Problems in toei tokusatsu shows and how to improve them.

[PyroturtleZX]

the issue i have with gimmicks is how they are written in the show, they show it once and it's never used again. what they could do better is just for example with wizard is just use one form in every episode without changing into different forms at a fast pace because it's just confusing, like flame form in episode 1, land form in episode 2, hurricane form in episode 3 and water form in episode 4. at least it show some idea what these forms can do in every episode sort of like kuuga.

like i said i dont a problem with bandai making alot of toys, it's just how they are written. with drive they spam tire changes in every episode and it's not the way write it. if they introduce every tire/car in every episode, that would be a way of writing it.

That's funny because I thought Wizard probably had one of the better usages of all their forms. He wasn't very consistent with it but we did get to see a lot of all of his different forms, sans All-Dragon.

The problem with Drive is that they aren't using their tires. There are 4 tires that we haven't seen/probably will never see and because of that there are 3 Tire Blendings that we won't see.
I don't mind them switching between tires or forms mid episode because a lot of these forms/tires are really simple and don't need a lot of explaining and I'm all for just seeing more of the tires in general. But they tend to use the same tires anyways so you mostly just see a lot of Rumble Dump or Flare. I mean, when was the last time we actually saw Funky Spike used as a tire change. I'm okay with introducing multiple at once or using multiple tires at once but they literally just don't use the tires a lot of the time.

 

[kamsasdn13213231]

Okay, I'm posting here one more time. Let me tell why ratings are actually dropping, no speculation BS.

• Ratings all across the board are dropping. Around 5 years ago, not only were Super Sentai and Kamen Rider ratings stronger, but cultural mainstays like Sazae-san and Chibi Maruko-chan averaged like 20-25% in ratings. Nowadays, those latter two shows are lucky to hit 15%.
• There are literally fewer children in Japan today than there were 5 years ago. That is a bonafide fact. Beacuse the birth rate is declining, that means there are naturally fewer eyes watching these shows.
• Even if the birth rate were to suddenly spike right now, it would still be another 3-4 years before these children will become Toei and Bandai's target demographic.

As stated before, because these shows are expensive, they have to make up the revenue somehow. That revenue is made up in toy sales and other forms of advertising. Because they can't get that much ad revenue from other companies that early in the morning and because of the dropping ratings (even so, it's the only time-slot that these shows could even hope of surviving in nowadays), that pretty much means they HAVE to sell toys if they're to get their money back. Yes, Toei and Bandai are trapped in a state of flux as a result, but it's all they can do to keep those franchises alive. And if you think they should just end both franchises because they're just trying to make up the money they're putting into it like practical businesses should do, well, I'm sorry you would rather see Japanese TV slowly become the creatively dead wasteland that American TV has become.

KR and SS have always been about selling toys to make a profit. Why do you think the Gorangers are colored so brightly and why do you think they fly around in a colorful jet? Why do you think Kamen Rider #1 doesn't look all that threatening despite Shotaro Ishinomori's original premise? It's to attract children into watching the shows, and thus buying toys. Yeah, they didn't add new mecha or Riders every other week back then but that's because both franchises were healthier back then. They could survive on ratings along with the toy sales because they HAD ratings. And that has nothing to do with the fact they weren't toy commercials because they still were, it just wasn't the only reason they still existed. The ratings drop has NOTHING to do with the toy commercialization, it's the other way around.

You know reading the part about japan’s decline birth rate it kinda feel well sad no wonder ratings been low but still in real world situation to japans low birth rate that still sad.I better add to the list

And you know what I understand about the toy merchandising used in shows aimed for younger audience it happened to American shows as well (kind of) but still i don’t think it would work for both franchise for kamen rider and super sentai because it will ruin their reputation now I understand that toy merchandise thing helps them but too much of it such as gimmick ideas thought of by the toy company are used in the current shows rather than the studio that wouldn’t work maybe its better that both shows would be cancelled and let the toy company and studio focus on making a tokusatsu franchise revolving around their products so that it will make them more money and will save both kamen rider and super sentais franchises reputation, I know that they are pop icons but it doesn’t work anymore now they are no longer the shows like in the showa era they are now just well toy commercial shows as if they are created by toy company which isn’t

There have been questions raised over Drive's movie being tied too closely to the plot of the series, and there were also problems with Gaim's movie last year (it was designed to cash in on the World Cup, but flopped because by the time of the movie's release date Japan had already been knocked out of the competition.) I think they're just trying to avoid a repeat of that, basically ...

Like i said before i think its time that toei should cancel the yearly kamen rider and suepr sentai films to save the budget and the reputation and focus on the television,the TV specials and the direct to video movies only.

"Jumping the shark" isn't about repetition. It refers to the point where fans decide the show has hit an irreversible downward slide in quality (often when it makes some kind of change in order to keep the show fresh.) With a franchise like Sentai, how do you decide where that point is? How do you know what the franchise will do next - I remember when people said that Go-onger was the absolute lowest point of Sentai and it was all downhill from there, yet the following year we got Shinkenger, which was a hit and widely loved?

Yes that is true at least shikengers tone are good which i like.

Besides toy merchandises, the next important thing would be sales of DVD/blu-ray. It's probably one of the reasons why Gaim got to release gaiden side-stories.

Exactly and as i said before its better they should end the yearly rider/sentai films and do it on direct to video films only no one use cheap films based on rider and sentai series in this age as most of you said "times change" heck japan has a decline birth rate as DaikaijuSokogeki! said

That's funny because I thought Wizard probably had one of the better usages of all their forms. He wasn't very consistent with it but we did get to see a lot of all of his different forms, sans All-Dragon.

The problem with Drive is that they aren't using their tires. There are 4 tires that we haven't seen/probably will never see and because of that there are 3 Tire Blendings that we won't see.
I don't mind them switching between tires or forms mid episode because a lot of these forms/tires are really simple and don't need a lot of explaining and I'm all for just seeing more of the tires in general. But they tend to use the same tires anyways so you mostly just see a lot of Rumble Dump or Flare. I mean, when was the last time we actually saw Funky Spike used as a tire change. I'm okay with introducing multiple at once or using multiple tires at once but they literally just don't use the tires a lot of the time.

Heck no kidding wizards forms are good but some are confusing such as the dragon styles or All dragon style for example my suggestion maybe both sentai and kamen rider franchise should lower their gimmicks a bit and not to over do it though i wish to see the cyborg element come back in a heisei rider series just once.

 

[Kamen Rider IXA]

The problem with these shows is that they keep on "repeating" the same old sh*t. Time after time. Same story lines, same old plots, same old gimmicks. But being on the air year after year for decades. What "new " can you actually bring to table?

I really don't get whole "what can they do after 20/30 seasons?' thing
How about they actually TRY TO DO SOMETHING for a change?
They've tried it with Gaim and it worked pretty good.
How about making main Rider a girl? How about making Gransazer-like show with actual multiple groups of Rider? How about making main hero a vigilant and exploiting that point of view?
It's not that they've run of ideas. They've just to lazy to try anything that new.

 

[Solari]

I really don't get whole "what can they do after 20/30 seasons?' thing
How about they actually TRY TO DO SOMETHING for a change?
They've tried it with Gaim and it worked pretty good.
How about making main Rider a girl? How about making Gransazer-like show with actual multiple groups of Rider? How about making main hero a vigilant and exploiting that point of view?
It's not that they've run of ideas. They've just to lazy to try anything that new.

I don't think it's likely they would ever have a female be a main Rider, just like they would not have a male be a main Precure...
People who want 'female main character' for Rider or Sentai should perhaps go watch Precure, which has many Rider/Sentai tropes with female main characters. (Unlike Rider/Sentai though, Precure is animated)

 

[kuroihikari]

I really don't get whole "what can they do after 20/30 seasons?' thing
How about they actually TRY TO DO SOMETHING for a change?
They've tried it with Gaim and it worked pretty good.
How about making main Rider a girl? How about making Gransazer-like show with actual multiple groups of Rider? How about making main hero a vigilant and exploiting that point of view?
It's not that they've run of ideas. They've just to lazy to try anything that new.

They're doing something. You just don't like it.

 

[Amon]

Okay, I'm posting here one more time. Let me tell why ratings are actually dropping, no speculation BS.

• Ratings all across the board are dropping. Around 5 years ago, not only were Super Sentai and Kamen Rider ratings stronger, but cultural mainstays like Sazae-san and Chibi Maruko-chan averaged like 20-25% in ratings. Nowadays, those latter two shows are lucky to hit 15%.
• There are literally fewer children in Japan today than there were 5 years ago. That is a bonafide fact. Beacuse the birth rate is declining, that means there are naturally fewer eyes watching these shows.
• Even if the birth rate were to suddenly spike right now, it would still be another 3-4 years before these children will become Toei and Bandai's target demographic.

While the birth rate is way lower then it was a decade ago, do you also think low ratings can also be because of lack of interest with Sentai and Kamen Rider these days? Maybe most people don't find the newer shows all that interesting and choose not to bother with it. I feel like a show for kids should appeal to all ages, not just kids. I mean there are fanboys in Japan too that dislike the newer shows for over use of gimmicks and too many crossovers. America is not the only place with fans that hate anything new.

 

[kuroihikari]

It's possible, but it's really hard to prove that. And I think it's implausible.

Scientifically, given the other reasonable factors in play that also affect the control groups (i.e. shows that are not affected by people's interest in KR/SS and yet also suffering significant drops in ratings), you go with the the hypothesis that is neutral (i.e. that there's no such effect on interest).

 

[kamsasdn13213231]

While the birth rate is way lower then it was a decade ago, do you also think low ratings can also be because of lack of interest with Sentai and Kamen Rider these days? Maybe most people don't find the newer shows all that interesting and choose not to bother with it. I feel like a show for kids should appeal to all ages, not just kids. I mean there are fanboys in Japan too that dislike the newer shows for over use of gimmicks and too many crossovers. America is not the only place with fans that hate anything new.

I agree especially that america has similar problems with shows that are long running such as supernatural and csi for example

I really don't get whole "what can they do after 20/30 seasons?' thing
How about they actually TRY TO DO SOMETHING for a change?
They've tried it with Gaim and it worked pretty good.
How about making main Rider a girl? How about making Gransazer-like show with actual multiple groups of Rider? How about making main hero a vigilant and exploiting that point of view?
It's not that they've run of ideas. They've just to lazy to try anything that new.

I don't think people are ready for a female kamen rider character as a main character unless they give her a spinoff direct to video movie from a show when she was a supporting character or maybe if she can be sued for a kamen rider show which has a combined motif of robot and the motif from killer 7 (where it will have all people in one robot body) like my idea.

and speaking about the writers lazy to try anything that is new that's similar to the part where they run out of ideas.

I don't think it's likely they would ever have a female be a main Rider, just like they would not have a male be a main Precure...
People who want 'female main character' for Rider or Sentai should perhaps go watch Precure, which has many Rider/Sentai tropes with female main characters. (Unlike Rider/Sentai though, Precure is animated)

He is right you know

 

[lazycoconut]

I don't think it's likely they would ever have a female be a main Rider, just like they would not have a male be a main Precure...
People who want 'female main character' for Rider or Sentai should perhaps go watch Precure, which has many Rider/Sentai tropes with female main characters. (Unlike Rider/Sentai though, Precure is animated)

I really don't like this line. PreCure does have several elements in common with Sentai especially but it is an anime, it belongs to a separate genre (magical girls) and it has different focus and priorities: for instance, most Sentai/Kamen Rider heroes are adults while most Cures are middle school aged. And PreCure still reinforces negative ideas about gender roles, albeit it has a far greater diversity and range of female characters than you'll see in any of Toei's live action tokusatsu.

I agree Toei does try to switch things up every year. Over the last few years of Sentai they've played with different team sizes, colour combinations and gimmicks (the Buddyroids, the Norikae Changes, etc.) Kamen Rider has finally started to move away from the two-Rider setup, and is trying different things: Fourze was the first Rider in high school. Drive is the first to have a car rather than a bike. Ghost will be an actual ghost, which is something the franchise hasn't done before. While I understand people would like to see the underlying basic format go, I can't blame Toei for not wanting to do that, given that most of their recent efforts to try something considerably different have ended poorly (Go-Busters was a commercial and ratings flop; Gaim didn't sell as well as expected)

 

[Solari]

I've always thought of Precure targeting a similar demographic(elementary school kids) as Rider, but for girls, because it airs in the timeslot directly after Rider. So there is some overlap there.
I think "henshin heroes" and "magical girls" are just about similar with regards to genre(they both transform and fight monsters to protect people) which is why I commented as above.
I feel that Precure was able to bring the age of the characters down because it's animated and not live action.
Also, the reason why I think magical girls are rarely live-action is because they don't wear masks, so it's harder to use stunt doubles.