History Series / ChoujuuSentaiLiveman

** Black Bison: [[SimpleStaff Bison Rod]]

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Actually, the "first" of these. The Land Lion is the only Liveman mecha that could be truly called an AnimalMecha, as it is a giant mechanical lion. All the others are actually vehicles (a jet aircraft, a twin-hull submarine and truck-like wheeled vehicles) with a somewhat vague AnimalMotif aesthetic.

''Chōjū Sentai Liveman'' (Super Beast Squadron Liveman) is the twelfth Franchise/SuperSentai show, airing from 1988 to 1989. Kenji Suzuki sang the TitleThemeTune.

''Chōjū Sentai Liveman'' (Super Beast Squadron Liveman) is the twelfth Franchise/SuperSentai show, airing from 1988 to 1989.

** Yellow Lion: [[PowerFist Lion Punch]] and [[{{BFG}} Lion Bazooka]]

* Weapon-Based Characterization:

** Yellow Lion: [[PowerFist Lion Punch]] and Lion Bazooka

* WeaponBasedCharacterzation:

* AffablyEvil: Great Professor Bias is notable for being pretty reasonable for a ''Sentai'' BigBad. He frequently gives guidance to his students and encourages them when they do well. When they fail, rather than just {{Bad Boss}}ing them Bias also explains where they messed up. [[spoiler:This lasts until about 3/4 of the way through, when it's revealed [[FauxAffably to really be a way of manipulating his students]]. Then the "affable" goes right out the airlock.]]

** To make things even worse, Volt took some terrible cues from [[Series/KamenRider Shocker]], such as modifying humans in order to forsake their humanity and become [[TheSociopath psychopaths]], out of a belief in their own superiority and right to rule their fellow humans. It certainly sounds like something out of a work under Ishinomori's creative influence.

-->''"My friends! Why have you sold your souls to the devil?!"''

* WeaponOfChoice
** BifurcatedWeapon: The Live Blasters.[[note]]Splits from a gun into a [[CoolSword sword]] with a large [[LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe hilt]].[[/note]]
** {{BFG}}: The Bimotion Buster.
** Yūsuke: [[CoolSword Falcon Sword]]. He later gets the [[CoolSword Falcon Saber]].
** Jō: [[PowerFist Lion Punch]]. He later gets the [[HandCannon Lion Bazooka]].
** Megumi: [[TheStraightAndArrowPath Dolphin Arrow]]. She gets a minor modification with the other three.
** Tetsuya: [[MartialArtsStaff Bison Rod]].
** Jun-ichi: [[SaiGuy Sai]] [[BattleBoomerang Cutters]]
** Colon: Whatever's left over, [[MoreDakka up to and including the Live Robo]].

** BifurcatedWeapon: The Live Blasters.[[note]]Splits from a [[CoolGuns/{{Handguns}} gun]] into a [[CoolSword sword]] with a large [[LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe hilt]].[[/note]]

* TurtlePower: The Gran Tortoise, of course.

** Tetsuya: Bison Rod.

** Jō': [[PowerFist Lion Punch]]. He later gets the [[HandCannon Lion Bazooka]].

* AcademyOfEvil: Volt is basically an academy for training {{Evil Genius}}es, particularly when it comes to using science to forsake your humanity out of your rapacious egotism.

* AffablyEvil:
** Great Professor Bias is notable for being pretty reasonable for a ''Sentai'' BigBad. He frequently gives guidance to his students and encourages them when they do well. When they fail, rather than just {{Bad Boss}}ing them Bias also explains where they messed up. [[spoiler:This lasts until about 3/4 of the way through, when it's revealed [[FauxAffably to really be a way of manipulating his students]]. Then the "affable" goes right out the airlock.]]

* FreudianTrio: Yūsuke is the Ego, while J&#333 and Megumi go back and forth on being the Id and Superego. J&#333 is cocky but laid back, while Megumi is responsible but quick to emotion.

* HopeSpot: For a second, it looks like Colon might actually beat Kemp-zuno and save the day in the Live Robo. Then she discovers that she can't operate it effectively by herself...

* LetThemDieHappy: [[spoiler: As the crashed Brain Base explodes around them, Gush tells the now senile Bias that the explosions are fireworks celebrating his conquest of the Earth.]]

** [[spoiler:Bias is reduced to an old man and suffers a Karmic Death - for a certain value of 'Karmic'.]]

* MiniDressOfPower: Part of Blue Dolphin's costume.

* OnTheNextEpisodeOfCatchPhrase

* ThemeMusicPowerUp

* ActionGirl: Colon. Actually, until Tetsuya and Junichi join, she's basically all the backup Liveman has.
* AffablyEvil: Great Professor Bias [[spoiler:until about 3/4 of the way through. Then the "affable" goes right out the airlock.]]

* CastFromHitPoints: Guildos can endlessly revive his personalized Guild-zuno. It's not initially clear he's doing it under this trope... until [[TookALevelInBadass Green Sai basically forces Guildos down to zero on his own.]]
** Oblar's Benkyou-zuno ('Study-Brain') is also this, as he made it from his own physical material; it drained him to the point that he turned back into Gou temporarily.
* ChineseVampire: One MonsterOfTheWeek transformed the souls of Academia's departed into these.

** [[spoiler:Obular-zuno, a clone of Obular's monster form created by Kemp, Mazenda, and Ashura]], is used in an attempt to kill the original and the Livemen, and its defeat marks [[spoiler:Goh Omura's Heel Face Turn]].

** To make things even worse, Volt took some terrible cues from [[Series/KamenRider Shocker]], such as modifying humans. This is worse than it sounds, although Super Sentai series no longer under Ishinomori's creative influence.

* DoItYourselfThemeTune: The opening and ending tunes are sung by Daisuke Shima, who plays Red Falcon.

* EvilFormerFriend: Kemp, Mazenda, and Oblar. [[spoiler:The third one pulls a HeelFaceTurn though.]]

* EvilIsVisceral: Not as prominent as in most examples, but Volt often invokes this style.

* GeniusBruiser: Dr. Ashura, and Dr. Oblar before him.

* HeroicSacrifice: The only character who actually dies this way is [[spoiler:Arashi Busujima, formerly Dr. Ashura]]. Colon is aware of her status as a robot, and pulls something close to this about [[DeathSeeker once every 10 episodes or so]], but she survives until the end.

* LateArrivalSpoiler: ''Series/HyakujuuSentaiGaoranger vs. Super Sentai'' spoil that [[spoiler: Kemp and Mazenda die, which also gives away Obular's survival.]] Of course, it's possible to come to ''entirely'' the wrong conclusion if your introduction to ''Liveman'' is seeing its Red Ranger standing at the graves of four of his acquaintances.

* [[spoiler: MassHypnosis: One part of Bias's ultimate goal, along with immortality and eternal youth. And he actually succeeds, and would've won... if Gash could actually run or walk faster.]]

* MisterSeahorse: Junichi due to a MonsterOfTheWeek.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Bias' [[spoiler: [[DickDastardlyStopsToCheat removal of Kemp as a friendly from Sniper Brain's targetting parameters in Episode 35]]]] causes it to interfere in [[spoiler: Kemp and Yusuke's second duel]] at Academia Island through FriendlyFire, preventing the professor from [[spoiler: killing the weakened Ranger]]. Kemp is then blamed for [[spoiler: the resulting loss]].
* TheNudifier: By accident, Gou Obler ends up naked in episode 41 as the Brain Beast Of The Week was trying to make him completely invisible, but only took off his clothes initially.

* PhlebotinumInducedStupidity: shows up from time to time - Ashura's extra intelligence makes him a slightly less effective face-to-face fighter than Arashi, for example. Bias [[spoiler: accidentally turning into a ''child'' after using Kemp's brain to rejuvenate himself]] is the most notable though - he's not any less intelligent, but instead has the recklessness you'd expect from that form.

* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: [[spoiler:Great Professor Bias]].

* ThreePlusTwo: The series starts off with three members like ''[[Series/TaiyouSentaiSunVulcan Sun Vulcan]]'', but then two new members are added in Episode 30. This practice would be repeated in some later ''Super Sentai'' shows (namely ''[[Series/NinpuuSentaiHurricaneger Hurricaneger]]'', ''[[Series/BakuryuuSentaiAbaranger Abaranger]]'', ''[[Series/JukenSentaiGekiranger Gekiranger]]'', ''[[Series/EngineSentaiGoonger Go-onger]]'', and ''[[Series/TokumeiSentaiGoBusters Go-Busters]]''), but in those cases, the [[SixthRanger new heroes]] were planned from the ''start''.

* WhamEpisode: "Huh - Live Boxer looks really bulky and [[IncrediblyLamePun boxy]] compared to Live Robo... wait, they '''COMBINE'''?!?!" It's a given nowadays, but it's very difficult to overstate just how impressive this was when you'd never seen it before. And it wasn't even planned from the start.
** Wherein we learn that Guildos and Butchy are [[spoiler:''robots''.]] This is where the show changes course and starts getting ''dark''.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Colon is generally treated like a human female for plot purposes (the ludicrously high level of her AI isn't touched on), albeit one with the added benefit of being mechanical, and therefore more chances at [[HeroicSacrifice Heroic Near-Sacrifices]].

* WickedCultured: Bias and Kemp shoot for this. The former succeeds far more than the latter.

** Tetsuya: [[SimpleStaff Bison Rod]]

* HilariousInHindsight: The evil plan in episode 6 is to bring the dinosaurs back so they go on a rampage and destroy the world. Bringing the dinosaurs back would be a subplot 4 years later in KyoryuSentaiZyuranger. Since that show framed bringing the dinosaurs back as a good thing, so much so that the characters protected those dinosaur eggs over the course of the entire series, this show makes that an UnbuiltTrope.
** 15 years later, dinosaurs on a rampage would be a motif in BakuryuuSentaiAbaranger.

* AbsenteeActor: Tooru Sakai (who plays the human form of Gō Omura) only appears in nine episodes, despite being shown prominently in the opening intro during the first few seconds. From the third episode and onward, Omura assumes a monster form called "Beastman Obuler" (a costumed character voiced by another actor) and remains that way during the remainder of his tenure in Volt. When Omura reverts back to his human form, he leaves Volt and only shows up for a few guest appearances afterward.

* HilariousInHindsight: The evil plan in episode 6 is to bring the dinosaurs back so they go on a rampage and destroy the world. Bringing the dinosaurs back would be a subplot 4 years later in KyoryuSentaiZyuranger(and framed as a good thing,) and then dinosaurs on a rampage would be a motif 15 years later in BakuryuuSentaiAbaranger.

* HilariousInHindsight: The evil plan in episode 6 is to bring the dinosaurs back so they go on a rampage and destroy the world. Bringing the dinosaurs back would be a subplot 4 years later in KyoryuSentaiZyuranger (and framed as a good thing,) and then dinosaurs on a rampage would be a motif 15 years later in BakuryuSentaiAbaranger.