You Know You Like 'Em, Too

Unlike Bioman and Shaider, I don’t remember how Maskman ended. I’m not sure if it’s because I stopped watching or the show was cancelled.

The DVDs I got were subbed, unlike Bioman which was English-dubbed. The series shown in channel 13 before were Tagalized, so it was weird for me to hear “Takeru!” “Miyo!” instead of “Michael Jo!” “Rio!”. I will always refer to the five as Michael Jo, Lenard, Adrian, Eloisa and Mary Rose. Why I still recall their names I have no idea.

I was surprised that Miyo’s (Rio) malevolent sibling was… a prince. What the hell? They keep referring to her (him?) as Prince Igam (I forgot her Tagalog name. See, I’m not that weird) and she (he?) calls her (him) self as Prince but dude totally looks like a lady. I think there’s more to this, much like Ida in Shaider. Japan really loves these kinds of gender-bending roles. This was also the first time I noticed, but were Miyo and Prince Igam played by the same actress? I think I need to do a research after this.

The head of the evil empire is, for me, scarier than Fuma Le-ar and Dr. Man. There was something Shogun-ish about his appearance. As always, the villains are all pomp and flash. When I was young I never questioned that good always triumph over bad. But now that I have become, uh, more discerning, I wanted the superheroes to have worthy adversaries, not dunderheads with complicated schemes that get thwarted each and every episode. Takeshi (of Takeshi’s Castle) was better at defeating the good guys and defeating them soundly; I only remembered one episode when Takeshi were defeated by the contestants, and that was only because Iwakura usurped his leadership.

Speaking of Takeshi’s Castle, the actor who played Chief Sugata was also the the general who lead the contestants against Takeshi. It’s hard to take him seriously when you knew of this piece of information. (That guy? He never even won against Takeshi!)

So far I’ve rewatched the first five episodes and it brought a lot of memories from my youth. We almost believed that we can achieve the Maskman’s aura power through meditation. We even imitated their meditation gestures! Okerappa was the source of various jokes, green or otherwise. We laughed at the earrings that Yellow Mask and Pink Mask wore, as if their colors weren’t clear enough indication of their genders!

I think I want the Tagalog lyrics of Maskman’s opening theme! “Buong mundo’y magpupuri, magpupugay, mabuhay!” On second thought, it sounded like a song Pacquiao would sing. Better stick to the Japanese version.