Almost Sentai: Toku Again: Still Waiting for.....

Originally posted on 16-9-2009
I am still waiting for two of the best non Japanese Sentai adaptations. I now have little hope of ever seeing the both of them any time soon. :(  
Jūshi Sentai France Five Episode 5 Fin. 

Before the Power Rangers landslide started for France they had 3 dubbed Sentai adaptations called the Bioman trilogy which consisted out of Bioman (of course), Maskman, and Liveman, (don't ask me why they didn't do Changeman or Flashman I'm still guessing that myself). Anyway just as you'd expect from a Sentai adaptation it was vastly popular and many French people still have fond nostalgic memories of their favorite old series. So in 2000 the low budget team of Buki X-1 Productions (Now X4 or X5 what ever) decided to make an  independent series with an equally low budget called Juushi Sentai France Five, which is largely based on the Bioman Trilogy, But also an old spoof fan film of Sentai made in 1982 by Daicon (which went on to become Gainax) called Aikoku Sentai Dainihon. Here's a video that compares those two franchises:

A Little Story By Wikipedia:  
Glou Man Chou, ruler of the empire Lexos, desires to conquer planet Earth. However, the Eiffel Tower generates a barrier around the planet that keeps him from sending his armies en masse. Glou Man Chou sends his warriors and monsters to Earth in order to destroy the tower and enable a full scale invasion, but they are opposed by the France Five.  In the fourth episode the shield is disabled and Lexos's army is shown prepared to invade the planet. 
 

There are six Rangers all based on things that make France great.
Antoine Deschaumes/Red Fromage (Cheese)
Thierry Durand/Black Beaujolais  (Whine)
Albert Dumas/Blue Accordéon (Accordion)
Jean Pétri/Yellow Baguette (Bread Stick)
Catherine Fontaine/Pink à la Mode (Fashion)
Aramis Leclair/Silver Mousquetaire  ( Musketeer)  (obviously based on X1 Mask them both being a 6th ranger and part of an original team and all)

Most of them fight in the French boxing style of Savant but Pink also uses Ballet. The mecha aren't made in Power Ranger levels you'd be used too. Its not a five piece mecha but an two piece mecha (Like Bio Robo the last main 2 piece mecha of the showa era) and the vehicles obviously look like they stole them from a child's art project. The transformation is stop motion and the finishing result is a guy in a cardboard Armour rather then high tech foam. Silver's personal mecha is a giant metal chicken which ain't that weird since Holland has its lion, America has its Eagle and France has its chicken nothing wrong with that little bit of originality IMO :)

My feel for this series
The first ep may have looked awful but I loved it all the same despite the awkwardly looking suits. The reason I liked it so much is mainly because of the decent storyline and the fact that it actually feels like I'm looking at an Showa Sentai series. After that 3 new more appealing episodes came out with some setbacks and cheese... lots of cheese... Until the fourth episode in 2004 which still has me sitting on the edge of my seat because it ended in a damn ~cliffhanger!!~(try to add an French accent to that :P). Which would eventually end in the last and finale episode of which the trailer suggests that its absolutely gonna ROCK!!!!. The only problem is that Buki X-1 (or rather X-4 by now)  is having problems with their cast since the most of them are busy with their own tv shows. So now I've waited 5 FRIGGIN years and counting!!!! Still wanna know why? just check the episode 5 trailer out.

 

Its damn awesome! and that pisses me off!! I don't wanna wait anymore V_V (I also wanna add that Antoine/ Red Fromage is more awesome then Jason, Rocky and Tommy put together despite his power being Cheese, simply because he reminds more of an actual old school Sentai leader :P)
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Editor's note: Lots has happened since I first posted this. It turns out that France did get Changeman and Flashman, but they weren't part of the Bioman trilogy. And recently Hikari Senshi fansubs released the first 3 episodes subbed here: Link. They are low quality but that's all the encodes they could find. The 4th is on hold due to a lack of French translators. And we did have some news on Episode 5, it turns out one of the designers posted a few pictures of upgrades for the team and a new Gransazer-quality mecha. Sadly that same designer has removed them from his site and there's no further news. Guess we still have to wait for that final reveal (preferable before the whole cast dies of old age)