Least Favorite Sentai

[KingRanger]

I fail to see how ANY sentai fan fan dislike The team in Liveman... That is just... :redface2::sly:

 

[LaZerwolfX]

While I don't genuinely hate any series there have inevitably been some series that don't ring as strongly with me. The "plot" (or lack thereof) is usually not an issue for me with toku because I tend to find that each series will usually make up for areas where its lacking by being much stronger in other areas.

For example, Boukenger is one of my personal favorite Super Sentai. A lot of people complain that its plot is bad, and I actually agree for the most part. But the series imo more than makes up for this with some solid design work, all of which is extremely consistant throughout the entire series as well as nailing the Indiana Jones/Adventure Serial vibe its shooting for with nothing short of pinpoint accuracy.

GOSEIGER:
Which is why I have such a problem with Goseiger. The whole project reads very disjointed and muddled. Its not that I hate Goseiger, if anything I pity it as it was so obviously the product of greedy big wigs trying to make a larger profit by incorporating 2 toy gimmicks. Also not unlike Kamen Rider Kiva, I feel that the characters were just exaggerations of personalities from previous series that were expected to be a hit with the kids and kinda backfired.

While most sentai usually only have 1 toy gimmick to work into the plot and design around; Goseiger had to do the same with both cards and headers. I feel like this really brought down the mech designs as they all now had to be covered in big black ports everywhere. The overuse of cards caused the audio in each episode to be just a mess of dialogue, bgm, 5 tensouders and that card scanning sound effect which by episode 5 was driving me up the wall.

Its a shame really because at a base level Goseiger has some really nice things going for it but most of it got squandered.

GO-BUSTERS:
I put Go-Busters in a relatively similar camp to Goseiger. Its got alot of things that should work, but it just doesn't seem to gel very well. The characters (other than J) don't grab me as anything special. And despite trying spice up the standard sentai formula (which i've been wanting for a while) somehow it just doesn't work for me in the slightest. Its a shame because I want to like it, but I can't find anything that I feel is strong enough to hold onto.

 

[lazycoconut]

Boukenger- Just way too safe. I don't feel like they tried that hard to make it interesting.

Why do people treat "safe" like a dirty word in this fandom? Sometimes, "safe" is what makes business sense, especially if the last season did poorly; and for an anniversary, it follows that audiences will want to see something quite traditional. Typically, Sentai will do something quite formulaic for an anniversary and then experiment a bit more the next year. "Different" does not equal better.

I also see nothing wrong with characters being "archetypes" as people have complained about elsewhere in this thread. Not every character is a dynamic character, and "character development" should not exist for its own sake. I've mentioned previously that my least favourite series is Magiranger, and it gets a lot of praise for its character writing; but I still didn't find a single one likeable. I'd take supposedly "flat" heroes like the Goseigers over that any day.

 

[DannyBoy]

One of my least favorites would be Goseiger (SHOCKING, I know). I like the aesthetic of most things just fine, and I like GoseiKnight, but to me, the story was just BORING. It felt like nothing ever happened til the end of a villain faction, then some new faction would appear, and do the EXACT SAME THING. I gave up after the end of the Yuumajuu arc.
Another that I could not really get into was Timeranger, even though I really like Time Force, I just could not get into it's Sentai counterpart.

 

[Lynxara]

I've noticed that Timeranger fans tend to dislike Time Force, and vice versa. I wonder if those two shows are just different enough that someone who likes one will see no reason to like the other.

Gokaiger- Really lame writing. Almost every guest star inadvertently overshadowed the actual main cast. How does that happen?

It's pretty reasonable, if you think about it. The Gokaigers were played by starlets who were still clearly very green. They weren't especially good at doing out-of-suit action or emotional scenes.

(Not terrible, mind, just not especially good. Compare a Junya Ikeda out-of-suit fight with a Ryota Ozawa fight and you'll see what I mean. I suggest turning the sound off, since that'll really underscore where the producers are using foley and BGM to cover up unconvincing stunt work.)

Meanwhile, the returning guest stars had all gotten old enough to have a lot more acting experience under their belts, even in the case of guys who'd come out of retirement. They had more life experience to draw upon in playing their roles, and every reason to make a big splash while they had the limelight.

While I loved Gokaiger's guest star parade, I sometimes wonder if it was actually a good idea, from a production standpoint. When I show Gokaiger eps to friends outside the fandom, they always find the guest stars more interesting and get bored during eps with no guest stars.

Why do people treat "safe" like a dirty word in this fandom?

Because safe tends to be boring to people who watch tons of this stuff. Now, that's not always true. Some people genuinely enjoy seeing familiar elements executed in a new way, and if anything will prefer safe shows to more risky affairs. That's fine. Just, most people don't seem to be wired that way.

Sometimes, "safe" is what makes business sense, especially if the last season did poorly; and for an anniversary, it follows that audiences will want to see something quite traditional.

That's fine for Toei, but the fans aren't Toei, you know? We aren't obligated to like what is best for Toei's bottom line right now. And if it bores people long enough, they'll drop out of the fandom (for at least awhile). This is why it's best for Toei to not listen to the fans too much, or for the fans to really expect Toei to cater to them.

"Different" does not equal better.

No, but it'll be more interesting. At least at first.

 

[lazycoconut]

I've noticed that Timeranger fans tend to dislike Time Force, and vice versa. I wonder if those two shows are just different enough that someone who likes one will see no reason to like the other.

Do they? I always liked both

That's fine for Toei, but the fans aren't Toei, you know? We aren't obligated to like what is best for Toei's bottom line right now. And if it bores people long enough, they'll drop out of the fandom (for at least awhile). This is why it's best for Toei to not listen to the fans too much, or for the fans to really expect Toei to cater to them.

That's fair enough

I have to ask, what are older Japanese fans like in this respect? Their tastes seem to be very different sometimes than those of the English-speaking fanbase (e.g. finding Rio and Mele boring, or Goseiger's high audience share with teenagers)

 

[FlameDragon]

Dairanger - i felt the series was a bit much, it wasn't really that interesting as zyuranger was then again i'm honestly more into mmpr than both of those series.

Boukenger - i fucking love the concepts and designs of this show, but the show is just boring at best

Goseiger - the one thing that got to me by the 5th episode was the inconsistency of the show's editing or just it in general. like how the opening didn't match it's theme song AT ALL, or like in the first few episodes they changed the henshin in less than 3 episodes! i understand boukenger did the same but that wasn't until boukensliver came in, goseiger did it shamefully in the 3rd episode. it's just the visuals in both the show's designs(the headers were just a dumb gimmick) and showcase that just turned me off from the show. and not to mention they went through three different villain factions in one season(it's really a minor compant but i though it didn't need it)

Gokaiger - it's the same opinion i have with boukenger, i love the concepts of the ranger keys but the show is just boring. plus i'm not a big fan of the legend mechas. like how gaolion which is a mecha from a completely different series somehow represents the combination for shinkenger, honestly how does that work!?!

 

[Dalek]

Well, I am totally cheating here, as I just started watching sentai a bit over a week ago. I began with the earliest sentai I could find decent subs for, Sun Vulcan.

It has not been a pleasant ride.

The characters are alarmingly flat and uninteresting, especially the first VulEagle. There's almost no actual plot or progression in the series, you could mix up the order of nearly every episode without losing a hint of coherence, rarely a good sign. Your weekly guest stars regularly get more character development than the main 3(5). Despite being made in the '80s, the music is so '70s its painful (disclaimer: I have never actually been to the '70s). And the action. Oh god the action.

Now the stunt work is fine, and the overuse of things vanishing and reappearing in another spot is irksome but bearable. What kills it is the spectacularly awful editing. Shots don't flow into each other naturalistically, which makes getting a good sense of scene composition a nightmare. And the little thing they do, where they show what seem to be three different takes of exactly the same shot (without even adjusting the camera angle!) in immediate succession, completely snaps my disbelief suspenders, being neither plausible within the reality of the show nor visually interesting outside of it. End result? A painful mess that's very difficult to get invested in. And I still have 10 episodes to go.

I really, really hope Liveman proves better than this.

 

[FlameDragon]

Well, I am totally cheating here, as I just started watching sentai a bit over a week ago. I began with the earliest sentai I could find decent subs for, Sun Vulcan.

It has not been a pleasant ride.

The characters are alarmingly flat and uninteresting, especially the first VulEagle. There's almost no actual plot or progression in the series, you could mix up the order of nearly every episode without losing a hint of coherence, rarely a good sign. Your weekly guest stars regularly get more character development than the main 3(5). Despite being made in the '80s, the music is so '70s its painful (disclaimer: I have never actually been to the '70s). And the action. Oh god the action.

Now the stunt work is fine, and the overuse of things vanishing and reappearing in another spot is irksome but bearable. What kills it is the spectacularly awful editing. Shots don't flow into each other naturalistically, which makes getting a good sense of scene composition a nightmare. And the little thing they do, where they show what seem to be three different takes of exactly the same shot (without even adjusting the camera angle!) in immediate succession, completely snaps my disbelief suspenders, being neither plausible within the reality of the show nor visually interesting outside of it. End result? A painful mess that's very difficult to get invested in. And I still have 10 episodes to go.

I really, really hope Liveman proves better than this.

that was one of the main problems i mentioned with goseiger, if you want to see how bad the editing in goseiger is, you should look up how messy gosei great's finisher is, seeing footage of the finisher before the show started(without the stuff they added in) looked really great, but in the show they completely rushed it so it shows a cgi gosei great rushing to the screen and then cuts to the slash of mentioned footage from the pre-promos. at least with sun vulcan, technology wasn't at it's best but was good for it's time. but there was no excuse with what goseiger did .

 

[DannyBoy]

I've noticed that Timeranger fans tend to dislike Time Force, and vice versa. I wonder if those two shows are just different enough that someone who likes one will see no reason to like the other.

I know a few people that like both. And I liked Timeranger just fine, I just couldn't get into the series enough to follow it.

(Also, I made the 100th reply. This makes me feel special!)