"Dengeki!! Strada 5": 1974 Tokusatsu series, episode five of thirteen recap

 

 Air Dates: April 5th until June 28, 1974 on NET-TV(now Asahi-TV), Fridays at 7:30 pm

Series subbed by Big Nova Subs, Dengeki can mean Lightning in Japanese but there is no word in the language for Strada though in Italian means Road.

One thing you can always count on in a Sentai/Tokusatsu series is an opening theme song which is such an upbeat one. Will leave this video up at the top for all of the recaps which features the opening song plus a bit of dialogue from the narrator who was Eiji Maruyama, the song was sung by Charlie Choi and Young Fresh.

 

 

 This was just a thirteen episode series but does have quite a bit of history behind it. At first the show was scheduled to be 26 episodes as most were back then but the original filming had to be put on hold in August 1973 because of various problems. So when the cast assembled again none had the time to film an entire 26 show series so it was cut in half and though not as well known as most other older Sentai or Tokusatsu shows it does seem to have a cult following. I have noticed many toys, comic books, models and such for this show so it may have been popular while it aired. These days Super Hero shows usually air on Sunday mornings but back from the 1960's to 80's they often aired in prime time, this one did at 7:30 pm on Friday nights. This was also scheduled to be a semi-sequel to the "Wild 7" series but in the end run never was, that's a show which looks interesting and while I have found the entire series it was never subbed.

 An episode lasts for 24 minutes yet this may be one of the larger intro sections, longer than for dramas where the episodes are twice the length! After the character bios will also have more info plus such things as the cars the Heroes drive, those are right above. Did call this a Tokusatsu series in the title and will continue to do so though it's not officially one of them nor a Sentai show either. Tokusatsu means a show or movie that has a lot of special effects such as a monster shooting lasers from his eyes, a Human transforming into a creature five times his size, etc. This series will have very little of that but is very similar to those kinds of shows. It's also similar to a Sentai show, in those the main characters use special guns, have unique powers and the like, a good example of that would be a Kamen Rider or Dekaranger series. In this show there's a little bit of both as humans are the Heroes and do use weapons to protect the Earth from being taken over, sure most who are reading this know what I'm talking about. After the character bios will have a mini section with the weapons and vehicles they use.

 Have only viewed the first two episodes so of course there will be some changes to the stories and it was nice going into a show not knowing too much of what will be taking place. A nice bonus was having Jo Shishido as the leader for the Strada 5 group, he's one of my all time favorite actors. He was very popular but after the 1960's TV became more of the 'in thing' to do instead of going to the Cinema so Shishido and others had to take roles such as this though nothing wrong with being in these kinds of shows. He still appeared in many movies but just not as many, bet he just filmed his scenes in 2-3 days and then they were inserted into the thirteen episodes. Let's get to the characters, there's five on the Strada 5 team along with their commander and the one enemy who is Mr. Asmodeus. He's the leader of the evil group Big Nova and think he will have a different person in each show carry out his orders to destroy the world so those seven should be it for characters. Each show will have it's own title, that is the first screenshot below which I will change for every episode and it also has the air date....

**** The members of Dengeki Strata 5 all have numbers, will go in order from one to five. They also have civilian names so will list them and also the names which they use when fighting as a team. Each member also has a unique ability which is why there were chosen to be on the Dengeki Strada 5 team, will say what those strengths are in their bios. You have to chuckle now and again at things such as that, these five have such powers that only they can defend the Earth and none of the world's super powers can assemble a larger or more powerful force? The five work for an organization named the International Police, nothing else is known about them.

Toru Okazaki as Kansuke Hotta aks Pegasus.... The son of a detective who of course was also named Hotta. He was murdered by the Big Nova group at the beginning of the first show, naturally Kansuke wants revenge and will usually use Hotta when referring to him. Hotta is often paired up with the next character who had been his father's partner and did witness the man dying. So Hotta felt his father's murder could have been prevented which wasn't the case, the tensions are often high between the two but will slowly cool off. Hotta is a bit of a hothead but also a very skilled fighter plus is an ace marksman, when he's not saving the planet Hotta is a race car driver!

 Takeo Chii as Genjiro Tonomura aka Orion.... Is only a few years older than the younger Hotta above so don't why Tonomura had been working with his father. Tonomura had been a detective and as of now don't think he still is after watching the elder Hotta get killed by the Big Nova group. There was zero Tonomura could have done to prevent the death and the younger Hotta shouldn't be blaming him but both will defend each other in their battles to save the Earth! It appears that Tonomura quit being a detective and now works at a hospital lab, he's an expert at disguises. **** Takeo became even more popular as the years went on, have seen him in a few other movies. In future posts will talk about him more along with a few of the other main characters. EDIT: Not sure yet but have the feeling Tonomura wasn't a FT detective and actually may have been on a Strata 5 assignment with the elder Hotta. If so that may mean he too was with the team and hope that gets explained later on.

 Tatsuto Go as Kazunen Takenaka aka Apollo.... Is a Monk who oversees a small temple and does have quite a sense of humor. Takenaka was chosen to be on the team for his powerful strength as he is one very strong man but also has the best deductive abilities.

Shinya Ono as Tadashi Takagi aka Luna.... Works as a car mechanic when not on the team but is even more skilled than that. For Takagi was chosen for being a master at defusing bombs and deciphering codes, because of those he could be the most key member of Dengeki Strada 5.

 Yuri Yamashina as Kaori Hoshi aka Andromeda.... The only female on the team and that's often the case in shows such as this one. When not helping the team Kaori works as a fashion model and why not as she is ultra attractive! Kaori's biggest strength is her Telepathic powers, she can see tragic events in the future and almost all are evil acts done by Big Nova. However Kaori cannot often decipher what she has seen, that's where the deductive skills of the Monk Apollo come in handy.

Jo Shishido as Terujiro Takamura aka Jupiter.... Will always refer to him as Jupiter and as mentioned what a famous actor he was. Many of the team call him Chief, Jupiter is the commander of the five that he chose personally to defend the Earth and know zero to date about his background. Jupiter drives around in a truck named Headstrong, in the back is the HQ of Dengeki Strada 5 where he meets the members and is also the place where Jupiter makes contacts with his superiors who are the International Police.

Goro Hayakawa as the physical Mr.Asmodeus, the voice was done by Shozo Izuka.... Don't know why the man donning the suit couldn't have also been the voice. Mr. Asmodeus is the leader of he evil organization Big Nova, in every show he creates a foolproof plan to destroy the world or at least Tokyo but none of those plans are ever foolproof! Mr. Asmodeus always wears a mask to make him appear to be an alien but is he one? We only ever see Mr. Asmodeus in his secret lair and he never does any of the fighting. That he assigns to a different subleader for each show, failure is not acceptable and if that leader fails Death is what awaits them, that may happen in each episode! It appears the HQ for Mr. Asmodeus is very advanced, he can send videos of himself to any spot and often does to Strada 5 warning them of their demise! Mr. Asmodeus is in the top screenshot, the leader for this episode is in the second. If the subleader is a woman will refer to her as Maki, if a man it will be Abe. For the third episode in a row it was a man and for the first time this person had a name which was Professor Oi.

 As far as weapons go the Heroes don't have powerful ones that you will see in other series. They all have Shotguns but no laser guns but do use Flamethrowers, Grenades and a Baton that has a built in Knife. Unlike Sentai shows where the heroes will say a special command and change instantly into their costume the Strada 5 carry their weapons and uniforms in a case so have to change into them, always right after the action begins. The five also wear a special red pendant around their necks which doubles as a radio transmitter, the female Andromeda uses it often to tell her mates of what doom is impending. It also seems in each episode we see another new gadget but one that's only used once.

 Though there's five members of the team there's only four vehicles, the fifth is the Headstrong HQ truck driven by their commander Jupiter. Below are the four vehicles the team uses along with Jupiter's truck, to date it doesn't appear any of the four used in combat are anything special though all are very speedy. The four are Flying Pesagus used by Hotta aka Pesagus, Tri-Shark used by Tonomura aka Orion, Red used by Takagi aka Luna and Ladybird which is shared by the Monk Apollo and the only female Andromeda. **** This is a long intro section but also helps you out immensely as you can refer back to this for so much info about everything, I use it often too. 

 

Previous recaps

 It wouldn't affect the view counts and it's something that has been mentioned before which would help you viewers follow a series better. Which is that after reading the first 2-3 recaps and you find out it's a series you would want to read all of the recaps it could be better to wait until I have finished recapping the entire drama. If you wait until the end you can click on the bottom links to read the posts in order which would make following the series so much easier and you would also understand that took place much better.

Episode one .... Episode two .... Episode three

 

 Not easy to tell in most screenshots but Yuri above as Kaori aka Andromeda did have quite an attractive face and more on her in future recaps. Over the years have developed a habit which isn't a bad one but would like to change it. When I begin on a drama only do posts for that show and not other dramas or movies until I have finished recapping the entire series. So want to learn to perhaps recap half a series, take ten days off and do other things such as movie reviews and then start back up on that drama. So will start with this series, after today will take a break until I watch and review two movies which should be 7-10 days. This is only a thirteen episode drama but you viewers and myself can get a bit weary about reading the same kinds of recaps for a few weeks.

 Sentai and Tokusatsu shows are ones I really enjoy but will admit they can become much more tiring than regular dramas. Most storylines are about the heroes fighting the same organization that wants to rule the Earth and after a while you do tend to lose interest. That's happened to me in the past and even with regular dramas that are long ones. So for now on will take at least a week break from shows that are longer than eight or perhaps ten episodes so the next recaps for this show will be in a week. Let's get to this episode's action, all shows have been fun and interesting to date but to me the first four were better but then again did talk about getting weary with a drama when viewing too many episodes in a row.

 As I've said before though he's not the best fighter or at least compared to his mates the most important member of Dengeki Strata 5 could be the auto mechanic Takagi aka Luna. He's an ace at defusing bombs and is also the best at deciphering codes, these were prehistoric days for computers. Two episodes ago Luna began to work on a new invention called the Image Vision device, it was for his teammate Andromeda to use. She has strong Telepathic powers and can see a day or two into the future to predict what their arch enemy the Big Nova group has planned. The problem had been of Andromeda having a difficult time understanding her visions and/or seeing them clearly and often needs the help of her Strada 5 mates to figure out what the details of her visions mean, Apollo helps her out the most. The Image Vision device isn't perfected yet but the Dengeki Strada 5 commander Jupiter has confidence in it and will trust it for the team's next assignment. Jupiter handed out those briefcases full of screenshots that were taken of Andromeda's visions, considering this drama was from 1974 that device was very impressive!!!! It appears there's also a portable version but we never saw that put to work, the first case for this new device was of a kidnapping which is the third time in five shows it's been part of the main story. Hard to tell in the third screenshot but the man on the right is the abductee, he's also on the left in two lower screenshots and his name is Keisuke Hondo. 

 Keisuke worked as a researcher and at first we didn't know what he had been working on but it had to be important if he was kidnapped. The man responsible happened to be Keisuke's elder at this unnamed research center, he's in the fourth and fifth screenshots. This man's name was Professor Oi, in the fifth screenshot you can see him talking with the devilish Mr. Asmodeus who the Strada 5 have defeated in the first four shows. This fiend is the commander of the Big Nova criminal group and somehow the respected professor Oi has become a high ranking member. His mission was to get the details of a new creation of Keisuke and his brother's called the Brain Control Device, by it's name you can figure out some of what it's meant to do but it is a very complicated device. Also a very important one as Keisuke refused to divulge any of the device's secrets but Professor Oi wasn't too worried as there was also Keisuke's brother Shinji who was the co-inventor of the device. An attempt was made to kidnap Shinji by the Big Nova group but that was foiled by the Dengeki Strada 5 though Shinji ended up in the hospital. The Strada 5 knew the kidnapping was gong to happen thanks to the vision of Andromeda but had no clue yet why Big Nova wanted Shinji. What they also failed to notice or at least at first was that Shinji was missing his right arm, he lost that at the age of ten when he was hit by a car and his brother Keisuke blames himself for the tragedy. But losing his right arm didn't prevent Shinji from becoming a respected researcher and he was the co-inventor of the Brain Control Device, he's lying in a hospital room but of course that won't stop Big Nova from attempting another kidnapping.

 Big Nova will lose the main battle at the end of each episode but are a tough opponent for the Dengeki Strada 5 team. They too are advanced as they had planted a recording device in the roses next to Shinji's hospital bed, somehow the eagle-eyed Orion noticed it. Shortly after the room was attacked by a team of Big Nova henchmen, they're not as inept as other goons in Sentai shows and were able to beat back the Strada 5 team long enough to kidnap Shinji! Which meant both Hondo brothers are now at the Big Nova HQ and for the fifth time their plans to abolish Tokyo and then the world are set to begin! The Big Nova subleader in this show was the professor Oi who had been a colleague of Keisuke's at whatever institute they had worked at and Oi was quite intelligent when it came to matters of Science. But he had no clue on where to begin with the Brain Control Device, Keisuke wouldn't talk nor of course would his brother Shinji, the device consists of two parts and here's what the Brain Control Device is. I have no idea how advanced these kinds of things were back in 1974 but to me what the brothers created was very impressive. Said earlier in the recap that at the age of ten Shinji had lost his right arm in an accident but that's unnoticeable when wearing long sleeves and even the Strada 5 team didn't notice Shinji's arm at first. Which was made of metal but could move as it was controlled via waves from Shinji's brain, hence the name of Brain Control Device. Shinji had designed the very small part that would be inserted into a person's brain, his older brother Keisuke the actual metal arm.

 Which has worked like a charm for Shinji but no other person uses such a device and Keisuke wanted to keep it that way. For he felt if this creation should fall into the wrong hands it could be used for endless acts of evil and that's what Big Nova had planned. They would use the device to insert metal arms onto some of their henchmen to create an Assassin Team, that metal arm can be adjusted to be extremely strong so that it could knock down walls and such!!!! With neither brother talking the evil professor Oi first gave Shinji some truth serum and he began to write out the designs for the Brain Control Device, Oi also inserted one of the small chips into Keisuke's brain for a demonstration and what a powerful arm it was. Much of what was described is in the screenshots right above and it wouldn't be too long until Professor Oi and Big Nova have the complete Brain Control designs, will the Dengeki Strada 5 team save the Hondo brothers before it's too late? Thanks to Andromeda's Telepathic powers one of their secret lairs was discovered but the team was held back on their attack, it wasn't where the Hondo brothers were currently being held hostage but had been and Pegasus was captured in the fracas. The Strada 5 team doesn't have advanced and powerful weapons like other Super Heroes do but have had their share of odd devices which have saved the day. Such as what is in the bottom screenshot above, it's a piece of Gum that Pegasus was chewing when captured, he was thrown into a van and was being brought to the location where the Hondo brothers are. Pegasus spit out that Gum and arising out of it was a small transmitter(!), it sent out radio waves of the location where Pegasus was being held and Jupiter picked up the signal back at his Headstrong van.

 Made that middle segment a bit too long as there's only five minutes to go in the episode. But needed to explain the details of the Brain Control Device, it takes longer to write something like that out compared to talking out lod about it. Besides Shinji now his brother Keisuke has also been brainwashed, that's in the top screenshot and Keisuke had one of those fake metal arms inserted on to him that the Big Nova team will be using. You would think a team of assassins would be more effective using weapons but such powerful arms is such a huge advantage in a physical fight. That the Dengeki Strada 5 team found out the hard way when they arrived at this secret Big Nova hideaway/laboratory. Knowing this was going to be a difficult fight their commander Jupiter joined his team, it wasn't too hard bringing down the regular Big Nova henchmen but the brainwashed Hondo brothers were another story. Those metal arms are just so strong and they were having their way against the Strada 5 team and it appeared for once they would come out on the losing end, perhaps not even surviving! But back at the Big Nova HQ Pegasus by now had freed himself and cut off the brain waves that were controlling the Hondo brothers and stopped their unbeatable attack. The sinister professor Oi slipped out but before that and had planted a bomb at the HQ, that's right above.

 This melee had been going on right outside the Big Nova HQ, Keisuke and Shinji were now back to normal and entered the building to grab their belongings and make sure the Brain Control Device plans were destroyed. But a few seconds after they entered the bomb went off killing the two brothers, that was an unexpected tragedy so in a way there was no happy ending. Least the Big Nova team didn't get those invaluable plans and their leader Mr. Asmodeus did kill professor Oi for failing to complete the mission but at the end the Dengeki Strada 5 team didn't have much to smile about. Their commander Jupiter told his team events such as this will be the norm in the future which is true as they've continued on for all Sentai shows the last fifty years! So ends this recap, with episodes being jut 24 minutes in length sometimes the endings seem a bit rushed, have said that about other shows too but besides that have no complaints about this fun n exciting series. Below are more screenshots of the action, will be back in ten days with the next pair of recaps.