YMMV / Choujin Sentai Jetman

• Accidental Innuendo: A few episode titles:
  • "A Special Bazooka of Love!"
  • "The Hot Milk of Victory!"
• Americans Hate Tingle: Downplayed. Gai is one of the most popular Black Rangers in Japan. In the West, he’s a Base-Breaking Character thanks to his problematic behaviour.
• Awesome Music: The theme song.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Despite Gai being a fan favorite, there are some who found his entitled attitude towards Kaori annoying.
  • Kaori herself is also subject to this, either a decent White Ranger or just a Satellite Love Interest.
• Complete Monster:
  • Back Dimensional Count Radiguet counts in both continuities in which he appears:
    • Series proper: Radiguet seeks to establish and rule a dictatorship over the Dimensional War Party Vyram and Earth. Attempting to overthrow Empress Juuza, Radiguet fails and is banished to Earth with his memories removed. He ends up meeting Saki, a dying girl whom he unknowingly cures, and then becomes the lover of. But when his memories return, he callously murders her as if to reject any possibility of him growing to have any kind of decency or goodness in him. Doing anything to gain power, Radiguet aids the Jetman in killing Juuza, and takes advantage of the Jetman defeating Tranza, his rival, to torture him to insanity. Gaining a lustful obsession with Rie, Radiguet brainwashes her into becoming a fellow Vyram, intent on making "Maria" his servant. And when Rie manages to regain her memories, he spitefully kills her to prevent her from being with anyone else.
    • Non-canon manga: Radiguet, as sadistic and cruel as ever, gleefully possesses the catatonic Tranza and tries to wipe out humanity again. He traps Ryu, the Jetman leader, in a painful time loop where he will suffer endless agonies, and kidnaps Ryu and Kaori's daughter. Radiguet turns her into his own child, Ruma, in order to make her kill her parents, or simply enjoy it when they are killed. And when this fails, he simply tries to kill "Ruma" along with her father.
  • Tran is a Vyram executive who delights in tormenting others. Viewing humans as playthings that exist to entertain him, Tran frequently sends out Dimensional Beasts to massacre humans for no other reason than to amuse himself. In one particular scheme, Tran uses Ant Bazooka to brainwash a group of humans into becoming ravenous gluttons who devour everything in sight, including live animals. After aging himself up and declaring himself "Emperor Tranza", Tran tortures the other Vyram executives until they submit to him as ruler. When the Trial Robot G2 he built malfunctions, Tranza gives it to Grinam Soldiers to abuse as a training dummy. Tranza later builds Majin Robo Veronica and abducts humans to drain their life energy to power it. For his final attempt to defeat the Jetmen, Tranza hunts them down one-by-one, deriving a sadistic enjoyment in cornering each of them, and turns them into stone plaques to display as trophies.
  • "The Revived Empress" & "Gai Dies!": Empress Juuza herself was the original ruler of the Vyram, who led the conquest and destruction of countless worlds in the Back Dimension. Coming to Earth after sleeping to recharge her strength, Juuza tortures dozens of people by forcing crystals to grow out from underneath their skin until they're completely transformed into an inanimate crystal, in order to collect their suffering to feed to Semimaru so she can use it to decimate the world. When Radiguet rebels against her, Juuza chooses not to kill him, but to erase all his memories and send him down to Earth as a human so he can live the rest of his life as "vermin".
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Noodle Dimension is the most memorable Monster of the Week.
  • Grey. Considered by many fans to be one of the greatest generals the Sentai series has had.
• Epileptic Trees: Lots of them, especially on theories that support that Gai is not dead from that one stab. Or how Radiguet actually survived, left permanently powerless as a human, and then became the thug that stabbed Gai.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: While speculations on how Power Rangers might handle Super Sentai series that never received adaptations are nothing new, it's not uncommon for hypothetical Jetman adaptations (at least those taking place after Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers) to see Bulk join the team as the Yellow Ranger, taking advantage of Raita being one of the only heavyset Rangers in the franchise.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Some still prefer Gai with Kaori as opposed to Ryu with Kaori.
• Franchise Original Sin: Controversial aspects of Toshiki Inoue’s Signature Style (both in general and for the Kamen Rider franchise in the Heisei era), including heavy emphasis on romantic drama and love triangles, and morally grey characters who vary between Jerk with a Heart of Gold and straight up Jerkass, arguably originated with the positive reception to their use in Jetman. With few exceptions, his numerous attempts to recreate the formula for Jetman’s success have proven far less popular.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • One of the episodes is titled "Gai Dies!". He came back after that. Guess what REALLY happened to him in the ending.
  • Related to the above example, In episode 7 Gai teases Ryu by saying he'll give a speech at his wedding, in the finale he was to be his friend's best man but never made it to the ceremony or the after party.
  • Another one for Gai's final fate, in episode #27, he, Raita and Ako's souls become trapped in Hell with their bodies slowly dying without them. Downplayed though, since Gokaiger reveals Gai is far from Hell.
  • In the finale, Gai succumbs to the stab wound inflicted by a mugger after having One Last Smoke. Toshihide Wakamatsu clarified on Twitter that the Birdronic Waves, while giving the Jetmen access to superhuman feats, have the side effect of becoming Drunk with Power and being unable to enjoy a peaceful life if they rely too much on it. Since the Jetmen gave back their Birdronic Waves after killing Radiguet (at least until twenty years later), they became vulnerable to conventional weaponry.
• He's Just Hiding: Some people still believe that after surviving the battles and explosions against the Vyram, one thug's mere stab isn't enough to kill Gai.
  • If you take the events of "Super Sentai World" as canon, he is still alive… Though it could also be taken that Super Sentai World takes place before Ryu and Kaori get married, thus Gai would get stabbed soon.
  • Back from the Dead: Apparently still made it alive in order to participate in Legends War. And he returns for real in future episodes… except that it's his ghost, he's really dead.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger's episode can count as one, showing that not even death will stop Gai from helping his old teammates in some form or another. He even sits back down on the same bench to take another look at the sky.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Gai, the Joe Expy is a smoker. Well, in the now aborted Gatchaman film by Imagi, early concept art of the characters included Joe smoking.
    • In the 2013 Gatchaman movie, the actor who played Shinken Red would also play as Ken the Eagle, who in turn is the inspiration for Red Hawk.
    • As stated, Rei/Maria got turned into a vampire towards the end. A fanfic adapting the series into a Power Rangers series, Power Rangers Take Flight would have a space vampire named Trask as one of the primary villains (he's one of the equivalents of Radiguet- Radiguet's normal form became Trask's armored form).
  • Dan the Birdman, is the love interest of the Blue Ranger/Blue Swallow, Ako Hayasaka. After the series is over, his actor (Hideki Fujiawara) played as the next Blue Ranger/Triceraranger of Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger, and his civilian name is also... Dan.
  • Another future Zyuranger, appears in this series, The Neo-Jetman's leader, J1, played by Yūta Mochizuki who would lead the next main team as Yamato Tribe Prince Geki AKA Tyranno Ranger
  • With nowadays scientific consensus that birds are currently living theropod dinosaurs, retrospectively, Jetman is the first dinosaur themed Sentai instead of the very next series, and much much more scientifically accurate.^note Although bird motif was used in some of the previous series, it only belongs to the Red Ranger, not the whole team.
  • Episode 7's Monster of the Week, Mirror Dimension, has the power to appear and trap people in mirrors, jump ahead eleven years and this becomes the main premise of the monsters of Kamen Rider Ryuki which also featured a white swan themed warrior falling for the main red hero. For bonus points, both series had Toshiki Inoue as a main writer and are counted among the most popular instalments in their respective franchises.
  • Episodes 30, 31, and 32 introduce the Majin, a duo of Sealed Evil in a Can demons that act on their whim, turn people into food to eat, and becoming stronger by absorbing others. Three years later, Dragon Ball releases the Majin Buu saga. For bonus points, the two Majins' servant is named Majin Mu, whose name and figure is similar to Buu's.
  • The Love Triangle of Tendo, Gai, and Kaori would be recreated in Voltes V: Legacy with the three pilots — Steve^note Kenichi in the Japanese version, Mark^note Ippei in the Japanese version, and Jamie^note Megumi in the Japanese version; which is never seen in the original anime. Matters help with Mark's actor, Radson Flores bears a striking resemblance to Gai's actor, Toshihide Wakamatsu.
  • With Jetman being the first Sentai series with female commander, Ultra Series would follow suit around four years later with Captain Iruma from Ultraman Tiga. Doubles as Heartwarming in Hindsight, as this coindides with the time period when feminist movements gained significant traction in Japan.
  • The squad loose their powers and are replaced by an anti hero team who utilise their abilities and weapons but don't understand what being a ranger entails who eventually learn better and return the team's powers. Are we talking about the Neo-Jetman or the Gokaigers?
• Ho Yay: Especially early on, between Ryū and Gai. Take this bit in Episode 3...
  Ryū: Behave yourself, Gai. I'll date you.
  (Later...)
  Gai: Why can't I get that guy out of my head!?
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Big Bad Radiguet is a Complete Monster (and one of the most depraved in the franchise at that), but he does have a cool design, a unique personality and a very big contribution of how much of a threat he and the Vyram are, which gives fans a reason to at least Love to Hate him. There is no one, however, who remotely likes Commander Akira Ichijou, who hates Commander Odagari to the point of firing the Jetman and treats their replacements like dirt. Not to mention leaving them to be killed by a monster to save himself, all while he's supposed to be on the heroic side and without any hint of influence from the Vyram.
• Jerkass Dissonance: In one episode while the group is out shopping, Gai decides to grab Kaori by the arm, drag her away from the others against her will, shove her into an elevator to isolate her from everyone else, and then invade her personal space as he demands to know why she doesn't love him instead of Ryu. Despite this and many more actions like this, he is one of the most popular characters in the whole of the Super Sentai franchise.
• Jerkass Woobie: The Neo Jetmen. They initially appear to be arrogant jerks, but quickly move into The Woobie territory when it's made clear how horrible their boss is, how unprepared for their jobs they are and that he views them as nothing more than replaceable tools.
• Love to Hate: Radiguet is considered one of the most evil villains ever produced by Sentai and loved for his cool design, badass scenes and his interactions with his own allies and the Jetmen, being one of the few Big Bad (technically) in the franchise who's using an extremely hands-on approach in fighting the heroes more often than letting his minions do the work, while hated at the same time for his sadistic personality combined with the horrible things he inflicted on the Jetmen.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Episode 18, for Radiguet. He loses his memory of being a Vyram after being banished by Juza, and is found by a girl named Saki, who falls in love with him. Saki is terminally sick and has been diagnosed with only six months to live. Radiguet, realizing he has supernatural powers and starting to fall in love with her too, manages to cure her. However, after stumbling upon Juza fighting the Jetmen, he remembers who he is, and wanting revenge, he helps the Jetmen kill Juza. Later, Saki, having witnessed his transformation, tries to persuade him to abandon his evil ways, saying that he must have some good in him since he cured her. He actually takes a minute to consider this, and it hints that he actually realizes he has redeeming qualities... but then he lashes out, vehemently stating to Saki that he doesn't feel love for anyone or anything. And after he proceeds to disintegrate her where she stands, we have reason to believe him.
  • If he didn't cross it then, he definitely crossed it in Episode 49. In perhaps his cruelest act, he kills Rie — who had recently emerged from her Maria personality — right in front of Ryū... but not because she betrayed him and literally stabbed him In the Back. He only killed her just so Ryū wouldn't get the girl he's after. If killing Saki didn't convince people that he had no humanity, killing Rie certainly proved how much of a petty, selfish, absolutely evil bastard he was.
  • Tran officially stops being harmless when he executes his scheme in Episode 36: it involves possessing humans with enchanted ants, to make them devour everything in sight, including livestock. Of course, that episode also marks the last appearance of Tran as a kid; in the end, he ages rapidly into Tranza and continues to one-up his harmful antics with even more dangerous plots.
• Narm: Toned down. Fans have noted that Radiguet normally would've looked ridiculous: he's a blue-skinned man with a headpiece that looks like the hat of a smurf to some. However, he makes up for it with his extreme sadism and ruthlessness without going over Narm Charm that people sometimes forget his smurf-like skin.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The Jetman game for the Famicom is considerably decent by licensed games standards, if a bit shallow. The developers, Natsume (of Harvest Moon fame) went on to develop the all of the Power Rangers games for the SNES (including the Gekisou Sentai Carranger game for the SuFami Turbo Super Famicom add-on), as well as some of the later Game Boy Color/Advance ones.
• Periphery Demographic: J-drama magazines of the time had coverage of Jetman, something not seen before or since from a Sentai.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Yutaka Hirose is now known for his voice acting career.
  • Toshihide Wakamatsu is seen in various leading roles in TV after the end of Jetman.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: The Love Triangle between Gai, Kaori, and Ryu takes up a huge chunk of screen time in the first half of the series.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The Jetman game for the Famicom has two of these:
  • The awkward button configuration "Select" button for pausing the game and "Start" button for using special bombs. Without emulator, there is no changing the button configuration, which often frustrates new gamers and old fans of the series replaying the game for nostalgia.
  • Mecha fights against boss kaiju characters are mandatory to proceed to the next stage, and if the Jetman lose, the game will end right there. The player has to start from the very beginning, unless they wrote the password after finishing each stages and activates it to continue their progress.
• Signature Scene:
  • Gai's final duel with Grey, ending with Gai lighting Grey's cigarillo for him as a show of respect for his Worthy Opponent.
  • The ending of the series — Ryu and Kaori's wedding and Gai's death by a mugger — is pretty much the most well remembered singular scene of the episode and the series in general, for how impactful and tragic it is. Not only is Gai's death referenced in anniversary series, but the ending was recreated in a Shot-for-Shot Remake in Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger and played it for absolute comedy.
• Special Effect Failure: During the final battle against Semimaru you can plainly see the soles of the shoes the stuntman within the Semimaru costume inside Semimaru's feet (most notably during the shot of Semimaru tumbling into a mountain range).
• Squick:
  • Episodes 17 and 18 have crystals growing out of the victims' bodies. Graphically. Ick.
  • Radiguet's Raguem form inexplicably has a long tongue, which he uses to grab hold of Jet Icarus and start biting on the shoulder — basically, giving Jet Icarus a hickey. Ugh. (This also raises all sorts of questions about Radiguet that we do not want to know the answers to.)
• Strangled by the Red String: Ryu and Kaori get married at the very end of the series, despite Ryu spending the whole series pining after Rie and Kaori spending the second half of the series with Gai. The wedding takes place two years after the battles with Vyram are over, so there must have been great development during those two years we never got to see. Still pretty odd, and could have been handled better.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Empress Juuza is introduced in Episode 17 and revealed to be the true Big Bad, a tyrant who conquered numerous worlds and is so powerful even the other Vyram (including Radiguet) fear her. She's defeated by the Jetman in the very next episode, and never appears again.
  • All the Vyram villains in general, while getting a lot of characterization, receive little in the way of backstory — it would have been interesting to see how Grey, the honorable robot, wound up working alongside a kid with telekinetic powers and a monstrous blue-skinned psychopath.
• Tough Act to Follow: Jetman is one of the most beloved Sentai series, so it was only natural that Zyuranger would face unfavourable comparisons.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Episode 22 features an Iggy Pop concert.

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