Trivia / Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters

• Acting for Two:
  • In Mission 12, Yoko discovers she has a Doppelgänger, a Chinese actress named Angie Sue. They look exactly alike except for their hairstyles. Naturally, they're played by the same actress.
  • In Go-Busters Returns, the voice actors for the Buddyroids all get to have on-camera roles (while still playing the Buddyroids as well). Cheeda Nick's actor plays a man who gets lost, Gorisaki Banana's actor plays a school teacher, and Usada Lettuce's actor plays the alternate team's Sixth Ranger. And of course, there's the fact that the vast majority of the cast does this in Returns, playing both their normal characters, and their alternate-universe counterparts.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Tesshō Genda, in the role of Gorisaki, has famously transformed into a truck before. Note that he only voiced the better-known Optimus Prime/Convoy while someone else played Optimus Primal, the one that did turn into a gorilla.
  • In Mission 17, we are treated to Beet Buster (whose actor previously did Magi Yellow) saying "maji de ikuze"^note meaning "Time to go seriously" while performing the Magiranger hand gesture. The Magi^note shorthand for magic/maji^note serious pun was often used in Magiranger.
    • #30 has Jin running over Messiah with BC-04, bringing to mind how another golden mecha back in Magiranger (MagiShine's Travelion) ran over one of the villains. It was The Dragon that time; here it's the Big Bad!
    • This allusion is taken to its logical conclusion in Go-Busters vs. Gokaiger, when thanks to the Go-Busters' ultimate power, Jin (and J) get to pilot MagiKing. Jin even points out how it "feels familiar".
  • Filmroid (the Metaroid for Mission 20) is voiced by Kenichi Suzumura, whose mannerisms should remind you of a certain Imagin.
  • Shelly (previously Kotoha) does an obligatory Barehanded Blade Block in #31.
  • In #35, Hazuki Saburou is basically a rehash of Ichiro Mizuki's role back in Kamen Rider Double, particularly his primary complaint about Masato's work ("It should MOVE me! With a BANG!!").
• Bonus Episode: Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters vs. Beet Buster vs. J was released with an issue of TV Magazine.
• The Danza: Hiromu's mother, Michiko Sakurada, is portrayed in flashbacks by Michiko Hosokoshi.
• Defictionalization: The Go-Buster team jackets and the jacket used by Jin were made available by Bandai in 2012.
• Direct to Video: Go-Busters Returns
• No Export for You: Go-Busters was initially not adapted into a Power Rangers season, instead being skipped over for Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger as Power Rangers Dino Charge, making this the first Sentai not adapted into Power Rangers since Gosei Sentai Dairanger. When it was revealed that Saban was parting with Bandai as their toy maker and teaming up with Hasbro, the series was finally announced for adaptation with Power Rangers Beast Morphers.
  • The DS game is released only in Japan and in South Korea.
• Prop Recycling: Other than the fact that Megazords use parts of the Metaroids' costume, any Metaroid with 2 at the end reuse previous costumes, especially if they are repaints. Mission 45 opts to hang a lampshade on it by reusing the Eraserroid prop as Omochiroid, using the same plot point of it piggybacking on Hiromu's back to go somewhere, and then having J and Hiromu point out that this whole plot seems familiar.
• Reality Subtext: The whole premise of Enetron itself, thanks to the protests against reliance on nuclear energy, after the Fukushima nuclear plant failures in the wake of the 2011 earthquake.
  • Similarly, the finality of everyone from the energy center sent into hyperspace being Killed Off for Real could be seen as a coping mechanism for all the lives lost in that earthquake. Compare Mahou Sentai Magiranger, which starts with a Disappeared Dad, the remaining parent becoming a Missing Mom by the first episode, and yet both turn up alive and well by the end.
• Recycled Script: Mission 12 is essentially a remake of Seijuu Sentai Gingaman's Chapter 14. While Yasuko Kobayashi was the head writer of both Sentais, she didn't write either episode (Gingaman's episode was written by Naruhisa Arakawa, while Go-Busters's episode was written by Nobuhiro Mouri.).
• What Could Have Been
  • According to main writer Yasuko Kobayashi, Hiromu had a "weak" persona in the original script. Takayuki Shibasaki, who directed the pilot, wanted him to be more like Tom Cruise's Maverick from Top Gun and so his character was given a firm and stubborn tone.
  • Enter's Red Buster form was originally conceived as being colored in a simple red but was changed to a dark red to differentiate him from Hiromu.
  • Although we now know what the Power Rangers adaptation will be with the announcement of the aforementioned Beast Morphers, back when it looked like the series had been skipped for good, Amit Bhaumik wrote a proposal for a series adaptation called Power Rangers Cyber Corps, which can be found here.

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