A Heavy-Armored History
B-Fighter; however, has more obvious roots within the genre of Toei's Metal Hero series, going back to Hatte's own revolutionary Space Sheriff Gavan (1982), about a law-enforcing robot which predated America's own RoboCop. Early Metal Hero series such as the super-dimension warrior Speilvan (1986) and super machine Metalder (1987), both of which had their battle action sequences and characters converted by Saban for American television into V.R. Troopers, confronted all varieties of mutant alien invaders as they fought to protect the Earth. These incredible battles would sometimes extend into other dimensions and eerie alternative universes. In the 90s, however, the Metal Hero formula took a radical departure from these established conventions with super police and special rescue series such as Windspector ( 1989), Solbrain (1991) and Exceedraft (1993). In these series, specially-trained law enforcement agents would don super-armored battle suits on missions of civilian or national defense against high-tech criminals and terrorists. This shift into a more futuristic setting without bizarre monsters, aliens, mutants or alternative dimensions was a controversial move that lost some of the viewing audience, while enticing a new generation of fans. But eventually, popular demand would open the door to let creatures back in by the time of Blue Swat (1994), the series that preceded B-Fighter.
Earth's Great Crisis
The series of Heavy Armored Beetle Fighter is set against the
conceptual environment of an Earth that faces the threat of invasion from
another dimension. The Jamahl Empire, under the leadership of Emperor
Gaohm and his commanding generals, Jera, Shuvaults and Gigaro, sets its
goal of conquest upon the dimensional domination of Earth. Sudden unprecedented
swarms of erratic insect behavior precede the impending doom of Jamahl,
while at the Japanese branch of the Earth Academia, the development of special
bio-machinery technology continues. The study of insects such as beetles,
and the natural use of their exoskeletons as a coat of armor, has been the
primary focus of this particular project. Entomologist Takuya Kai (Daisuke
Tsuchiya) encounters the mystical, insectiod extraterrestrial Guru during
a jungle expedition. This sentient, beetle-like sage warns of the approaching
menace of Jamahl and extends his magic to Earth Academia in order to aid
in the terrestrial defense. When the activation of the prototype robo-armored
units fails, Guru brings the bio-machinery to an advanced level at which
they respond like living insect armor. Transformed by the life energy of
beetles as channeled by Guru, these new and Beetle Fighters step forward
and convert the essence of their forms into three hand-held devices called
B-Commanders. Takuya accepts the device that allows him to transform
into Blue Beet, the leader of the B-Fighters. The other B-Commanders
seek out two particularly defiant humans who have been taken prisoner by
the Jamahl soldiers. Before they can be executed, Rei Hayama(Reina Kazuki) and Daisaku Katagiri (Shigeru Kanai) gain the ability to become Reddle and G-Stag and join forces with Earth Academia. Together with their arsenal of special weapons and battle vehicles, the B-Fighter team becomes Earth's primary defense against Jamahl and its many monsters. Throughout the 53 episode series, the battles of the B-Fighter team carry them into the alternative dimensions of Jamahl, in which the evil invaders hope to trap and someday destroy the armored heroes.
A Galaxy of Heroes and Villains
Later in the series, Mai Takatori (Chigusa Tomoe), a young officer from the South American branch of Earth Academia, replaces Rei as Reddle. Just when it appears that the B-Fighter team has gained the advantage against Jamahl, the villains perfect the anti-Beetle Fighter, Black Beet. Black Beet's true identity turns out to be Shadow, the dark clone of Takuya manufactured by Jamahl from the young hero's cells and he proves himself to be a formidable opponent. A new white-armored B-Fighter named Kabuto emerges to meet the challenge of Black Beet. The son of Guru, Kabuto joins the B-Fighter team and the series concludes with the final destruction of Gaohm. A special two part finale features the team-up of the B-Fighter team and former Toei heroes Jan Person and Gun Gibson from the 1993 series Janperson, as well as the heroes from Blue Swat. The teams join forces to battle the sudden arrival of the demonic creature Jaghoul and hammers the final nail in the coffin of further inter dimensional threats.
B-Fighter: The Next Generation
The popularity of B-Fighter on Asahi TV paved the way for an immediate sequel in 1996 entitled B-Fighter Kabuto. (Kabuto is the Japanese word for helmet or head-piece. The kanji combination of kabutomushi means helmet beetle, a reference to the family of rhinoceros beetle which is the main symbolic motif of the B-Fighter concept). This series introduced the expansion of Earth Academia into Cosmo Academia where an even stronger B-Fighter armor, the Neo-Insect Armor has been developed, along with a new arsenal of weapons and vehicles. Takuya and Guru have pushed their combination of bio-machinery science technology and magic to the next level. Their timing is perfect because a new threat is reaching out to seize the world. An ancient race of prehistoric creatures has evolved into the Melzard Tribe. Arising to claim the surface world like devils, the imperial family beneath the empress Mother Melzard has become divided over the millennia into two primary military clans. Leading the land creatures is the powerful dinosaur general, Raija, eldest son of the Empire. Beneath him, the insectoid female fencer, Miohra, serves as commander of his body-guard troops and mutant soldiers. Leading the aquatic creatures is the deep-sea fish-man, Dezul, second son of the Empire. The seashell chamberlain, Dord, commands Dezul's troops and mutant soldiers. To counter Melzard, a new, young generation of B-Fighters steps up to the challenge. Kohei Toba (Hideomi Nakazato) is a particularly diligent teenage scholar excelling equally in school academics and athletics. He becomes the great golden warrior of power, B-Fighter Kabuto, initiating the transformation with the insertion of a special input card into the hand-held Command Voicer. Kengo Tachibana (Naoto Adachi), a Cosmo Academia student of environmental research, accepts the transformation to B-Fighter Kuwagar. Ran Ayukawa (Yukina Kurisu), the young Cosmo Academia electric engineering expert working in the area of electronic computer brain development and research, takes on the identity of B-Fighter Tento.
The New Kids on the Block
As the war with Melzard escalates, the younger heroes receive a helping
hand from their elder predecessors, Blue Beet, G-Stag, and Reddle, although
the B-Fighter genus doesn't end there. A lethal group of armored villains
known as the B-Crushers arise to specifically eliminate the B-Fighter team.
The B-Crusher enemies, Deathcorpion, Killmantis, Mukadelinger and Oeezack
are matched by the new forces of yet more B-Fighter warriors, BF Genji,
BF Yanma, BF Min, and BF Ageha, who are more than ready to face the challenge
of the B-Crushers. And if that doesn't spell out a growing Super Sentai
influence to everyone, then check this out: the introduction of gigantic beetle
robots, Kabuterios, the great armored god of the astral saber, and Kuwaga
Titan, the great armored god of injustice. For those of you who have
yet to catch up on your Ultraman or Masked Rider lineage's,
beware: the B-Fighters are multiplying fast! It seems as though the
Saban-Toei relationship has come full circle, as the youthful BF heroes of
BF Kabuto appear to display a particular touch of influence from the American
teenage Power Rangers or VR Troopers. I'm also reminded
of several U.S. criticisms of the Saban versions in which they were compared
to Sid and Marty Krofft shows; the seashell chamberlain, Dord, in particular,
looks like something that washed ashore from the set of Sigmund and the
Sea Monsters.The Inevitable Americanization
Having hit the high-ratings bulls-eye with young American
viewers through the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, V.R. Troopers,
and Masked Rider, it was inevitable that Haim Saban and Shuki Levy
would soon extend their grasp to the B-Fighter universe. Their
method of buying up Toei's live-action television hero properties and creating
altered versions that have extracted the original Japanese casts and replaced
them with young American actors who mainstream American audiences can better
relate to has become the trademark of Saban Entertainment. Although
greeted with contemptuous disdain by most American fans of Toei's traditional
Japanese tokusatsu television heroes (some even consider the replacement
of Japanese actors to be racist), a new generation of western youth became
infatuated with these programs since the premiere of Mighty Morphin Power
Rangers. And even as the once untouchable ratings of that benchmark
series began to subside, enough dedicated fans remained to keep the format
alive and kicking on American television. Or alive with "less" kicking,
anyway, as the most vocal opponents to Saban's shows have been U.S. parental
media watchdog groups and some educational children's television advocates
who repeatedly insist that these programs encourage violence among young
viewers in a society that they depict as a wasteland of juvenile delinquency.
Using Saban as a convenient scapegoat for infinitely more complex social
problems and has created a backlash against these programs and has directed
a flood of pressure against Saban to tone down the action. This influence
has steered the course of Saban productions from the likes of V.R. Troopers,
perhaps the closest effort Saban has ever offered in approaching any semblance
of the original Toei-styled action hero dramas with respect for the martial
arts, to an overly comedic and simplistic version of Toei's intricate Kamen
Rider series. From here, we enter the current climate in the U.S.
where we find ratings codes preceding the programming in question, and the
Saban shows in particular, with the issue of television fantasy violence
having taken some precedence in debate even on Capital Hill over such subjects
as poverty or education. For B-Fighter, it could not have been
a more unfortunate time in which to enter the landscape of American television.
Over time, Saban has utilized less and less of the original Toei action
footage in their U.S. productions to a point in which the final versions
of the latest Power Ranger adventures or Saban's Masked Rider
have seen a continued decreasing resemblance to their Original Japanese counterparts.
When B- Fighter was converted into Big Bad Beetleborgs for
U.S. television, the Japanese version was scarcely recognizable at all. Outside
of the costumes and vehicles, which happen to be the major marketing elements
for Bandai's toy line, nothing survived, conceptually or in spirit.
Opening with the hour-long premiere episode, "Beetle Rock," written
by Shuki Levy and Shell Danielson and produced by Robert Hughes, alongside
supervising producers Michael Montgomery and Scott Page-Pagter with direction
by Shuki Levy for the Fox Children's Network, Big Bad Beetleborgs
established its basic premise in the setting of an old haunted house known
as Hillhurst, on the outskirts of Charterville. Challenging the dare of two
local kids, three children, Andrew McCormick ("Drew" as portrayed by Wesley
Barker), his little sister, Josephine ("Jo" as played by Shannon Chandler),
and their best friend Roland Williams (Herbie Baez) enter Hillhurst where
they accidentally free an eccentric ghost that calls himself Flabber, the
Phasm. Flabber, portrayed in an overwhelmingly overboard comedic style by
Billy Forester that treads on the heels of Jim Carry's heavily physical performances,
wears facial makeup that visually spoofs Jay Lenno's pronounced features and
sports a nearly indescribable wardrobe that ignites memories of Liberache
when seated at the magical pipe organ. In appreciation for his newfound freedom,
Flabber uses his magical Phasm powers to grant the kids a favorite wish.
Their choice: to become their favorite super heroes out of a recent popular
comic book called "Beetleborgs." The Blue Stinger Borg, (Blue Beet in the
Japanese version), merges with Drew, the Red Striker Borg (Reddle) becomes
Jo and the Green Hunter Borg's identity (G-Stag) is bestowed upon Roland.
They transform by using their hand-held Beetlebonders (B-Commanders) and
shouting "Beetle Blast!" An unpredicted residue of powers extends to the
kids when in their normal bodies, giving Drew telekinesis, Jo super strength
and Roland super speed.