Totality In Super Sentai (Part 1): The Elements

I'm not up-to-speed on the entire history of Kamen Rider (forgive me) and my knowledge only extends to Den-O, Fourze, OOO and W - but in the latest incarnation of Kamen Rider (i.e. Wizard) at least, part of the core concept of our main hero's powers is something common to maaaany Super Sentai series. In the past few series, this has crept in more and more to the Rider franchise.

The four natural elements as they are seen in the Western World (which stem back to them ol' Greek times, I think) are Fire, Water, Earth and Air; which in the current series of Kamen Rider make the possible transformation forms that Wizard can undertake (so far).

While not so obviously elemental, the same principle applies for KR Fourze's Henshin form in which each of his arms and legs represents one of the four constellations from Chinese traditions which - in turn - have also been held as corresponding to four of the Chinese elemental system of five (which includes Metal, as well as Wood in place of Earth).

Just off the top of my head, a loose concept of either the classical Greek or Chinese elements have been present in Super Sentai incarnations such as Gingaman, Magiranger, Shinkenger and Goseiger. There's probably more but my brain is mushy at best. Forgive me!

Sometimes the creators/writers have to play loose and sort of add one to the standard set of elements (as they did in the US with Mystic Knights Of Tir Na Nog and the fifth warrior who had the power of "Forest"). Examples of this are:

• Gingaman and Magiranger - where 'Thunder' became the elemental power of the yellow rangers.
• Shinkenger - where like the sixth hero from Magiranger (i.e. Magishine), ShinkenGold too had 'Light' on his side. Co-incidence? Hmmmm . . . . . . .

On an obvious level, you can think that - it makes sense for the creators of the show to look at the world around them and say "There's roughly 4 or 5 elements isn't there? Those could be the powers that the Sentai team members use, couldn't they? Yeah, why not. That's easy enough *writes it down* Let's go for a beer."

But in a more philosophical sense, it's a pretty cool decision to make. Having the 5 Sentai team members each possess a different component of the natural world, so that when they combine their powers in a blast or mecha combo it forms a holistic sense of all things - is a really cool idea. The same with a singular Kamen Rider possessing all the elements himself, it basically means that not only do all of their powers come from the natural world, but that their ultimate power is the world/Earth itself (or at least stems from it).

Look'a that lovely li'l globe!

In my opinion, such a relatively spiritual/naturalistic angle on superheroes would only come naturally from the East - as increasingly in the West, every company trying to sell to kids would rather just churn out some Coca-Cola bottle that turns into a car rather than going "back to basics." It's sort of ironic that the perceived neon capital of the world is taken to be Tokyo, yet a lot of Japan still holds tranquility and nature more dearly than many countries. England (where I live, for example) is meant to be known as a "green and pleasant land" that we Englishmen supposedly love and cherish. Do we ? Naaah.

That's not to say all modern kids' shows are now of any sort of spirituality, because I LOVED 'Beast Machines' (which most people hated), which was the mega-spiritual spin-off/continuation of Transformers: Beast Wars.

On a side note, here's something mad I found as I 'researched' some of this. In ancient Hindu thought, the fifth element was believed to be something along the lines of 'void/space/ether' - which is pretty mind-bending in itself. This concept also shows up in Buddhist concepts of the elements. If you're a Beatles fan at all, you might remember John's "Tomorrow Never Knows" with it's suggestions to '...surrender to the void...'; the song itself being based on the Tibetan Book of The Dead.

If I were to guess, I'd imagine that the idea of the fifth element being the space between all things - lends itself to religions like Buddhism that don't particularly have a creator god - as the space can be seen as that which predates existence and somehow gives rise to the rest. Maybe? I don't know. Please write and tell me if that's wrong.

Note: It would cool as F if some sort of evil ranger in a future series just had the elemental power of "void" and was just some nihilist.

Anyway, at the end of this disjointed thought-spill, what conclusions - if any - can we come to about the use of the elements in Super Sentai and Kamen Rider? Well, they use them and they use them well. When you sit back and think about it, it's a nice thing to do that is not only respectful to the only Earth we have, but can hopefully teach kids to respect the planet for its natural awesomeness and not just pollute it because they can. Drawing powers from the elements always gives the shows a more mystical quality that's not found in the more technological incarnations, such as Ohranger, Go-Busters, Boukenger etc.

More overt messages of environmental awareness/protection have also been more prevalent in SS across the years, while I can't remember any instances of it in Power Rangers off the top of my head. I'm sure Saban and Disney might have intentionally steered clear of it, focusing more on healthy eating and teamwork as the show's 'messages' - so that parents don't get riled and accuse the show of shoving "some hippy philosophy" down their kids' throats. It's my personal opinion of course that kids should probably be encouraged to respect the world around them.

So there we have it.

BAN THE BOMB, MAN! x