I used to love Power Rangers. I don’t remember how I graduated from being in that fandom. I was just a kid. I think I moved on to another fad back then.
Producer: Toei
I didn’t watch other sentai series, so I missed out a lot. But I watched Akibaranger mainly cos it’s a parody of tokusatsu and otaku in one show. Akibaranger mostly makes fun of the stereotypes and common things that occur in tokusatsu, decorated with jokes about the various anime subfandoms. You know how parodies are often like 5 minute youtube video and 2 hours of twisted epic movies combined in one film? Well, now you get to see it in 12 episodes, something that YOU can relate with.
Akibaranger’s main theme is about DELUSION, which I think is totally suitable for otakus in general. Heck, don’t we all dream of getting sudden superpowers or get teleported into another fantasy world? I know I did ww. So this brilliant excuse of an otaku culture parody takes advantage of that (and seriously they do look pitiful)
The rangers have anime-ish design helmet too!
Akibared (Nobuo Akagi) – is your typical otaku who is often in dilemma about which merchandise to buy, and how to get into a 3D girl’s pants. Seriously reminds me of a few people I know lol. He’s a pretty lame guy but he takes the role of the hotblooded protagonist like he’s meant to have it.
LOL
Akibayellow (Yumeria Moegi) – is like the embodiment of self-absorbed cosplayers, shamelessly dressing up flamboyantly everywhere she goes and has to stay in character. Apparently she’s also a doujinshika and a fujoshi (episode 3 wins)
AkibaBlue (Mitsuki Aoyagi) – the only school girl, and is often disgusted by how her senior rangers are acting like overgrown children. She’s in the team just for the martial arts, and doesn't really admit that she's in the lower group of otaku heriarchy.
Malshina - Purple haired not-so-main villain of the show, but she had more screentime than her boss. She's somewhat related to Hakese - the one responsible in giving the three rangers a chance to become unofficial superheroes.
I wish there were more members cos it doesn't seem enough to represent the otaku community. They could've included a VN-otaku, a mecha fan, a pure old fag (so that maybe we can see some oldfags vs newfags stuff), and probably some NND addicts.
So anyways, when they transform they used a figurine called Aoi-tan which is a character from the show in the show. It's probably their current moe-tard anime which is on air. When they transform, they can do it at just about anywhere but they'll soon be transported to a totally different place far from the city, in the middle of nowhere. If you wanna know why then go check it out lol. And speaking of moeshits... yeah, the show questioned it's relevance somewhere. It was totally getting in the way for Aoi-tan's original author who wants to make the show as he wanted to be.
doesn't seem like the OP has serious message
While their base is in Akihabara, in a sentai cafe owned by the boss who monitors the akibarangers, they pursue (or were pursued by?) monsters that represent the other unique districts in Tokyo. These monsters wish to banish otaku culture from Akihabara and turn the city into their own liking (like host clubs, sports arena, etc). Really, they make otakuism look like they don’t deserve to exist in this world and the akibarangers are defending their animu like scared little newfags. FINALLY, it isn't something that affects the whole world when the event only happens in one particular place in Japan *rolls eyes*
A few previous red rangers makes a cameo whenever they're in a pinch. If I'm not mistaken episode 11 makes fun of how producers or writers could/would/may abuse their power in making nonsensical plot changes.
To my surprise, for a just-for-laughs series, they actually did have pretty neat plot twists (which lead me to ship Nobuo x Malshina) towards the end. It’s funny and shit, but it’s not suitable for kids (note that there’s ecchi and a few yaoi jokes) since it’s probably for older audiences who are used to the typical ‘flags’ in anime and tokusatsu.
Overall, it's pretty good. I recommend this even to non-sentai fans :3
Too bad she's supposed to be a 2D character... but oh well Nobuo almost had a dream-come-true moment.
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