Rolling Bomber Special is a Short Film directed by Tetsuya Nakashima that tells the story of Shintaro Katori, and his quest to destroy the world...if the "heroes" of this story are to believed. See, a Sentai team calling themselves Earth Defender Freshman is onto his schemes and will stop at nothing to protect the world and everyone in it. There's only one problem with all of this...
Shintaro Katori has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.
And even worse, the Freshmen are so hilariously inept, if that's all that will stand against the forces of evil, the world is doomed anyway.
A hilarious jab at all things Super Sentai and widely believed to be a Web Original, the short actually dates back to 2001 as part of an anthology of short films done by members Shingo Katori and Tsuyoshi Kusanagi of the long running Japanese Boy Band SMAP, titled SMAP Short Films. You can watch it here.
This work provides examples of:
- And Then John Was a Zombie / Tomato in the Mirror: The short ends with Katori erupting in armor, spikes, and a nested, xenomorph-like jaw and still confused about what's going on.
- Arrows on Fire: How both the Freshmen and Zarray deliver their messages to Shintaro
- Bland-Name Product: "Popsi" (from Pepsi) is seen as a soft drink.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The second time the team yells out their battle cry, Katori turns to the camera and does a (less enthusiastic) version of it.
- Make My Monster Grow: The Freshmen are capable of growing to giant proportions at will. Well... more like their heads grow at will and replace the torso, leaving a giant head with stubby protruding limbs.
- No-Sell: The first encounter with the Freshmen is a series of these, although mostly because of the team's own apparent incompetence. It also happens in the end, with Katori blocking a much more powerful Rolling Bomber Special and much more concerned with the sudden metamorphosis taking his body
- Properly Paranoid: Both the Freshmen and Zarray apparently turn out to be right about what Katori's supposed to be, except he's still very scared and confused about the whole thing.
