

* [[Monster of the Week]]: The Brain Beasts or ''Zunōjū''. The naming pattern is "(theme)-Zuno".

* [[Mook|Mooks]]: The Jimmers <ref> Jin = Person, Ma = Machine</ref>

* [[Robot Buddy]]: Colon, though she subverts it by having few built-in functions and relying heavily on external devices.

* [[The Smurfette Principle]]: Unlike the last four teams, ''Liveman'' only had one girl (Blue Dolphin), partly because the original roster consisted of three members and the two later members were not part of the initial plan. However, ''Liveman'' did provide the franchise its first female blue ranger (and the only one who wears a normal shade of blue as well, since subsequent female blues like Blue Swallow and Hurricane Blue wore lighter shades of blue). Arguably, Colon could count as the show's second heroine, as she occasionally assists the team in combat.

* [[Supervillain Lair]]: The Zuno Base

* [[Transformation Trinket]]: Introduced the twin-bracelet style trinkets with the aptly-named "Twin Brace."

* [[Weapon of Choice]]

** Yūsuke: [[Cool Sword|Falcon Sword]]. He later gets the [[Cool Sword|Falcon Saber]].

** Megumi: [[The Archer|Dolphin Arrow]]

** Tetsuya: [[Simple Staff|Bison Rod]]

** Colon: Whatever's left over, [[More Dakka|up to and including the Live Robo.]]

 

 

* [[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.

* [[Affably Evil]]: Great Professor Bias {{spoiler|until about 3/4 of the way through. Then the "affable" goes right out the airlock.}}

* [[Anatomy Arsenal]]: Dr. Mazenda outfits her cyborg body with a ridiculous amount of weaponry, including at least three different [[Arm Cannon|Arm Cannons]].

* [[And I Must Scream]]: {{spoiler|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}}.

* [[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.

* [[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. {{spoiler|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, {{spoiler|starting with the revelation that Guildos is a robot}}, is one long dark story arc - no humor, lots of death and explosions.

* [[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.

** The other side of the coin is that perhaps [[Unfortunate Implications|this sort of blatant superiority wasn't uncommon in Academia...]]

* {{spoiler|[[Dragon Their Feet]]: Professor Bias is rendered senile in the finale, so Gash has to fight the Livemen by himself.}}

* [[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 [[Acting for Two|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]]: {{spoiler|Omura}} had one mean Mama {{spoiler|who eventually [[Mama Bear|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 [[Computer Generated Images|CGI]] seen in the transformation and Bimotion Buster sequences.

* [[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. {{spoiler|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 Trio]]

** Ego: Yūsuke

* [[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. {{spoiler|And is apparently too powerful to use on someone he plans on taking a brain from...}}

** {{spoiler|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 [[Death Seeker|once every 10 episodes or so]], but she survives until the end.

** 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...

* [[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, {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|1=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.

* [[Instant Expert]]: This show, surprisingly for a [[Super Sentai]], mostly ''doesn't'' play it straight.

** 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.

* [[Let Them Die Happy]]: {{spoiler|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 [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|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.

** 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]].

* [[Only Sane Man]]: When Bias {{spoiler|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, {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|grows really, really old, having artificially prolonged his life with the brains there. Somehow.}}

* [[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]]: {{spoiler|Great Professor Bias}}.

* [[Redemption Equals Life]]: {{spoiler|Gou}}

* [[Robot Girl]]: Colon. Not Mazenda, {{spoiler|until she turns herself into Robo Mazenda, specifically to keep Bias from taking her brain}}.

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[Techno Babble]]: The explanation given for [[Applied Phlebotinum|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.

* [[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.

** No, not [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|that]] Ikari.

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: {{spoiler|ALL of the Volt members get this one way or another, for certain definitions of 'breakdown'.}}

** Wherein we learn that Guildos and Butchy are {{spoiler|''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.

** 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.

* [[Wicked Cultured]]: Bias and Kemp shoot for this.

* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: The entire plot is {{spoiler|a scheme by Bias to maintain his [[Immortality]] by raising one of his subordinates' scores to 1000, creating a [[Fountain of Youth]]}}.

[[Category:The Eighties]]

[[Category:Super Sentai]]