Kanjani Sentai Eightranger


Kanjani Sentai Eightranger is a production produced by the Japanese boyband, Kanjani Eight. The title stands for two things:
  1. The name of their corner on their official Jweb
  2. A series of performances at their concerts, where they assume the roles of real life super heroes.
This article is about the latter.

Concept and History

Within the Johnny & Associates managed website, "Johnny's Web", a subscription based cellphone web service in Japan, the title for Kanjani Eight's journal serialization corner is "Kanjani Sentai Eightranger". Within this section, each member has an image color assigned to them. Each member's journal entries are then organized with the text colored with their chosen image color.
In December 2005, member Yokoyama Yuu created a performance parodying the Super Sentai franchise for "Kanjani Eight Xmas Party 2005" concert series. He drew inspiration for the skit from his love of tokusatsu as well as from the manzai duo Downtown's own Sentai parody from the late 1980s. In creating the scripts for the skits, he mentioned that writes the scripts anticipating what the fans want. Such as writing the Green Ranger to say silly things or to make the Blue Ranger fall in love. Originally, there were two green rangers, but after the joke not catching on with audiences, Yokoyama changed his image color from dark green to black. Yokoyama admitted to the "two greens" being a joke inspired by the Downtown skit, 5 Range-i.
After the success of the skits at the Xmas Party series, the Eight Ranger skits were brought to the concert tours and a new story was weaved for each tour. Majority of the stories, or konto, are filled with jokes and a lot of dialogue is changed on the spot. Yokoyama himself uses the opportunity to ad-lib a lot in performances. Sometimes he'll change character roles on the spot, as in the case for the 2007 concert tour. Originally, the skits had the same premise; the Rangers would protect Eight City from the Kansai Juniors' group B.A.D, but after their 2006 tour the skits focused more on the Rangers themselves rather than the Rangers fighting B.A.D.
In 2008, during their Summer Tour "KANJANI8 Live Tour 2008 It's Summer! It's a Tour! Wahaha!!!", the skit was removed from the tour set list. In response to the removal of the skits from the tour at a press conference, Murakami Shingo said, "We talked about a lot of things and we have been doing it for a long time. We performed it once in all 47 prefectures, so everyone was able to see it. We wanted to tear this down once and present a new Kanjani8." Yokoyama followed up with, " It's nothing serious, there's absolute no deep meaning to it. We just said, ' Let's not do it this time ', lightheartedly. Just like he said earlier, in order for us to continue forward, let's try doing this." He later joked, " Do we really need a serious comment for something like the Eight Rangers? " This happened after 2 and a half years of performing the skits since December 2005.
Eventually the skits were brought back for the 2009 tour but were again scrubbed from the setlist in 2010 in favor for the 8Uppers skit/game, a new set of characters created by the band for the movie/album release that year. It also was not included in the 2011 concert performances. The skits eventually returned in 2012 for the "Kanjani8 Live Tour 8EST: Everyone, how are ya feeling? Our feelings are infinite!" arena and stadium portions of the concert series. The Eight Ranger image and characters were also used for many of the tour's concert goods.
In 2012, the Eight Ranger concept was brought to the big screen and was turned into a movie titled, Eight Ranger. The movie's premise, background story, and characters were changed from the original story performed on stage to a more grim dark scenario involving terrorists, a collapsed economy, and darker characters. The members of Kanjani Eight reprised their roles as unwilling heroes jaded with no ambitions until Yokoyama's character joins them as the new Black Ranger. The movie opened up in theaters on July 28, 2012. Mass marketing for the movie using the Eight Ranger characters and image took place in the summer of 2012 and involved collaborations between Sanrio, 7 Eleven, the candy Hi Chew, and the shampoo brand Scalabo. In addition, Kanjani Eight, as the Eight Rangers, released a single titled "ER " serving as the movie's theme song. A second film, Eight Ranger 2, will be released on July 26, 2014.

Characters and cast

Eightrangers

The Eightrangers are the allies of justice who stand and fight for those in "Eight City", the fictional world that the skits take place. According to their theme song, they protect the world by picking up garbage in the park and their special attack is "Mugendai" or "Infinity". They promise to therefore lock up the B.A.D Group in prison and help children, thus allowing the sun to look down upon everyone with its shining rays.
Respectively their names are by their Ranger Color, and their costume or "Eitings", all have the same uniformed look. At first Ohkura Tadayoshi was a pale green and Yokoyama Yuu was green for their Eight Colors, but in May 2006 during the " Kanjani Eight Concert Tour 2006 ' Funky Tokyo Osaka Nagoya ' " tour, Okura became green and Yokoyama became black respectively. During the skits, " Ranger " is omitted and their colors are said only.
; Red Ranger
In the movie adaptation, he is an alcoholic and not the leader of the Rangers. Because of his alcoholism, he managed to learn drunken boxing.
; Yellow Ranger
In the movie adaptation, he is a selfish former rockstar with an attitude when not center of the attention.
; Orange Ranger
In the movie adaptation, he's a hikkikomori and an online-shopping addict who's deep in debt.
; Blue Ranger
In the movie adaptation, he's an airhead that's obsessed with the color blue and has a hidden past.
; Green Ranger
In the movie adaptation, he's a nice person who speaks Kagoshima-ben even though he's not from Kagoshima. He's also in immense debt due to constantly being sucked into ATM frauds.
; Purple Ranger
In the movie adaptation, he's a virgin who's very kind and in-love with a girl that works at the local police station.
; Black Ranger
In the movie adaptation, he's a gambling addict who's in immense debt and always from the run from his collectors. He becomes the new leader of the Rangers.

B.A.D Group

Kiriyaman and Nakaman lead this evil organization. They are the Eightrangers' arch enemy because they steal candy from children, eating it all, and repeating evil deeds over and over again. When Purple Ranger yells at them, they become very nervous.

Story

In the year 200X, everyone lived happily and got along with each other in the peaceful city of "Eight City", until one day when terrible guards and B.A.D Group came in and started their wrongdoings. So now a group stands up against them as allies of justice, Kanjani Sentai Eightranger.

Special attacks