Wendinu, Furabijou and sentai villainesses stupidity.

[live jetabare]

Until Hurricanger, with very few exceptions, villainesses in sentai were mostly serious characters, and dangerous enemies; the few comedic ones (like Zonnette, and in a very lesser way, Bandora, Lami and TsueTsue) were usually among other stupid villains. Moreover, in old sentai series, there were examples of male comic relief characters, like Bioman's Monster, Changeman's Gator, Fiveman's Dongoros, or Megaranger's Bibidebi.
However, with Hurricanger, Wendinu and Furabijou were the only villainesses of the show and were almost completely used as comic relief character, and behaving like idiots; and I guess that those two have been very popular, as they've come back in the vs movie, Furabijou came back in Boukenger vs SS, and they weren't forgotten in the "10 years after" Hurri movie. Does that mean that it's that very popularity that paved the way of having the villainesses in sentai being stupid and childish, especiallly if they're human looking? While Aba had Lijewel behaving chilldishly, it could be explained by her background and the whole Lije/ Lijewel/ Mysterious girl/ actually, it's a baby stuff. But how about Vancuryia/ Nai and Mae? Shizuka? Mele, with her" Rio sama stuff and her comedic duo with Bae? Kegaleshia?
Escape, with her obsession with her "papa? While suit villainesses at friest escaped that trend (Dayu, Sphinx, Metal Alice), Kyoryuger's Candelilla seems to show that now, even suit villainesses are written as idiots?

Is that sexism, or more related to Wendy and Furabijou's popularity?

 

[lazycoconut]

I think it's part of the reason why. Gaoranger is the point where Sentai started to become merch-heavy and aggressively promoting toys. Dekaranger is the point where casts started to become more idol-esque. In general the image of ditzy, hyper-perky, "kawaii" and not very bright women who don't threaten male intelligence has been popular in Japan for a long time. Audiences' love of Wendinu, Furabijou and Nanami showed that this type of character was a hit in Sentai; so the next few years followed a pattern of that, for both the villainesses and female Rangers. I would class Magiranger and Boukenger as the absolute worst of it.

It seems to have died down a bit since Go-onger, though. Even Eri and Moune are nowhere near as bad as the Houka or Natsuki type of a few years ago. Similarly, Escape may have had zany moments but she's not even close to Mele or Nai 'n' Mea in terms of ditzy villainesses and I don't believe she was ever intended to be that type. Her moments of wackiness were less so than Enter's - which of them was frolicking around dressed as a French maid? It wasn't her, was it? Candelira being silly stands out less when pretty much all the villains are written that way, Luckyuro (ostensibly a boy) as much as her.