Sentai Character Talk 2: Miki Momozono/Goggle Pink

And here's the second character I'd talk about... a classic one, that is. Miki Momozono AKA Goggle Pink from Dai Sentai Goggle Five.



Considering this show is made during the 80's, Miki's background is kept simple: She's a 16 years old gymnast (and a pretty good one at that!). Not much is known about her family, which means she probably has learned how to live alone with maturity in tact even at such a young age. Anyway, her life as a gymnast (and a schoolgirl since she's probably at that age and I'd take that the gymnastic activity is probably her most preferred extracurricular/PE lesson) gets interrupted when she is approached by a girl named Akane, who took her to a telephone booth, drops her into the Future Science Lab, and then she learns about the world's peril. Just like the 3 strangers next to her, Miki possesses a strong sense of justice, thus she readily abandoned her normal life to become Goggle Pink, an ally of justice under the team Dai Sentai Goggle Five and starts her battle against the Deathdark Empire.

Pre-Production

Well, I don't know the details of it, but when Hirohisa Soda is assigned to write a Sentai season, Goggle Five was the first. Looking back at the previous entry, Sun Vulcan, I'd say that he noticed on how the main team has no women (as opposed to Battle Fever J and Denziman) and think "I want a female warrior back!". So that's how he starts to conceive the character Miki. Considering the target audience of the Super Sentai series (kids), he designed Miki to be a teenager, at the moment, the youngest Sentai character (or lady), maybe to invoke the image of 'Cool, reliable, strong big sister figure'. This kind of designing phase proves to be a success, that when Goggle Five gained popularity at its age, Miki becomes one of the more memorable heroines from the series.

Believe it or not, at one point they tried to have another actress to play as Miki, but judging from what's said in this site, that actress seemed too old, so it doesn't really capture Miki's image well. Well, eventually that role fell into Megumi Oogawa, and then the rest is history.

Trait

I'm gonna go ahead and go to the traits parts, since this is from an 80's show, character development hasn't been occurring very often. But a character doesn't always need to develop to be lovable. So here we go.

In a nutshell, Miki is quite the typical girl, she's kind, gentle, witty and has a tender heart. Probably by being the youngest one of the team, she could relate herself with children the most, making her the one who'd approach children more easily. Despite her age, she seems more mature than she looks, as said above.

However, it is without a doubt that despite being a capable fighter, Miki relies more on her brains and wits in battle, thus she might look like the most fragile member of the Goggle Five. Early on the episodes, she was hit with a bomb, which terribly wounded her and even casted doubts on her teammates whether she should continue being a fighter or not. Thankfully, Miki also has this one trait: to never give up. Which is why despite her wounds, she still dragged herself to fight against evil. Her refusal to submission is also highlighted in latter episodes whereas she gets trapped in a demon book, and the book was being burnt by Deathmark, while she's inside and worse of all, she's tied up and all her friends' efforts to help her get out prove useless. Thankfully for Miki, her trait to never give up eventually gives her the chance to break free and get out of the book on her own before it exploded with her inside. This, IMO, is the highest/greatest moment of Miki.

Her kindness is also shown several times. When she disguised herself as a doll to investigate several living dolls, she came to have a 'bond' with another doll, which eventually shields her from incoming bullet of death. Miki was able to feel the doll's sadness and desire to protect her beloved, thus one tear fell from her eyes, signifying the tenderness of her heart. This is also shown in the movie, when the usually evil Dr. Zazoriya gets chased for betraying Deathdark, Miki was the first to cover her and even pleads the team to listen to her, genuinely thinking that Zazoriya has repented. But that somehow is also a proof that she can sometimes be gullible, because it turns out to be an act by the Deathdark to hamper the team's progress. But, like usual, Miki isn't the type to let one mistake drag her down.

Arsenal

As Goggle Pink, Miki has a lot of options in battle. Her weapons include the Pink Ribbon, which utilizes a lot of her gymnastic skills (the first time we see her on screen, she's actually practicing with ribbons), and other than attacking, it could be used for other purposes like grabbing something from afar. Her personal skill with that ribbon is the Pink Senpuu/Whirlwind, in which by spinning her ribbon, she could generate winds to either blow the enemy away or form up a protective wind barrier from enemy attack. Her other attack is the Pink Ribbon Spark, which can be shared to other Goggles (losing the 'Pink' on name, but works the same), which basically latches the ribbon onto the enemy and sends out electric current to shock the enemy. Exclusive to Miki, however, is the Double Ribbon Spark, which is... exactly as it says, two Pink Ribbon Sparks used at once.

At one time, she uses the Pink Mirror, which I think is a nice shout out to the original Pink Ranger, Peggy Matsuyama/Momoranger from Himitsu Sentai Goranger. Her other most used technique is the Pink Heart Hypnosis, which uses her wiles to make enemy obey her, such as making the enemy dance around to her will, and have them drop down in the next second.

Which goes well with Miki's personal ability: costume switch. While this is a common skill amongst the ladies of Super Sentai, I would think that Miki's case is quite special, in this case, all she needs is just to spin around and her costume would change in a blink of eye. No explanation was given on how she could do it, so we may as well chalk it down as one of the powers that come with being Goggle Pink. But this could come in pretty handy as she can do quick costume changes without much hassle. She could even transform back to human form while being Goggle Pink, as shown in the battle against the Cactus Mozoo, after stunning it with the hypnosis, she just spun and in place of Goggle Pink is Miki dressed in a sexy flamenco dancer. Her costume change isn't limited on just female clothes only, she could also pass up as a prince with just a wig, though she still needs to work around with the her voice.

Pairing

I've talked quite a bit on it in a previous topic, so I think I'm not going to reiterate twice...

In Conclusion

Overall, since this is a 80's Sentai show, Miki's characteristics might look a bit lacking when compared to the Sentai series of these days. Still, for all she had, Miki is pretty lovable. She's both kind hearted and cute, but most of all, a very formidable, witty fighter. I do need to mention that since Goggle V is one of the first shows that I've seen in my life, while in other shows women are mostly less active in battle and serve as either moral support, or a damsel in distress that the hero must rescue; Miki is definitely one of the few most 'action-oriented' (as much as Sentai allows) female characters that I've known. Maybe I don't really pay much attention when I'm a kid, but as of now, it's safe to say that Miki is... pretty much my favorite female Super Sentai character.

I'll see you later in the next talk about Sentai characters.