Thoughts and opinions on Post Millennial Tokusatsu programs

lazycoconut said:

I know the actors being cast these days are a lot younger than in the '70s-'80s, but either way Toei has always cast idol-esque guys in the leads. Back in the day the fashionable look was slightly older, rough and ready, more "macho" guys - now the trend is for young, androgynous types. They've always hung onto the "Christmas cake" ideal that women over 25 are too old and unattractive to play the heroines, I'm surprised we even got a character like Saeko Sonozaki

The other difference is that in the past there was the occasional fat or "unconventional"-looking hero (such as Yellow Owl or the Ki Rangers.) We'd never get that now, not even as comic relief

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LC, you hit it right on the mark. the people cast were usually good looking people, but they were also believable in the roles they were cast in, like you say the rough and ready macho types, you could believe them when they were in fight scenes, unlike some of the younger androgynous types.

perhaps I'm being unfair, I've only seen one or two eps of something like Shinkenger, and haven't bothered with Goseiger, or perhaps I'm just being picky. I'm thirty years old, so perhaps it has to do with my particular tastes, maybe I'm expecting too much from these kinds of programs.

NeonZ said:

They changed the type of people cast as protagonists, that's true, but I don't think there ever was an era where they actually had a great variety of people chosen for the main roles. Maybe the 90s, but I'd say that was mostly because it was transitioning into the current state.

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good point.

NeonZ said:

Today's weapons don't look any more toyetic than earlier ones, on average. In this case, aside from changing the themes (like Sentai not always sticking to futuristic pseudo military themes for the weapons, unlike in the 80s), I don't think there has been much of a change. I guess the one exception would be some of the later metal hero shows, but those few series can hardly define the entire genre.

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I was thinking more of the weapons used on Shinkenger, like you see the swords they use, and they look more like the plastic or foam rubber swords you get in a costume shop.

NeonZ said:

More recently, it seems that we're often getting a wave of attachments to the weapons (cards, headers, gaia memorie, etc), but I don't think those make them look particularly more toyetic than before.

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I've never understood the addition of things like cards in various programs, Yu-Gi-Oh! uses it extensively and I've never seen the point of them, one of the Kamen Rider shows used them, and there was that anime Card Captors or whatever the hell it was called. Its not like ordinary playing cards, the cards for stuff like Yu-Gi-Oh! comes with a whole mess of complicated rules, much like a freakin' Dungeons & Dragons RPG.

NeonZ said:

Choreography and suit actors haven't suffered much, especially if you're talking about in suit fighting. Older toku shows also had moments of special spamming, that's not just exclusive of post CG series.

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well, many of these shows do rely on camera tricks to pull off certain effects, some are more successful than others, so I guess its a fair point.

NeonZ said:

They have been more conservative with the suits, avoiding doing too many things that might damage them. However, that's just a general trend that has been going on since very early shows in the 70s at least.

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I'm not sure what you mean by this, because I've seen some shows where you see sparks flying from the suits in order to indicate a hit or that someone has been injured or something, surely those sparks might damage the suits if not done properly.

NeonZ said:

Avatar was basically just a technical showcase. I guess the story technically "worked" in a superficial level, but only because it just got an old story and changed the setting. It really didn't attempt anything new aside from the technical side, which was the true focus.

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well, it was a technical masterpiece, sure the story itself was nothing new, what they did was tell a story that is still very timely and universal, the notion of respect of one's environment and respecting the cultures and practices of others. sure, Avatar had a great deal of style, but it also had plenty of substance to go with it.

Ultraman_Meta777 said:

LC, you hit it right on the mark. the people cast were usually good looking people, but they were also believable in the roles they were cast in, like you say the rough and ready macho types, you could believe them when they were in fight scenes, unlike some of the younger androgynous types.

perhaps I'm being unfair, I've only seen one or two eps of something like Shinkenger, and haven't bothered with Goseiger, or perhaps I'm just being picky. I'm thirty years old, so perhaps it has to do with my particular tastes, maybe I'm expecting too much from these kinds of programs.

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E.g. Liveman was an anniversary series, so they cast Daisuke Shima and Megumi Mori, who were hot property at the time. These days, they wouldn't look right for Sentai - Shima would probably be too old for the lead, and Mori didn't have the cutesy schoolgirl thing going on that's popular now. But at the time they were what people wanted to see, so Toei cast 'em. Just like how we now drool over the Dekaranger and Shinkenger casts

lazycoconut said:

E.g. Liveman was an anniversary series, so they cast Daisuke Shima and Megumi Mori, who were hot property at the time. These days, they wouldn't look right for Sentai - Shima would probably be too old for the lead, and Mori didn't have the cutesy schoolgirl thing going on that's popular now. But at the time they were what people wanted to see, so Toei cast 'em. Just like how we now drool over the Dekaranger and Shinkenger casts

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Good point, very good point. The Dekaranger cast were good looking men and women, but they were also very talented and believable in their roles.

It comes down to money again. Lynxara wrote a post somewhere about the whole "lolicon" thing and how back in the day the popular pin-up girls were "office lady" types in their 20s, now it's barely pubescent middle-schoolers. So in thirty years our heroines go from Risa Komaki and Diane Martin to 16-year-old ShinkenYellow and Hina. Well, it's just the same for the men. Back then the ikemen types in the media were mid-20s guys with a more "masculine" look, now the popular image is for androgynous boys in their late teens. So that's who gets cast.

The problem is that a) those boys tend to be models or idols who aren't experienced with acting and martial arts, and b) they're not what we expect to see a hero look like in our shows

I was thinking more of the weapons used on Shinkenger, like you see the swords they use, and they look more like the plastic or foam rubber swords you get in a costume shop.

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Do you mean things like Takeru's large sword, or are you talking about the standard ones? I can kind of see your point regarding Takero's sword, but those kinds of "specialty" weapons not looking like actual weapons isn't really new. Look at Goggle V's or the Flashman's personal weapons.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, because I've seen some shows where you see sparks flying from the suits in order to indicate a hit or that someone has been injured or something, surely those sparks might damage the suits if not done properly.

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In the early Rider shows from the 70s, you could get scenes where the suit actors rolled downhill, got parts of the suit on fire and burning on screen, parts of the suit drilled through on screen, etc. That kind of thing had already mostly disappeared in the 80s tokusatsu.

Some of the newer series seem to limit the action of some suits with more complex designs even more.

I've never understood the addition of things like cards in various programs, Yu-Gi-Oh! uses it extensively and I've never seen the point of them, one of the Kamen Rider shows used them, and there was that anime Card Captors or whatever the hell it was called. Its not like ordinary playing cards, the cards for stuff like Yu-Gi-Oh! comes with a whole mess of complicated rules, much like a freakin' Dungeons & Dragons RPG.

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Cards and other extras, like Gaia memories and medals, make nice collectibles for the toylines.

Pure character items, in Japan, like variations of the main hero with random vehicles, seem to have become less and less desirable as time passed on. Even the vehicles from the show seem to be barely featured in toylines these days... So, they started trying other things, like the higher number of mecha in Sentai and these collectibles in Rider.

The same seemingly didn't happen in the USA though, that's probably one of the reasons that Power Rangers toned down the mecha usage of recent Sentai, speeding up the battles and such, but included more character items, like bikes and Battlizers.

Ultraman_Meta777 said:

But I've seen examples where a lot of money is put into something wisely and all of the elements come together, special effects, story, acting, and they still manage to do well in merchandising. The prime example I'm thinking of at the moment is 'Avatar'. granted it also started the chain reaction where everyone and their mother now wants to cash in on the 3D craze. I know this is how things work because that's why they call it 'show business', but if you are too focused on the business side of things, what you have left is just a product that is all style and no substance.

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This post cannot be said no to because its the complete utter Truth, But this is Toku we are talking about, And i think things may work differently when it comes to an entire 40 year old genre.

Look around you. It is not just Toku. You will see these kind of changes in basically every movie or TV-Show out there.
Remember the cartoons back in the 80's? Most male characters were portrayed as very muscular macho types. Today most male heroes are mainly skinny young boys.
It is much easier for the kids to relate to.

The viewers just have other preferences today than they used to have. It is a natural change.
In 20 years, there will be people complaining that the TV-shows are not the same as they were back in 2011.

It also really depends on what kind of show you are watching.
You have to remember that Sentai and KR today are much more focused on the daily life of the characters than they used to be.
Most of the old shows had a pretty serious theme to them. The Riders were people turned into cyborgs against their will, and had to isolate themselves so that they wouldn't get their friends and family involved in their battles.
The Sentai teams were often military teams, who had to act serious and professional most of the time.

Today, the characters are always "everyday people" who have become heroes by fate or accident.
We are supposed to see them as normal Japanese people, which is why a lot of modern culture is mixed into the story.
The ever-rising popularity of Anime and Manga is also a factor to consider.
While making a live-anime seems like a very bad idea, it obviously helps the ratings.

For KR, Den-O was basically the "test-pilot" for this live-anime project (although Kabuto had some elements of it), and Toei saw that it worked. So I doubt we are going to see that go away any time soon.

You can still find newer shows that still has some of the atmosphere of the older shows. Most of the modern Ultraman series have mixed casts and does not suffer from the anime-esque humor that KR and Sentai has been overdoing the recent years.
Tsubaraya generally does a better job at hiring actors. It also helps that Ultraman usually have a more serious, down-to-earth feel to them, where the actors are not required to do anime slapstick-humor all the time. The humor usually consists of funny lines more than anything.

Scissors said:

Today, the characters are always "everyday people" who have become heroes by fate or accident.
We are supposed to see them as normal Japanese people, which is why a lot of modern culture is mixed into the story.

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Well, even that's changing. The Goseigers and apparently Gokaigers aren't human, and we've had more characters over the last few years (like Jasmine and the Go-on Wings) with supernatural abilities. Looks like the new trend will be for heroes to come from other worlds, land on Earth, and already have their superpowers. I think Kamen Rider will eventually start doing this too

lazycoconut said:

Well, even that's changing. The Goseigers and apparently Gokaigers aren't human, and we've had more characters over the last few years (like Jasmine and the Go-on Wings) with supernatural abilities. Looks like the new trend will be for heroes to come from other worlds, land on Earth, and already have their superpowers. I think Kamen Rider will eventually start doing this too

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Wow, Its almost as if Disney PR is still haunting the producers back stage. :laugh: