A Case For Gobusters

[Vitor]

--------Warning: Opinionated Rant Ahead----------

Gobusters was, for the most part, not a perfect series. Hardly any toku show is

It had a great beginning, but after episode three, things started to lull

Then Jin & J showed up, alleviating any doubts or boredom I had towards the series. But then it fell into the classic toku trope of waning writers yet again

The last two episodes were fantastically gripping and had me on the edge of my seat. This is what the show should have been the entire time. But then they had to cut it short with an overly extended crossover with Gavan which I have no doubt will turn into "Movie Wars: The TV Show" in terms of insanely idiotic writing and things that just plain make no sense.

Why is Toei continually fucking with what very well could have been a potentially godlike series? What went wrong here?

 

[MattComix]

What went wrong here?

I think that's the question a lot of us are asking. Some felt that it was boring out of the gate while a lot of us felt like the show had potential and were eagerly waiting to see what they did with it. ..we're still waiting really.

I don't think there's anything in the nuts of the bolts of the series that lend itself to what has been this oddly dull as dishwater execution and I think that's what has contributed to the severe ratings slump as much as the ongoing battle against Pokemon Sunday. My nagging fear is that Toei's take away from all this will be them feeling the need to crank out nothing but hyperwacky magic critter shows for the next 5-10 years.

I think GoBusters often shoots itself in the foot by being way too understated in places it doesn't really need to be. I get wanting to do something a little different but at the same time even the most iconoclastic Sentai shows recognize they are still at the end of the day a Sentai show. Embrace things like the roll call and the team pose. Use it!

It feels like somewhere in the process of production someone gave up on GoBusters or maybe didn't come to the table with enough episode ideas to back up the concept. It may be a long time before we get any sort of behind-the-scenes info.

For me seeing the story that should have been the series ending get crammed in and shipped out in a couple of really rushed episodes was disappointing. I also hate the loss of the first opening theme. If the goal is to try and make the show more exciting I don't why you'd decide that the OP was the problem and then replace it with something that sounds like the kind of bland image song that would appear on a CD collection but never on the actual show.

 

[HonestHeart17]

I get the feeling Toei put too much on their plate. They thought they could one up Gokaiger and make it even more awesome, but found out they were trying too hard and know are giving up on it.

 

[Vitor]

If the goal is to try and make the show more exciting I don't why you'd decide that the OP was the problem and then replace it with something that sounds like the kind of bland image song that would appear on a CD collection but never on the actual show.

I actually kind of prefer the new theme song

The original really didn't do much for me

 

[Lynxara]

I'm gonna go ahead and move this thread to the Go-Busters forum.

 

[NateRiver]

--------Warning: Opinionated Rant Ahead----------

Gobusters was, for the most part, not a perfect series. Hardly any toku show is

It had a great beginning, but after episode three, things started to lull

Then Jin & J showed up, alleviating any doubts or boredom I had towards the series. But then it fell into the classic toku trope of waning writers yet again

The last two episodes were fantastically gripping and had me on the edge of my seat. This is what the show should have been the entire time. But then they had to cut it short with an overly extended crossover with Gavan which I have no doubt will turn into "Movie Wars: The TV Show" in terms of insanely idiotic writing and things that just plain make no sense.

Why is Toei continually fucking with what very well could have been a potentially godlike series? What went wrong here?

I thought you were through with Go-Busters.
http://forums.henshinjustice.net/showthread.php?p=1557549

 

[Herman the German]

Go-Busters has been perfectly fine thus far, even if the "final battle" had been a bit unexpected. Nonetheless, I like it just fine and don't really get all the strikes it keeps getting.

 

[Lynxara]

Go-Busters has been perfectly fine thus far, even if the "final battle" had been a bit unexpected. Nonetheless, I like it just fine and don't really get all the strikes it keeps getting.

I think that's the essence of the problem, honestly. For a lot of people, "perfectly fine" might as well mean "boring," especially in a franchise that's been around as long as Sentai.

 

[Ivanhobe]

To be honest, i don´t know why so many people seem to dislike Go-Buster, i think its pretty good and i would even say that its one of my favorites, heck, depending on how the last 20 episode turn out it might become my favorite sentai ever.

One of the things i like so much about this series is how it seems to be one of the purest sentai in recent years. Super Sentai was originally about semi-military organizations that fighted against some evil group, modern sentai have been more about the "Theme" than about the "Sentai". In magiranger the Ozu family where Magicians first, the Shinkenger where primarily Samurais and the Gokaigers were first and foremost Space Pirates.

My point is that the idea of the "Sentai" team has been deluted to the point where its more a rule than a gimmick. I liked those season but sometimes it feels that they forget that being a team of superheroes is the entire point of sentai and not an afterthought.

Go-Busters changed that, maybe the theme of the season is spies but the entire concept feels more like and organization of extraordinary individuals working against the vaglass, which reminds alot of Goranger and Jaqk Dengekitai.

When i first started watching Go-Busters it seemed a bit lame to me, but after episode 3 things started to pick up and i found myself thoughly enjoying the show, sometimes i enjoyed it even more than Fourze, the middle 20 felt a bit dragging but things improved with the mid series climax and now i am looking forward for what it seems to be the final arc of the series.

I mean yes, the Gavan crossovers were not very good but most series drag like this after the mid series climax, which is a tactic that SS hasn´t used in some time.

Basically i think that GB is a great series, Gokaiger was a lot of fun but at the end it was just that, it wasn´t as fullfilling as previous sentai and personally i feel that Go-Busters is one of the must fullfilling series in years.

 

[Scissors]

At first I thought Gobusters would bore me to death, but it has turned out to be one of my favorite modern Sentai shows ever, and there are very specific reasons for that.

First of all, I really like the cast and how they play the characters.
During the recent years, I have had the feeling that each Sentai team had to consist of every Anime stereotype there is, and the amount of "happy happy sparkle sparkle" has been pushed to the max.

I remember the scene in Gokiager after Gai's introduction, where he fantasizes about how the team should act in front of others, and he pictures the team talking as if they were guests in Barney's playhouse.
Despite being a joke, it was not that far from the truth...

I miss a Sentai show that can be viewed as a family show and not just a show for 3 year old boys.

Gobusters has given us a group of main characters with some very emotional back stories.
Instead of a bunch of suits yelling at each other, we have gotten a group of human villians with very distinctive personalities. A villain is so much better when he has a face. It is the same reason why I loved the villains in Gekiranger.

Gobusters is also the first Sentai show in a while where I can actually remember the names of the mecha and the finishers, because they have not been following the current trend of getting a new flashy toy-attack every week, and even when the "closterfuck mecha" has been introduced, we don't get to see it in every episode, which makes it more fun.
In Gokaiger and other newer shows, you just know that when they have reached an ultimate combination, then they will spam that for the next 10 episodes.

The mecha battles themselves are worth mentioning. I have not seen mecha battles this good since Zyuranger.
There is so much strategy going on there. They make you feel that the mecha are heavy machines that needs to be piloted and maintained like any other vehicles. I absolutely love how much realism they have put into that.

It is very rare that I have felt a mecha battle in this show being forced in. In Gokaiger, I almost rolled my eyes everytime they made the MOTD grow, because it was so obvious that they had to include the mecha for marketing-reasons, no matter how out of place it seemed.

I am very afraid that the bad ratings of this show will result in Toei giving us another Goseiger for the next few years...

I have spoken very bad about modern Sentai, but okay, if we are gonna make a good compromise.
Take a show like Shinkenger and add the type of mecha battles that Gobusters have. That would be just perfect