Gouraigan: The Akibaranger of Inoue toku Shows

[live jetabare]

After 9 episodes of Gouraigan, I can't help but feel that Inoue is basically parodying all his toku shows, by playing with the tropes he uses in his toku shows, like Jetman and his Rider shows, with completely exaggerating them, to the point they're ridiculous; in a way, I feel that Gouraigan is to Inoue toku what Akibaranger is to official sentai, as if Inoue was following Arakawa in lampshading all the tropes associated with the shows he has worked on (love triangles, bizarre comedies, excessive fanservice, Black Condor's actor playing a completely excessive copy of a villain in love and rival with the hero, like he did on Kiva.
Your thoughts?

 

[Toku Prime]

A while ago I watched the first half of Cutie Honey The Live. Gouraigan kinda reminds me of that, in that it mixes the comedic with the straight-faced, and then adds enough hornyness to drown everything else out. Strangely enough, a look at wikipedia tells me that Amemiya and Inoue both worked on that show too.

The only thing that screamed "akiba" to me was the parody roll call and action scene in episode eight. But while that did have them shouting henshin etc, it seemed most specifically to be calling out the Abaranger roll call. Abaranger was airing at the same time as Faiz, but otherwise I don't think Inoue was involved with it. I don't know if that episode's director (which wasn't Amemiya) had any involvement with that show?

 

[lazycoconut]

Gouraigan has good things about it, but it does not have Akibaranger's immortal line:

"NORMAL PEOPLE CAN GO DIE IN A FIRE!"

 

[Jacky392000]

The only thing that screamed "akiba" to me was the parody roll call and action scene in episode eight. But while that did have them shouting henshin etc, it seemed most specifically to be calling out the Abaranger roll call. Abaranger was airing at the same time as Faiz, but otherwise I don't think Inoue was involved with it. I don't know if that episode's director (which wasn't Amemiya) had any involvement with that show?

not including the action directors, Amemiya and three other directors (Abe, Era and Kaneda) took turns to direct the episodes throughout the series. Abe had always been the assistant director when he was working on GARO; not sure about Era though, and Kaneda was the head director for Cutie Honey The Live and GARO 3 when Amemiya headed Gouraigan. I've also recently checked the suit actors for the five Hikaribito and Gou's suit actor was the guy who also did AkibaRed.

 

[Ivanhobe]

I really think that is not the case, for one if there is one thing that defined Akibaranger is that beyond being a mere parody, it deconstructed the genre in a rather brilliant/loving way.

Gouraigan on the other hand... it feels like Inoue writing on his "lazy mode" more than anything.

Now, i don´t want to bash on Inoue, i do admit that he is a brilliant writer when he wants to, but there are also times when it seems that he isn´t even trying and relies on his old tricks to keep the audience interested.

Gouraigan has some neat ideas here and there, but it rarely steps on new ground and so far it hasn´t really impressed me, so i wouldn´t say that Inoue is parodying himself as much as he is just writing inside his comfort zone, doing the same things he has already done before, which in turn has made his writing an unintentional parody of itself.

Then again, i am probably not the best person to criticize Toshiki Inoue, i have seen so much of his work that i have grown immune to it, to the point that i find myself indifferent to even his best works.

PD: I wonder though, what is the general consensus on this series?

 

[Dr Kain]

Uh no, just no. AkibaRanger is good. Gouraigan is not even a quarter as good as Akiba. In fact, Inoue wishes Gouraigain was AkibaRanger, but it is nothing more than a piece of ****. Gouraigan is the Japanese tv series equivalent of Sucker Punch.

 

[Shougo B'Stard]

I think you're giving Inoue too much credit. I think Gouraigan was meant to be standard Inoue fare -- occasional quirky humor, soapy stuff -- but it turned out horribly, so now the staff's scrambling to cover their blunder by being like "No! The show is supposed to be goofy and bad!"

Besides, Inoue long ago reached the point of self-parody without realizing it, so I don't think he's capable of setting out to do an actual parody of anything. To me, Gouraigan is Inoue trying hard and failing to recreate Changerion and the magic he had with it -- a quirky superhero show that doesn't follow the rules. (But Changerion is wayyyyyyyyyy better than Gouraigan, from a good cast that can pull off humor to the light versus dark theme and right on down to ITS episode dedicated to spoofing toku tropes...which was an episode written by Arakawa, actually.)

 

[Dr Kain]

BTW, how is this show doing ratings wise? Just curious if even the Jp are liking it or not.

 

[Jacky392000]

GARO fans over there enjoy it, though I'm not sure about the general audience.

 

[Dr Kain]

GARO fans over there enjoy it, though I'm not sure about the general audience.

I wish I could say WTF?, but then I remembered that season 3 had the highest ratings of the franchise.