Isao Sasaki & Koorogi '73 -- Himitsu Sentai Gorenger（秘密戦隊ゴレンジャー）

 

It was about a decade ago when I posted an article on the first opening theme song for the 1970s tokusatsu hero show "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger"（秘密戦隊ゴレンジャー...Secret Task Force Five Rangers）. Quaint is how I would put it considering I began the article with my assessment of the superhero movies coming out in 2016 at that point. My opinions on those MCEU and DCEU movies haven't changed, and the first "Dr. Strange" flick did turn out to be a solid if not incredible addition to the Marvel franchise. Well since then, let's say that Phase 5 of the master plan behind the MCEU hasn't been all that impressive to me although I'm hoping for great things for the new "Spider-Man" and "Avengers" entries later this year.

I was talking about the conventional comic book movies back then when I wrote about "Susume! Gorenger"（進め! ゴレンジャー）. A few years later came the televised adaptation of "The Boys" which has managed to attract, entrance and shock the heck out of the pop culture fandom, and it's coming to a close with this final season that's on right now, and the video above is what I'm thumbnailing this article with. I don't subscribe to Amazon Prime Video but there has already been a ton of video evidence on the first few episodes shown along with reaction videos, and yep, the producers and the cast have managed to continue to pop viewers' eyeballs. 

Let's go back to the 1970s then and Japan in particular when these hero programs had no shades of gray or hidden agendas at least not on the heroic side. Good was good and evil was evil, and so go the team members of the Five Rangers. 

Usually when I saw and heard these tokusatsu programs, the opening theme was peppy, brassy and appropriately courageous while the closing them was more ballad-like and introspective. However, the first ending theme for "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger", the simply titled "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger", just keeps up the upbeat times of being a superhero of punching and sweep-kicking the henchmen (plus the kids must have loved emulating the onomatopoeia!). As was the case with the "Susume! Gorenger", the legendary Isao Sasaki（ささきいさお）manned the microphone but this time he was backed up by Koorogi '73（こおろぎ'73）instead of the Columbia Yurikago Kai (コロムビアゆりかご会), I guess, for a bit more gravitas in the delivery. Master tokusatsu composer Chumei Watanabe（渡辺宙明）was behind the music while at least one of the originating Toei Company producers wrote the lyrics under the collective pseudonym of Saburo Yatsude（八手三郎）. "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger" was the B-side to the original "Susume! Gorenger" single released in April 1975.