YMMV / Choujuu Sentai Liveman

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • When Guildos insults Bias and declares himself superior in #43, was that a case of Guildos growing beyond his programming? And did Bias allow Guildos to go through with his plan in the episode so he’d get killed off by the Livemen before he could become a threat?
  • In #48, did Kemp go along with Bias’s plan because he genuinely believed he’d get to rule the Earth alongside him? Did he just not want to acknowledge that the mentor he revered had been using him all along? Or did he believe he’d come too far and done too many evil things to go back, and chose to go along with it so he wouldn’t have to face up for what he’d done?
  • In the final episode, was Guardnoid Gash simply following his programming when he carried Bias back to the Brain Base and fed his senile master’s delusions? Or did he too grow beyond his programming and genuinely care for Bias? Notably, Gash briefly hesitates before claiming he can hear Bias’s hallucinations, as if needing to process the fact that his master will soon be gone.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The final villain destroyed by our heroes is just another Brain Beast who doesn't exactly provide the most invigorating of battles, being easily destroyed by Super Live Robo's finisher. At the very least, there is a cool fight between Yusuke and Gash after the commercial break.
• Anvilicious:
  • Japanese universities tend to have high entrance standards compared to Western ones, and it's still not uncommon to find students struggling to get in. Knowing this makes the "getting a good score above all" thrust of the overly elitist Volt hit a bit closer to home... Not that the lesson is a bad one as such pressure can and will have severe effects on one's mental health.
  • Also, life, youth and your humanity are important and can't be spurned or destroyed. Bias tries and ultimately fails to completely purge the four doctors of their humanity like he has done to himself, ruins others' lives for his goals, and is trying to create an artificial Fountain of Youth, meaning he abuses all three of these things.
• Awesome Music:
  • The opening theme, of course, sung by the Red Ranger himself
  • "Taiketsu! Zunojuu" ("Duel! Brain Beast") is the quintessential 80's Sentai "Duel" theme. Strings and brass for the win.
  • The themes for the Bimotion Buster and Live Robo's Super Live Crash both have an assurance of victory about them.
  • The Mecha themes that start getting used after Live Boxer is introduced, and especially "Live Boxer's Song".
  • The ending theme "Ashita ni Ikiru ze!" is a triumphant and invigorating 80s pop theme that does a great job capping off each episode. There's also the the Latino version, which has a much different vibe but is still fun to listen to.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Moonwalking Colon.
• Complete Monster: Great Professor Bias has corrupted three geniuses at Academia into his students and has them massacre their classmates. Desiring only to preserve his own youth, Bias in the past extracted the brains of 11 of his followers and used them to create the Giga Brain Wave to extend his own life. To make his students try harder, Bias builds two robots disguised as aliens (Guildos and Butchy) and programs them with Fake Memories, killing Butchy when he discovers the truth and tries to defect. Eventually, Bias sacrifices his top student Kemp to complete the Giga Brain Wave so he can use it to turn all of humanity into his slaves. When his Giga Brain Wave is stopped and Megumi offers him kindness, Bias mocks her and rejects any chance at redemption.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Although his role in most episodes is just to enlarge the monster, Guardnoid Gash is one of the more popular characters in the series for his moment in the final episode where he helps the senile Bias to die happily.
• Even Better Sequel: While it's immediate predecessor Hikari Sentai Maskman is generally well liked, Liveman is seen as the culmination of Sentai's Growing the Beard, with many considering it one of the best Super Sentai seasons of all time.
• Evil Is Cool: Great Professor Bias, as a charismatic and mysterious cult leader who controls his students through careful psychological manipulation, he's definitely a lot more unique and interesting compared to the typical Sentai Evil Overlord.
  • Doctor Ashura as well for being a boisterous and cunning Genius Bruiser, as well as one of the more human members of Volt.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • This show, along with Choushinsei Flashman and Kidou Keiji Jiban was one of the very first Super Sentai series to be aired in some Latin American countries as Peru, where is still fondly remembered.
  • It was also popular in France where it, along with other Sentai and Toku shows, aired on Club Dorothée. As a nod to this, Dorothée herself cameos in episode 30.
• Heartwarming Moments: This Sentai may have you rolling your tissues for tears, but sometimes, it's tears of happiness. See this page for them.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: 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 Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. 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 Unbuilt Trope. 15 years later, dinosaurs on a rampage would be a motif in Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger.
• Ho Yay: Kemp is very, very loyal to Bias and devoted to pleasing him. Doujinshi artists have taken this and run with it.
• Love to Hate: Doctor Kemp is extremely pompous and egocentric, but while he's the least sympathetic out of all of Volt's students he's also one of the most entertaining for how unapologetically cruel and egotistical he is.
• Magnificent Bastard: Doctor Ashura is a member of the Armed Brain Army Volt and a tough but honorable foe of the Livemen. Formerly a gang leader named Arashi Busujima who had his mind enhanced by Great Professor Bias, Ashura devises strategies that combine his augmented intelligence with his already impressive physical strength, even nearly succeeding in breaking Yusuke's spirit with one plan. Growing suspicious of Volt after his score stops rising, Ashura uses Hacker Brain to hack into the Brain Base and unearths files on Bias's true plan, leading Bias to deem him a liability and revoke his modifications. Reverted to normal, Arashi sacrifices himself to blow up the seemingly-indestructable Battle Brain, choosing to go out in a blaze of glory with his humanity intact.
• Memetic Mutation: VIVA BIAS! has become a popular callsign for fans of the show, in reference to Gash's last words in the final episode.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Kemp crosses it in the very first episode when he heartlessly guns down Takuji and Mari, his two former colleagues.
  • Bias is cold and heartless for the entire series, but there's just no coming back after it's revealed he gave Butchy memories of a happy life on Planet Chibuchi, only to tell him he's a robot and those were programmed, and then kill him when he tries to turn good.
    • Then his whole "Giga Brain Wave" plan is revealed, along with the revelation that he crossed the Horizon a looooooooooong time ago. Taking your students' brains and trapping them in an And I Must Scream state? And leaving the failures to die? Twelve times?
• Never Live It Down:
  • Megumi only cries in a handful of episodes, which somehow translates into her sobbing almost every episode.
    • She's the water-based Ranger, it's unavoidable...
  • Junichi's Mister Seahorse moment almost always gets mentioned in any discussion of the series.
  • So does Jou's unfortunate moment with that dinosaur.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Dr. Obular before turning full-on monster. That mouth... *shudder*
  • Kemp's transformations. Fear Beast Brain especially - imagine a Xenomorph with spikes.
• Nightmare Retardant: Beauty Beast Kemp looks completely ridiculous for a Sentai monster.
• Realism-Induced Horror: The main enemies the Livemen are fighting aren't aliens or monsters, they're their own classmates. In addition to adding a personal level to the conflict, it also makes it more unnerving since the Volt generals are effectively regular people who've fallen under the sway of a cult leader and been indoctrinated to the point where they're willing to massacre their own classmates, in a manner that has some eerie parallels to real life cults.
• Retroactive Recognition: Those who mainly know Joji Nakata for his voice-acting may be surprised to find him in a live-action role as Great Professor Bias.
• Rewatch Bonus: Rewatch the series and you'll see a lot of setup for the final arc you may not have noticed, in particular Bias's smirking while watching his students compete, his reason for bringing Ashura into the Volt, his nonchalant reactions to Guildos and Butchy's arrivals, and the true purpose of the Volt leaderboard.
• Shocking Moments: Seeing two of the purported Five-Man Band get killed in the first episode must have been quite shocking for audiences at the time.
• Tear Jerker: Quite a few, given the dark nature of the last quarter of the show. See here for more information.
• Tough Act to Follow: While many will cite Liveman as the best series produced during Hirohisa Soda's tenure as head writer and one of the best seasons even to this day, the next two shows, Kousoku Sentai Turboranger and Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman, were much more lukewarmly received, nearly killing off the franchise until Choujin Sentai Jetman brought the ratings back up.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Seriously, this show gets very dark towards the end, to shocking Kamen Rider levels of dark. In the first episode alone you have two of the characters suddenly getting killed by two of their classmates who joined an evil cult, followed by their school getting bombed and the students all being massacred.

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