Kou of the Howling New Star

"Howling New Star~KibaRanger!"

Kou of the Howling New Star ("吼新星" コウ) is KibaRanger (キバレンジャー) of the Dairangers. He is a 9-year old who manages to extract Yufang's Byakkoshinken.

Overview
The youngest and shortest of the Rangers in the entire Sentai series, being only nine years old and of the expected height at that age when he was chosen to be a Ranger. First appearing in Episode 17, he continued to be a major player in Episode 18 to 20 and taking a brief to make another appearance in Episode 22 to claim his Mythical ChiBeast. He then continued to become a major part of the series especially in episodes 28 to 39, where all of the other Rangers found out he was the Kibaranger until the story arc of episodes 42 through 44.

Dairanger
He began hearing a voice that called him in the night when he was only nine years old. Out of curiosity and excitement, he followed the command of the voice, leading him to meet Rin, and driving her totally up the wall, stealing into her apartment and discovering the hidden last changer that was left by Rin's uncle in her possession. At their first meeting, he grabbed Rin's breasts and looked up her skirt while he was riding his skateboard. The voice that he kept on hearing lead him to a temple, where for the first time he would encounter the boy who would become his personal nemesis and was ironically his own twin brother, Akomaru of the Gorma tribe. The voice led him to pull a sword out from a stone, and become the sixth and the last of the Dairanger, the Kibaranger. The voice that he was hearing belonged to his sword, Byakkoshinken.

Later, Kou would become the best-secret keeper in the world, not known by anybody that he was the Kibaranger with only the exception of one person; Akomaru of the Gorma tribe. As Akomaru knew that the Kibaranger was a boy at about his own age, and he had the mark of a tiger branded into his upper right biceps. And even though he found out that Kou was the Kibaranger the Gorma tribe had been looking about for, for his own reason, his own personal gain, he kept those secrets away from everybody to the grave. It could be assumed as Master Kaku knew Byakkoshinken, he also knew the identity of Kou himself as the Kibaranger but would keep it secret until the secret uncovers itself to the other Rangers.

As only nine years of age when he became a Kibaranger, he was new to fighting and was not particularly strong. Fortunately of course to hide his identity, the Kiba Changer allows him to assume an adult-form as the Kibaranger. Initially, as his identity was kept secret from the other Dairangers, the Byakkoshinken would often speak for him instead Kou speaking for himself, but after the story unfolds and as his identity become known to the other Dairangers he would talk for himself.

As a child, Kou spent his first four years of his life with his mother, his mother had poured every ounce of love into every moment of his life, until the day came when she burned that tiger brand into his arm. She never explained why, and disappeared very shortly after that, leaving her little son in the care of a pair of green grocers who assumed that she was dead.

Every moment of his life, Kou was always sure never doubting that she was still alive somewhere, and with the fast approach of his tenth birthday, he was detained by an obligation to find her. This obligation was laid by none other his own mother. With Kou's heritage of the Gorma tribe by his father, he has to see his mother before his tenth birthday, or else he would become a Gorma, despite what everybody wanted. He was not aware of this knowledge, nor was he aware of the knowledge that Shadam was his father. His birthday fell on the Christmas on the Gregorian calendar, and once Shadam realized that Kou was half Gorma, he wanted to recruit him to the Gorma.

The great love of Kou's life was Rin. To him, Rin was both a replacement for the mother he had lost, and a dream of marriage of his own. He was dreadfully jealous of Rin's time, but under influence, he became a gentler, saner boy than he was before.

As the Kibaranger he specializes in sound-based attacks.

In Episode 45 when Master Kaku showed his true colors to the Dairangers, much to his dismay of wanting to take action and helping the other Dairangers, he was asked by Ryou to stay behind as his Lailai Jewel was taken by force by Master Kaku. He would later come to his team's aid along with Kameo in Episode 46.

In Episode 47, the Dairanger's Aura Changers had been taken by Kaku and they tried to get on with their lives. Kou tells Rin he wants to fight again but she tells him to forget about it. He mentions that his mother wanted him to continue fighting as Kibaranger, and that it was her dying wish.

In Episode 48, the Dairangers got their Aura Changers and Lailai jewels back and the Kiba Changer was with the others and he was able to transform once again, though he now fought at his regular height. He fought alongside them against Zaidosu. In Episode 50, he joined with his teammates against Shadam as the Gorma Palace fell apart.

In the epilogue, fifty years have passed and a picture of Kou as an older man is seen in Rin's apartment.

Gaoranger vs. Super Sentai
KibaRanger is among the Sentai warriors seen in clips when Yusuke Amamiya (Red Falcon) lectured Gaku Washio (GaoYellow) about the past Sentai sword experts, showing him that the true sword wasn't the sharpest, but the one that feeds on courage.

Legend War
Years later, as an adult, Kou fought alongside not only his own team, but every single Sentai ranger in existence, against the Empire of Zangyack when it attacked the Earth in the Great Legend War. After fighting against hundreds of Gormin and their Zgormin commanders. Akarenger noticed the fleet moving towards them, he gathered all the Rangers together and gave them the order to sacrifice their powers to wipe out the first invasion's armada.

Farewell Space Pirates
After the Gokaigers finally defeat Zangyack invasion force on Earth and the emperor Marvelous returned all of the Ranger Keys to their original owners. It is assumed Kou has his powers back.

Akibaranger
In Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger, due to the actions caused by General Tsu, the Akibarangers were made the 17th Super Sentai in place of the Dairangers. As a result, reality is rewritten to have Kibaranger be one of the two secondary Sentai heroes to be added in Gosei Sentai Akibaranger. However, the show's unpopularity resulted in its cancelation after 13 episodes with Kibaranger vowing revenge for never appearing on TV.

Kibaranger appears before the Akibarangers as they are helping RyuuRanger, now degraded by the event into China Red. It turns out that Malseena employed Kibaranger to help her kill the Akibarangers, overwhelming them with MoJo's Battle Fever J and Yukio Yamagata's Gaoranger Hoeru yet letting them go out of whim. Eventually, with Akiba Yellow acting the role of Rin during Dairanger episode 33, the Akibarangers restore Kou's memories of being the Dairangers' sixth member.

The six Dairangers later appeared with the now five official Sentai, transforming into their Ludicrous Power which combined with the others to form the Ludicrous Cannon Bazooka, which the Akibarangers used to destroy Kameari Alpaca.

Ranger Key
The KibaRanger Ranger Key (キバレンジャーレンジャーキー) is Kou's personal Ranger Key and what became of his powers after he along with the rest of the 34 Super Sentai sacrificed their powers to end the Great Legend War.

This key, along with the other fourteen sixth ranger keys and the ten extra hero keys, were initally acquired by Basco ta Jolokia and later used by the Gokaigers. Like all of his Ranger Keys, Basco used his trumpet, the Rapparatta, to turn the KibaRanger key into a puppet to do his bidding. The copy KibaRanger was one of the remaining ten sixth rangers after the Gokaigers defeated the first five, with Basco using these ten to ambush the Gokaigers and take all of them hostage bar Marvelous. When Marvelous rescued them, they defeated all 10 puppets and claimed the Ranger Keys.

A short while after, the first fourteen Sixth Ranger Reys, along with all the Ranger Keys of the first 33 Super Sentai, were briefly taken by the Black Cross King and turned into Ranger puppets that were fought by the Gokaigers and the Goseigers. The KibaRanger key was among ten of these Sixth Ranger Keys who fought, and were defeated by, Gosei Knight.

While in the possession of the Gokaigers, the KibaRanger Ranger Key was mainly used by Gai Ikari (Gokai Silver), who used it to fight as KibaRanger.
 * When the Gokaigers became the Dairangers while fighting Action Commander Stargul.
 * When the Gokaigers became the Dairangers in their fight with Action Commander Zakyura.
 * As part of an all-white Gokai Change in the Gokaigers' fight with Makuu Prison Chief Ashrada.
 * When the Gokaigers became the Dairangers while fighting against Basco after Marvelous was incapacitated.

After Zangyack were finally defeated, the Gokaigers gave the Ranger Keys back to their rightful owners. It is presumed that Kou received his key and became KibaRanger once more.

Portrayal
Kou of the Howling New Star is portrayed by Hisashi Sakai (酒井 寿). As KibaRanger, his suit actor was Minoru Watanabe (渡辺 実).