Super sentai and storytelling

[Kamen Rider IXA]

I got into Toku somewhere about the end of Kiva and I still remember that feeling of upcoming awesomenesses every Sunday, when I woke up and went to watch another 40s ep. of Kiva. Sadly, I didn't have that feeling during Decade run (I still loved this season at that time, especially after they brought back Otoya). I tried to watch Go-Onger and later Shinkenger but just didn't find them interesting (ended up dropping Shinkenger for the whole year). I got into Sentai later, with the help of Abaranger. As I watched more early Heisei show, I more and more got into Toky and my love for the genre grew, but with at the same time, I have less and less excitement for ongoing Sentai and Rider. I just found them boring. I know, I probably gonna be hated, but I don't think Double was "THE MOST BADASS KAMEN RIDER EVER". Characters were good, but I was disappointed with lack of story and some other things. I honestly tried to like OOO, but that was a big piece of **** for me (even having Date, Greed and Maki). Fourze was promising, but ended being a more great piece of ****. I have no desire to start Wizard, before He will end, but I think I will probably say that it is also a piece of ****. I liked every last Heisei Rider before Decade (though I'm not a big fun of Kuuga or Hibiki's and Agito first parts), I can even say I think Double is good show, but to be honest I don't think every show after Kiva have right to be called Kamen Rider. Hibiki, Kabuto, Den-O and Kiva have their own problems, but they are still Kamen Rider show, Decade transformed Riders into their FFR: Super Sentai. And I say, that this FFR really looks ugly, as much as rest of them.

Now about Sentai. I watched about 27 series so far(including all 90s-00s Sentai), so I can say about Sentai, too. I personally think, that Sentai really went up with Dairanger. It turned into really badass show and every 90s season after Zyu is awesome in its own way. The only season I personally don't count as awesome is Hurricanger, but it still a great series and the only big problem with Hurri is lack of good plot. IMO, the best Sentai is "gold part", which includes Series from Abaranger to Gekiranger. Just everything (or almost everything) about them is good. Time and Gao can be in there, too, but their story problems are a bit bigger. Go-onger really went down, but still have their awesomeness with Sentai-parody style. Shinkenger was a slap in the face, despite having good points. Goseiger went down even deeper, becoming the worst Series in the 00s for me. But then Gokaiger came. They had lots of holes, but still I really enjoyed them. Lots of past actors showed up, lots of old schools attack were show again and I personally loved every Series before Silver debut, without exception. Second part wasn't that great, but still suits my tastes as Toku. I still haven't decided about my feelings for Go-Busters, since this series is rather contradictory, but I can say for sure, that I didn't like second part after Messiah defeat.
Upcoming Kyuoranger or whatever they are called are awfully remind me of Zyuranger, the only 90s Sentai, that I dislike like and since I heard words "more childish" and "not as dark as Go-Buster"(I really can't understand why anyone finds Go-Busters "dark". This isn't even on Liveman level, guys) so I have bad feeling about this new Sentai.

The main problem of almost every Sentai was the weak story. It killed lots of series with good potential (like Hurricanger or Ohranger).

Ultra also have this problem, but we are talking about Ultra. Dyna is awesome, despite lacking dynamic story. And Mebius is the best Toku Anniversary Series ever.

 

[Auvers]

I have this to note.

Gokaiger is a pretty shitty anniversary series because it, on its own, does not make for a good story.

Even when looking at it, the only thing it has is some actors from the past, and the ability to change into past powers.

That's it.

The plots are weak, the characters are stereotypes, the villains are two dimensional at best...

And yes I can complain about this. Why?

Ultraman Mebius. Ultraman Mebius did everything short of turning into the past Ultra heroes and it did it better in every single way. That was how you do an anniversary series.

I'm kinda laughing here because as far as Mebius goes I can't really agree with this at all. Mebius was the first japanese ultraman series I watched and it isn't terrible at all but from the point of view of someone who doesn't know much about the franchise it didn't come off as the most exillerating thing ever. One of the biggest problems with Mebius is that it's fan service literally makes sense to fans and fans only. The tribute and cameo episodes featured all kinds of elements of the plots from the series their were connected to and most of them were completely lost on me because I hadn't seen the series being focused on. Gokaiger sets itself up where even if you didn't see this series the cameo is only so important and doesn't take everything over, they managed to set things up where it could be easily enjoyable for young and old without wondering "wait whose this old man".

Not talking about "good or bad" here but as far as I could tell the Mebius cast wasn't doing anything to topple over the chemistry that the cast of Gokaiger had, actually they didn't have much of anything at all. Mebius and Ryu were the only ones to interact constantly and regularly, they had a "romantic" friendship which I think the show even made fun of in one episode. If the episode wasn't focused on a specific character or didn't involve a character needing to use their specific expertise the character is pretty much left out. We don't learn much if anything at all about them unless the episode is on focus to them specifically. We barely even get to see their captain.

The big bad was the guy's father but that barely mattered beyond giving him a reason to come to Earth, and the way he was defeated, and his Empire for that matter, was lackluster considering how much they were hyped at the start of the series.

They spent an entire episode fighting him... I'm not really sure what you wanted.

Which brings us to the aloof possibly amoral Red, the stoic Blue, the wacky silly Green, the Girly Princess Pink, and the hot headed tomboyish fanservicey Yellow. Who is also greedy.

And ultimately the even sillier fanboy Silver. That's all we have to work with beyond the fanservice.

Have you just never watched a sentai? You're calling them all out for just being simple in character and they are all kind of like that you can pick any sentai series and just slap a single word onto them and call it a day but this isn't a bad thing at all. Why single out Gokaiger specifically?

It's just even more strange considering Mebius himself was pretty much one of the most one dimensional Ultraman I've seen. I only know the original and Zero by personality and both of them are clearly identifiable. Mebius while not a bad character isn't really the most interesting one, if he wasn't surrounded by the rest of his theme there's no way he'd be able to carry the show on his own. His personality literally boils down to he's a hero and I guess also the rookie? He's overly honest, kindhearted, and valiant, but he's still having to learn from experience like any other beginner. He's just the hero and his personality never goes any farther than that, where you have the original Ultraman or atleast his human host being this hilariously clumsy, frantic coward.

The past heroes are little more than macguffins at best, there are little to no homages to past series, either in what the Gokaiger bring to the table beyond the obvious or in what the villains bring to the table, there are no returning villains, there is really nothing beyond returning heroes and the Gokai Change.

Compare this to the show Mebius, which like its story or not, it did the whole anniversary series thing better by definition.

Purely because it went the extra step over Gokaiger, in the same way that Gokaiger went over Decade.

Mebius was filled with homages to the past. Old villains returning, old heroes appearing and mattering, old technology being reused, hell even just ideas or scenes was brought back gloriously. Capsule Monsters, Mirai doing the transformation call of one of the past Ultras randomly, the files of the past monster fighting groups...

That's something I would have liked from Gokaiger. If it's going to celebrate, why not go all out?

This whole thing isn't making any sense, Gokaiger did pretty much all of these things. There were several jokes/references to older series, the cameos of previous cast members both actual sentai themselves and supporting cast, the Gokai changes carried a ton of this since they usually carried on the fighting style of the particular character they changed themselves into, they fought and met several villains from previous series, heck there were two movies based around the idea of fighting villains from previous movies.

I'm seriously getting the idea that either you never watched the show in it's entirety or you just don't know much about the franchise. And like I mentioned on another page the show is kind of a rushed job and considering that I think it pretty much did as good a job as any in celebrating what makes sentai what it is. I'm really not understanding what more you could have wanted from it or how exactly Mebius did more.

I'm glad you brought up that you're not aiming this at me, because I vastly prefer the 80s Sentai to the Modern Sentai.

It had a lot more of an edge back then, tempered perhaps with the way the effects worked, and they didn't try to do the silly characters as much. They just told an enjoyable plot for a kids show and had some great action, which is all I really want.

If you make your characters a big focus of the show, which a lot of older Sentai did not, then I had better be able to enjoy them or your action better be able to surpass them.

Modern Sentai, more than not, fails at this for me. Something about it feels off to me.

This isn't to say that I like all old school Sentai without question. Far from it.

It took a while for me to get into Maskman, and that was after trying to watch it a few times over the course of months. But once I got a few episodes in and realized what the show was going for, specifically the God Hand episode, it started working with me and made a lot more sense.

Bioman I am a fan of because it's just a good adventure from the start with a convincing villain and pretty nice powers and a reason for them to be heroes.

Liveman won me over with its story and characters and keeps me interested with them, and the more random adventures they have, despite other grievances I have with the show.

...and that's really it for the Sentai I love. ZyuRanger may join the list just out of me loving the Mecha so much, but I haven't seen enough to comment. Changeman may also join that list, I haven't gotten to see it yet. .

Uh. Okay.

 

[BoukenSilver83]

Uhh...the same way the current generation were entertained by Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, but with less toys.

sorry bad question, when i meant was, were the ratings in the old sentai/kr days better in that time or worst now, what i mean is in terms was kr/sentai better with less toys in that time?

 

[cypsiman2]

sorry bad question, when i meant was, were the ratings in the old sentai/kr days better in that time or worst now, what i mean is in terms was kr/sentai better with less toys in that time?

Ratings back in the 70's/80's were hugely better, and from what I understand a huge chunk of this comes from their not being nearly so much competition for that viewing time, and I don't just mean other TV shows; stuff like video games and movies and internet and all kinds of things that exist today that just weren't around back then that take time from the viewing audience, causing it to shrink. Basically, there are factors independent of quality as to why Sentai and Kamen Rider used to pull in much bigger ratings with a lot less toys.

 

[BoukenSilver83]

Ratings back in the 70's/80's were hugely better, and from what I understand a huge chunk of this comes from their not being nearly so much competition for that viewing time, and I don't just mean other TV shows; stuff like video games and movies and internet and all kinds of things that exist today that just weren't around back then that take time from the viewing audience, causing it to shrink. Basically, there are factors independent of quality as to why Sentai and Kamen Rider used to pull in much bigger ratings with a lot less toys.

that makes sense since i guess kids didnt have that much in that time accept toys and sentai/kr.

 

[Fantasy Leader]

On a personal level, I think I'm a pretty poor judge of writing mostly because I don't have a background in writing or a wide knowledge of pop culture from which to judge

Honestly, I think you've said some pretty interesting things regarding these shows.

 

[Toku Prime]

Mebius was the first japanese ultraman series I watched and it isn't terrible at all but from the point of view of someone who doesn't know much about the franchise it didn't come off as the most exillerating thing ever. One of the biggest problems with Mebius is that it's fan service literally makes sense to fans and fans only. The tribute and cameo episodes featured all kinds of elements of the plots from the series their were connected to and most of them were completely lost on me because I hadn't seen the series being focused on.

Ultraman Max was pretty much the same. They make a big deal of introducing the monster and it's clear that the entire episode is hanging on the audience having a "wow it's that guy" reaction. Having only seen Ultraseven X before that I had no idea who any of them were so I'm left watching Max fight a monster design that's about two decades out of date :redface2:

that makes sense since i guess kids didnt have that much in that time accept toys and sentai/kr.

From what I've read in previous threads, I think the SHT block's ratings really took a kick in the nads when another channel started airing new episodes of pokemon at the same time.

 

[NeonZ]

From what I've read in previous threads, I think the SHT block's ratings really took a kick in the nads when another channel started airing new episodes of pokemon at the same time.

It's reruns and a talk show, not "new episodes", and, really, Blade's ratings were already significantly lower than previous shows, even before Pokemon Sunday started in October (they did fall even more after it started though). Also, right after that, we had Hibiki recovering some of the numbers that Blade lost, even if it couldn't reach Faiz's level again. Blaming Pokemon sunday at this point is pointless.

 

[Burkion]

I'm kinda laughing here because as far as Mebius goes I can't really agree with this at all. Mebius was the first japanese ultraman series I watched and it isn't terrible at all but from the point of view of someone who doesn't know much about the franchise it didn't come off as the most exillerating thing ever.

I'm not sure I agree on that, but it's more a matter of personal taste. I really enjoy the Ultraman style of episodic story telling, and with Mebius having its arcs that built some where and character development across the entire series, as well as some key episodes that are divorced of fanservice...but that gets into a point down below.

One of the biggest problems with Mebius is that it's fan service literally makes sense to fans and fans only. The tribute and cameo episodes featured all kinds of elements of the plots from the series their were connected to and most of them were completely lost on me because I hadn't seen the series being focused on. Gokaiger sets itself up where even if you didn't see this series the cameo is only so important and doesn't take everything over, they managed to set things up where it could be easily enjoyable for young and old without wondering "wait whose this old man".

Funny, because from what I can tell Gokaiger suffers from this far more. If you ignore the GokaiChanges as the gimmicks that they are, all the fanservice left is whatever Gai spouts out, or "old guys".

Gokaiger has very little else beyond the returning cast members, who ultimately don't do much, mostly. There are exceptions, which I've noted earlier.

Not talking about "good or bad" here but as far as I could tell the Mebius cast wasn't doing anything to topple over the chemistry that the cast of Gokaiger had, actually they didn't have much of anything at all. Mebius and Ryu were the only ones to interact constantly and regularly, they had a "romantic" friendship which I think the show even made fun of in one episode. If the episode wasn't focused on a specific character or didn't involve a character needing to use their specific expertise the character is pretty much left out. We don't learn much if anything at all about them unless the episode is on focus to them specifically. We barely even get to see their captain.

Yet they have stronger characters and develop across the series because they are used in a good, solid way. They over come their early faults and by the end of the series are a team, loyal to one another and defined, willing to die for each other.

The difference I think is that the Gokaigers show up pretty much fully defined. They don't change in any serious way, they don't get past issues or anything. They might resolve character threads, but these don't change THEM in any serious way.

Marv is a smug bastard at the start, smug bastard through out, we meet that one guy who scares the crap out of him and he's scared, then he gets over it and is smug again to the end. ...then he apparently turns evil twice but that's neither here nor there.

Same with the others.

The cast of Mebius all have faults or issues that they overcome that help them develop as better people by the end. Ryu matures into a leader, George gets over himself, Marina gains the trust she needs in her own abilities, so on so forth. Hell even the Adjunct develops as a character, going from a stock stereotypical comical government flunky to being quite badass in his own right, willing to stand against his superior officers when the time came.

To try to compare the characters of Gokaiger to Mebius, and especially their growth and change, is almost silly.

Gokaiger is not about that. Gokaiger is about the fanservice and the Gokai Changes.

Mebius was about the story, the heart of these characters and how they change from being average people to heroes.

Reflected in Mebius himself as he grows into his own. More on this below.

Though I'll note, of course we didn't spend time with the Captain. You DO remember what the big reveal on him was, don't you?

They spent an entire episode fighting him... I'm not really sure what you wanted.

Wrong. They spent about five minutes wiping out his fleet via two guys highjacking his main ship, and then they blasted him with every Gokai Change and finisher they had until he fell over and died.

Considering this guy and his empire were supposedly a big enough threat that it took EVERY Sentai team ever to team up and sacrifice their powers to stop him the first go around, that is more than a bit disappointing given how easy it was.

Compare it to Enpera from Mebius. Mebius nearly dies trying, and failing, to stop his early attack, Hikari pretty much dies trying to fight the guy, one of their friends dies fighting, it takes the combined form of Hikari, Mebius and CREW GUYS to begin to match the guy, along with the final weapon of the humans, all while the Ultra Brothers are setting fire to the sun again, all over, what, three episodes?

The difference in scope and depth is staggering, even if I myself did not like that Enpera was killed by a continuous beam spam.

And here's the sticking point. One of these villains was held to be such a huge threat that it took the full power of all the heroes of that universe.

The other one was Enpera.

Have you just never watched a sentai? You're calling them all out for just being simple in character and they are all kind of like that you can pick any sentai series and just slap a single word onto them and call it a day but this isn't a bad thing at all. Why single out Gokaiger specifically?

Because a lot of people like to say that it's the characters that make up for the lack of substance, when it really doesn't.

It's just even more strange considering Mebius himself was pretty much one of the most one dimensional Ultraman I've seen.

...are you sure you've seen Mebius?

I only know the original and Zero by personality and both of them are clearly identifiable.

....this raises further questions.

Mebius while not a bad character isn't really the most interesting one, if he wasn't surrounded by the rest of his theme there's no way he'd be able to carry the show on his own.

No duh. That's part of it being an ensemble cast. Hell, almost no hero can carry a show on their own, they have to have SOME kind of supporting cast. No one would like a show just featuring Marv and Marv alone, after all.

His personality literally boils down to he's a hero and I guess also the rookie? He's overly honest, kindhearted, and valiant, but he's still having to learn from experience like any other beginner.

He's entirely the rookie, and he's utterly alien and not used to human customs which comes up a LOT through out the series. He's an idiot, but he's brave and he means well. He's also suicidally devoted to his friends and protecting the Earth, which is shown time and time again.

Add that with his hero complex, how he failed to save the first human he ever met, who even gave him his name for the record, and you have a pretty decently layered character.

He's just the hero and his personality never goes any farther than that,

Except it does as you yourself pointed out. Beyond that, if you want an anti hero, guess what: Hikari is right over there.

where you have the original Ultraman or atleast his human host being this hilariously clumsy, frantic coward.

......................yeah that's why I made that one note earlier.

The hell are you talking about? Where did THIS come from?

You sure you watched Hayata's series, because it doesn't sound like it.

Hayata is a brick of a main character, existing primarily in the background, usually shooting a laser at a giant monster or following orders until he has to transform and save the day. The dude HAS no personality, except on the exceedingly rare occasions where he shows SOME hint of humanity, such as cheating the others out of escorting that one girl from India around.

Which is fine because the supporting cast are rich and varied and very, very interesting. Hayata is just a living breathing plot device. Where did you get THAT from?

This whole thing isn't making any sense, Gokaiger did pretty much all of these things. There were several jokes/references to older series, the cameos of previous cast members both actual sentai themselves and supporting cast, the Gokai changes carried a ton of this since they usually carried on the fighting style of the particular character they changed themselves into, they fought and met several villains from previous series, heck there were two movies based around the idea of fighting villains from previous movies.

The fighting previous villains only happened in the movies from what I could tell, and they were barely used beyond cameos with the sole exception of 199 heroes.

And my point is this. Strip away the gimmick of the Gokai Changes, and you lose most of the stuff that holds up the series.

Mebius doesn't have that holding it down. The closest it has is a reuse of Windam and Miklas, who are redefined here and are pretty much characters in and of themselves.

Whenever an old hero shows up in Mebius, it's few and far between but it matters a hell of a whole lot and really adds to the message of the episode.

Because the series is about more than the fanservice. It takes the fanservice and blends it into the story, so it gives us neat moments like Twintails and Gudon fighting again, a classic moment of the franchise, while giving us a good story and great character development spaced across the series.

Gokaiger's fanservice just feels fluffy in comparison, more flat and meaningless, by and large. The best bit was the Jetman episode, as I've said before. If all of Gokaiger used that as the baseline, the series would have been a lot better in my opinion.

It didn't. Instead, Gokaiger is just really a lot of flash without any real substance, junk food for the eyes and a quick shot of nostalgia.

Remove the fanservice and the anniversery aspects of Gokaiger and you'd get a series not a lot of people would like, I'd argue.

Remove that from Mebius and you still have a damn solid show.

I'm seriously getting the idea that either you never watched the show in it's entirety or you just don't know much about the franchise. And like I mentioned on another page the show is kind of a rushed job and considering that I think it pretty much did as good a job as any in celebrating what makes sentai what it is. I'm really not understanding what more you could have wanted from it or how exactly Mebius did more.

Carrying on from above, simply that the show itself is solid before the fanservice. If you took away all of the returning characters and Gokai Changes from Gokaiger, you're simply left with static pirate characters fighting bland, misused and underdeveloped villains until all the bad guys blow up. Though Gai would be a fair bit more interesting, I think.

Do the same with Mebius, and you still have that great character development, those great villains, and the unholy master of disaster Enpera himself showing up.

Uh. Okay.

That was directed at Lazy.

 

[NeonZ]

The fighting previous villains only happened in the movies from what I could tell, and they were barely used beyond cameos with the sole exception of 199 heroes.

They fought against a past villain in the Boukenger episode, and fought against descendants/associates of past villains, using identical suits, in the Gekiranger, Hurricanger (2 episodes) and Go-onger (2 episodes) stories. The villain in the Dekaranger episode was considered an "Alienizer" like the Deka villains themselves too, although he wasn't directly connected to any of them otherwise.

Looking back, it's kind of weird how they had those returning villains from more recent shows, but avoided tie ins with pre-00s Sentai villains, considering how the Zangyack Action Commanders were often pretty generic and disposable. They could have afforded to replace one of the generic motw with some tie in with the earlier alien empires...