Anyone noticed Sun Vulcan blatant sexism?

[lazycoconut]

Timeranger and Kakuranger had female team leaders as well ...

 

[Phanto5692]

Kou Aidou said something that I've long realized. I always felt that Japanese television often reflected the thoughts and beliefs at the time. 30 years ago, Japanese felt women were incapable of monumental tasks like saving the world from evil. But as time moved on, the abilities and capabilities of women were shown to be much more complex and diverse until we get to today. It's not a criticism, it's just part of history.

 

[Fox-Chan]

Kou Aidou said something that I've long realized. I always felt that Japanese television often reflected the thoughts and beliefs at the time. 30 years ago, Japanese felt women were incapable of monumental tasks like saving the world from evil. But as time moved on, the abilities and capabilities of women were shown to be much more complex and diverse until we get to today. It's not a criticism, it's just part of history.

Now, I can definitely agree with this sentiment.

I still think that everyone is over-analyzing the show, though. Sun Vulcan was never all that thought provoking.

 

[lazycoconut]

Kou Aidou said something that I've long realized. I always felt that Japanese television often reflected the thoughts and beliefs at the time. 30 years ago, Japanese felt women were incapable of monumental tasks like saving the world from evil. But as time moved on, the abilities and capabilities of women were shown to be much more complex and diverse until we get to today. It's not a criticism, it's just part of history.

Then why do most Sentai heroines today fall into very limited stereotypes (shy girl, silly ditz, or "yamato nadeshiko") whereas back in the day they were a lot more kick-ass? If you take a heroine like Heart Queen, MomoRanger or even someone later like Blue Dolphin, the supposedly "badass" Dekaranger and Shinkenger girls just look pathetic by comparison

 

[lazycoconut]

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I know your post was about girls but still...

What does that have to do with anything? :sweat: That's aesthetics, not character roles. You might as well just post a picture of 18th-century women in kimonos next to AKB48

 

[Burkion]

'Cause it's impossible to do Toku in another country without ripping off something Japan did, right?

When did I say that?

You can TOTALLY do something original.

These people had SOMETHING that could have worked. I mean, the costumes are fantastic. Especially the ones for this years season.

Just dear lord everything else is underwhelming and under everything else.

 

[Fox-Chan]

Then why do most Sentai heroines today fall into very limited stereotypes (shy girl, silly ditz, or "yamato nadeshiko") whereas back in the day they were a lot more kick-ass? If you take a heroine like Heart Queen, MomoRanger or even someone later like Blue Dolphin, the supposedly "badass" Dekaranger and Shinkenger girls just look pathetic by comparison

It has a lot to do with the writing and general tone of the story. Shinkenger and Dekaranger are a little bit different from JAKQ and Liveman.

 

[lazycoconut]

It has a lot to do with the writing and general tone of the story. Shinkenger and Dekaranger are a little bit different from JAKQ and Liveman.

I think it's laziness, mostly - "we're a show aimed at boys so we'll just take the same old girly-girl stereotypes and reuse them every year"

 

[Phanto5692]

Agreed, and my argument still stands that Japanese television shows are simply a mirror of the Japanese mindset of the times. There shouldn't be anything sexist or derogatory to be taken from it.

 

[Lynxara]

I still think that everyone is over-analyzing the show, though. Sun Vulcan was never all that thought provoking.

You can over-analyze Sun Vulcan as a piece of writing, sure. I don't think you can really over-analyze it as a piece of Japanese popular culture, though. Sun Vulcan is one of the Super Sentai that Japanese fans really love and it was really influential on how later shows were written.

I actually think part of why Sun Vulcan watches poorly now is that almost everything interesting it attempted except "tons of female villains" and "all-male team" has been mined out by some later series that could execute the idea in a more sophisticated way.

A lot of what made, say, Goranger interesting was never really recaptured by its successors, which simply went for a very different type of tone. The eventual inclusion of the humanoid robots also changed the episode format into something markedly different from Goranger's.

I mean, I still think both "let's have tons of female villains who aren't evil in gendered ways" and "what if there just wasn't a girl on the team?" are potentially very interesting ideas for Super Sentai. Sun Vulcan doesn't do much with them because it was just mediocre.