"Attention now, Strada 5!"
"Attention now! Strada 5!"
Dengeki!! Strada 5note is a 13-episode Toku show that aired on TV Asahi in 1974. It's notable for being one of the earliest Sentai-formulated Toku shows, airing one year before Himitsu Sentai Gorenger.When an international crime syndicate named "Big Nova" threatens world peace and stability, a 5-person team is formed by the international police - "Strada 5."
Tropes that appear in this work!:
- Bait-and-Switch: Episode 13, the final episode, sees the team catching the Tokyo Number early on, and spending the rest of the episode going after Mister Asmodi himself.
- Blue Is Heroic: The Strada 5 all wear light blue uniforms and are the heroes.
- Cool Car: The Flying Pegasus, a modified Honda S600 Griffon which serves as Pegasus's vehicle in the team.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Mister Asmodi doesn't seem to have any issue with women serving in his crime syndicate and many of Big Nova's executives are female. Of course, he'll kill them for failure all the same too.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Mister Asmodi, the leader of Big Nova, who speaks with a booming deep voice courtesy of Shōzō Iizuka.
- Fictional Country: One episode involves the team having to rescue the ambassador of a country called "Arumerico". Later episodes see them trying to save representatives from the countries of "Isperia" and "Spainol". Episode 12 however subverts this, with the real-life country of Armenia instead being directly named.
- Five-Man Band: The Strada 5 are one of the earliest Trope Codifiers in Japanese media.
- The Leader: Kansuke Horita/Pegasus, the commander of the team.
- The Lancer: Genjiro Tonemura/Orion, the team's deputy commander who (initially) has a rocky relationship with The Leader.
- The Big Guy: Ichinen Takenaka/Apollo, a man with superhuman strength who serves as the team's muscle.
- The Smart Guy: Sei Takaragi/Luna, an auto mechanic who serves as the team's technological expert.
- The Heart: Kaori Hoshi/Andromeda, the [[The Smurfette Principle lone female] of the team and a woman with Psychic Powers who is the team's most empathic member.
- Monster of the Week: Big Nova doesn't have any monsters in their ranks, but each episode involves the heroes dealing with a "Tokyo Number", a human executive of Big Nova in charge of overseeing a specific criminal activity.
- Mooks: Big Nova has numerous grunts in their service, though unlike other Toku combatants they aren't Faceless Goons and typically don't wear anything more than a simple black uniform that leaves their face exposed.
- Nebulous Evil Organization: Big Nova, a crime organization with its sights on taking over Japan, and eventually the world, for... reasons.
- Sentai: Possibly the earliest example that can be pointed to in Toku, being a team of five colorfully suited heroes, though it differs from the eventual Trope Namer in several ways. The team all wear the same color suits and have to physically put them on as opposed to "henshin"-ing into them, the villains they fight aren't monsters but human crooks, they don't have a Finishing Move nor do they have a Humongous Mecha (though to be fair the first two Sentai shows didn't have that either), the team's codenames refer to them both in and out of their suits, and they usually put their suits on separately as opposed to as a group.
- Sequel Hook: The final episode ends with Big Nova being destroyed but Mister Asmodi getting away on a helicopter, and Jupiter saying he will likely form another Nebulous Evil Organization to come after them. However, the series never continued past its 13-episode run.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The rest of the team call Pegasus out in episode 13 when he, seeking revenge for his father, straps Tokyo #13 to his car and drives it around to get him to spill where Mister Asmodi is.
- Who Shot JFK?: Semi-discussed in episode 12, though it's more like "what shot JFK", as Big Nova's scheme in that episode is to use the sniper rifle that was used to shoot JFK to assassinate the president of Armenia.
- You Are Number 6: The Tokyo Numbers are each assigned a number 1-13.
- You Have Failed Me: Once an Episode, Mister Asmodi will kill the Tokyo Number after their scheme is thwarted by Strada 5 and proclaim that failure is punished by death in his organization.
- You Killed My Father: Kansuke is driven to join the team after Big Nova assassinates his father in the first episode.
"Farewell, Strada 5! We will meet again!"
