Rainbowman in Hawaii

This post will be long.

Introduction

On October 6th, 1972, the first episode of Warrior of Love Rainbowman premiered on NET. For almost a full year, weekly viewers were treated to one of Toho's most visibly low-budget productions, but one that nevertheless had a strange sense of energy and an at times almost psychedelic flavor to it. Extensive merchandise was produced for the show both during and after its initial broadcast, including - but not limited to - iron-on patches, notepads and sketchbooks, shoes, coloring books, a pachinko game¹, plastic tableware, menko cards, a menagerie of action figures, and whatever this is. A decade after the show ended, an anime adaptation was produced, which shifted the focus of the show from a human hero who fought using techniques inherited from his mentor, Deva Datta, to a human hero who fought with a mecha. Although it may not have had the staying power of Ultraman or Kamen Rider, cultural memory of the show remains: in 2023, Kodansha covered the show in volume 4 of their Godzilla & Toho Tokusatsu mook series. Notably, so many people involved with the show have since passed away or retired that the most relevant figure Kodansha could get for an interview was Yu Mizushima, who sang the theme song.

The star of the show was 17-year-old Kunihisa Mizutani, who gave a remarkably earnest performance as the generically-named Takeshi Yamato (not the one from Ultraman 80). He's young, but you can tell that he whole-heartedly believes in everything Takeshi is doing and going through. The rest of the cast included a few of Toho's older and more experienced actors in small roles, such as Yū Fujiki and Hiroshi Kōizumi, as well as newcomers Machiko Soga and Ulf Otsuki, who would go on to become some of the most recognized faces in tokusatsu. Playing Mr. K, the series' main villain and the mastermind behind every evil plot and scheme, was Akihiko Hirata, kitted out in an even worse wig and fake mustache than they put him in for Terror of Mechagodzilla, a pair of shades and, later in the series, a hook hand. (Mr. K in the anime was just sort of a goblin-looking thing.) Despite not appearing in every episode, Mr. K leaves a strong impression. The role suits Hirata well and he seemed to be having fun with it. As of 20 years ago, when the most recent popularity poll was conducted, Mr. K fell second only to Dr. Serizawa as Hirata's most popular role within Japan.

Rainbowman was Toho's first foray into the hero genre in a television format, and fittingly it was conceived by the creator of what is widely considered to be Japan's first hero series (Moonlight Mask): Kohan Kawauchi, a foundational figure in tokusatsu whose works are surprisingly little-known in the West.

Kawauchi is an interesting one. He had some nationalistic views (though it should be mentioned that he was anti-war), but was also the creator of several series that were very progressive for their time, such as, for example, Japan's first explicitly Muslim superhero (Messenger of Allah). Takeshi Yamato himself gains his powers through a distinctly non-Japanese mixture of Hinduism and Buddhism, traveling to India to undergo rigorous training and learn from Deva Datta. The lyrics to the series' theme song espouse global - global - unity and peace: "All humans are the same, except for differences in skin tone and language, they are all friends, but there are people who would destroy that." However, there is also the fact that Mr. K - cast as the villain at every turn, unambiguously in the wrong - is a man of unspecified nationality whose entire family was murdered by the Imperial Army, and as a result he has become bent on destroying Japan in revenge. While Mr. K's cartoonish supervillainy is obviously played up for funsies, it can be interpreted as being in pretty poor taste, and the show is not allowed to be re-ran on television today for this exact reason. As we'll see in this article, the ways in which Hawaiian audiences interpreted the series' views were nuanced even when it was first airing.

Now that we've gotten some background on what this series is, I want to leave its home country and explore the impact it had when it was broadcast outside of Japan. My aim here is to gather and present as much information related to the show's presence on Hawaiian television - and in Hawaiian life - as I can.

from Prefectural Earth Defense Force OVA

Same Bat Sister Time, Same Bat Sister Channel: When and Where Did It Air?

Tokusatsu hit Hawaiian shores in September 1973, when Tsuburaya's Emergency Directive 10-4/10-10 was broadcast with English subtitles. In February 1974, Rainbowman would begin airing. While it was popular with young people in Hawaii, it would be overshadowed a month later by the phenomenon that was Android Kikaider's Hawaiian broadcast. The overwhelmingly positive response to Kikaider by Hawaiian fans is a large part of the reason why the show has any kind of notoriety in the U.S. today.

Rainbowman was broadcast on KIKU, which is currently on air as channel 20, broadcasting primarily Japanese and Filipino media. As of 1974, however, KIKU was on channel 13, and under different ownership. In 1966, Richard Eaton, owner of United Broadcast Company, bought KTRG-TV, hoping to convert it into a station that would broadcast Japanese-language programming. A scuffle ensued, involving FCC scrutiny, lawsuits regarding whether or not the previous owners, the Watumull family, were even able to sell the station, and doubts about Eaton's apparently poor track record with such endeavors, but ultimately the sale went through in July of 1967. In October of that year (after one more lawsuit for good measure), KTRG-TV returned to the air under the new call sign KIKU ("kiku" is the Japanese word for the chrysanthemum flower) and began airing nightly televised sumo matches. The next year, KIKU would introduce color broadcasting, and the year after, it began airing content with English subtitles. By 1975, half of its programming was subtitled.

So, when did Rainbowman air specifically? From looking through the February 1974 issues of Hawaii Times, I was able to find out that it seems like the series debuted on KIKU on Sunday, February 10th, at 7 PM.

Relevant to our interests, KIKU was also airing Dai Chushingura at around the same time.

Flipping through further issues, I could see that the show shifted days and time slots over the course of its run, starting off airing on Sundays at 7:00 but eventually switching to Saturdays at 7:30 and then Saturdays at 8:30. Its final time slot seems to have been on Wednesday at 6:30 PM, right before Kamen Rider was on. After February 4th, 1975, there is no further record of it in Hawaii Times.

So now that we have the bare bones of when the show aired and for how long, I'd like to try to find something a little more subjective. I want to look at newspaper mentions of the show that include contemporary reviews or impressions of it. And oh boy, do we have a wealth of exactly that.

Many Wonderful Things: Rainbowman in English

credit to August Ragone on Twitter

The sheer scope of newspaper coverage from when Rainbowman was on the air is staggering. Even cherry-picking some of the most interesting mentions leaves this post with probably more text than most people would want to read. If you made it this far, though, congratulations; you will be rewarded with some of the most fascinating information on tokusatsu in Hawaii that I've ever read.

Phil Mayer writes in the September 6th edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin:

And now kids, the news: When all 43 episodes of "Kikaider" have been seen here, a new series "Kikaider 0-1" will replace it immediately on KIKU-TV, Channel 13. The new series will be about Kikaider's brother. The rest of this story is for parents and other old people. If they read it, maybe they won't ask so many dumb questions about "Rainbow Man" and "Kikaider," two Japanese hit shows on TV. For instance, a lot of adults think "Rainbow Man" and "Kikaider" are parts of the same show. [...] They're not. "Rainbow Man" is a lot like "Superman." And "Kikaider" is a robot who battles a different monster each week. 

[...]RAINBOW MAN is seven different good guys, one for each day of the week. He can change identities because he is also mild-mannered Yamoto Takeshi[sic], a college student who studied with a guru in India. When he must outwit the no-good "Mr. K" and his "Shine-Shine" gang, Takeshi can become Moon Man, Fire Man, Water Man, Leaf (or Tree) Man, Gold Man, Ground (or Earth) Man and Dash 7, who is also known as "Rainbow Man." Eat your heart out, Clark Kent. There are 19 more original "Kikaider" episodes and 28 more original "Rainbow Man" episodes to be shown Saturdays at 8 and 8:30 p.m. respectively. 

We also learn from Mayer's article that the first 26 episodes of Rainbowman were aired without subtitles (the switch occurred around early August of 1974), and we even have the name of the blessed soul who was assigned to subtitle the remainder: Alvin Hamada, staff member at KIKU.

So we know that the concept of Takeshi's seven "Dash" forms seems to have been translated into seven separate entities, with their own names that correspond to the powers each form has. I also find it very interesting that the article doesn't translate "Shine-Shine" as "Double-Death", "Die-Die", or any of the other ways I typically see it translated. I'm intensely curious if that means that they somehow decided to render the name of Mr. K's group as the English word "shine", or if they left the Japanese word intact in its Romaji form. Evidently, I'm not the only one who made a note of that - a letter to the editor in a subsequent edition points out that the word was not translated in the article.

Nadine Scott, in the September 14th edition, tells us... well, there's a lot to unpack here, so let me just show you the whole thing:

The Rev. Charles Crane of the Church of the Holy Nativity in Aina Haina tackles the impact of "Kikaider" and "Rainbow Man," those two immensely popular Japanese TV hit shows, in his church bulletin this week. And he goes a step further in exploring the symbolism involved in the format of both shows particularly in "Rainbow Man." He sees a "deeply theological symbolism used in conjunction with the arch-villain of Rainbow Man, Mr. K", and says his henchmen are all robots who wear stocking masks and Texan hats.

"The molls are all round-eyed beauties with Western names such as [Diana and Cathy,] and their costumes are miniskirts and boots. Whenever one of the drones fails in an assignment, Mr. K, to the accompaniment of a Bach fugue, takes out a valise which controls his flips the appropriate toggle switch, makes the sign of the cross, says ["Amen"] and presses the button to disintegrate the offending knave."

Then, he writes, "it dawned on me: the enemy is us!" He points out the "bad guys are the Christians. They wear the Texas hats; their girls are made up in Western style; their leader uses a Christian liturgy to accompany his executions." And he concludes if that's the popular view of "us followers of Jesus Christ," it's no wonder missionaries are disillusioned when it is not a vacuum of innocence "into which they are received, but a pre-programmed resistance to that which is identified with all of the negative aspects of Western culture."

And what's more: there was discourse. In a subsequent edition, we have a letter to the editor responding to Rev. Crane:

SIR: As a non-haole resident of Hawaii, I was both amazed and amused with Rev. Crane's account on "Kikaider" and "Rainbow Man." Rev. Crane tries to explain the "Kikaider", "Rainbow Man" phenomenon in a typical WASPish (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) way. The two non-white heroes of Hawaii's youngsters are looked upon as something sinister. The same WASPish attitude has been described of "Kung Fu" by the same group.

Rev. Crane sees the makers of the fighting due as anti-white and even anti-Christian. Absurd! I am a student of psychology and have studied the reaction of Hawaii's youngsters. As Hawaii's people know, whites are part of a minority group here. However, almost all of the TV heroes have been haoles.

At long last, Hawaii's multi-racial, non-haole youngsters have someone they can identify with. "Kikaider" and "Rainbow Man" are indeed "breath of fresh air in a sea of white pollution." Rev. Crane should speak up for the "Golden People of Hawaii"² if he truly believes in Christianity.

Also, check out this kid in his sweet Rainbowman tee.

This is just me. This is what the author of this blog looks like.

Presumably the above kid is the same one from this disgruntled mom's letter to the editor:

To Whom It May Concern: On Monday, Nov. 4, Troy came home from school and informed me he and his classmates had listened to an album in class which he described as being "Kikaider-Rainbow Man" music. I will state firmly at this time that if it is again necessary to play this music in class during regular school hours, I must insist that either Troy be allowed to play in the playground or sent to the office until the session is over. Neither Troy nor his brother are allowed to watch the "Kikaider-Rainbow Man" series on television as I feel this program is detrimental to their upbringing, sense of reality and overall mental stability. If they are being deprived of an essential tool in education by not being exposed to this farce, I will gladly take the consequences of my actions at a later time. While I understand and realize Enchanted Lake Elementary School is a public learning institution, I feel there is: a point at which a parent must step in. If, indeed, Troy's story is true, that point has already been reached.

While the majority of my finds in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin were simply advertisements for Rainbowman merchandise, it is very clear that the show was incredibly popular and a part of life for many Hawaiians, both children and adults. We know that people were thinking about it enough to write about their theological interpretations of Mr. K's robot harem. I've always believed that a crucial yet overlooked aspect of media preservation is the preservation of subjective, personal opinions on a film or a television series. More than just the facts of when it was made and who created it, it's also important to know how people responded to something.

Now, let's draw this exploration to a close.

Amen: Conclusions

This is mine. I embroidered it by hand. I may or may not also have a Mr. K poster on my bedroom wall.

I did not expect to cover international releases of Japanese media so frequently when I began this blog. It is perennially fascinating to me that something as massively popular as Rainbowman can today languish in unsubtitled obscurity in the West, when just 50 years ago parents cared about it enough to believe it was a danger to their children's mental health. There is so, so much out there that's just like this - for example, did you know that the first Japanese movie ever fully dubbed into English was a Toho production (with our man in a small role, of course) called 3 Dolls in College, and that it's completely out of print both within its home country and here, surviving only on a VHS tape (which I will get my hands on sooner or later)? We tend to assume that the media that survives and becomes popular achieves that status because it's the best or the most historically important, but that isn't necessarily the case. There is always more out there that you haven't seen.

Old media is worthwhile. If I successfully impress one thing upon my audience through what I write on this blog - besides my goal of proving that Akihiko Hirata was so much more than the guy who played Dr. Serizawa - I hope it is that.

______

1 Incredibly important question: does this mean that, theoretically, someone could port Mr. K into Smash Brothers?

2 If you haven't heard the phrase "Golden People of Hawaii" - I define it here because I myself had never heard of it - it refers to an advertising campaign run by Hawaii's tourism board that showed the population of Hawaii as ethnically diverse, but did so in a way that posited the mixed-ethnicity population of Hawaii as a colorful spectacle for the consumption of white audiences. One can imagine the writer of this letter may have been using the phrase sarcastically.