Akibaranger E11 TL Notes

Akibaranger E11 TL Notes
***Original Over-Time TL Notes are denoted with a dash (-). Additional notes/changes by OZC-Live are denoted with a tilde (~)***

- This episode is a dead-on parody of retooling on Toei tokusatsu shows. Just as Akagi describes in the episode, executives sometimes steer a show away from its initial direction in order to boost up ratings and improve the merchandise sales. The methods are usually the three Akagi also mentions: swapping cast members, raising the odds, and adding extra plot twists. The most infamous example of retooling and executive meddling on Toei tokusatsu shows is Kamen Rider Hibiki; very much like Akibaranger on this episode, several changes were introduced on the show within a few episodes, drastically changing its tone and direction.

- To start off and make Akibaranger into a proper Sentai, the show's given a new, more official narrator in the voice of Hironori Miyata, voice actor of Fuuraimaru on Hurricaneger, and narrator of Dairanger and Shinkenger.

- Obviously, the former Red is leaving, so the "Unofficial Sentai... Akibaranger!" shout at the beginning of the opening has been updated to include the new Red.

- If you pay attention; right until the end of the episode, the show refrains from using the most otaku-ish tracks from its soundtrack, to the point of not using the regular nyanyanya-nyanya BGM on the eyecatches.

- The segment where Akagi gives his MMZ to Takuma is a parody of cast member replacement scenes on Sentai shows, where a core cast member is replaced with another in order to shake up the ratings. Due to the unplanned nature of these changes, these scenes were often shoddily put together; altering existing footage, compositing old members next to new members, bad audio synching, the lines from separately recorded scenes not matching up, ADR dialog not matching the mouth movements in the recorded scene, etc.

Coincidentally, you can see a bit of this on Sun Vulcan episode 23, the episode that's being parodied here. For example, if you look at the final scene where the commander and the other members say goodbye to Oowashi, you'll see that none of their mouths are actually moving.

- The enemies are given a more traditional look in the form of the Delusion Empire, most likely as a shoutout to Bioman's Doctorman and his Neo Empire Gear. The flag of the Delusion Empire resembles quite suspiciously the one from Gundam's Zeon, on the colors and emblem shape.
(Fun fact: the script had Sieg Dr. Z in the final draft of the script. Sorry Heat. :V)

 Also, the Corporate Drones no longer chant "overtime!" or "quota" during the battle scenes, but "medals!". (Thanks !O1ZETSuboU)

- The Akibaranger are given color-matched jackets in the style of the official teams' jackets. Just like official clothes, too, you can acquire these jackets from bandai's online website (with the help of your middleman of choice, of course!)
 http://p-bandai.jp/fashion-net/character/akiba/item-1000076340/

- Kozkoz and Hakase are changed to fit their roles as support characters of the heroes. Through most of the episode, the girls wear the clothes of a female soldier from Ohranger's military organization U.A.O.H, and a female commander from Jetman, respectively. They're also somehow able to scan enemies remotely and detect their weak points.
 * Kozkoz mentions detecting a super particle signature, possibly a dig to Ohranger's Super Powers.

- In case you've forgotten that Takuma really looks like GekiBlue, the writers will be happy to remind you of this fact several times through the episode:
  * The Akibarangers' new roll calls are a blatant parody of Gekiranger's, from reciting an elaborate sentence while displaying their martial arts form, to then announcing their "title" in english. Compare theirs to Gekiranger's here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clijLXBQ9wY#t=0:55
   + The order of the roll call is changed from Red-Blue-Yellow to Red-Yellow-Blue, to match Geki's roll call order.
   + The "Let's Shine!" is a shoutout to Sun Vulcan's roll call, while the spinkicks could be a shoutout to Go-onger's roll call.

  * The Akibaranger adopt a "Heart-Body-Techinique" scheme, lifted straight from Gekiranger. In Gekiranger, the three main rangers formed a Triangle, with each of them mastering a particular element of the Geki Jyuken Style: the "body" (GekiRed), the "heart" (GekiYellow) and the "technique" (GekiBlue). This configuration is switched around a bit in Akibaranger, in order to match the Akibaranger's personality traits.

  * Takuma is given two animal-themed techniques, Surge Mice and Surge Jaguar. In Gekiranger, the rangers could summon animal spirits called GekiBeasts that would materialize briefly to strike an opponent.
   + "Surge Jaguar": an obvious dig to GekiBlue's Gekibeast, GekiJaguar.
   + "Surge Mice" (サージマイス) is a reference to "Salvage Mice" (サルベージ・マイス), a movie directed by Ryuta Tasaki, director of this episode of Akibaranger.
     (This could also be a two-way reference to Geki, as GekiBlue trained under Bat Li and learned bat-themed techniques, though this is just a personal guess.)

- A bunch of gun nerds would like to let you know that the guns used on the scene with the "American soldiers" are FAMAS G2 rifles, the service rifle of the French army. The current service rifle of the American army is the M16.