Ninja Captor

Ninja Captor was one of the first team-sentai tokusatsu programs, airing in 1976/1977 as part of the showa era for Toei on Japanese TV.  Ninja Captor featured a group of 7 young ninja men and women who would band together to fight evil in colorful ninja garb. It's really a progenitor to Super Sentai (used for Power Ranges) airing at the same time as Himitsu Sentai Gorenger. Instead of a giant robot, the team rides a special armored Ninja-Captor vehicle that could be deposited by a special aerial vehicle called Heli-Captor, they also had these motorcycles with side cars that could link up - an unusual feature.

From IMDB:

Daisuke Izumo graduates from the Wind-Demon Stealth-Army, a secret army aiming for the conquest of Japan. He instead escapes and becomes the leader of the "Captor," a ninja team supervised by Mujin Tendo. The Captor team's mission is to battle the ninja sent out by the Wind-Demon General, Retsufu Fuma.

John's Notes

Ninja Captor established much of the working model for Sentai and later Super Sentai that would become the very successful Power Rangers, complete with bright distinctly colored garb and unique helmet designs. It's unusual due to the number of heroes in the group as 7 instead of 5 or 6, also the variable ages of its members (which is more typical of these early tokusatsu team sentai).

Popy and Mattel

As with other popular anime and tokusatsu series, Popy and other manufacturers produced a plethora of toys related to Ninja Captor, eventually leading to a Mattel licensing deal as Shogun Warrior toys.

As with other Toei shows from the era Popy lead the way in supporting programming through the release of various toys, including the Ninja-Capter car (PA-95) and the supporting Heli-Captor (PA-96). The latter ended up as the corresponding Mattel Shogun Action Vehicle #2695 Heli-Capter.

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