Hikounin Sentai AkibaRanger

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 ??. (Total episodes: 12 episodes )

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

Two Sentence Summary

Three otaku transform and fight in their delusions. Basically the show exists just to shoe horn in as many Sentai and otaku references as possible.

Characters

Hikounin Sentai AkibaRanger

AkibaRed - Akagi Nobuo 赤木 信夫

Played by Wada Masato 和田正人

Akagi 赤木 means "Red tree". Nobu 信 means "Trust, faith" and O 夫 means "Man; husband".

Delivery boy for S.P.D. (Sasaki Pompoko Delivery). A 29 year old Sentai and Aoi-tan otaku who has a crush on a girl named Sayaka.

AkibaBlue - Aoyagi Mitsuki 青柳 美月

Played by Hinami Kyoko 日南響子

Ao 青 is Blue. Yagi 柳 means Willow. Aoyagi 青柳 together means "Trough shell, short-necked clam". And Mitsuki 美月 means "Beautiful Moon".

A:pparently a high school girl who is interested in martial arts. She's frequently seen doing exercises in the Hidden Base cafe. Unlike Red and Yellow, Mitsuki is not a Sentai otaku, but she apparently is a fan of anime character Zukyuun Aoi.

AkibaYellow - Moegi Yumeria 萌黄ゆめりあ (CN)

Played by Ogino Karin 荻野 可鈴

The parenthesis CN means Cosplay Name. Mo-e 萌 means cute, the Gi 黄 or Ki means Yellow, and Yume means dreams.

When not transformed, Yumeria appears in a costume. Apparently she's actually an OL (Office Lady) in real life. She often talks in a way to fit her costume. When dressed as a cat, she inserts nya/meow into her speech patterns. As a boy, she addressed everyone as older brother or sister by adding -nii or -nee at the end of their names. The CN in her name stands for Cosplay Name AKA her alias.

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.

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

Played by Honoka 穂花.

Chief of the redevelopment department. It's said the first part of her name is similar to how the Japanese pronounce the © symbol.

Marushii = Maru (circle) and C.

Shachiiku

Based on Shachiku which literally means "corporate livestock".

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.

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
Episode 1	Pain is Strength 痛さは強さ	April 6, 2012	Arakawa Naruhisa
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
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
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
Episode 5	Ow Ow ☆ Yellow Mama イタイタ☆イエローママ	May 4, 2012	Komura Junko
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
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
Episode 8	痛き特訓の絆は公認ロードの陰謀交差点	May 25, 2012	Komura Junko
Episode 9
Episode 10
Episode 11
Episode 12

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.
• 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 the onomatopoeia for "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".
• Akibaranger has 4 firsts:

*First to have sculpted hair since Battle Fever J
*First to have a white scarf since X-1 Mask
*First ever to have Blue and Yellow as female (as stated in an episode)
*First to run under only one year since JAKQ

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 = Gay stuff.
• 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

Nijiyome Gakuen Z-cune Aoi Official Webpage

BS Asahi's Page