I was referring to Takeru's character development, not Kotoha's. he was very arrogant in the series, but since this team-up is set after Shinkenger's series, it's not a surprise he has changed into a nicer person.
Definitely. I always felt a little dissatisfied with Shinkenger's ending because while the characters
tell us a lot about how Takeru has changed from the early episodes, the last run of episodes still pretty much require him to act as a stoic turbo-badass all the time, so we never really got a chance to see the fruits of that development.
So getting to see Takeru after the events of the show, clearly having his own life and interacting with people who aren't his vassals (with whom there will always be a certain formality, no matter how close they get) makes that ending feel a lot more "true" to me, so to speak. It actually makes me feel a lot happier about Shinkenger's ending, even if it's not technically in hard continuity with it.
Meanwhile, I thought it was really perceptive of the movie to portray the Goseigers as equally competent, capable, passionate heroes whose primary failing is that
their gimmicks are fucking weird. This is basically the core of Goseiger to me and once again, the virtue of the Versus movies is that it puts the characters into a context where these things can be acknowledged. Goseiger requires that no one in-world question too deeply the premise of secular angels with card magic and a talking arcade machine, but the understated way that the Shinkengers react to this -- clearly a bit disturbed but still going along with it because it makes awesome things happen -- feels like a fun little wink to fans like me who reacted basically the same way.
Oh, and I loved that they portrayed the Shinkengers as a public-knowledge superhero team that the Goseigers knew about and kind of looked up to. Obviously this makes sense for the versus-verse, but I just loved the way it played out.
Yeah, so, sorry to rant again. This movie hit my buttons pretty hard. Goseiger and Shinkenger are both series that I think have amazing highs and pretty bad lows, and this movie really "got" the parts that were awesome about both series while paving over, leaving behind, or fixing all the weaknesses. That's my take on it, anyway. If the future Vs. theatrical releases can remain this strong (Shinkenger vs. Go-Onger was also great) it's going to be a very nice decade for me.
