The original pop-cultured ninja (since 1988).
Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya ("World Ninja War Jiraiya"), also known as Ninja Olympiad, is the seventh Metal Heroes series.
Rather than being a Ridiculously Human Robot or a man in a Power Armor, Jiraiya (real name Tōha Yamaji) is an elite ninja warrior from the Togakure style of Ninpō. His mentor and foster father Tetsuzan Yamaji, the 34th Grandmaster of the Togakure School, has trained him for the day the ancient Yōma Clan will return. Sure enough, the clan, led by Oninin Dokusai, arise with their army of evildoers in order to seize Pako, a mysterious treasure which came from outer space over 2000 years ago which is said to have power comparable to the Sun. With the help of his family, and an army of international ninja heroes, Jiraiya must stand tall against the evil ones.
Although the series was not adapted into either VR Troopers or Big Bad Beetleborgs, Jiraiya has been adapted as Sheriff Skyfire in Power Rangers Ninja Steel. It's also available in its original form on Toei's Tokusatsu World channel
on YouTube.
Recurring Metal Hero tropes include:
- Action Girl: Emiha, Reiha and Yumeha, who even form a Power Trio in episode 32. Benikiba is a Dark Action Girl.
- Cool Car: Jiraiya's main vehicle, the Black Saber, is a black Z31-model Nissan 300ZX
- Humongous Mecha: Jiraishin, which makes its debut in Episode 34-35.
- In the Name of the Moon: "Togakure-ryū Seitō, Jiraiya!" ("Disciple of the Togakure school, Jiraiya!")
- Transformation Sequence: Mostly averted. If Toha has to don the armor during the fight, the scene will do a quick cut between him and Jiraiya (one particularly funny case is in episode 30, when Benikiba is fighting Toha; she first pushes him offscreen, and he comes back onscreen less than a second later in the Jiraiya armor). In cases it is shown, it's only a brief sequence. And rather unusually for toku, instead of using a Transformation Trinket to access his suit or some sort of external/internal technique (like the previous Metal Hero, Metalder becoming angered enough to activate his robotic form, or the various Space Sheriffs having their suit teleported onto them from their ship), he armors up completely manually, the sequence showing him locking bits of his armor into place (with the visor saved for last).
Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya features examples of the following tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Episode 27 (the 300th episode of the Metal Heroes franchise overall) sees a character played by Kenji Ohba challenging Toha for the Jiraiya suit. So we have the first Metal Hero facing off against the seventh Metal Hero.
- Americans Are Cowboys: Rainin Wild, who is Billy the Kid's descendant and a cowboy-themed Ninja.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Kei and Manabu, who leave Toha to do most of the housework and enjoy teasing him. Kei eventually grows out of it, while Manabu continues to be annoying.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The Pako leaves Earth at the end of the series to ensure that the Dark Star aliens won't come to Earth in pursuit of it.
- Badass Biker: Mafūba, a cyborg ninja who rides around on a motorcycle.
- Back for the Finale: A number of World Ninjas Toha has helped throughout the series, including Baron Owl, Wild, Mafuuba and Rocket Man return in the finale to assist Toha in fighting the Yoma. On the other end, Madam Spider revives just about almost every evil World Ninja to fight Toha and his companions in the penultimate episode.
- Back from the Dead: Soon after being killed, Kensuke Onimura and Kazumi Mimura are revived by the power of Jiraishin, enabling them to go off and live in peace.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Initially Dokusai and the Yoma Clan are the main foes Jiraiya has to contend with, though in the second half Space Ninja Demost joins the roster of people looking to claim the Pako.
- Break the Haughty: Jiraiya gets his "fighting spirit" taken away by Chang Kung-Fu in Episode 3, but comes back in same episode.
- The Bully: Episode 22 features a group of schoolgirls bullying Kei's new friend. After Kei beats them up, they team up with the Yoma Clan to get revenge.
- Captain Ethnic: Some of the various World Ninjas (at least, the ones who are McNinjas).
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Benikiba and Retsukiba drop out fighting after Emiha and Manabu have discovered their trick of hiding, leaving his swords and running.
- Clothes Make the Superman: Played around in an episode where a rival warrior named Yajiro Iyo (played by Kenji Oba) takes the Jiraiya suit away from Toha after defeating him. Toha is forced to fight Iyo without his suit to get it back.
- Cool Old Guy: Tetsuzan has his moments.
- Toha himself, 30 years later, to the Shuriken Sentai Ninninger.
- Cosmic Horror Reveal: It's revealed in the final three episodes that the Pako was originally sent to Earth by a race of Starfish Aliens to conquer it, and that now the alien race behind it is looking to destroy Earth to punish it for deserting its mission.
- Deceptive Disciple: Kuroi Ibara in Episode 30 betrayed his master's teaching in order to become a criminal.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Many of the World Ninjas start off fighting Jiraiya, only to join his side after being beaten by him.
- Department of Redundancy Department: The title of Episode 6 is "Nazo no Nazo wa Nazonazo?!", which roughly translates to "The Mysterious Mystery is Mysteriously Mysterious?!"
- Distaff Counterpart: Tōha's foster sister, Kei, has her own heroic alter-ego under the guise of Himenin Emiha, who wears white armor, lets her hair hang loose beneath the helmet, and has her legs showing.
- Dub Name Change: The Brazilian dub had a few of them, going from smaller stuff (like Retsuga for Retsukiba, which can be chalked up to Alternate Character Reading) to some names that seem really weird if you've seen the show in the original Japanese first (like Mafūba's name changing to Storm and Yumeha being called... Agnes).
- Evil vs. Evil: The villains of this show are a lot less unified than in previous seasons, and occasionally come to blows with each other.
- The Faceless: Dokusai — literally. He has no face under his helmet, just a blank void.
- Fanservice: Benikiba's slinky red dress in episode 22.
- Flying Face: One of attacks from Demost is to detach his head and have it fly around shooting lasers.
- Girl's Night Out Episode: Episode 32 sees the three recurring female ninjas of the series - Emiha, Reiha and Yumeha - all teaming up to investigate strange happenings in a girls dormitory.
- Gratuitous English: Jōnin Baron Owl, Bakunin Rocket Man and Rainin Wild. Practically any character who is supposed to be American or English.
- Heel–Face Turn: Baron Owl, Haburamu, Kinin Reiha, Yanin Spiker, Vermillion Tokage, Rainin Wild, Kazenin Mafuba, Kaminin Oruha, Rocket Man, Oruha, Alamsa, Yumeha, Special Ninja Team. Granted, all of these were the results of successive instances of Let's You and Him Fight.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Jiraiya have to use jikou shinkuken to powers Jiraishin up enough to leave the Earth with Pako, losing both his main weapon and his mecha. However...
- He's Back!: ...by Ninninger, 30 years later, Takaharu activating a new ninshuriken brings jikou shinkuken back to Toha permanently.
- Highly-Visible Ninja: Even without accounting Jiraiya's bright red armor, Dokusai's son and Dragon Retsukiba wears a quite unbelievable striped, magenta-and-black ninja suit.
- Human Alien: Toha and Reiha are descendants of the original Jiraya, an alien warrior who arrived on Earth thousands of years ago.
- Humble Pie: Tetsuzan serves some of these everytime Toha feels slightly overconfident. Despite be more harsh with his adoptive son, the old ninja is not above of give some pieces of humbleness to his two other kids when they're slacking too much.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Wild's bullets can make curves in the air.
- Kick the Dog: Chang Kung-Fu the Fire Ninja does this literally in Episode 4 when he kicks a dog in one of his first scenes.
- Killed Off for Real: Genchi Koshimura, Ninja Jane.
- Lady in Red: Benikba wears a sexy red dress as a disguise in episode 22.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The Youma are on the receiver part when they conquer some few wins. Applies to Kei and Manabu too, periodically.
- Legacy Character: Chang Kung-Fu, Makumba, Gyuma and Gamesh are all replaced by identically-dressed successors. Chang's and Makumba's successors in particular are their son and older brother respectively.
- Jiraiya himself gets one in the crossover movie for Uchu Sentai Kyuranger, Toma Amagi. He's mostly a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Sharivan though, as opposed to his own character.
- Let's You and Him Fight: And time a new World Ninja shows up, they will end up fighting Jiraiya. Some of these happen through prodding by the Yōma Clan, and thus, once everything is cleared up, they will join Jiraiya in fighting the bad guys.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to its immediate predecessor Chōjinki Metalder.
- Master of Disguise: Benikiba. While all the ninjas are capable of disguising themselves, Benikiba is the Yoma Clan ninja who most often does so.
- There's also Changing Ninja Parchis, who can disguise himself as someone simply by looking at them.
- McNinja: Most of the World Ninjas, who are ninjas that hail from countries outside Japan. Apparently the art of ninjitsu has traveled a lot.
- Mêlée à Trois: It's the Togakure-ryu vs the Yoma Clan vs the World Ninjas in a race to claim the Pako.
- Monster of the Week: The World Ninjas start off like this, but quite a few of them end up becoming recurring characters and not all of them are villains.
- Mook Maker: A good number of the World Ninjas can summon their own Mooks in form of generic ninjas
- Ms. Fanservice: Benikiba provides a of it the Fanservice this season, thanks to her propensity for disguises.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Given the World Ninja's theming of ninja + nationality + other motif, this is inevitable.
- Demost is an alien ninja.
- It is eventually revealed that Toha and Rei also descend from the aliens that brought Pako to Earth.
- Also, there's Gamesh, a cyborg ninja.
- Oddball in the Series: Oh yes. Rather than be Powered Armor, the Jiraiya suit is something Toha has to physically put on. Instead of a military or police theme, it's ninjas and most of the opponents Jiraiya faces are humans with unique abilities rather than literal monsters.
- Put on a Bus: Toppa leaves Japan after Episode 24 for an overseas assignment.
- Redemption Equals Death: After being tricked by Demost into leading Toha into a trap, Treasure Ninja Jane gives up her own life to blow an escape hole for Toha.
- Rogues Gallery: While the Yoma are initially Jiraiya's main enemies, he soon amasses a roster of other recurring foes including Sound Ninja Uha, Makumba, Parchis, Gamesh, Gyuma and Demost.
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Spiritual Successor: Loosely based on Kamen no Ninja Akakage, but set in modern times. - Theme Music Power-Up: Jiraiya's theme song usually plays right as he's about to defeat the Ninja of the Week.
- The Un-Favorite: Toha feels that Tetsuzan always favors Kei and Manabu over him, since he's adoptive. It turns out that, by Ninninger, more than 20 years later, it's actually Toha who becomes the official heir of the Togakure Style, though.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Basically, this is Jiraiya's Catchphrase.
- Unlucky Everydude: Toha have shades of this. He's primarily the bread winner of the house, taking odd jobs to keep things going at home, since the dojo is short of students, and still have to take missions as Jiraiya. Add to that he never manages get the girl: Princess Maya went back to her country after their date, Reiha is revealed to be Toha's cousin, Yumeha was only an acquaintance and Jane died. Basically, the niponic Peter Parker, even more than the actual niponic Peter Parker.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Very often, when things start going badly for the Yōma Clan (such as when the World Ninja of the Week that they had fooled into fighting Jiraiya realizes the deception and turns on them), they drop whatever they're doing and beat a hasty retreat.
