Kazunori Inaba as Takeru/Red Mask in Maskman

Well it's time to pay some tribute to retired actor Kazunori Inaba who is currently a businessman.  Prior to that, he had a guest appearance in Flashman.


For starters, Kazunori Inaba shows why you shouldn't mess with his character Takeru (or him) with a lot of awesome out of suit fighting.  It shows he seems to be at par with the legendary suit actor Kazuo Niibori.  I really enjoy his out of scene fighting which isn't that present in current Super Sentai anymore.  But aside from that, he really manages to show the feelings needed with his interaction with Mina Asami.


I thought he really had a great interaction with the two characters that Mina Asami played as- that is as the character's girlfriend Ial vs. to that of her twin sister Igam (who was pretending to be a man but is truly a woman at heart).  As Ial's lover or as Igam's bitter opponent, it really showed this guy could act.  Made me think really that the Igam/Ial plot brought out much of him throughout the whole series.  In fact, I would say taht he really managed to act out the break-up scene in the finale pretty well.

Overall, just made me think that despite his retirement, let's still remember the fact he acted out as one of the most badass red rangers of all time in Super Sentai!