What made Zyuranger the success it was?

[Loghorn]

I agree with KingRanger: ALL SHOWS ARE KID-FRIENDLY.
But what is considered to be kid-friendly changes over time.
You don't see that much blood, violence, death or little kid's butts in sentai these days.
But I don't recall so many miniskirts or sentai heroins taking a bath singing a sexually connotated song 'chu~ awa awa' back in the 70~90's.

And that's one of the reasons that made most sentai series of Goranger to Timeranger so awesome, especially when most of the series tend to be serious, with some comedy series (like Carranger, which I liked), & not because of the things that you mentioned, but the quality that most of the series from Goranger to Timeranger had. My most favorites happened to be Goranger, Sun Vulcan, Bioman, Changeman, Flashman, Maskman, Liveman, Turboranger, Jetman, Dairanger, Kakuranger, Carranger, Megaranger, Gingaman, GoGoFive, & Timeranger.

But ever since after Timeranger, the quality of the sentai series just keeps dropping & dropping. The only sentai series that I liked the most after Timeranger were Abaranger, Magiranger, Gekiranger, Shinkenger, Gokaiger, & Akibaranger. That's it. 6 out of 13 series from Gaoranger to Go-Busters. That's saying something.

 

[Lynxara]

It'd be remembered for having the first Sixth, but the general populace of Sentai fanpeople wouldn't really think about it much.

I strongly disagree. Zyuranger was a hugely ground-breaking series is one way I haven't seen anyone mention yet. Zyuranger is literally the first time that Sentai is produced as a fantasy series, on top of all of its other innovations. Turboranger included some fantasy elements, but still strove to include a lot of the sci-fi tropes that defined Sentai in the 70s and 80s.

Zyuranger goes all-in. It's the first Sentai series where everything is fundamentally magical. The robots aren't robots at all, or even magic robots, they're literally gods. And they're gods in a fantasy RPG sense, who speak regularly to the heroes, either offering counsel or chiding them for bad behavior.

Likewise, the Zyuranger heroes aren't just people with superpowers of some sort, they're literally the nobility of a lost fantastic age. They have to go on a heroic quest to gain the Legendary Weapons, and they fight an evil witch who's surrounded by creatures from myth, legend, and literature.

After Zyuranger, magic and fantasy elements play an increasingly large role in the Super Sentai series. Once you get into the 2000s, sci-fi shows actually become a rarity, while magical-themed shows like Gaoranger, Magiranger, and Shinkenger are the norm.

I think it's easy to view Zyuranger dismissively, because we now take what it added to Super Sentai for granted. Zyuranger was the series that rather decisively got Sentai out of the rut it'd fallen into toward the latter half of the 80s. The post-Live, pre-Zyu shows were (mostly) still good, but they were increasingly derivative. Zyuranger was something completely wild, fresh, and different (if also unpolished and a bit incoherent).

Timing should also be considered when talking about Zyuranger's success. The Jurassic Park connection has been made before, but it's also worth noting that Zyuranger is produced right as the 16-big console RPG boom is taking off in Japan. Literally everyone, from kids to grandparents, were playing games like Dragon Quest, SaGa, Final Fantasy, Megami Tensei, Tales, etc.

Seeing those themes in Sentai, with the heroes as a questing party and the robot approached as a "summoned diety," was probably really appealing to viewers at the time. I find this aspect of Zyuranger is also harder for Westerners to appreciate, since console RPGs never became a mainstream genre over here until the release of FFVII (which actually marked the beginning of the first boom's end in Japan).

 

[Tokuboy]

Lynx nailed it.

I'll add that RPG factor (ESPECIALLY from Dragon Quest, which makes Don's purported past in Gokaiger extra hilarious). Look at their weapons - Red gets the typical sword, and the token girl gets a bow, and Dragon Ranger had a weapon that doubled as a musical instrument.

Then you have the mecha. They're not as flying shoebox-y as prior series, not to mention they're very colorful - you can differentiate Saber Tiger from Triceratops better than Land Lion from Aqua Dolphin, for example.

And THEN you have the "kid of the week" factor - Sentai has always been a family series with extra appeal towards the kids, so having children being an important part of the show (an element continued to a lesser extent in Dairanger) would solidify its appeal to children.

 

[Lynxara]

And THEN you have the "kid of the week" factor - Sentai has always been a family series with extra appeal towards the kids, so having children being an important part of the show (an element continued to a lesser extent in Dairanger) would solidify its appeal to children.

Zyuranger sometimes does interesting things with its "kid of the week" plots, too. Episodes where a kid is having a problem and the rangers help the kid solve it are practically as old as Sentai itself, and Zyuranger certainly does that sometimes. Other times, though, Zyuranger just has the main characters save a kid who's being tormented or otherwise victimized by Bandora simply because she hates children. This isn't a type of plot Sentai's done much before or since, because it wouldn't make sense for most villains. For Bandora, though, it's a perfect fit.

I imagine any kid who was having a rough time with life really enjoyed seeing the Zyurangers stick up for kids who were being picked on by an evil adult. It probably helped kids really invest in the show and the Zyurangers as heroes. Trying to get kids to invest emotionally in Sentai is clearly something Zyuranger's head writer, Noboru Sugimura, really thought was important during his tenure with the franchise.

His other shows, Dairanger and Kakuranger, also contain plot elements that seem designed to achieve a similar effect. I don't think those shows work quite as well, though, because at the end of the day the villains are more genre-typical world conquerors and not just horrible people who hate kids. That means the heroes can't basically just be good people willing to take up for kids who can't defend themselves.

 

[Burkion]

The main issue is, and what I was more so referring to...

The core fanbase, they'd aknowledge ZyuRanger.

But anything beyond that?

It'd be like Liveman typically is.

I didn't know a damn thing about Liveman til I downloaded the first episode because no one really talks about it.


Or even Bioman, which gets brought up when some one mentions Sentai members who have died and not in many other cases, despite it also being a remarkably different kind of series that more or less did away with the typical MOTW formula.



To explain a bit by what I mean by core fandom, it's something you see with Modern Kamen Rider a lot as well. Typically new fans who don't start with the older series in some fashion only look at the more recent stuff, what was airing when they got into the fandom or what not.

Liveman is rarely brought up by those who either didn't start with the 80s Sentai or those who have an interest in it beyond a normal fan.


ZyuRanger would ultimately be the same, I feel, if it wasn't for MMPR. It'd be remembered by the fans who watched that era, but the general fanbase would mostly ignore it.

It seems like Ultraman is the only franchise to partly escape this, and that may only be because of how few Ultraman series there are in the grand scheme of things.

...that and UltraSeven is really that damn good. *Waves fanboy flag*

 

[ParaParaJMo]

Well, I think countless cases have been made here. But Zyuranger just appeals to me because it is different, and I don't mean this in an erotic way, but things that are different turn me on. Plus, I really enjoy the action and was excellently coregraphed. In and out of costume, the fighting styles felt very consistent and makes you think they are the same person and very little sentai IMHO does a good job of making that stand out. The way Geki would throw a punch or assume a stance is consistent with the actor who plays Geki, and the stuntman inside the suit. I like that a lot.

But of course, Americans like me watch Zyuranger since it was what inspired Power Rangers and I like sentai because of Power Rangers. I just watched it just for fun and I had a lot of fun with how different it was and offered its own fresh flavor from what I was used to for almost 20 years. The action felt more extreme. The characters identities werent needed to be a secret from the public. And it changed my view of Laimi/Scorpina a whole lot. Plus, Soga Machiko is a great singer and her outfit and talent is far superior to what Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber can pop out.

 

[Eiji Hino]

zyuranger introduced fantasy elements to super sentai, also, let's not forget, this series set a new standard for mecha battles.

 

[KingRanger]

Zyuranger was a fun series. I loved each episode. I will never understand the hate it gets.

 

[BLASTMATIC]

Zyuranger is and was a fun series it has the sci-fi/fantasy light plus the story was really engrossing and go the audience into it which is why i feel some of the newer stuff like go-buster isn't doing for me, i am not drawn to that show like i was with Gokiager, Shinkenger and Go-Onger did for me.

 

[Vitor]

I say again, ALL sentai is kid friendly

Just because it's kid friendly doesn't mean it can't be engaging

IMO, between the two dinosaur themes of Zyuranger & Abaranger, I think that Abaranger was the better one.

I'm kind of disappointed that we've only had two dinosaur sentai, would have been interesting to see Zyuranger intergrated with Abaranger