Poll Results: Which Yutaka Hirose Villain is Your Favorite?

Yutaka Hirose is one of my favorite tokusatsu actors. He is infamous for playing villains (and playing them really well), and actually making them somewhat lovable despite being villains (even though he's played some of the most evil characters)

The winner was Dr. Kemp (or Kenji Tsukigata) from Liveman with 64% of the votes. Liveman's just a great show, and he was one of the best parts of it. This was one of the first villains who wasn't entirely evil, and did have a chance at redemption (although he had many and blew them). He did redeem himself at the end. After reaching the IQ of 1,000 (which is physically impossible) Kemp's brain was taken by Dr. Bias who revealed his true intentions. Kemp's spirit lead the way in the final attack against Dr. Bias, along with the many generals before him, causing Bias to lose his youth and reveal his true age. This was important, because it allowed the Liveman to defeat him.

Next was Tranza from Jetman, with 48% of the votes. I'm surprised he got that much. Because he was fed up by being treated like a kid by both the Vyram and the Jetman, he aged himself, and now referred to himself as Tranza. After pwning Ryu, Gai, and Raita, he reveals himself, and then forces Radiguet to call him Tranza-sama. Although he's clearly more mature, he does exhibit some evil child-like-ness. In his last episode, he was rocking on a swing while laughing evil at Ryu and told him it was nice playing with him. And we all know how it ends, and Radiguet forces him to call him Radiguet-sama. I feel guilty referring to him as hot while playing this character, because he was simply a boy who went through puberty in three seconds.

Ley Wanda received 32% of the votes. He was Jin's foe in Flashman. He boasted that he was a superior being, and then learns that he was simply composed of four lesser beings of the universe. This gave him an existential crisis, and he sought to defeat Jin to prove himself. Also, he might have had a thing with Ley Nefel. Not too deep as Hirose's other characters, except for the existential crisis.

I was really surprised at this: Jin received only 25% of the votes. He was one of the best parts of Dairanger for me. He was more of an anti-hero than a villain, and was somewhat good in the end. He's one of my favorite characters in Dairanger. This is probably the culmination of all of Hirose's characters: an anti-hero, with vengeance, later tainted by the villains, then after Ryou saves him, and breaks him from the Gorma's control, he decides not to duel with him, because he knew Ryou could never kill him. He then was killed by the Gorma after leaving. But his spirit came back and motivated Ryou to defeat the Gorma during one of the final battles.

The last one I listed because he was in a video on youtube called "Don't you F!ck with Yutaka Hirose." and seemed somewhat noteworthy, but he got only 6% of the votes.

All and all, Yutaka Hirose, talented actor, handsome man, and great at playing villains. And he's aged pretty well.

Here is a recent picture with Kihachiro Uemura (Green Flash) Both have aged nicely.