Trivia / Avataro Sentai Donbrothers

• Acting for Two:
  • Masashi Takada pulls off triple duty as the suit actor for Zenkaizer Black, suit actor/motion capture for Kiji Brother, and an occasional Creator Cameo as police officer Keisuke Asada.
  • Shigeki Ito pulls sextuple duty as the suit actor for Don Doragoku and Don Torabolt, the body double for Normal and Dangerous Jiro, the host of Gosei-Ki, and Inu Brother's second suit actor/motion capture (from #45 to #48).
  • Kazuya Okada serves as suit actor/motion capture for Inu Brother from #1 to #44, and Don Doragoku's substitute suit actor.
  • This is the case for the Juto and the humans they impersonate.
  • Yuichi Hachisuka is suit actor for Sononi and the Crane Juto.
  • Kouhei Higuchi portrays both Taro and Don Killer (from #39).
  • Yuuki Beppu plays Shinichi, Don Killer Killer (from #39), and Future!Shinichi (from #43).
  • Kohaku Shida portrays Haruka and her future self in #43.
  • Nagisa Tabata pulls triple duty as Kiji Brother's Avatar Change suit actress as well as that of Sonogo and Sonona.
  • Shinsuke Kusano is suit actor for Toradragonjin, the Blue Noto Councilman, Sonoroku and Sonoya.
• Actor-Shared Background: Both Haruka and Tsuyoshi share their birthdays with their respective actors, Kohaku Shida^note May 25, 2004 and Hirofumi Suzuki^note November 3, 1988, as seen in #39.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Mana Takai (Sonogo) always wanted to be in Super Sentai, and landed the role by walking into Toei and asking to be given a part.
• The Cast Showoff: In #5, Soko Wada (Jin) and Kouhei Higuchi (Taro) get to show off their pipes when singing "Happy Birthday".
• Colbert Bump: A comparatively small example. People magazine published an article about how Larry Birkhead made an Oni Sister Halloween costume for his and Anna Nicole Smith's daughter Dannielynn.
• Dawson Casting: A mild example. While Shinichi Saruhara/Saru Brother is 21 years old, Yuuki Beppu was 24 at the time of filming.
• Deleted Scene:
  • According to an Instalive started by Toutaro (Tsubasa/Inu Brother) and Hirofumi Suzuki (Tsuyoshi/Kiji Brother), there was originally a scene in #34 that was briefly seen on that episode's preview montage which involved a depressed Tsuyoshi going back to his apartment after Tsubasa runs off with Miho, and — after washing the dishes and cleaning the table — suffering a mental breakdown due to Miho leaving him. Both Toutaro and Hirofumi speculate that it was removed for being too nightmarish even by kids' show standards.
  • A deleted scene in #37 features the three Nōto generals discussing why they dislike Sonoshi, and includes a reveal that Sonoi was once Student Council President during their time in school.
• Development Gag:
  • Hiyori Katada originally auditioned for the role of Haruka Kitou/Oni Sister, but was turned down in favor of Kohaku Shida. Katada would later play Marina Maeda, the second/temporary Oni Sister, in #10, ensuring that she did play Oni Sister even as a one-off.
  • Jiro’s Avataro form having a Journey to the West motif is a throwback to an earlier draft where the Donbrothers were themed after that story, rather than the Momotaro myth they went with.
• Digital Destruction: Starting with episode 46, TTFC’s encodes of the episodes use a different software that results in the picture becoming distorted if it gets ripped from the site. As a result, the majority of the fansubs for this series have more grainy images (the exception being the anonymous TV-Nihon, who simply switched to recording the broadcast episodes instead of using RAW files).
• Dyeing for Your Art: Oni Sister's suit actress Ayumi Shimozono explicitly took up batting after her casting in order to better wield her signature Full Konbou kanabō weapon.
• Hey, It's That Place!:
  • Haruka might be in more danger than she realises, considering that her high school is the same one from Girl Gun Lady.
  • Goda's mansion in #22 is the very same mansion the Kanzaki siblings grew up in.
• Milestone Celebration:
  • Episode 16, which features both a Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger-inspired Hitotsu-Ki and Avataro Gear, aired on the 30th anniversary of DragonRanger's debut.
  • The crossover specials with Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger in 2022 and Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger in 2023 celebrate the 19th anniversaries of both seasons to prepare for their 20th anniversary movies in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
• Missing Trailer Scene: A number of scenes from the trailer was not used in the show proper, particularly those of their "Super Sentai" Stance and voiced lines of a supposed early interaction of Taro and Haruka, where he assigns her role as the oni and presents her with her equipment to Avatar Change. This was changed to her having her powers granted by Jin to begin with, which allows the scenes of her seeking and pledging allegience to "Taro Momoi" already in her Oni Sister guise (which are in the trailer as well) to make much more sense.
• Off-the-Shelf FX: The "sniper paintball rifle" from episode 18 is actually from the Zuru X-Shot line of foam dart guns. Ironically, Bandai distributes the said line in Japan.
• The Other Darrin: Shigeki Ito replaces Kazuya Okada as Inu Brother's suit actor/motion capture for #45 to #48, after which Naoya Iguchi takes over for the final two episodes.
• Production Posse: The prolific producer-writer duo of Shinichiro Shirakura and Toshiki Inoue has once again teamed up for a Toei Tokusatsu series, but it's Super Sentai instead of Kamen Rider like the previous times.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Kouhei Higuchi (Taro) was a huge fan of Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger and DekaRed growing up, to the point where he often role-played the show. As such, Taro's work uniform was designed based on the Dekarangers' uniform. He mentions in the same interview that he was also a fan of Kamen Rider Hibiki, Kamen Rider Kabuto, and Kamen Rider Drive, particularly loving the cast's performance and basing his acting on their's.
  • Raizo Ishikawa (Jiro) has been an avid Sentai fan since childhood.
• Prop Recycling:
  • Several Hitotsu-ki and Hitotsu-kings are retooled a lot throughout the series:
    • Engine-Ki is a recolored kitbash of Kousoku-Ki's head with Gekisou-Ki's body.
    • Tensou-Ki is kitbashed from a repainted Dai-Ki head with a repainted Chojin-Ki’s body.
    • Go-Go-Ki is kitbashed from a repainted Kaito-Ki’s head and a repainted Kaizoku-Ki body.
    • Tokusou-Ki’s body is retooled from Juken-Ki.
    • Choujuu-Ki’s body is retooled from Doubutsu-Ki.
    • Ja-Ki’s upper body is retooled from Kishiryu-Ki.
    • Zyuden-King and Kagaku-King are repainted versions of Kishiryu-King, with different colored head pieces.
    • Kousoku-King’s head is taken from Chikyuu-King with Keisatsu-King’s cannon.
    • Juken-King’s head is retooled from Chikyuu-King.
    • Ninja-King’s head is retooled from Keisatsu-King.
    • Tokusou-Ki’s upper body is retooled from Juken-Ki.
    • Kyu-Kyu-King’s CG is tweaked from Ressha-King’s CG, but also adds a second form based on Beetle Mars.
    • Many Hitotsu-Kings after Kyoryu-King started to reuse the heads from their Hitotsu-Ki forms.
  • Samurai-Ki’s sword is retooled from Chimatsuri Dokoku’s sword.
  • The blue fruit found in Denshi-ki's stomach-pocket dimension are recolored Helheim fruit.
  • Naoki Shiina's bunny suit is the exact same one used by Adoborute-G of the Vital.
• Recycled Set: The cafe Donbura reuses the base set of cafe Colorful from the previous series, but rearranged to resemble more of a standard noir-themed cafe compared to the half-candy store aesthetic of Colorful.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • Nobuharu Udo/Kyoryu Blue from Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger was originally conceived as a much older Family Man salaryman, however the idea was vetoed from Executive Meddling although a number of downplayed elements made it through for the character. Here the idea is played more straight with Tsuyoshi Kijino/Kiji Brother, an older salaryman who has a wife he cares deeply for.
  • A repeat of the Gokai Change considered and dropped for Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger due to the difficulty of making new suits in both male and female form, however this series actually does use such a power through Avatar Change, albeit retaining their Donbro Buckle belts (a la Kamen Rider Decade) and without making new gendered outfits (seen when Kiji Brother complained about wearing a skirted Ryusoul Pink suit).
  • The Zenkaigers' ZenkaiOh mecha were originally meant to appear both human-sized and giant-sized, though troubled toy releases meant that this had to be dropped during development. Donbrothers, however, would resurrect this concept in the robotaro forms.
• Scully Box: For stage shows, when not going with the Hand Wave that he’s changed the size of his avatar to fit indoors, the actor playing Kiji Brother wears lifts in his boots to compensate not being abnormally tall like the TV, CGI counterpart. Similarly, for live action head & shoulder shots, the show films Kiji Brother from below while seeming to have the suit actor on a platform or ladder.
• Significant Double Casting: Momoko Arata plays Miho Kijino, Tsuyoshi's wife, and Natsumi, Tsubasa's girlfriend. #30 reveals Miho to be a Juto that stole Natsumi's likeness.
• Spoiled by the Merchandise: By the moment the DX Omikoshi Phoenix toy was released, many fans have already deduced it would have a secondary All Your Powers Combined mode with Toradora Onitaijin due to face-shaped Kibbles and Bits on its shield parts that fit perfectly onto the mecha's head, even when the instructions it came with never said it could do so. Some had even figured out the right method to combine all the mecha weeks before Bandai officially announced Toradora Onitaijin Kiwami and released a step-by-step video guide for combining said mecha.
• Talent Double: Haruka Kito's mangaka work is done by Mame Fujimoto.
• Throw It In!: Happens a lot due to Inoue and the production team promoting this type of behavior during filming. For example, Masashi Takada (suit actor/motion capture for Kiji Brother) ad-libbed the line "I will arrest you by force!" when his character is chasing after Tsubasa in #4.
• Trolling Creator: When Kiita Komagine asked Inoue how Donbro!Kaito was going to end his arc, Inoue merely responded with “What are you going to do with that information?”
• Underage Casting:
  • Tsubasa Inuzuka/Inu Brother is 24 years old (25 years old as of #5), but his actor Toutaro was 21 years old during filming.
  • Hiyori Katada was dressed and made up to look slightly older than she was in order to better portray Marina as an older more mature character than Haruka (she's out of school and was a professional photographer so she's clearly supposed to be older that Haruka is). Katada is actually a few months younger than Kohaku Shida and, as you might expect given that she was the runner up for Haruka, could almost pass for her twin and would have looked appropriate for a high schooler had she been cast instead.
  • While Jiro Momotani/Don Doragaku/Don Torabolt is 21 years old by his debut, Raizo Ishikawa was 18 years old at the time of filming.
  • 42-year-old Hiroyuki Matsumoto is casted as driving instructor Muto, who claims to have been teaching driving for over 30 years, implying the character would have to be much older than Hiroyuki to have done so.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to Shinichiro Shirakura, during pre-production planning, the show was actually going to be inspired by Journey to the West, but they couldn't figure out how the human was going to work in there. They eventually decided to go with Momotarō, with some Journey to the West themes being incorporated in Don Doragoku's suit.
  • The five Donbrothers would've been human, monkey, kappa (frog), pig/boar, and either a horse/dragon had they stuck with Journey to the West.
  • The early script for #23 would've featured the boy in the beginning making a grave for his dog, instead of a flower memorial seen in the episode. The grave was changed due to strict television guidelines regarding and relating to the subject of pet memorials. This post on the RangerBoard forum goes into more detail.
  • According to an interview he did with Oricon, Kamen Rider Geats's Hideyoshi Kan (Ace Ukiyo/Kamen Rider Geats) had auditioned for the series, but failed in the early audition rounds.
  • Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger's Aoto Watanabe (Yanma Gast/Tombo Ohger) auditioned for Donbrothers as well, but also failed in the early audition rounds.
  • Shinichi was originally written as a YouTuber running a philosophy channel, before the writers decided to make him unemployed instead.
  • The Nouto trio were supposed to be slain by Taro mid-season, but when Yuya Tominaga (Sonoi) earnestly asked Inoue how his character would develop, Inoue didn’t have the heart to tell the truth, and rewrote the plan to let them live and perform a Heel–Face Turn.
• Word of God:
  • Action director Hirofumi Fukuzawa stated that Don Momotaro's Finishing Move Momotarozan (specifically where only the sword flashes are seen) was inspired by Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.
  • The production blog addresses the Unexplained Recovery of Minoru Ono after being slain as Gogo-Ki by Sonoi by offering two possible explanations, with viewers free to choose whichever explanation they prefer. Either Sonoi being in his post-revival Taro-esque state made his finisher simply exorcise Gogo-Ki as if the Donbrothers finished him or Minoru barely survived the attack and used his ninja skills to escape unseen.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Yuriko Kito is played by Hitomi Miwa, who previously played Lady Gozen in Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger as well as her relative in the Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger 10 Years After V-Cinema.
  • Shogo Amou (Tamaru/Juken-Ki) previously appeared in #11 of Mashin Sentai Kiramager.
  • Hiroo Ohtaka (Tokusou-Ki's host) previously appeared as Arch Priest Gaja from GoGo Sentai Boukenger.
  • Hiroyuki Matsumoto (Muto/Mirai-ki) was previously the human form of Sukekolian Mashu from Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger.
  • Shin Koyanagi (Sonoroku) previously appeared as Kabukichōmesugurohyomoncho's human form from Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger.
  • Yuka Motohashi (Sonona) was previously Natsumi/Yellow Racer from Gekisou Sentai Carranger.
  • Kohei Murakami (Sonoya) was previously Bud/Zyuoh Bird.

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