Battle Fever J

Battle Fever J is a Japanese live-action television series. The third installment in the Super Sentai franchise, it was co-produced by Toei Company and Marvel Comics. Its 52 episodes aired on TV Asahi from February 3, 1979, to January 26, 1980.

The team members use codenames based on countries around the world, which are also named in the theme song: Battle France, Battle Cossack (Soviet Union), Battle Kenya, Miss America (United States), and Battle Japan. It was the first Super Sentai series in which the heroes controlled giant robots to defeat monsters that had grown to enormous size. It also marked the franchise’s first appearance of a Black Ranger. Toei’s tokusatsu adaptation of Spider-Man had introduced this format and inspired the series. The show also drew partial inspiration from the Marvel Comics character Captain America.

Battle Fever J was the first series to use the name Super Sentai; the previous two had been called simply Sentai, without “Super.” In 1995, Toei announced that its predecessors, Himitsu Sentai Gorenger and J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai, were also part of the Super Sentai series, when Chōriki Sentai Ohranger was announced as the 19th Super Sentai team.

General Kurama gathers four young agents who have been sent around the world for training. They are joined by FBI investigator Diane Martin, whose father was murdered by Egos. The five put on powered suits and become the Battle Fever team. Their trump card is the Battle Fever Robo. Egos tries to halt the Robot’s construction, but the Fever team defeats the monsters sent to carry out the task, one after another. Egos then unleashes the Buffalo Monster’s “younger brother,” a giant robot replica of its “older brother.”

Fortunately, the Robot is completed in time. The Fever team boards it and defeats the Buffalo Monster and its successors. The team carries on even after losing two members: the original Miss America and Battle Cossack. With new members in their place, the team defeats Hedder, who has become the Hedder Monster, and breaks into Egos’ headquarters. There, they are fed into the Egos Monster Making Machine to be used as material for a Battle Fever Monster. The team destroys the machine and kills the mysterious deity Satan Egos with the Lightning Sword Rocketter sword-throwing move.