User reviews

For a "kiddie" show, Bioman was ahead of its time in almost all aspects. Although part of the long running sentai (battle team) series, Bioman stands out for being a pioneer. The first sentai to have two female members and no standard "finishing move", Bioman's quantum leap from the previous year's Dynaman in terms of costumes and SFX quickly made it a fan favorite in Japan and around the world. The show in general has a mature (for kiddie shows) tone, although a few episodes DO degenerate into kiddie fanfare plots. Still, long before Power Rangers (which can never be described as "ahead of its time" or "mature"), it was Bioman that introduced a whole generation of fans (especially in France and in my native Philippines) to sentai..., no, to Japanese tokusatsu (special effects) superhero shows in general. Even if you hate Power Rangers, (which is basically kiddified sentai), you might find something to appreciate in Bioman.

Bioman, Gavan, The Transformers.... all my childhood... Bioman, along with Gavan (X-Or in France) and Message from Space (Sankukai), is one of the most known Japanese SFX series in France. It was one of the series I liked a lot. Doctor Man (Doctor Mad in French Version) is one of the best bad guys of sentai series, with Bio-Hunter Silva. What I liked alot in the series was the BioRobot (MMPR's Mega-Zord ancestor) which is DA BEST sentai Robot of the 80's, and one of the best sentai robots ever . The story was also strong, better than the most of older or recent sentai series . My favorite "good guys" characters in the show are Yellow four 2 and Pink Five ("Force Jaune" and "force rose"), both Biowomen: they are so cute !!! The series was also the acting debut of Yukari Oshima (a.k.a. Cynthia Luster), who was ruthless Farrah-Cat, Farrah's bodyguard . For foreign sentai fans who wanna to (re)-discover this show, it will be available in Videotapes in French stores in September 2002 .

"Chodenshi Bioman" is one of those tacky Japanese shows that seem to exist mainly to blow things up. And that's it, really. Stuff gets blown up all the time, while Japanese actors run around and scream hysterically while blabbering some nonsense about robots taking over the world. But that adds to the sheer fun of the show. An episode passes with the speed of a bullet, thanks to some flashy (if incoherent) editing, tons of sound effects and, you guessed it, explosions. It's weird, but in a good way, and this show was an obvious inspiration to the better-looking, but ultimately crappier "Power Rangers". That said, Chodenshi Bioman can best be compared to the early Toho-Godzilla movies. Check it out if you can, even though it may be hard to find.

Taking my first dip into the "Super Sentai" genre, which in layman's terms appears to mean Japanese TV shows where peeps save the world while wearing spandex, superhero costumes, and frequently hop on board a giant robot in order to cobber monsters. Choudenshi Bioman is the kind of hyper, action packed, sugar rush of a TV show (with a fiendishly catchy theme song) that you'll really wish you'd experienced as a kid, rather than arrived to the party more than thirty years too late. I doubt though that 1980s children's TV in Britain would have been ready for a show where the heroes get to say "bast##d" or where villainess Farrah Cat is allowed to attack people with the dreaded nunchucks. Considering that the show has five protagonists (Red one, Green two, Blue three, Yellow four and Pink five), one villain (Dr. Man), three deputy villains (Farrah, Mason, Monster), minions of the deputy villains, five 'beastnoid' villains, and the type of camp, comic relief robot that appeared to be mandatory post-Star Wars, it is nothing short of amazing that the first episode manages to whizz through the premise in just under twenty minutes, it is that fast paced. The actor who plays deputy villain Monster has the even cooler real life name 'Strong Kongo', although I think Farrah (not to be confused with Farrah Cat) might well be my favourite of the baddies. My initial reaction to seeing a picture of Farrah- played by the late Yûko Asuka -was "there is no way I can go through life without seeing this show", closely followed by "could this possibly fill the hole in my life that has been left since I ran out of Spectreman episodes to watch". The genre crossed over to the West in the 1990s with Power Rangers and arguably continues to exert its influence on Hollywood, thanks to the Pacific Rim and Transformer movies, but even on lower budgets and with 1980s practical effects, you have to agree that the Japanese managed to pull off this type of crash, bang, wallop with much more panache.