Tokusatsu Fans from Brazil Enjoy Touring Locations Across Japan Used in Superhero TV Shows

By Mishio Suzuki / Yomiuri Shimbun Senior Specialist

12:00 JST, December 13, 2024

A curious tour from Brazil to Japan took place this autumn. Although the tour package was 15 nights long, the schedule did not include trips to major tourist spots such as Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Skytree, Asakusa and the Kabukiza Theatre. It was a tokusatsu tour planned by Ricardo Cruz, who lives in Sao Paulo, and a tourist agency in Brazil. Twelve men and women, many of them aged around 40, participated in the group tour. Cruz, a major tokusatsu fan, not only does singer activities as a quasi-regular member of Japanese anime song unit JAM Project, but also has been working as a writer and an editor on Japan’s tokusatsu productions in Brazil and has recently published a book on the subject.

Tokusatsu TV shows from Japan started being repeatedly broadcast in Brazil during the late 1980s. The shows included “Choshinsei Flashman” and “Dengeki Sentai Changeman,” both popular productions from the Super Sentai series, as well as “Kyoju Tokuso Juspion” from the Metal Hero series. There are many avid fans of these works in Brazil.

Instead of going to famous sightseeing spots, the group charted a bus and went to: Hatonosu gorge in Tokyo; a quarry in Yorii, Saitama Prefecture; Mt. Iwafune and Oya History Museum in Tochigi Prefecture; Nusuttogari rocky cliff and shore in Kanagawa Prefecture; and Toei Kyoto Studio Park in Kyoto. Some of you may wonder what those places are, apart from Toei Kyoto Studio Park. They are all locations frequently used by tokusatsu superhero shows, such as Super Sentai series TV dramas.

Yorii and Mt. Iwafune are “sacred places” for tokusatsu fans in Japan as filming locations for explosion scenes with enemy monsters. Yorii was often used during the late Showa era (1926-1989) while Mt. Iwafune is a popular choice in recent years. They also visited other rocky grounds, capes and a suspension bridge featured in tokusatsu shows.

“Hatonosu is a place often used in tokusatsu works in the 1970s, like ‘[Jinzoningen] Kikaider,’ while Nusuttogari is the place for the final battle between Red Flash [in ‘Choshinsei Flashman’] and his enemy. Yorii, which was used for the duel between Juspion and his archrival, Mad Gallant, is impressive,” Cruz said impassionedly.

Since most of the places the tour visited were not well-maintained tourist spots, there were many places they could not reach unless they crossed a stream and hiked over rocky ground after they got off the bus.

“[Even] that was a fun adventure,” Cruz said.

Part of the tour was joined by actor Hiroshi Watari, who played Den Iga, the human persona of superhero Sharivan in “Uchu Keiji Sharivan.” His participation greatly excited the group.

The tour visited some standard tourist spots as well, such as Owakudani in Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Shinjuku Ward in Tokyo, but viewed them as the locations of superhero shows. To the tour members, Owakudani is the place called “the land of death” in “Uchu Keiji Sharivan,” and the high-rise-filled Shinjuku is the “holy place of tokusatsu” where Sharivan and two other space sheriffs gathered and posed together.

Shopping is a must for any tour, and this tour was no exception. “We went to four Mandarake shops [which sell anime and tokusatsu merchandise],” Cruz said, which demonstrates the tour was truly focused on tokusatsu.

If you are curious about how much the tour cost, it was about 36,500 reals, roughly more than ¥900,000. The participants were greatly satisfied. Apparently, some participants were sobbing on the bus back to Narita Airport, and another person thanked Cruz, saying, “I had never thought I’d be able to go to locations of the tokusatsu shows I used to watch as a child.”

Cruz is planning to hold another tour like this next year.

“I’d like to celebrate the 40th anniversaries of Juspion and Changeman [together in Japan],” he said emphatically.

Beyond time and distance, the tokusatsu superhero TV shows produced in Japan during the late Showa era have stirred the hearts of Brazilian people on the other side of the globe. As someone always maintaining that tokusatsu is a cultural asset Japan can boast to the world, I was extremely happy and proud to receive Cruz’s report.