Hikounin Sentai AkibaRanger

Hikounin Sentai AkibaRanger 非公認戦隊アキバレンジャー
Genre	Sentai
Creator	Yatsude Saburou
Writer	Arakawa Naruhisa Komura Junko
Director	Tasaki Ryuuta Suzumura Nobuhiro
Starring	Wada Masato Hinami Kyoko Ogino Karin
Narrator	Miyata Hironori
Opening theme	Hikounin Sentai AkibaRanger Singer: Momoi Haruko feat. Yamagata Yukio
Ending theme	Ashita wa Akiba no Kaze ga Fuku Singer: Akagi Nobuo (Wada Masato)
No. of episodes	13
Production company(s)	Toei Company Toei Agency
Fan Rating	/ 5 Stars
Broadcast
Original channel	BS Asahi
Original run	April 6, 2012 (2012-04-06) – June 29, 2012 (2012-06-29)

An unofficial Super Sentai series Concurrently airing Sentai: Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters

非公認戦隊アキバレンジャー
Unofficial Sentai AkibaRanger

Airs 1:30 to 2 at night on Friday from: April 6, 2012 to June 30, 2012 on BS Asahi. (Total episodes: 13 episodes )

• The actual 13th episode aired earlier than usual on Tokyo MX on June 28th at 1 AM.

Two Sentence Summary

Three otaku transform and fight in their delusions. On the surface it's merely a parody, but AkibaRanger is in fact an extended love letter to all things Toku.

Characters

Hikounin Sentai AkibaRanger

• AkibaRed / Akagi Nobuo - Wada Masato
• AkibaBlue / Aoyagi Mitsuki - Hinami Kyoko
• AkibaYellow / Moegi Yumeria C.N. - Ogino Karin

Allies

Hakase Hiroyo 葉加瀬博世

Played by Uchida Maaya 内田真礼

Is the owner of Sentai Cafe Secret Base 戦隊カフェひみつきち. The joke is Hakase's first and last name can be pronounced as Hakase 博士, which means "Doc, professor".

Mita Kozukozu 三田こずこず

Played by Aikawa Kozue 愛川こずえ DANCEROID

Works as a maid at the Sentai Cafe. Is seen wearing various Sentai costumes. Her name is a reference to her actress' name, Kozue.

List of Cosplay in AkibaRangers.

Incorrect popular spelling: Kozkoz. It looks like someone took the spelling of the URL for her picture from the official website and popularized it as Kozkoz. This is a mistake. If for no other reason, the graphics artist who did the picture spells it Kozukozu in that very picture, Kozkoz normally would not be an acceptable spelling for a Japanese name, plus there is a scene in an episode that spells it out. People who spell it as Kozkoz are simply incorrect.

Hon-i-den Sayaka 本位田 さやか

Played by Morita Miiko 森田 美位子

Akagi's love interest. Unfortunately, she barely knows that Akagi is alive. She only addresses him as Pompoko-san, since she only knows him by his profession.

Villains - Jadan Houjin Sutema Otsu

邪団法人ステマ乙 Evil realtors who are trying to turn Akihabara into new Shibuya, a trendy city in Tokyo.

Jadan Houjin Sutema Otsu is pretty much: Evil Corporation Troll

• Sutema = Stealth Marketing
• Otsu = Thanks, good job (being used sarcastically here)

Originally Sutema was used for people who tried pretend to be fans in order to push their goods. But eventually people started calling trolls and people who just talk without paying attention to others Sutema Otsu in the way westerners call people trolls.

Malshiina マルシーナ

Played by Honoka 穂花.

Chief of the redevelopment department.

The official material for AkibaRanger spells her name as ©NA, since © is pronounced Maru C in Japanese (Means "Circle C"). Maru+Shii+na = Marushiina. Not much is known about the reasoning for this besides the bad guys having a corporate structure and wanting to include a © sign in her name.

Shachiiku

Based on Shachiku which literally means "corporate livestock".

They wear masks that sport the stereotypical salaryman eyeglasses and thick eyebrows while uttering the words, "Noruma" (ノルマ, "Quota"), or, "Zangyou" (ザンギョウ, "Overtime").

Chief Clerks

The equivalent of monsters of the week for this series. The format of their names always contain two parts. The first part of their name is a city or district in Tokyo (that presumably wants to spread their influence over Akihabara's territory). The second part of their name is an animal name. Sometimes the animal name is an absurdly long scientific name, which seems to be a running gag in this series.

Dr. Z

Played by Yao Kazuki 矢尾一樹

Looks like a cross between Dr. Shinigami from Kamen Rider and Doctor Man from Choudenshi Bioman. Has a tie that says Sutema Otsu on it. In his introduction, they reverse the joke confusing Z and Otsu's kanji.

Guests

• Tatsuko Akagi's superior at Pompoko Delivery (1, 6)- Ueda Yuuki 植田ゆう希
• Katou Akagi's Otaku friend (3) - Yonamine Keita 与那嶺圭太
• Host guy (3, 5) - Koyanagi Shin 小柳心
• Cafe Guest 1 (3) - Shocker Ono ショッカーO野
• Pervert (4) - Ishizuka Yoshiyuki 石塚 義之
• Cafe Employee Ikura (6-7) - Itokutora* いとくとら DANCEROID

Might be pronounced "Ikura", the "to" might be superflous.

Items and Mecha

MMZ-01 Mo-e Mo-e Zukyuun. Transforms into the Mo-e Magnum used for finishers.

Itasshaa - A transforming Itasha. Itasha originally means "Italian car", it got corrupted into ita as in itai/pain since pain somehow got incorporated into otaku culture. Itasha literally means "pain car" and tends to be covered in anime and video game illustrations.

Differences between AkibaRanger's reality and actual reality

The story of AkibaRanger takes place in what appears to be a parody of the real world. In their world, Super Sentai is also a show and the heroes don't really exist.

There are some fake elements created in this world:

• The anime Niji Yome Gakuen Z-Cune Aoi, which Akagi and Mitsuki are fans of.
• Yoshii Yuuna appears to be a made-up idol (She appears in the ending and her fans appear in episode 6).
• Instead of Space Sheriff Gavan, they have Ginga Keiji Gabian.
• The search engine that Hakase uses is Ugle! Japan instead of Yahoo! Japan.
• Instead of Twitter, they use Tikutter.
• The maids Kozukozu (Kozue) and Ikura (Itokutora) are both members of DANCEROID. It's unknown if they are playing themselves as maids, or if they're playing characters with just really similar names to their actual names.

Chronology

Episode	Title	Air date	Writer	Director
Episode 1	Pain is Strength 痛さは強さ	April 6, 2012	Arakawa Naruhisa	Tasaki Ryuuta
Episode 2	To Come Back From a Broken Heart, Summon a Full Blast Red Delusion 再起する痛魂が喚ぶ赤き妄想のフルブラスト	April 13, 2012	Arakawa Naruhisa	Tasaki Ryuuta
Episode 3	Ow! A Drunken Hero's Big Adventure! 痛タッ!酔いどれヒーロー大冒険!!	April 20, 2012	Komura Junko	Suzumura Nobuhiro
Episode 4	The Forbidden Delusion is the Pain of a Corrupt Blue 禁じられた妄想は青い背徳の痛み	April 27, 2012	Komura Junko	Suzumura Nobuhiro
Episode 5	Ow Ow ☆ Yellow Mama イタイタ☆イエローママ	May 4, 2012	Komura Junko	Suzumura Nobuhiro
Episode 6	Fly On, Great Leader! The Painful Trap of the Delusion Studio はばたけ大御所！妄想撮影所の痛い罠	May 11, 2012	Arakawa Naruhisa	Tasaki Ryuuta
Episode 7	Delusional Itasshaa Blasts Through the Boundaries! 妄走イタッシャー限界突破せよ！	May 18, 2012	Arakawa Naruhisa	Tasaki Ryuuta
Episode 8	The Bond of Painful Training is Crossed with Conspiracy on the Road to being Official 痛き特訓の絆は公認ロードの陰謀交差点	May 25, 2012	Komura Junko	Suzumura Nobuhiro
Episode 9	The Painful Sentai Disbands. 痛戦隊、解散。	June 1, 2012	Komura Junko	Suzumura Nobuhiro
Episode 10	Z's Painful Curse of being Unofficial ― Into a New Chapter 非痛なるZの呪い ― そして新章へ	June 8, 2012	Arakawa Naruhisa	Tasaki Ryuuta
Episode 11	The Second One is a Refreshing Warrior Without Pain 二代目はサワヤカ無痛戦士	June 15, 2012	Arakawa Naruhisa	Tasaki Ryuuta
Episode 12	The Painful Finale Farewell, Delusion Sentai 最痛回　さらば妄想戦隊	June 22, 2012	Arakawa Naruhisa	Tasaki Ryuuta
Episode 13	Time to Reflect! Even If It's Painful That's Alright 反省会!痛くなければザッツオーライ	June 29, 2012	Komura Junko	Suzumura Nobuhiro

• Note: All the episodes have the word "pain" in them. Almost all of them have the kanji for pain in them 痛. Episode 5 doesn't have the kanji, but it has itaita written in katakana, which basically means the same thing. Episode 7 has Itasshaa which is based on "pain car" or itasha. What a painful series!

The Offical WEB Radio Show

After the show ended, an Internet radio show was started.

Hikounin Sentai AkibaRanger Official WEB Radio (Temp Name)

Music

Opening Theme
Hikounin Sentai AkibaRanger 非公認戦隊アキバレンジャー

• Singer: Momoi Haruko 桃井はるこ featuring Yamagata Yukio 山形ユキオ

In the opening song, the repeated parts like A-a-a Ki-ki-ki and Ba-ba-ba spell out Akiba.

Ending Theme
Tomorrow a Wind Will Blow in Akiba 明日はアキバの風が吹く

• Singer: Akagi Nobuo 赤木信夫 (Wada Masato)

Trivia

• The kanji for Hi in Hikounin and an A is what comprises the AkibaRanger logo.
• The lines on the AkibaRangers' chest plates form the word "Sentai" in stylized katakana.
• Akiba is short for Akihabara, the otaku capital of Japan.
• Pompoko and the tanuki are references to a Ghibli movie about tanuki called Pompoko.
• Zukyuun is a complex onomatopoeia consisting of "zu" for something swiftly piercing the air and "kyun" for heart skipping a beat, the result is often associated with something like a cupid's arrow piercing the heart. English alternative widely accepted is "Bang".
• Normal attack (Temp)! The (仮) (temp) means it's a temporary name. It's just funny that they explicitly say this, even the parenthesis.
• The "Shake hands with DekaRed" thing is a common thing that appears in the commercials for the live action shows at Tokyo Dome City or whatever.
• Yoru no Chou/Night Butterfly 夜の蝶 = Euphemism for "hostess".
• First ever to have Blue and Yellow as female (as stated in an episode).
• First to have sculpted hair since Battle Fever J.
• First to have a white scarf since X-1 Mask.
• First to run under only one year since JAKQ.
• First three member team since Sun Vulcan. The plot almost mirrored the red member replacement of Sun Vulcan as well.
• AkibaRanger takes Sentai tropes and pushes them to their extremes. Within the context of the show itself characters - especially Red - will display a form of Meta-Textual genre awareness. In other words, they will often reference the fact that sentai tropes are being played out referring to them as "Patterns" or drawing comparison to another sentai episode/series to illustrate that fact.
• For a short series, the reuse of enemy monsters is extremely high. Episode one and two were more or less the same villain. Five was a revived, powered-up version of episode three's monster. Eight and nine were brothers, hence the similarities. And while DeluKnight was a commander, he also filled in the status of the monster of the week for the last few episodes. On the trope of spending as little on monster costumes, episode seven's monster of the week was just a Shachiiku that was possessed.
• In episode 7 of the anime Kono Naka ni Hitori Imouto ga Iru, you see a truck with half of the Sasaki Pompoko Delivery logo on a truck, and what appears to be a guy who looks like Nobuo delivering something. [1] [2] Also, Uchida Maaya who plays Hakase is among the cast.

Otaku lingo

• -tan is like a babyfied, cuter version of -chan.
• Comiket is Comic Market, a convention held in Japan.
• Pachimon - Malshina calls the AkibaRangers a Pachimon パチモン when she finds out they're not official Super Sentai members. It means: (n) cheap imitations of famous brands.
• Moegi's "nya" is the Japanese version of "meow"
• Hitokara = Karaoke alone
• Toku son = Toku songs
• w, www = LOL. The w stands for warau 笑, the Japanese word for "laughter".
• Otagei - Literally "ota performance" Otagei
• Kitaaa = "Awesome!" or "It has arrived!". This term is used often in another otaku work, Densha Otoko.
• Niwaka 俄 = Originally meant "Sudden, abrupt" but has taken on the meaning of "noobie, new guy". Akagi calls Aoyagi this in episode 3.
• Fujoshi 腐女子 = Written by combining the kanji for "rotten" and "girl", this is a term for women who get really excited about gays.
• Real ju bakuhatsu shiro リア充爆発しろ = "I hope you blow up from your real life satisfaction". Actually learned this one from doing the Oreimo radio shows. I guess this is what otaku enviously shout at normal people. Akagi shouts it towards Mitsuki in episode 4.
• Yaoi = Works involving homosexual relationships between men but written by and meant for women.
• Seme = In yaoi terms, this is the dominant partner in a gay relationship. The subservient one is an uke.
• Uke = The passive partner in a yaoi relationship.
• Tsundere = Personality type. Initially standoffish, but warms up eventually.

External Links

Official Page

非公認戦隊アキバレンジャー公認ＷＥＢラジオ（仮）
Hikounin Sentai AkibaRanger Official WEB Radio (Temp Name)

Nijiyome Gakuen Z-cune Aoi Official Webpage

BS Asahi's Page

Scan of Map of Akiba Filming Locations