6th Rangers: A discussion

[Tokuboy]

There's nothing wrong about getting more emphasis on Don's unbadassness, in-fact, I think it could have helped him be unique even more. Gai being just like Don was the one that had an adverse effect on him, which made him become like a shadow in most episodes now since the goofiness was almost taken over by Gai, except for the Don-centric episodes of course.

Well, no wonder Gai's imagine spot replaced Don with him. :laugh:

 

[chronoxiong]

I like 6th Rangers and always found them to be cool and a different contrast to the teams. However, that has been different since Boukenger as I felt like the 6th Rangers played a bigger role with the team. That can be a good or bad thing. I guess "the greatest of the 6th" for me would be DragonRanger, Kibaranger, and AbareKiller. Those guys were revolutionary and their characters were very different from the 6th Rangers.

 

[FieryRed]

I raised the question in another thread, but I'd just like to ask here: What makes Abarekiller a sixth senshi, anyway? Abaranger only has 4 members, so once he had a face turn shouldn't he be considered as the fifth member instead?

 

[Winter Chevalier]

6th Ranger is more of a catch-all term (and also a trope) It doesn't mean they literally have to be the 6th member of the group. They're just a character that wasn't part of the pre-established group when the story starts. To quote tvtropes on the matter:

Sixth Ranger

Some series start out with a particular type of ensemble, with a certain number of characters and a defined role for each: a Power Trio, for example, or a Five-Man Band. Then, mid-season, a mysterious new character appears, fighting the protagonists and antagonists alike! After many misunderstandings, the new character is revealed to be a good guy, and joins the team.

Any new character that joins an established ensemble and knocks it out of one of the traditional categories (and possibly into another) is a Sixth Ranger. There may be more than one per team, with either several joining in succession, or pre-established pairs coming in at once. In a Magical Girl show, it is not uncommon for the Sixth Ranger to be the lead character's boyfriend.

Their power and coolness is inversely proportional to the number of episodes since their début, since Good Is Dumb. Expect them to be single-handedly defeating enemies that the main team struggled against during their first appearance, falling in line as they become integrated into the group, then finally getting overtaken by the original heroes. In fact, they almost invariably tend to become a magnet for The Worf Effect as soon as the latest new Big Bad shows up.

 

[Painted_Outlaw]

6th Ranger is more of a catch-all term (and also a trope) It doesn't mean they literally have to be the 6th member of the group. They're just a character that wasn't part of the pre-established group when the story starts. To quote tvtropes on the matter:

Yeah, we know; FL already pointed that out.

"Sixth Ranger" is just a term, trope, and title.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SixthRanger

 

[KingRanger]

Gai and don are not alike.

 

[Hidden Masta]

"Sixth Ranger" is just a term, trope, and title.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SixthRanger

Thank god we have tvtropes. How else would we know that everything is exactly the same...other than watching it...

 

[urugoji]

For me, the quality of a 6th Ranger's integration into the story depends on the relationship between him and the original team as well as the relationship within the original team. Timeranger does it well, having a core team that's just getting to know each other, then introducing TimeFire who was related to TimeRed. The same happened with Shinkenger, making ShinkenGold childhood friends with ShinkenRed, making the integration kind of seamless.

Where it gets messed up is in shows like Gokaiger. The core Gokaigers are an extremely close-knit group of friends that have very few major internal conflicts and have a long history. Them accepting Gai into their ranks, who is just some outsider, comes off as weird. Although I like. He's funny funny.

 

[kuroihikari]

Where it gets messed up is in shows like Gokaiger. The core Gokaigers are an extremely close-knit group of friends that have very few major internal conflicts and have a long history. Them accepting Gai into their ranks, who is just some outsider, comes off as weird. Although I like. He's funny funny.

You could think of it as a way of showing how they'd assimilate new friends into their group. Everyone of them had to start somewhere.

 

[urugoji]

You could think of it as a way of showing how they'd assimilate new friends into their group. Everyone of them had to start somewhere.

That's true, but it's just a bit difficult for viewers to accept him as part of the group when the others had such a great camaraderie.