Series / Kagaku Sentai Dynaman

There's a lot of explosions in this one...What, you thought Dyna didn't mean anything?

Bakuhatsu!^note Explode! Kagaku Sentai! Dynaman!

Kagaku Sentai Dynaman (Science Squadron Dynaman) is the seventh Super Sentai, which aired from 1983 to 1984. It was the first to utilize spandex suits. The Title Theme Tune was sung by MoJo for the third time in the series. From episode 10 onwards, the franchise's timeslot would be cut down from 30 minutes to 25 minutes due to TV Asahi wanting to expand the timeslot for a news program. This would remain until the franchise was given a Sunday morning timeslot beginning with Megaranger.

It begins when Hokuto Dan, a kendo master and an inventor, received an invitation from the famous Dr. Yumeno. On the way, he witnesses a strange creature attacking innocent people. He attempts to help; along the way, he encounters other inventors that also received similar invitations: fencer Rei Tachibana, swimmer Yousuke Shima, cowboy Kousaku Nangou and later ninja Ryuu Hoshikawa. While they are able to fend off the strange creatures, the creatures overwhelm them and throw them out to sea. However, they survive and make it to the place where Dr. Yumeno resided... a Kindergarten.

The Kindergarten soon turns out to be the Yumeno Invention Center in disguise. Yumeno called them because he had sensed the rise of the Jashinka Empire, the forces that attacked the five on the way to the invention center. The only force that can stop them is the Science Squadron Dynaman, and these five are the chosen warriors! Like their predecessors, they don't have second thoughts to the prospect of becoming allies of justice and immediately agree to Dr. Yumeno's offer. Thus, the Dynamen's battle against the Jashinka Empire begins!

What this Sentai's best known for is actually being the first to reach American airwaves. Before there was Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, this show received a Gag Dub by the Americans (including future Kids in the Hall!) on the USA Network. It was very silly, but fun in its own way. As episodes were included in the compilation series Special Delivery, it's also the first to air on Nickelodeon, beating Samurai by over 20 years. This version can be streamed on the platform Night Flight Plus.

Tōru Ōhira, who has been narrating the series up until this time, would leave from narrating the series after this installment, until he came back narrating Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger.

---

Recurring Super Sentai tropes:

• Achilles' Heel: In episode 23, the slug monster is immune to salt being thrown on most of it's body, bragging he's immune. Too bad for it, it's eyes were still super sensitive to salt.
• All Your Colors Combined: The Super Dynamite and New Super Dynamite, where the Dynamen merge into a ball of energy to zap monsters.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: "Dynaman!"; or, their individual names.
• Calling Your Attacks: The Dynamen does a lot of this, particularly when summoning their arsenal or giant robot.
• Color Character: Another "[team prefix] [English color]" Sentai.
• Cool Airship: The Dai Jupiter.
• Cool Bike: Dyna Red's Dyna Falcon bike
• Cool Car: The Dyna Machine for the rest of the team.
• Cool Helmet: The Dynaman helmets are distinguished simply by the shape of their visors.
• Custom Uniform: Dyna Red, Blue, and Pink have yellow trim on their suits. Respectively, Dyna Black's suit has red trim instead while Dyna Yellow's suit has black trim. There are three other Yellow Rangers that have black trim, in place of yellow, on their suits, not counting Luka Millfy's version of Gao Yellow.
• Evil Will Fail: Megiddo falling victim to the Fantastic Caste System and becoming the Dark Knight to defeat his father, along with Zenobia's scheme to surpass Aton, end up killing most of the Jashinka, with the Dynamen finishing the job by killing Megiddo and Chimera when the dust settles.
• Finishing Move: Super Dynamite!
• Home Base: This was the Yumeno Invention Center, which also doubled as a Kindergarten. This made Zenobia's debut a Kick the Dog moment for her.
• Humongous Mecha: Three mecha components again, only this time Red was the only who got an individual mecha, while the rest were shared between two members each.
  • Combining Mecha: Dyna Mach (Red) + Dyna Mobile (Black and Blue) + Dyna Garry (Yellow and Pink) = Dyna Robo
• In the Name of the Moon: Ala the trope namer, one of the heroes (usually DynaRed) tells off the Monster of the Week for its evil actions before calling out their names and "Explode! Science Squadron Dynaman!".
• Law of Chromatic Superiority:
• Monsters of the Week: The Shinkajū (Evo-Beasts). Later replaced with Mecha-Shinka robots from Episode 34 and onward.
  • Make My Monster Grow: The Evo-Beasts grow whenever the Dynamen had them on the ropes^note always after the Super Dynamite.; the MechaShinka monsters are enlarged by General Kar's Grand Gizmo device.
• Mooks: Tail Soldiers
• The Movie: The Dynaman film was later shown during the course of the actual series as Episode 32, although chronologically it takes place before Chimera joins Jashinka in Episode 8.
• "On the Next Episode of..." Catch-Phrase:
• Regular Caller:
• Robot Buddy: The Kendo Robot.
• The Smurfette Principle: Dyna Pink, who strangely doesn't wear a skirt or leotard on her costume like other Sentai heroines.
• Supervillain Lair: Grand Gizmo
• Theme Music Power-Up: The Opening Theme was always present from posing to Finishing Move.
• Transformation Trinket: Dyna Brace.
• Villains Act, Heroes React: As is the norm for Super Sentai, we generally have Jashinka sending out a MOTW with an Evil Plan Once an Episode, with our heroes then arriving on the scene to stop them.

---

Tropes specific to Kagaku Sentai Dynaman:

• Action Girl: While most Sentai heroines previous to Dynaman can hold her own, Rei is the first to be more focused in fighting and more capable on holding on her own.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Subverted, Zenobia debuts by discovering the Dynaman's headquarters and swiftly attacking it, but the attack didn't destroy the base. Unfortunately, the base's location still ends up leaked so the Dynaman had to abandon it.
• Applied Phlebotinum: The Retro Gene, the genetic means to increase cells. Also a Deadly Upgrade.
• Anti-Hero: The Dark Knight is heavily Type V, while he has no obligation with the Dynaman, he still occasionally attacks the Jashinka Empire on his own accord. Until Zenobia and Aton falls and he reveals that he is actually Megiddo in disguise. Then he drops the 'Hero' part and once again becomes a thorough villain.
• Berserk Button: When Jashinka begins kidnapping and brainwashing mothers to look after their eggs sets Dan off, since he never knew his own mother.
• Bruce Lee Clone: Yusuke acts like this in the fight in episode 5.
• Cat Fight: Unlike the previous show, Chimera doesn't just share Rei's abilities and such... they come to direct blows at times. Hell, during the final battle, they specifically fight one-on-one while the male Dynamen fought Megiddo.
• Chained Heat: Dan and the Mammoth monster are handcuffed together in episode 33.
• Dark Action Girl: Princess Chimera and later General Zenobia
• Dub Name Change: Pretty much the only names that weren't changed in the parody were the team name and their ranger designations.
  • Hokuto -> Wooshi, their leader
  • Ryu -> Huba, able to leap tall trees
  • Yousuke -> Franky, human outboard motor
  • Kousaku -> Cowboy, slow-thinking weapons expert
  • Rei -> Slojin, their main squeeze
• Diving Kick: The Dyna Kick. A team attack that's used about Once an Episode.
• Elemental Powers: The Dynamen's side arms fire a blast of a certain element.
  • Playing with Fire: Hokuto's Red Fire.
  • Light 'em Up: Ryuu's Black Star Flash.
  • Making a Splash: Yosuke's Blue Water Whirlpool.
  • Shock and Awe: Kousaku's Yellow Lightning Fall.
  • Make Me Wanna Shout: Rei's Pink Shocking Melody.
• Enemy Civil War: Dark Knight wages war against Aton when he emerges.
• Enemy Mine: A version of this is in episode 33. Mammoth Evolution is so out of control the villains have to try and stop him. This is in part because the monster smashed through a bacteria research facility and got a virus attached to him. Between the inability to tell friend from foe and the fact he was giving a disease that could wipe out all the tail soldiers as well as just plain stomping a lot of tail soldiers flat, the villains try and take him down as well as the Dynamen. But then Dan is handcuffed to the mammoth, and the villains are more then happy to take out two problems at once...
• Evilutionary Biologist: The Jashinka. Their name literally translates to Evilution.
• Fanservice: At one point, Rei and Chimera had a fight which end up slowly stripping them to nothing but bikinis. (they transform to stop).
  • Chimera's bath scene at the start of episode 29 AND Rei wearing the stolen Chimera's cloth.
• Fantastic Caste System: The Jashinka are ranked by the number of tails they have; for reference, the mooks have one, while Aton has nine and desires ten.
• Gadget Watches: The changer bracelets are actually called that in the Gag Dub.
  We could use gadgets!
  And watches too!
• Gag Dub: Aired as Dynaman in the U.S. in 1988, as a part of the USA Network's overnight Night Flight block (and was later rerun on Nickelodeon); this was the first exposure to Super Sentai in the U.S. (outside Hawaii and parts of California).
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Ryuu. He's comical and sometimes very loud and hammy (like when he introduced himself). And his element is LIGHT.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In episode 34, the Monster Of The Week uses movement seeking missiles to attack people. Because the Super Dynamite finisher won't work on the lobster monster, so Dynaman make sure the missile gets launched at them, then they all jump on the lobster and shake around, the missile comes to them, they jump out out of the way, the missile manages to blow up the monster who sent it out to start with.
• Hollywood Voodoo: In episode 29.
• Insert Song: The Gag Dub was very fond of playing these over action scenes. Lots of Billy Idol and Huey Louis among others.
• Irony: Rei wants to develop a device to communicate with animals... yet she's terrified of CATS.
• The Juggernaut: Mammoth Shinka, so much of a Juggernaut that the Jashinka Empire sealed him, and when released, even Megiddo cannot control him.
• Jumped at the Call: In a way. Like the previous team, Hokuto, Hoshikawa, Shima, Nangou and Rei has no qualms of becoming allies of justice after exposition, but since being a Dynaman doubles as resuming their duties as scientists... it's not exactly 'old-life abandoning'.
• Karmic Death: Zenobia gets the Retro Gene to get a tenth tail, only to fall victim to its side-effects.
• Lady in Red: Princess Chimera
• Lady of War: Rei is a pretty handy with a rapier and... well did we mention her flowery motif?
• Last-Name Basis: Same like the last season, although there were slips. The boys are usually called on their surnames, "Dan, Hoshikawa, Shima, and Nango". The sole girl is sometimes referred as "Rei", or like the rest, her surname "Tachibana".
• Lighter and Softer: While the show is still pretty serious it's around this time that the franchise started lightening up on civilian casualties. They still happen occasionally, but compared to previous shows often having an average of 1 to 2 civilian deaths per episode Dynaman and shows after it are pretty light and typically the victims of the week no matter how they are affected by the monsters are usually restored by the end.
• Magical Security Cam: Dr. Yumeno's computer can capture footage from unlikely places.
• Man-Eating Plant: A Butterfly Monster of the Week created one which cut Gira and Geel's careers very short.
• Master of Illusion: The fox monster in episode 24 should count. Ryu's ninja skills also which turned out to be a match for the fox.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: The JaShinka upgrade to the MechaShinka cyborg monsters, resulting in the Dynamen upgrading to the New Super Dynamite.
• Motive Decay: The Jashinka quickly go from wanting to evolve humanity into their own kind to wanting to Kill All Humans.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Episode 29 had Ryuu accidentally steal Chimera's clothes. In retaliation, Chimera had a Monster of the Week put a voodoo curse on anyone wearing RED (same color as her clothes). And it expands to other colors too...
• Public Domain Soundtrack: "A Night On Bald Mountain" by Mussorgsky and "Les Toreadaors" from "Carmen" are used in episode 28.
• Road-Sign Reversal: Done to trick Hokuto into a trap in episode 9.
• Science Hero: Literally. Before they became a sentai team, all of them are inventors who are experts in the fields of science.
• Shaking the Rump: #8, the debut of Princess Chimera, offers a close-up shot of her shaking her booty as she flaunts her tail in her short skirt.
• Squashed Flat: The Mammoth monster in episode 33 is so out of control he caused this to happen to a group of Tail Soldier Mooks!
• The Starscream: Zenobia
• Stuff Blowing Up: So very much of it!
  • The intro alone features at least 35 explosions - including 20 of them in the first 16 seconds.
• Taken for Granite: The Monster Of The Week does this to Kosauku and some random civilians in episode 4.
  • And a Medusa head statue turns many people to stone in episode 46.
• The Unfought: Aton is never fought by the Dynaman.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: A villainous example: Aton, slain by Megiddo, names his son as successor with his dying breath.

---