Characters / Go, Go, Loser Ranger! - Sosei Akabane

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Footsoldier D | The Five Dragon Keepers (Sosei Akabane) | The Five Ranger Battalions | The Invaders | The Invader Rights Association | The Neo Rangers | Other Characters

Red Keeper / Sosei Akabane

Voiced by: Yuichi Nakamura

"We're the good guys!"

The First Class Dragon Keeper of the Red Battalion, and overall leader of the Dragon Keepers. Born Soshi Abakane, Sosei is a handsome man with an unparalleled charisma and is the main public figure of the Rangers. He claims to fight for justice and against the Evil Kaijin Army but harbors an extremely twisted view on what justice really is. He originally carried the Sword Divine Tool before it was stolen by Yumeko and D.

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• Arc Villain: The Red Keeper serves as the main antagonist of the opening arc. D makes Red Keeper his target during his first infiltration, but after Yumeko discovers him, it becomes a mission for D to steal away Red Keeper's Divine Tool for Yumeko after witnessing said Keeper's murder of Footsoldier F.
• Ascended Fanboy: Seems to be one of the original Dragon Keeper series, just like Wakaba. He in particular loves Episode 35 and is adamant that no one messes with the characterization or formation of the Keepers.
• Attention Whore: The culmination of his schemes of enslaving the Footsoldiers is to use the never-ending publicity to bolster the Rangers, and by consequence his own ego as the savior of the world and number-one hero in charge of the Rangers. And he's more than willing to go to any length, even murder, to keep that gravy train going.
• Ax-Crazy: Oh hell, yes. He's more than willing to murder anyone, friend or foe, who manages to set him off in any way.
• Badass Boast: As the leader of the Dragon Keepers, he tends to shout these as the protectors of humanity at the Footsoldiers. Especially as a means to hype up the watching audience. Though given his true persona, it's kind of obvious that he's just playing the acting role as the leader.
• Baseball Episode: During his chapter 5 fight with D, Sosei treats whacking away the water tower ball that D tried to drop on him as if he was playing baseball. At the end of the chapter, it's shown that Red Keeper smashed the water tower ball into the billboard showing the 5 Dragon Keepers.
• Beneath the Mask: On the outside, he's the heroic charismatic leader of the Dragon Keepers. On the inside, he's a twisted sociopath.
• Big Bad: Effectively touts himself as the Red Is Heroic leader of the Rangers, and is shown to be the worst of the bunch. As the top of the hierarchy, this also means he is the ultimate goal of D to take down at the very apex of the food chain. Though with the return of the Executives, it evens out to a Big Bad Ensemble.
• Colorful Theme Naming: "Sosei Akabane". "Aka" is "red" in Japanese.
• Control Freak: Has shades of this, most notably his very specific vision of how the Keepers should look and act. So much that it is apparently more of a priority for a replacement candidate to meet than skills, and deviating from said vision in any fashion is among the many ways to set him off.
• A Day in the Limelight: After the Three Way Battle, Sosei's the main focus of the first arc following the Time Skip. Sosei's almost assassinated by those deep in the Ranger Association, which he ends up with amnesia, and has to figure things out from there.
• Death by Irony: As someone obsessed with his public image and built an ego around keeping the Footsoldiers under his heel, he dies in his underwear after being rather anticlimactically stabbed by D while he was changing. Adding insult to injury, it would seem his death was completely swept under the rug and a new Red Keeper was found in time for the next Sunday battle. Even the reveal that he survives through his clones brings an ironic edge to his previous deaths; his desire to keep everything under his control gets him regularly killed to keep him under control, as the Association has been simply assassinating and cloning Sosei whenever he gets too unhinged so as to maintain a consistent image.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In chapter 74, when one of his fearful subordinates he already mocked accidentally pours tea on his helmet mid-conversation, the next shot is the aftermath of stomping the poor guy into a paste across the floor just off-panel.
• Dying Alone: Dies in a secluded part of the zoo as he was changing out of his Keeper uniform when D stabbed him through the heart. Unlike Blue's death, the media makes no mention of it and he is immediately replaced with a near perfect clone of himself.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Sosei's not properly introduced outside of his ranger suit until the second half of chapter 2, but near the start of that same chapter, he can be seen with a microphone reminding the exam takers trying to become ranger cadets of how many more laps they have left to run.
• Establishing Character Moment: Red Keeper has two that show off both sides of the role in the story he plays. The first is in chapter 1 where he acts out his role as the Dragon Keeper hero that disposes of D when the latter tries to change the plot. The second is in chapter 6 that shows off his brutal murder of his Red Battalion's Junior First Class ranger, Jin Himura, which makes it clear just how evil the current Red Keeper actually is.
• Even Evil Has Standards: When the threat of the Executives bringing back their ultimate weapon is floated, he genuinely seems to be serious about it needing to be stopped before it could even attempt to happen given the implications that it could wipe out humanity, and nearly did the first time around. Not an ounce of his egotistical urges for publicity are exerted, at least openly.
• Evil Gloating: When D stands up to the Dragon Keepers in the 999th show match, the Red Keeper steps forward to be the one that sends D back to the citadel. Before finishing D off, the Red Keeper orders D to know his place, reminding D that this isn't his kind's stage, and to take the hint that the job of a footsoldier is only to shut up and get beaten up by the heroes: the rangers.
• Evil Hero:
  • He, alongside his fellow Dragon Keepers, has kept the already defeated and harmless Dusters as slaves for them to continue beating every Sunday to keep being celebrities and heroes of humanity in the eyes of the people. If the Dusters refuse, they'll be killed in an instant by their weapons, the Divine Tools.
  • He mercilessly kills his attache, the Red Junior 1st Class Jin Himura, because of the latter claiming he should resign from his position after his Divine Tool got stolen. Even worse is the fact that Jin grew up looking up to Sosei, was directly trained by him since he was a recruit, and Sosei himself told him he wished for Jin to surpass him one day. That wasn't enough for him to hold back his punches.
  • In chapter 74 he again kills his new attaché, Red Junior 1st Class Dairyuu Azuki, after he fails to refill his tea promptly and spills the new cup on him. In the same chapter he threatens to kill Suzukiri for laughing at him while he's mourning Jin (whose death he himself caused), almost going through with it if not for Yellow Keeper refocusing him on their meeting.
• Evil Is Petty: In Chapter 74 he coldly refuses to let Komachi fill the role of Blue Keeper despite her status as Blue Battalion’s Junior First Class ranger and her competency out of the belief that her short stature will disrupt the Keepers’ signature team pose too much, then rubs salt in the wound by calling her a midget to her face.
• Evil Laugh: Has one in chapter 5 when D, a nothing Footsoldier to him, asks Red Keeper to take him seriously.
• Expendable Clone: Whenever Sosei's inherently unhinged nature gets the better of him, the Black Suits of Pink Battalion assassinate Sosei and replace him with an identical copy to maintain a consistent face of the Rangers Assocaition.
• Fatal Flaw: His complete non-caring attitude towards potential threats, such as viewing the Footsoldiers as nothing to worry about. It bites him early on when Footsoldier D easily locates Red Keeper's Divine Tool because, instead of keeping it under some sort of heavy protection, Sosei just carelessly kept it lying around in a golf bag. This carelessness eventually catches up to one of the Sosei clones when he decides to change out of his Keeper outfit in a place with nobody around, leaving him wide open for D to literally stab him in the back and kill him.
• Faux Affably Evil: Though he's cruel towards the aliens that he treats as punching bags, in his first quiet scene with the other Keepers, he seems rather affable initially, admitting his mistake in losing his Divine Tool and joking about how the outfit he's currently wearing is an old one that smells really musty. However, when his second in command states that he should probably step down from his position because of this, he agrees that he probably should before punching his second in command's head into a pulp. He then sits down and begins to eat like nothing happened while his hand is still covered in blood with the second in command's corpse behind him.
• First-Episode Spoiler: Red Keeper has his Divine Tool stolen away by D in the very first Story Arc, which jumpstarts the whole plot of the series.
• Foil: To Green Keeper on many counts.
  • Red Keeper lives unmasked as Sosei Akabane, appearing in commercials and on posters, while Green Keeper keeps his identity as Chidori a secret, hiding behind a total face mask. Sosei Akabane is clean cut and conventionally attractive, while Chidori looks like a hooligan, which gets him into trouble with the authorities.
  • Red Battalion is the most visible, being major contributors to the publicly televised Sunday battles, while Green Battallion works in the shadows to hunt executives, to the point that their actions are top secret and are officially covered up, even to other rangers.
  • Red Keeper behind the scenes is Ax-Crazy, giving No Quarter to Invaders acting off script and even killing his own battalion members for not meeting his expectations. Meanwhile, Green Keeper maintains his heroism both on and off camera as he offered to spare D from death in Chapter 5, again in Chapter 78, and was the only Keeper that tried to stop Red Keeper from murdering his attache in Chapter 6.
  • Even the Chance Meetings Between Antagonists were opposites as Sosei Akabane was standing tall when and proud when D first met him while D unknowingly saved Chidori as he was getting arrested by the police.
• Freudian Excuse: Hinted throughout the series he has a long standing fear of being labeled a failure or no longer useful as in the past he was a cast member of the original Rangers TV series and would become the reason it was canceled. As such, he has zero tolerance for anything that would be a detriment to the image of the Rangers Association and, more importantly to him, anyone that would try to undermine his spotlight.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Akabane has a ridiculously short temper. Him beating someone to death for suggesting that he should step down from his position is already excessive, but doing the same to someone for spilling his drink is beyond the pale.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: His divine tool is a sword and he's the leader of the rangers. He's not your typical hero, however.
• He's Back!: As a means of showing their humanity in the conflict, the Keepers all removed their helmets— this included the Red Keeper that took over Sosei's spot after his death, who turned out to be Sosei all along.
• Identity Amnesia: After nearly being killed in an explosion by Pink Battalion's Black Suits, Sosei washed up on a river bank where he found found and taken in by Sanae. He spent over half a year living their with no memories of his previous life.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Shows hints of this whenever someone calls him a failure or reject, but it comes to a head just before landing the seemingly killing blow on the Giga-Invader Death Messiah.

  Sosei: You're right. This time they'll see us be true heroes. "Ranger Reject?" I'll never let anyone say those words again!

• In the Back: One Sosei clone meets his end in Chapter 82 when D backstabs him while changing out of his Keeper attire.
• Instant Death Stab: Knives always seem to find their way into his abdomen one way or another. D is able to kill him quickly as seen in In the Back above, while Midorikawa stabs him during a hug to get revenge for Soushi's perceived crimes.
• Karma Houdini: Zig-Zagged. While Sosei has certainly received the short end of the stick on numerous occasions, namely getting stabbed through the heart and caught in an explosion that took out an entire bridge, Sosei never actually stays dead for long.
• Kill and Replace: Attempted by Yellow Keeper and Pink Battalion. While Sosei was ultimately replaced by an identical clone, he survived the assassination attempt with only a bad case of amnesia being the worst injury he received.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: One of his clones was able to survive Yellow Keeper blowing up the bridge he was standing on. He is eventually found by Midorikawa without any of his memories from his Ranger days.
• Laser-Guided Karma: His inability to take the threat of the Footsoldiers seriously causes his Divine Tool to be stolen away by Footsoldier D. All because Sosei was so careless that he just kept his Divine Tool stored in a golfclub bag as if it was just another everyday item.
• The Leader: Given that he's the first-ranked ranger, he serves as the overall leader of the Dragon Keepers.
• Mask of Sanity: When in public, and even with his friends, he maintains the jovial and kind-hearted disposition of what's expected of the leader of a Ranger team. But the second something goes slightly off for him, he's ready to kill whatever bothers him.
• Mentor Archetype: A flashback shows that master Sosei had this relationship with apprentice Red Battalion's Junior First Class ranger, Jin. However, it's pretty obvious that Sosei was just acting out the master role as he instantly kills Jin off the moment Jin tries to convince Sosei to retire as Red Keeper.
• Mirror Character: To the Dusters, as both maintain the lie of their side being more invincible than they present. At the beginning of the series, the typically easily-expendable mooks on the Kaijin's side have to maintain the cover of a proper, full army, but their numbers are actually dwindling and so are secretly spared to have enough people to keep up the ruse. Akabane on the other hand maintains the looks of a consistent, unlosing hero, despite regularly being killed and replaced with another clone when he goes too far.
• My Greatest Failure: When looking back over the loss of Blue Keeper, Abakane deeply regrets forcing him into becoming a Keeper but was still proud he fought to the bitter end. However it could likely just be Crocodile Tears for the rest of the Keepers as not a moment later he's back to his Jerkass personality and talking down to Aizome. Not to mention a bit later he beats his replacement acting Junior First Class to death.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He managed to fall for Yakushi's goading about being a disgrace to the original Rangers and tore his forearm off for it all while Hwalipon in disguise livestreamed the whole discourse. Trust in the Rangers were already wavering due to Hwalipon's livestreams so the poster boy of the association revealing his Ax-Crazy side is a massive blow to their image.
• Not Quite Dead: Despite getting stabbed through the heart and being left to bleed out, he seemed no worse for wear as he made his regular appearance for the Sunday battle. It would later be revealed that that Rangers Association possessed the capabilities of cloning Sosei, suggesting he did in fact die here and was replaced.
  • Later survives as assassination attempt led by Pink Battalion, miraculously surviving an entire bridge exploding. The only lasting damage he suffered was amnesia.
• Oh, Crap!: The moment he realizes that D successfully tricked him by leaving behind his detached arm disguised as Red Keeper's Divine Tool on the Red Garrison roof (which dusts away and returns to D's body), and the real Divine Tool fell off the building and disappeared. The Divine Tool is last seen having secretly ended up in Yumeko's possession.
• Older Than He Looks: Everyone looks at least a little different in a decade, but Akabane hasn't aged a day since we saw him in Blue Keeper's flashback to his teenage years and he was already an active Keeper by then.
  • It's revealed he's even older than that as he was the original Red Keeper for the TV show the Rangers would be derived from.
• Orochi: The massive energy given off by his Divine Tool comes in the form of an Orochi dragon.
• Out-Gambitted: His "fight" with D in chapter 5 was just supposed to be another event where the 5 Dragon Keepers show off against a rebel Footsoldier. Unfortunately, D succeeds in fooling Sosei with a switcheroo trick, which resulted in the loss of the Red Keeper Divine Tool.
• Psychotic Smirk: Red Keeper gives off a really wicked smile as he's about to kill Footsoldier F with an activated Divine Tool.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He tends to provide these to those he views beneath him. Especially the Footsoldiers.
  • Upon coming across Footsoldier F on Earth in chapter 3, he calls out the Footsoldiers as being pitiful creatures because they're showing themselves to not be smart enough to follow the rangers' order of just hiding in their fortress like good Invaders.
  • In chapter 5, he calls D a reject because he's failed to follow the villain's script. So much so that D's not even able to properly hold the Divine Tool he currently has.
  • In chapter 6, he kills his Red Battalion's Junior First Class ranger, Jin Himura. Quickly smashing Jin into the wall, Sosei calls Jin a disappointment for proving that despite all the previous training to rise up to Junior First Class, Jin ended up not getting any stronger.
• Red Is Violent: And boy is he.
• The Reveal: It's later revealed to be part of a cloning scheme. Whenever a Sosei dies, a new Sosei-clone comes in and replaces him as the new Red Keeper.
  • Later it's revealed that Sosei has always been around, with Sanae explaining that although they were good friends in the past working with the original dragon keepers to create a beloved tv show—she can't forgive him for ruining the things she loved while he remained the same.And that his murder of someone caused the original dragon keepers to end without Sanae's phantom script being made preventing Yellow to get rid of the rangers.
• The Social Darwinist: He sees himself as the strong and the invaders as the weak, which, in his worldview, means he is entitled to their servitude. He believes that by letting people assume those roles, this is how peace is achieved.
  The weak, as the weak, don't resist the strong. The strong, as the strong, don't fear the weak.
• The Sociopath: After effortlessly killing his attache Jin Himura, he apologizes for interrupting his fellow Keepers's dinner. He then starts eating while his right hand, helmet, and the wall behind him are all covered in blood as if nothing had happened. theres hints that this is something similar to PTSD and not something inherent in the Sosei Clone, but rather their genetic memory gives them this callous view of life after dealing with the events that caused the invaders and executives in the past. It certainly explains most of his callous traits as not really being his fault but rather Yelllow Keeper keeping him in a state that prevents him from resolving his problems and killing him any time he actually does some soulsearching, the original Sosei back in Sanae's flashbacks at least while hotheaded and passionate, wasn't the monster he is now.
• Tautological Templar: Sosei lives with the philosophy that he is a good guy, therefore, he justifies all his actions as good and all the actions of the invaders as evil.
• Team Killer: Regularly (and brutally) kills off his underlings should they upset him. In the past, may have also killed a fellow actor.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: How he killed Footsoldier F was considerable overkill; basically activating his Divine Tool to send a massive energy blast in the form of an orochi dragon down upon said Footsoldier.
• Undignified Death: One Sosei clone dies stabbed through the heart in his underwear after D accidentally stumbled on him changing.
• Un-person: Despite being the face of the Ranger Organization, his death is completely swept under the rug and a replacement is found immediately. Averted as of chapter 88, as his "replacement" was seemingly him all along.
• Villain Protagonist: Of the Amnesia arc, as in the conclusion of the Three-Way Battle arc he narrowly survived as assassination attempt by the Rangers Association and was found unconscious on a riverbank outside of Milky Way City.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: As the Rangers are well aware of his murderous nature, Kanon proposes ganging up on him and taking him out to Green Keeper, since he doesn't currently have a Divine Tool. Green Keeper shuts it down, saying things would be a lot easier if they could, implying there's something that stops the other Keepers from rebelling against him.
• You Have Out Lived Your Usefulness: Played with. Sosei's usefulness to the Ranger's Association ran its course after his outburst jeopardized its image, however they weren't keen on replacing him as Red Keeper quite yet. Instead Yellow Keeper creates another clone of Sosei while Pink Battalion assassinated the original and is implied to have done this several times in the past.