Battle Fever J

Battle Fever J (バトルフィーバーJ) is the 3rd entry of the Super Sentai series franchise. It was produced by Toei Company and aired on TV Asahi on February 3, 1979 until January 26, 1980 with a total of 52 episodes. It was Toei’s second co-production with Marvel (the first being Spider-Man).

The Rangers have designations named for countries around the world: Battle Japan, Battle France, Battle Cossack (Soviet Union), Battle Kenya and Miss America. It was also the second show to introduce the Super Sentai format (Spider-Man was the first), where the heroes must control giant robots to defeat a monster who itself has grown to a gigantic size (or anything similar).

The First Super Sentai?
Battle Fever J was the first series to use the term Super Sentai (unlike the previous two who were just called Sentai, without the “Super”). For a long time, Battle Fever J was considered the first entry in the Super Sentai series, as seen in Episode 1 of Kousoku Sentai Turboranger that honors the past 10 Sentai (the other 9 being Denziman, Sun Vulcan, Goggle V, Dynaman, Bioman, Changeman, Flashman, Maskman and Liveman) until Toei announced in 1994 that its predecessors Goranger and J.A.K.Q. were also part of the Super Sentai series, when Chouriki Sentai Ohranger was announced as the 19th Super Sentai team.

Plot
General Kurama assembles four young agents who had been dispatched around the world for training. They are joined by FBI investigator Diane Martin, whose father was murdered by Egos. The five don powered suits to become the Battle Fever team. (The word 'fever' was trendy at the time.) The Battle Fever team's trump card is the Battle Fever Robo. Egos tries to stop the construction of the Robot, but the monsters they send to perform this task are defeated one by one by the Fever team.

Egos then unleashes the 'younger brother' of the Buffalo Monster, a giant robot replica of its "older brother". The Robot, fortunately, is finished in time. Aboard it, the Fever team defeats the Buffalo Monster and its successors. The Fever team never stops, even when it lost two of its members (the original Miss America leaves and first Battle Cossack is killed). With two new members, the team defeats Hedder, now the Hedder Monster, and breaks into Egos' headquarters, where they are fed into the Egos Monster Making Machine so that they may be used as material for a Battle Fever Monster. The team destroys the machine and slays the mysterious deity Satan Egos himself with the Lightning Sword Rocketter sword-throwing move.

Allies

 * General Kurama Tetsuzan
 * Keiko Nakahara
 * Tomoko Ueda
 * Masaru Nakahara
 * Yuki Ueda
 * Kyutaro

Secret Society Egos

 * Satan Egos
 * Commander Hedder
 * Salomé
 * Cutmen
 * Egos Monsters

Arsenal

 * Battleceiver
 * Command Bats/Penta Force cannon/boomerang
 * Battle Fever Car
 * Three Machines

Mecha

 * Big Bazer
 * Battle Shark
 * Battle Fever Robo

Cast

 * Narrator: Toru Ohira
 * Masao Den: Hironori Tanioka
 * Kensaku Shiraishi: Yukio Itou
 * Makoto Jin: Naoya Ban
 * Kyosuke Shida: Yuuhei Kurachi
 * Shiro Akebono: Kenji Ohba
 * Diane Martin, Fake Diane Martin: Diane Martin
 * Diane Martin (Voice): Lisa Komaki
 * Maria Nagisa: Naomi Hagi
 * Commander Hedder: Kenji Ushio (Episodes 1-7 ) / Masashi Ishibashi (Episodes 9-51)
 * Salome/Ayoko Ichijoji (52): Maki Ueda (Episodes 19-52)

Stunt Actors

 * Battle Japan: Kazuo Nibori
 * Battle Cossack: Hiroshi Atsum and Hirohumi Koga
 * Battle France: Haruhiko Hashimoto and Tetsuo Mashita
 * Battle Kenya: Kenji Ohba and Tsutomu Kitagawa
 * Miss America: Lisa Komaki, Eiko Onodera and Tsutomu Kitagawa

International broadcasts
Battle Fever J was especially popular in Hawaii, along with Gorenger, Kikaider, Kamen Rider V3, and Ultraman; all of which were shown in the original Japanese dialogue and subtitled by JN Productions on then KIKU Channel 13. The show was also broadcasted in Thailand late in the mid-1990s under the name of Ranger J on MCOT Channel 9.

Trivia

 * The first Sentai series to have a Giant Robo (Battle Fever Robo).
 * The first Sentai series to feature a Black Ranger (Battle Kenya), as well as the only one with a recurring Orange Ranger (Battle Cossack).
 * Battle Fever J was the first Sentai series to feature lips sculpted onto the heroes' helmets, and currently the only one to feature noses. Though X1 Mask, the unofficial Sixth Ranger of Hikari Sentai Maskman, had a nose sculpted onto his helmet, the rest of his team didn't.
 * Battle Fever J was originally going to be an adaptation of the Marvel Comics hero Captain America in response to the success of Toei's earlier Spiderman adaptation.
 * The first Sentai series to feature video games.
 * The first Sentai series to feature a regular female villain (Salomé).
 * Battle Fever J has had the most power transfers in the Sentai series as two heroes had been replaced.
 * Oddly, the Battle Fever team was not called "Battle Fever J" within the show; that is the name of the show itself, not the team. In-show, the writing reference the rangers as simply "Team Battle Fever".
 * However, the team are later referred to as "Battle Fever J" in post-show references to the team, such as the Turboranger special, The Great Gathering of 11 Sentai: The Glorious Opening Collection, and Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger.