Izenborg, and you should too...



"flightsuit" has posted the first 20 minutes of "Attack of the Super Monsters", which I assume is basically the first episode of DINOSAUR WAR IZENBORG.

Tsuburaya, makers of ULTRAMAN, made 3 series that combined animated humans with "live" backgrounds, vehicles, and monsters - DINOSAUR ADVENTURE TEAM BORNFREE, IZENBORGand SCIENCE EXPLORATION TEAM TANSER-5. BORNFREE was apparently compiled into the movie "Return of the Super Monsters", but I've never seen anything about it. Tanser was never translated to my knowledge and seems to be forgotten - at least the planned sequel turned out wonderful until its last 10 minutes (see comments).

These first 20 minutes are lots of fun, although I still have 2 nagging questions:

---Why do Ai and Zen ("Gem Starbuck" and "Jim Starbuck")'s bodies need to combine in order for their vehicle to transform into a flying "drilldo"?

---Tyrannus/Ururu is rather dull - he needs a cape, a crown, and a big '70s throne.

A bit of this is fixed later - according to information from John Cassidy, in episode #20 Ai and Zen combine into the live giant hero "Aizenbo", and Ururu is replaced by Space Demon King Gottes (who looks pretty lame in this encyclopedia picture).

Triton of the Sea - Episode 18

NOTE: This summary is based on an imperfect translation (I do not speak Japanese). Please let me know of any inaccuracies.

Triton of the Sea is copyright 1972 by Office Academy. This summary is an effort by a fan for fans.

"The Scorching Giant Taros"

A ship at storm sees a huge hand come down from the sky. The hand
destroys the ship. As the camera goes upward, we see the form of a
giant statue, which raises its arms and screams "Taros!"

Triton and the others arrive at South America's Magellan Strait.
Suddenly, Pipi and Fin rush ahead to a floating block of ice. Luka
tells them to stay for a while and let Pipi remember her homeland
of the North Sea.

Leharl sees Triton and the others approaching the Strait and remarks
that he will be in his trap soon. He calls to Taros and reminds
him that Poseidon revived him when he lay at the bottom of the
Atlantic. A flashback shows Poseidon above the remains of Taros, promising to give him new life. Of course, he must repay the kindness by killing Triton. Taros asks if Triton is evil, and Leharl concurs.

Triton reaches the Strait, but worries about traps along the way.
However, as there is no other route, the team goes on ahead.

Meanwhile, a fleet of ships is hunting penguins. Suddenly, an inexplicably blue one recognizes Taros, who drops a rock on the lead ship of the fleet to save the penguins.

Triton runs into a rock formation, which Pipi says reminds her of
a maze. Triton climbs on top of the rock to see beyond, and spots
Taros. Suddenly he sees the blue penguin, who runs, but falls
off a cliff.

Triton saves and bandages the penguin, who tells him that Taros brought him to that height. Taros is told of Triton's kind action, but tries to crush him when he learns of Triton's identity.

The penguin yells at Taros to stop, which allows Triton to escape. Taros tells Triton that he must kill him to repay Poseidon's mercy. He tells the penguins to get out of the way, but the blue penguin refuses to leave. Taros finally gets past the penguin and attacks Triton.

Back where Luka and the others are, a sound angler emits its groovy music...

Taros turns red and begins to boil the surrounding water to kill
Triton. The oldest Penguin remarks that Taros is not a god, but a
devil, and tells the penguins to stay away from it. Taros asks
the penguins where Triton is, but they refuse to answer. Taros
sweeps his hand in the water to find Triton, but hurts the surrounding penguins.

Suddenly, Taros sees the Oriharucon dagger glowing above. The
penguin tells Triton to stab the bolt on his ankle, and Taros crushes him for his betrayal. Triton
finally manages to destroy the bolt.

Taros, "bleeding" green liquid, falls apart, and Triton sees the penguin lying dead on the ocean floor. Lehar remarks that it was a pity that the revival of Taros was a waste.

Coming back to his friends, Triton is told that Pipi and Fin were
taken away by the Poseidon. The group goes on to search for them...

Triton of the Sea - Episode 17

NOTE: This summary is based on an imperfect translation (I do not speak Japanese). Please let me know of any inaccuracies.

Triton of the Sea is copyright 1972 by Office Academy. This summary is an effort by a fan for fans.

"Vanished Remains of the Tritons"

Suddenly, a volcano explodes in the middle of the ocean, bringing
mountains to the surface. Triton and the othes reason that Poseidon
was responsible, and get out of the area as soon as they can.
They see the mountains and realize that they were brought up to
block their way to the Atlantic.

In Atlantic, Poseidon tells Neleus to have Lehar keep trying.
Neleus, of course, still wants to deal with the dagger. Poseidon
tells Neleus to do whatever it takes to stop Triton.

On the island, the group spots a human. Luka tries to stop Triton
from going toward him, but he pushes his way past her, as well as
Ero and Karo. The man's leg is broken Asked about his boat,
Triton tells the man that he swam there (the "volcano destroyed
his boat"). Fifteen of the man's companions were killed by the
explosion.

Morsejellies tap that Triton is in at an Atlantean city. Neleus
realizes that the risen island may have records of the secrets of
the Triton, and Marcus tells the manta rays and sound anglers to
surround the island and kill Triton.

Attempting to make a raft, the man comes across some pre-Roman
carvings of the erupting volcano. Triton wonders if it is Atlantis,
but the man tells him that Atlantis is in the Atlantic - this
island was most likely Mu. He comments that the Mu carving reminds
him of Atlantean carvings(? how would he see these?)

Wiping off another carving, Triton finds a picture of a man with
a conch similar to his. He tells Luka and the others, who go
to find more Triton carvings. Unfortunately, Luka finds a tapping
Morsejelly signaling the Poseidon, and sees manta rays in the
distance.

Triton finds a woman with a mermaid in her arms before Luka
tells him that Poseidon found them. He goes to save the old
man, but the man refuses to leave until Triton forces him onto
their raft. After they get out to sea, the sound anglers and
manta rays find them. The sound waves of many anglers weaken
the group, but Triton takes out the Oriharucon and attacks.

Unfortunately, he runs out of energy (and so does the Oriharucon,
which turns white). After falling out of range of the waves,
the Oriharucon glows again, and Triton uses the "cut off the
antennae" trick to make the sound anglers fight each other (as
well as disintegrating a few). He remarks that he feels fine when
the antennae are cut off, but weak when the dagger melts enemies
away.

The group hears a rumbling, signaling another eruption. They run,
and the old man is killed when the volcano erupts (sinking the island
again). The group is horrified when they see the old man's empty raft.

In Atlantis, Poseidon reminds Neleus not to take the Oriharucon dagger lightly; the light of the dagger is evil to the Poseidon.

The groups is disappointed not to have found secrets at the Mu remains, but they know that they will find answers in the Atlantic.

COMMENTS

---Until this episode (aside from 13), Poseidon seems unconcerned with the Oriharucon dagger. In 27, we shall see that he has good reason to fear it...

More doggerel...



This is the opening to the 1986 anime "Ginga Nagereboshi Gin", which is about an Akita dog that leaves his owner to fight a bear. I'd had this theme song on a DVD-R from a friend, but only labeled as "Ginga" (galaxy). I had no idea this thing was a "Call of the Wild" esque story.

Here's the Wikipedia entry. Bears have minions? Colbert was right...

Frankly, when I see "Galaxy Shooting Star Silver", I think of this...

Bio-Hunter Silvar of SUPER ELECTRON BIOMAN was a robot sent to destroy the last remants of the planet Bio Star, anything that contains Bio-Particles - the Bio Robo and the Bio-Particle charged (via their ancestors) Biomen. He also was on a hunt for his beloved giant robot Balzion.

Silvar was an obvious homage to the great anti-hero Hakaider of JINZOU NINGEN KIKAIDER, beloved in Hawaii (and, of course, in the Lair of Leopardon). Silver was far better than the character in the POS '90s movie that bore the big H's name.

Biomic Soldier's profile has a picture of what I assume is the preliminary design for Silvar, which looks far less like Hakaider and more like then-current anime villain designs.

Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!

Robodog Day Afternoon...

From JAKQ in 1977 to SUNVULCAN in 1981, the Sentai/Super Sentai series was plagued by one annoying trend - robot talking animals. For some reason, each show had to have a talking animal annoying the heck out of the team and the audience - with the exception of DENZIMAN, in which the talking animal was the leader!

IC the Denzidog accompanied a floating island from Denzi Star to Earth, and was awakened when the evil Vader Clan attacked the Earth. He differed from the other sentai animal 'bots by being A) the leader, and B) not completely lame.

IC with Naoya Uchida (Midorikawa Tetsuya/Denzi Green) and Oba "Gavan" Kenji (Oome Daigoro/Denzi Blue)

IC sacrificed himself by becoming a circuit for the giant robot Daidenjin in order for it to defeat the nearly invincible Omnipotent Monse. At the end of the series, the heroes, after defeating the Monse's fat, drunken leader Omnipotent Demon King and having the Vader leader Queen Hedrian put herself on ice temporarily have a soccer tournament in his honor. Yeesh, talk about a lame memorial.

IC was succeeded as talking animal in SUNVULCAN by Shishi the Shih Tzu, who wasn't nearly as cool. Like all the other animals besides IC, he was only a mascot, and probably the most annoying one.


I have family members who are dog trainers, and they can't figure out what breed of dog IC is. He vaguely looks like a Chow, but not as fluffy. The "memorial" resembles a Chow far more than the original "canine actor". A family member said that he looks like an Akita, but the coat is too fluffy and the tail doesn't curl up.

Is he a mix, an "off-breed" Chow, or something else entirely?


Yes, I wonder about sentai dog breeds. I have a weird family, okay? Not that I'm anywhere near normal myself...

Gaiking never took ME higher...



A while back, I posted the Italian opening to TRYDER G-7. Now I've found what I think is the most bizarre opening the Italians made - the IT opening to DAIKU MARYU GAIKING.

As you can hear, this all-English OP by Gerry Edmond only consists of two English lines repeated over and over. I was shocked when I first downloaded the Italian OP back in 1998 - I had no idea what to expect.

GAIKING was one of Toei's attempts to "ape" Go Nagai's robot series. GN's Dynamic Productions produced the show from #22 onward, according to Wikipedia, but the concept was by Toei and Akio Sugino.

Yes, the robot is very nice, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Jumbo Machinder of it, but the horrible villain designs prejudiced me against Go for years(before I found out that the monstrous designs he does are just as weird, but actually good).

The other Toei GN "aper" is the much worse, but much more fun (in a MST3K way) MAGNE-ROBO GAKEEN, sold in the US as the compilation MAGNOS THE ROBOT/RENEGADE FORCE. I really need to get the DVD of that, if any reputable stores stock it. (Ha!)

As you may have noticed, the name of the blog has been changed from the nonsensical "Leoblogdom" to "The Lair of Leopardon". Don't worry - this is only a rebranding. We'll have the same nonsensical posts about the most obscure crap imaginable. The frequency of updates will be, as always, sporadic at best.

The current tag line is a reference to when I started picking POWER RANGERS apart with the aid of the Sentai Manual of Marc Miyake in 1996. 2 years later, I started to obtain Japanese sentai, TS, and super robot anime videos. The rest is history.

Speaking of which, I *really* need more tokusatsu stuff on here...

Triton of the Sea - Episode 16

NOTE: This summary is based on an imperfect translation (I do not speak Japanese). Please let me know of any inaccuracies.

Triton of the Sea is copyright 1972 by Office Academy. This summary is an effort by a fan for fans.

"Lehar's Trap"

Lehar arrives in Atlantis in a whirlwind of yellow energy before
changing to a normal form (if horned, baboon-cheeked guys are your
idea of normal). He is assigned as commander of the Pacific
and is pleased.

Triton hears a strange sound, and sees an orca in the distance.
Fin tells him to run; the orca is the fiercest fish in the sea.
Going closer, they see the orca is badly wounded. He tells Triton
to be careful; don't think of it; don't do anything when he sees it.
The orca expires before telling them what IT is.

Elsewhere, Luka, Ero, and Karo are caught in a storm. They dive
below and see nothing but dead sea. They see Dolphin Island and
run toward it, Luka yelling at them to stop. Of course, it was an
illusion, and they end up trapped in a room full of bones, with
a monster at one entrance and piranas at the other. The piranas
chase them toward the monster; fortunately the monster is also
an illusion.

Triton goes to scout for whatever killed the orca. Pipi eventually
follows.

Below, Lehar laughst at the dolphins; they were let go on purpose.
He tells a Morsejelly that Poseidon will soon see something cool.

In the depths, Triton comes upon an image of Ippei. He almost grabs
onto it before he remembers the orca's warning. To stop himself from going toward the illusion, he steps on a shell to cause his pain to break him away. Suddenly, he sees Pipi going toward an illusion of Proteus and her sea lion friends.

Triton tells her not to look, but she goes forward and is sucked into the cave, which is suddenly filled with poison gas. Triton follows to rescue her as Lehar laughs at their foolishness. Lehar wakes up the bones, which come together and attack Triton. Triton fights them until two of the skeletons stab each other, and fall apart.

Triton finds Pipi, who hides a sharp piece of rock behind her back.
The two of them hear the conch Fin is blowing, and suddenly Pipi
attacks. Triton fights her off, and the poison gas begins again.
Fortunately, the good ol' Oriharucon-ex-machina neutralizes the poison gas and, when stuck in the walls, opens the cave. Triton emerges to find Luka and the other dolphins.

Pipi is enraged at Poseidon's exploitation of her memories and tells
them that she will never forgive the Poseidon. Triton tells them that
they must all fight on; Poseidon is waiting in the Atlantic...