“ | The pitch black baron! Nero! | „ |
~ Baron Nero's roll call. |
“ | I return to the darkness! | „ |
~ Baron Nero's final words before his second and final death. |
Baron Nero is one of leading members and generals of the Evil Army Shadow Line and the secondary antagonist of Ressha Sentai ToQger. He was the acting leader of the Shadow Line before his master Emperor Z's arrival. He was also the primary antagonist of the earlier part of the season and was the ToQgers's archenemy during the earlier arcs of the season. After the arrival of Emperor Z, Nero became his master's second-in-command and became the secondary antagonist for the rest of the series.
He was voiced by Jun Fukuyama, who also voiced Lelouch Vi Britannia and Grell Sutcliff.
History[]
ToQgers[]
As acting leader of the Shadow line, Baron Nero believes that amassing darkness is vast amounts is essential to bring Emperor Z into the human world. This leads to him clashing with Madame Noir over her prepping Miss Gritta and using her Shadow Creep followers to gather darkness by quality. While Bag Shadow prepared his Dark Station, Baron Nero argued with Madame Noir that it was too soon to create a station for Miss Gritta to play, stating what was most important was to expand the reach of the Shadow Line so that they may greet the Emperor of Darkness on his arrival. Noir argued that maintaining Gritta's beauty was in the best interest of the court, reminding Nero that she would one day be wife to the emperor. When Emperor Z arrival was ready, Nero sent General Schwarz to retrieve their leader before learning Z left the Kurainer in prematurely to enjoy the sights in the human world.
Nhroghout the season, Nero and his fellow Shadow Line generals created and performed multiple plans and schemes of attacking Tokyo, conquering and taking over the Human World and plunging the Earth into the eternal darkness. However, the ToQgers always foiled the plans of the villains and saved the world. However, the primary goal of Nero and his underlings always remained the same, returning their master Emperor Z back to the Human World in order for him to lead the Shadow Line as their supreme leader and lead them to their conquest of Earth. Nero kept watching on the progress of Saber Shadow's Station and was very impressed, noting that the darkness of being forced to harm others was indeed poignant. He observed it spreading so thick through the town steadily. He predicted that at the current rate they would be able to add more stations, spread their reach, and expand the Shadow Line until darkness covered the world entirely and the Emperor of Darkness descended. After being informed by General Schwarz of his intention to create a Shadow Train Corps so that they may give the Emperor the proper greeting, Nero, noting that Schwarz was as much a brute as ever, believed that they should greet the Emperor of Darkness in a more graceful fashion.
Upon finding Emperor Z, Nero is shocked by his leader's obsession with light and initially dismissed it as a phase before becoming overly concerned when he learns Noir is using the wedding of her daughter to the emperor for her own ambitions. But after Z consumes Glitta, Nero accepts his leader's ideals that the Shadow Line must consume light to take over the world as he begins taking an more active role.
After the arrival of Emperor Z, Nero became his master's second-in-command and continued to aid his emperor with his plans and schemes of conquering the Earth and destroying ToQgers. The Shadow Line leaders again plotted and created some schemes of taking over the Human World, but their plans were again foiled by ToQgers. In the finale of the season, Z and Nero created ad performed their final and ultimate plan of defeating the ToQgers and conquering the Earth. The villains attacked Tokyo and used their final monster, the Behemoth of Darkness to infect Right with darkness and later Z and Nero used their monster to plunge Tokyo into the total darkness. However, ToQgers managed to save the city and fought the villains. The Rangers fought the Shadow Line leaders in their mechas and fought Emperor Z, Nero and Morc. Eventually, after Rangers managed to overpower the Emperor of Darkness, Nero saw his master was weakened and used their last resort to defeat the ToQgers. Nero and Morc sacrificed their life force and restored the powers of the Emperor. The Emperor fought the Rangers, but this evil plan failed again and Rangers eventually managed to defeat the Emperor of Darkness.
ToQger Returns[]
In 2017, shortly before the ToQgers graduated from elementary school, Baron Nero, along with the other former Shadow Line generals, was reincarnated as a limited puppet by Grand Duke Hei, who took command of the Shadow Line after Z was defeated by the ToQgers having been banished by the Emperor of Darkness when he attempted to take the throne. Summoned to fight the ToQgers, this Baron Nero fights the future ToQ 4gou from 2025, and is soon enough destroyed by his Tunnel Ax due to the reincarnated Shadow's limited body.
Ninninger vs. ToQger[]
He was revived by Dark Doctor Mavro as a Dark Clone ninja, under the name "Kirigakure Nero Saizou", and was the guardsman of the Dark Ninja Land's gates. He was defeated first by the teamwork of Fuuka Igasaki and Kagura Izumi, and later by the teamwork of the two and Nagi Matsuo.
Super Sentai Battle Base[]
Baron Nero is among the vast pantheon of villains which appear in the mobile game Super Sentai Battle Base.
Personality[]
Baron Nero possesses a complicated and hard personality. From one side, Nero is extremely pragmatic, villainous, arrogant, hegemonic and power-hungry and desires to bring the humanity under the Shadow Line's boot and command, which can make him extremely despicable due to his fanatical and blind loyalty to his master Emperor Z, since he loyally helped and aided the Emperor of Darkness in his evil, tyrannical and cataclysmic plans and goals without showing any remorse, emotions or regret for his evil actions. However, from other side, Nero is quite prideful and patriotic and takes pride for being a Shadow Line general and the follower of Emperor of Darkness. He considered Shadow Line species superior towards humanity and considered his own species far beyond humankind. This makes him quite supremacist and xenophobic, since he was willing to aid Shadow Line in their evil plans and was willing to hurt the innocent people of Tokyo, including children, by torturing and abusing the innocent citizens with the most painful and devious methods of torture.
However, despite his villainous, supremacist and misanthropic nature, Baron Nero has other more complicated and honorable side, which was shown in the series. Despite being a villain, he was shown to show great care and respect towards his fellow Shadow Line generals and underlings. He showed great respect and compassion towards his loyal Shadow Line warriors and was shown to genuinely praise and congratulate his faithful underlings for their achievements and patriotism. All of this makes Nero quite a patriot and supremasict towards his species, since he considered Shadow Line far superior towards humanity and hypocritically considered that Shadow Line race deserved survival and domination over the Earth far more than humankind. Also Nero considered Shadow Line the greatest race in the universe and considered that Shadow Line army greatly surpassed the human race. He was also shown to be good friends with other Shadow Line generals.
Overall, while his patriotism and supremacy doesn't excuse his terrorist and tyrannical actions, Nero is still not completely evil. He was honorable, honest and noble fighter and player, who played fair in battle and was able to show some respect even towards his enemies, such as ToQgers. Also Nero is quite polite and friendly and shows genuine affability, empathy and care towards his underlings and colleagues. He was also shown to be genuinely loyal to his master, Emperor of Darkness and always loyally followed his orders and assisted the Dark Emperor in his plans and schemes. Besides, Nero was even willing to sacrifice himself to help his master win the war with ToQgers, just like he did in the finale of the season.
Overall, Nero is antagonistic and tyrannical individual, who still has multiple redeeming features and still has an honorable and lighter side, which was shown in the series. Also he still has many redeeming qualities that could eventually lead to his redemption.
Baron Nero disagrees with his fellow commanders Madame Noir and General Schwarz's way of doing things, caring the most about resurrecting his lord and infesting the land, believing it should take priority over keeping the Emperor's future bride, Miss Gritta, happy, putting him at odds with Madame Noir.
He views General Schwarz as a brute and believes grace and style beat all else. He also does not understand his master's fascination with light, considering their weakness to it.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Superhuman Strength: Just like all other members of Shadow Line, Nero possesses great physical strength, far superior to the human strength.
- Superhuman Durability: Nero is also highly durable and when he participated in the battles, he could survive and withstand multiple hits and strikes from ToQgers.
- Superhuman Stamina: The Baron of Shadow Line also possesses great superhuman stamina and can participate in battle for many hours that is beyond human capabilities.
- Expert Combatant: Nero is also a highly skilled fighter and is able to hold his own in battle against ToQgers for a quite significant time.
- Expert Strategist: Nero is a highly skilled and professional tactician and is able to create highly effective plans to achieve his goals and outsmart his enemies like ToQgers.
Arsenal[]
- Gun Stick (銃器系ステッキ Jūki-kei Sutekki) - On him at all times, Nero can use his cane as a fencing foil with great effect, including using the handle portion to trip his foes. It also functions as a gun for long range combat.
- Boomerang Top Hat (ブーメラン系トップハット Būmeran-kei Toppu Hatto) - Nero can throw his hat, which has deceptively sharp edge. Once thrown, it goes into a boomerang effect and returns to his hand. He can also fire a concentrated blast of darkness from the inside.
- Khakkara - When he was revived as Kirigakure Nero Saizou, his weapon is now a Khakkara that also functioned as a melee weapon as well as enabling him to summon mist from within.
Trivia[]
- His suit actor is Riichi Seike (清家 利一 Seike Riichi).
- His clothing resembles that of a Victorian Italian aristocrat, with part of his facial features (and his shoulders) resembling a mask of a plague doctor. His cane also seems to befit a plague doctor which they would use to point out areas needing attention and to examine patients without touching them.
- He was the basis for Cosmo Royale in Power Rangers Ninja Steel and Super Ninja Steel even though not adapted.
- As of currently, only he and Madame Noir from ToQger have been adapted for Power Rangers.
- While Baron Nero's was altered and used as Cosmo Royale in Power Rangers Ninja Steel, Madame Noir was adapted as Void Queen in Power Rangers Dino Fury.