'Kikaida' superheroes take on next generation
By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Randall Rodrigues has been collecting Kikaida paraphernalia for the past decade. Attracted by the vibrant colors and fast action, his obsession with the vinyl-suited superhero began when he was 4.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser |
Pulling items gingerly out of a canvas bag, Rodrigues, 32, thoughtfully explained the significance of each piece. Trading cards, books, records and photos of him and his girlfriend with a beaming "Jiro" — an older, still toothy Ban Daisuke at a Hawai'i appearance by the actor last year — were appropriately ooohed and ahhhed over.
We silently ogled a recently acquired 7-inch, see-through Kikaida figurine still sealed in its original clear-plastic cellophane wrapping, won by Rodrigues for $150 after a lengthy eBay bidding war.
"You know, I've never sold anything from my collection," said Rodrigues, a Foodland stores cashier. "I've never really counted it either. There's a lot of things all over the apartment ... . Any space is up for grabs."
Obsessed with the series since age 4 and a rabid collector of Kikaida paraphernalia for more than a decade, Rodrigues' original draw to the series, at least, was simple.
"The action, the colors ... that's about it," said Rodrigues, who was asked to lend items from his Kikaida vault to a collectibles gallery at this weekend's Kikaidamania fan festival. "There was nothing like it at the time. And I still love it. I still love the show."
Rodrigues is far from alone.
More than 28 years after first blowing through the collective consciousness of Hawai'i youth in a red, blue and yellow whoosh of Dark Destructoid-defeating double chops, spinning attacks and Denji Endo — that's "Electromagnetic End," for the unenlightened among us — the state's favorite vinyl suited mecha is enjoying a second wind of notoriety.
Since reviving the "Kikaida" series' 43-episode story arc last November, local Japanese-language television station KIKU has watched each Sunday airing capture an average 8 percent of the audience, making it the station's second-highest-rated program (the long-running samurai dramatics of "Abarenbo Shogun" is No. 1).
No one at KIKU was shocked when "Kikaida" reruns gained much of their initial ratings success from the twenty- and thirtysomething adults who were kids when the series debuted here in February 1974. Here's the surprise: Ratings since December have essentially been sustained by the dutifully introduced offspring of those Gen X adults.
"I knew the thirtysomethings would definitely watch, and we get e-mails every Sunday after the show airs to prove we were right," said Joanne Ninomiya, president of KIKU and JN Productions. "But a lot of their children are also watching it now, too, which surprised me because ... this came from the '70s, and it's kind of hokey and definitely not high-tech."
Something of a den mother for the locally "Kikaida"-obsessed who begged her for the last decade to bring the series back, Ninomiya negotiated its 2001 television return last May. Taking a cue from her youngish, equally "Kikaida"-crazed staff, Ninomiya has branded the series return (and its accompanying merchandising) under the clever marketing moniker Generation Kikaida.
"Kikaida" was the first and most popular of a collection of Japanese superhero television programs that then-KIKU general manager Ninomiya imported to Hawai'i between 1974 and 1976. A surprise prime-time hit on Japan's Nippon Educational Television in 1972, "Kikaida" (or "mechanical man") was created by now-deceased comic author Ishimori Shotaro as a sci-fi take on the story of Pinocchio.
The "Kikaida" tale goes something like this: Kidnapped by the blue-faced and unfortunately-coifed Professor Gill, brilliant robotics engineer Dr. Komyoji is forced to build an army of evil robot monsters known as Dark Destructoids to help his megalomaniac jailer achieve world domination. In secret, however, Komyoji builds a good machine, Kikaida, to thwart Gill's plan.
Komyoji's creation has two personas. The first is the human-looking Jiro, a denim-sporting, guitar-strumming figure built in the image of Komyoji's deceased son. When trouble comes, however, our hero in James Taylor cast-offs changes Clark Kent-like into a second persona, Kikaida, a butt-kicking alter ego with superpowers that, strangely enough, seem to work only when he's getting his own butt seriously whupped.
When Gill gets wind of Komyoji's extracurricular activities, he throws a world-class hissy and blows up the doctor's lab.
All of this in just the first action-packed episode!
The series continued with an amnesiac Komyoji wandering the picturesque Japanese countryside in search of, well, something we've never quite figured out; and an unfinished and conflicted Jiro/Kikaida seeking to find his "Geppeto" before Gill does. Because Komyoji conveniently completed all 43 Dark Destructoids before his unfortunate brain freeze, his good creation must also constantly contend with a colorful competing army of his evil ones.
And lest we forget to mention it, Jiro's flaw — one of the reasons for his valiant search for Komyoji — is a missing conscience circuit that leaves him unable to change into Kikaida whenever Gill goes all Zamfir on him with an electronic flute.
Sound too dark, dramatic and, OK, maybe a bit heavy on the cheese to appeal to the preteen set?
Well, it would've been. But each episode of the series also had the good fortune of being front and back loaded with a whole lot of gravity-defying martial arts demonstrations (variations of karate, judo and aikido) from Kikaida and the Dark Destructoids to keep young minds interested. This was particularly handy when decidedly adult dramatics like love, deception and the search for acceptance and belonging threatened to overtake the proceedings.
No surprise, local kids — most of us between the ages of 5 and 12, and still far removed from yet-to-appear distractions of multichannel digital cable and the alternative universes of PlayStation and Nintendo — ate up the seemingly produced-on-the-cheap series and asked for seconds.
At the peak of Kikaidamania's two-year stranglehold on young minds, all manner of available series merchandise (dolls, T-shirts, books, albums) flew off toy shelves faster than they could be imported from Japan, where their appeal had already all but petered out.
Touring "Kikaida Brothers" stage shows featuring Ban and sequel sibling Ichiro/Kikaida 0-1 actor Ikeda Shunsuke battling polyurethane-and-rubber-suited TV foes like Red Mine Toad and Gray Rhino King drew record crowds to 1974's 50th State Fair and appearances at the Honolulu International Center (now Blaisdell Arena). A Thursday pau hana autograph session at Pearlridge Center in August 1974 had to be canceled when 10,000 children and their parents stormed the center to meet their hero.
"I remember those days big time," said Duane Chang, 34, co-owner of Collector Maniacs, a leading retailer of newly manufactured Kikaida-related merchandise since opening in 1997. "When the last episode aired, I was, like, 'Ma, we gotta go home! We gotta go finish 'Kikaida'!' I went to the Blaisdell shows, the 50th State Fair ... all that stuff. I remember my mom complaining about taking me to Pearlridge."
After serving up sequel "Kikaida 0-1" in 1975 to an equally rabid following, KIKU began importing other Japanese superhero series — "Kamen Rider," "Denjin Zaboga" and "Inazuman" among them. But by the end of 1976, jaded fans were already moving on to other interests.
Collectibles from all of the series — especially "Kikaida" — have since been slowly making their way from everything-must-go garage sale giveaways to lofty thousand-dollar bids on online auction sites like eBay. A popular Japan-only 1997 re-airing of the series on the occasion of its 25th anniversary sparked demand for newly manufactured Kikaida and other Japanese superhero collectible toys that Collector Maniacs' Chang said has continued virtually unabated.
"I've had a major base here since 1997," said Chang. "And from then until the shows returned to the air here last year, all of my clientele was over age 27. As soon as it went on the air again though — and I knew this was going to happen — the kids got into it big time."
In fact, Chang attributed a 50 percent to 60 percent increase in sales of Kikaida products and a 30 percent uptick in sales of other Japanese superhero toys such as "Kamen Rider" since KIKU began re-airing the series to brand new fans. Ninomiya said children's tees are among the fastest selling items in JN Productions' Generation Kikaida line, now an official licensed manufacturer of Kikaida merchandise.
"I've got parents coming in with 2-year-olds ... all the way to age 10," Chang said of his new customers. "The first month, it was basically the boys. The second month, the girls finally got into it." Teenagers, however, have been slower to buy into Generation Kikaida. "It's funny. It cuts off right at about 10-year-olds and then picks up again at, like, 25 and 27."
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| Bryce Pederson, 3 1/2, is already a big fan of Kikaida. He likes to wear his Jiro denim jacket and jeans — every day, if possible. |
"That's all he wears, wherever we go," said Murai-Pedersen, 39, manager of Kapi'olani Medical Center's Fetal Diagnostic Clinic and herself a former smitten preteen given to occasional Jiro swooning. "I had to buy him extra jeans so I wouldn't have to wash them as much. I do laundry every other day already just for his jacket.
"I thought he would enjoy 'Kikaida' because he likes superheroes like Spiderman and things like that, but I never thought that he would be so enamored with it. We watch 'Kikaida' religiously. We're not even allowed to go out on Sundays."
Murai-Pedersen will be surprising Bryce and his almost-as-Kikaida-infatuated sister Hailey, 8, with a visit to a Kikaidamania autograph session with actors Ban, Ikeda and their alter egos on Saturday. (Dad Matthew Pedersen, of Jamarama Productions, has been busy with his own show biz endeavor, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"; see Page 47.)
"Jiro was the man ... so this is all kind of cute because we all really liked 'Kikaida' on the first go-round," said Murai-Pedersen. "It was really cool to see it again. It's like retro-music ... it reminds you of your youth."
Plus, there are all sorts of wonderful new "Kikaida" joys that can only be observed and appreciated with adult eyes.
"If you look close enough, sometimes you can even notice the actors' skin showing and the Velcro on the costumes," said Murai-Pedersen. "Now THAT was really funny."
Hawai'i's love of 'Kikaida' revisited
"Kikaida"
- 43 episodes
- Japanese debut: July 8, 1972, on Nippon Educational Television
- Hawai'i debut: February 1974, on KIKU TV, Channel 13
- Hawai'i episodes aired Wednesdays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.
- Average plot: Professor Gill and one of his monsters do something bad, Kikaida fights said monster who manages to get away. Dramatic tension builds between Jiro, Gill and monster in preparation for final battle between Kikaida and monster, final fight and destruction of monster. Jiro rides off on motorcycle, leaving Dr. Komyoji's kids, Mitsuko and Masaru far from any visible means of transportation.
- On TV: 7 p.m. Sunday, KIKU (ending April 28)
"Kikaida 0-1"
- 46 episodes
- Japanese debut: May 12, 1973, on Nippon Educational Television
- Hawai'i debut: December 1974, on KIKU TV, Channel 13
- Average plot: Nothing average here. "Kikaida 0-1" is less formulaic and more serialized than "Kikaida" and has fewer monsters.
- On TV: 7 p.m. Sunday, KIKU, starting May 5
• In town for the 50th State Fair and a Pearlridge autograph session, a seven-actor "Kikaida" stage troupe in full costume was welcomed at the state Capitol with a photo-op with acting Gov. George Ariyoshi on Aug. 29, 1974.
• Also in August 1974, supporters of gubernatorial candidate Tom Gill slotted a commercial on KIKU touting his qualifications, unaware that it would be followed by a "Kikaida" episode spotlighting the deeds of another Gill not nearly as interested in public service. Still no word if acting Gov. Ariyoshi was pulling the strings on this one.
• At the height of Kikaida's 1974 popularity, Saturday night episodes on KIKU drew 26 percent of Hawai'i viewers, outdrawing popular shows such as "Cannon," "Mission: Impossible" and "Chico and the Man."
• On Aug. 30, 1974, The Advertiser ran a piece on actor Toshiaki Kikuchi, the poor guy who wore the sauna-like Kikaida suit on TV. Among his confessions: "Yes, I have a girlfriend, and we plan to marry next spring."
• Masks featuring Kikaida's mecha-headed visage were Halloween 1974's biggest sellers. Oddly lacking any holes for breathing, the masks retailed for $1.15.
• Daiei sold more than 4,000 "Kikaida" soundtrack albums in one month in 1974 at a then-pricey $6.95. Surprising, because the album had even less English on it than an average James Brown album.
• In October 1974, a Mother Rice preschool teacher became one of the first reported instructors to ban all Kikaida toys, tees, and monster-destroying double chops. Her name was withheld from the Advertiser story, presumably to protect her from students.
• In early 1975, members of a Kikaida stage show were outed as regular attendees of Society of Seven stage shows at the Outrigger Waikiki.
• Then-Kaua'i police chief Roy Hiram told The Advertiser in April 1975 about his plan to teach traffic safety to kids by dressing up as Kikaida and chasing baddies. The only wrinkle in his plan? Finding a suit.
• Time magazine ran a story in May 1975 about Hawai'i's Kikaida craze titled "A Clockwork Sushi," that, among other things, claimed Gill's evil flute to be a device lifted from the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film "A Clockwork Orange."
— Derek Paiva
Today
- 11:30 a.m.
"My Kikaida Treasures" exhibit grand opening
Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii Historical Gallery
A gallery of "Kikaida" collectibles and memorabilia from Hawai'i fans. On display until May 31.
Free today and Saturday; afterward, through May 31, $3 general, $1 kids 6-11, free for keiki under 6.
- 6-10 p.m.
"Gill's Gala"
Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii Manoa Grand Ballroom
Hawaiian buffet dinner, a silent auction of "Kikaida" collectibles, appearances by actors Ban Daisuke and Ikeda Shunsuke, and a Kikaida Brothers stage show.
Sold out
Saturday
- 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
"Kikaida Fan Fair"
Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii Courtyard
Appearances and stage shows by Kikaida, Kikaida 0-1 and Hakaida followed by autograph session and picture-taking; food booths featuring "Kikaida Bentos" and "Kikaida Shave Ice"; entertainment; Kikaida look-alike contests and karaoke challenges. Free admission to "My Kikaida Treasures" gallery.
Free
Sunday
- 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
"Autograph session with Jiro (Ban Daisuke) & Ichiro (Ikeda Shunsuke)"
Shirokiya, Ala Moana Center
Free
836-0361 for all events
