Lynxara
Nice post!!
Magiranger is an interesting case. Its head writer is Atsushi Maekawa, who has a very short tenure writing tokusatsu, instead doing the bulk of her work in animation. She only writes for Hurricanger and Abaranger prior to getting the head writer's seat for Magiranger. While Magiranger is definitely influenced by Abaranger to some extent, I think we'd all agree that Abaranger featured unusually strong and effective villain characters for an Arakawa show.
Most notably, I think, is that Magiranger would've been in preproduction while Dekaranger was airing. At that point it would be less clear that the show was going to be quite so huge, and it wouldn't be in a position to influence Magiranger quite so much. I think you really see the effects of Dekaranger's popularity really begin to influence Sentai writing once you hit Boukenger. Magiranger is, perhaps coincidentally, Maekawa's last tousatsu credit.
Gekiranger and Goseiger are both headed by Michiko Yokote, another writer who came to Sentai from a background primarily in animation writing. Yokote's specialization was shoujo, and her most influential work prior to Gekiranger was probably the surreal magical girl series Princess Tutu. The villain of Princess Tutu, Raven, is an all-knowing master planner type, more or less exactly like Long or Bladerun. Long is the archetype funneled through the shounen martial arts kitsch that Gekiranger references extensively, while Bladerun is an attempt at a more "Hollywood" take on the type, since Goseiger is about referencing films. The referencing thing is also a very distinct Yokote writing tic, as each episode of Princess Tutu references a different ballet.
Prior to getting the head writer's chair on Gekiranger, Yokote did very little work in tokusatsu. She did episode writing for Moero!! Robocon, Dekaranger, and Magiranger. She doesn't seem to have been particularly influenced by the approach to any of these works, as her style in Gekiranger and Goseiger is not substantially different from her style in earlier works like Princess Tutu. At this point, it's worth bringing up that both Gekiranger and Goseiger were perceived as underperformers for various reasons. In Gekiranger's case, a common complaint from Japanese viewers was the villains getting too much camera time!
I think part of Dekaranger's legacy was creating a viewership for Sentai that simply does not want shows about strong villains. They want strong heroes whose victory over the villain will never be in serious doubt, which makes it borderline impossible to write guys like Radiguet or the Alien Hunters anymore. Writers still come to the franchise from outside the tokusatsu writing pool who want to do that, because Sentai shares a lot in common with other Japanese MotW writing formats, and in anime you can still write those formats and include strong villains.
In Sentai, though? Well, look at Go-Busters. That show is desperately trying to do strong villains, making both Enter and Escape fairly active and effective. They're not the best villains in franchise terms, but the show's clearly putting effort into having them do things regularly. The result? The most poorly-rated show in the franchise's history, and specifically poorly-rated with Sentai's target demographic of children. Kids actually preferred it when Gokaiger was steamrolling the Zangyack and Doukoku spent most of the series on his ass swilling sake. Tastes have changed, and I really think the shift begins with Dekaranger's popularity.
Megaranger was a Takatera show, and I feel Takatera's ideas are by far the dominant ones in that story. Gaoranger is fairly influential on later Sentai in merchandising respects, but its story always struck me as self-consciously bland and derivative. Go-onger feels much the same to me, a show afraid to have any idea that might be even slightly upsetting to someone.
I'll give you Go Go V as an example of Takegami doing very good work, though. I don't think it was influential work, because Go Go V re-examines the basic premises of Sentai in a way that later shows simply do not ever revisit. Sadly, I think Takegami realized at some point that a lot of the work he was doing in Go Go V was simply too smart for his own good, because what he does with Gaoranger and Go-onger seems intentionally dumbed down and simplified.
