What's so bad about Go-Busters?

[Lynxara]

I disagree here. I don't think it would have worked without Enter's previous interactions with Hiromu. the new guy would never have thought to used Hiromu as a back up if he hadn't been defeated by him previously.

Yeah, but Enter doing that had nothing to do with Enter's character, or their specific interactions. Another character who knew of Hiromu's actions in the past could easily conceive of the same thing, especially if he was the type implied to have been watching the whole show from off-camera. It is a really obvious thing to do once you've realized that Red is indispensable (in either setting or genre terms).

And frankly, there was no actual reason for it to be Hiromu, save that he is Red and ergo Sentai's nominal main character. Logistically, the plot works out about the same way if it had been Blue or Yellow. They'd do most of the same things Hiromu would've done in that situation. Using Red just means your villain can make an evil Red suit, with has more visual appeal and plays with the audience's expectations.

 

[DarthBoolean]

Well, I cant really say that I felt that Enter was planning it all from the beginning, but I did enjoy his character. Mostly because I work for a small college's IT department, so I sympathized with him contstantly trying to get his boss' to understand his plans and essentially increase his budget. Replace "megazord" with "server" and I've had the exact same conversations he had with Messiah . (Especially his initial proposal of "Lets spend a lot of enertron now and solve the problem rather than attacking it piecemeal"). so to me he didnt really seem like a mastermind, just a poor overworked IT guy with too big a project and too small a budget.

As for the lack of focus, I can kind of see that. I do have to admit that I got tired of this series and had to come back to it, but it was after a major Toku kick where I marathoned Fourze/OOO/Dekaranger before finally getting to Gobusters, so I might just have wanted to watch something else

Overall, I was pretty satisfied with the ending, I was glad to see something actually come of Jin's arc, and J actually got some decent character growth other than "I like nature and I get in the way of people when they talk"

 

[Lynxara]

Well, I cant really say that I felt that Enter was planning it all from the beginning, but I did enjoy his character. Mostly because I work for a small college's IT department, so I sympathized with him contstantly trying to get his boss' to understand his plans and essentially increase his budget. Replace "megazord" with "server" and I've had the exact same conversations he had with Messiah . (Especially his initial proposal of "Lets spend a lot of enertron now and solve the problem rather than attacking it piecemeal"). so to me he didnt really seem like a mastermind, just a poor overworked IT guy with too big a project and too small a budget.

This is the absolute best description of early-series Enter that I've ever read. It's just so perfect... :laugh:

 

[Undrave]

Yeah, but Enter doing that had nothing to do with Enter's character, or their specific interactions. Another character who knew of Hiromu's actions in the past could easily conceive of the same thing, especially if he was the type implied to have been watching the whole show from off-camera. It is a really obvious thing to do once you've realized that Red is indispensable (in either setting or genre terms).

And frankly, there was no actual reason for it to be Hiromu, save that he is Red and ergo Sentai's nominal main character. Logistically, the plot works out about the same way if it had been Blue or Yellow. They'd do most of the same things Hiromu would've done in that situation. Using Red just means your villain can make an evil Red suit, with has more visual appeal and plays with the audience's expectations.

I dunno, I got the feeling that when Hiromu defeated Enter in subspace it sorta changed his outlook on him and humanity. He saw qualities in Hiromu he didn't quite understand and he wanted them. He wanted to be like Hiromu, a more 'perfect' version of him. A new villain probably would have wanted to get rid of Red, rather than take his data for himself.

 

[The Slashing Best]

@"Undrave"

I dunno, I got the feeling that when Hiromu defeated Enter in subspace it sorta changed his outlook on him and humanity. He saw qualities in Hiromu he didn't quite understand and he wanted them. He wanted to be like Hiromu, a more 'perfect' version of him.

I am only able to agree! Enter wanted to experience a whole new world of emotions and he tried to do this by copying Hiromu's data. He did this via the Messiah Cards and he forced one into Red Buster. In addition to wanting Red Buster's data, Enter thought Hiromu was worthy of putting up a good fight and had enough determination to make it fun. That subspace fight confirmed his belief. If he chose Blue Buster, he would overheat so much that it would dampen the fun. If he chose Yellow Buster, her "battery" would run out so fast that Enter would get bored. Stag Buster would just not be worth it, he would not have true emotions. So, I do think it matters that Enter chose Red Buster.

 

[Lynxara]

I dunno, I got the feeling that when Hiromu defeated Enter in subspace it sorta changed his outlook on him and humanity. He saw qualities in Hiromu he didn't quite understand and he wanted them. He wanted to be like Hiromu, a more 'perfect' version of him. A new villain probably would have wanted to get rid of Red, rather than take his data for himself.

Well, a new villain would want whatever the writer decided that character should want. So the villain could have an M.O. about harvesting data and improving Messiah, if that's what the writers wanted the character to be about. You can make Enter that character and it makes enough sense for the story to work.

But I just don't buy that it's logically necessary for that guy to be Enter. Making it Enter means that somehow, Red deals him a humiliating, crushing defeat that doesn't actually kill or incapacitate Enter in any significant way. Sentai can get away with that, but if you think about it, it actually makes Red look weak. Why does Enter want this guy's powers if he couldn't really hurt him?

To me, that logic is more strained than, "Messiah made a third avatar who serves mainly as his back-up system, and is aware of the events of Messiah's first attempted shutdown because s/he records Messiah's data automatically." But honestly, I think Go-Busters in general suffered from not being willing to define how Messiah's avatars worked.

Toward the end of the show, they've been fruitlessly "beaten" so many times that it was hard to take any fight the Busters had with them seriously. It became too obvious that Escape and Enter's plot armor wasn't going to run out, no matter what the main heroes did, until the narrative was done with them. If the Busters had actually gotten to kill an avatar at some point, though, the conflict would've felt less artificial.

 

[The Slashing Best]

Enter and Back-Ups.

Well, a new villain would want whatever the writer decided that character should want. So the villain could have an M.O. about harvesting data and improving Messiah, if that's what the writers wanted the character to be about. You can make Enter that character and it makes enough sense for the story to work.

I guess the new villain could make it that way, but Enter worked as the villain because he wanted to BE the new Messiah – not improve Messiah.

But I just don't buy that it's logically necessary for that guy to be Enter. Making it Enter means that somehow, Red deals him a humiliating, crushing defeat that doesn't actually kill or incapacitate Enter in any significant way. Sentai can get away with that, but if you think about it, it actually makes Red look weak. Why does Enter want this guy's powers if he couldn't really hurt him?

Enter wants to be the perfect human. It would make sense for him to pick a human that has superhuman abilities and is able to think under pressure; Hiromu. In addition to his powers, Enter wanted Red’s emotions and feelings so that is why Enter picked him.

To me, that logic is more strained than, "Messiah made a third avatar who serves mainly as his back-up system, and is aware of the events of Messiah's first attempted shutdown because s/he records Messiah's data automatically." But honestly, I think Go-Busters in general suffered from not being willing to define how Messiah's avatars worked.

The avatars are composites of human beings that Messiah absorbed, Enter just happened to develop a little thought and adapted to his surroundings.

Toward the end of the show, they've been fruitlessly "beaten" so many times that it was hard to take any fight the Busters had with them seriously. It became too obvious that Escape and Enter's plot armor wasn't going to run out, no matter what the main heroes did, until the narrative was done with them. If the Busters had actually gotten to kill an avatar at some point, though, the conflict would've felt less artificial.

The build-up was that they DID kill Escape; Enter just got a back-up of her. Then, it switched over to how the Busters deal with Escape when her backup was corrupted and she was uncontrollable at the end.

 

[Lynxara]

I guess the new villain could make it that way, but Enter worked as the villain because he wanted to BE the new Messiah – not improve Messiah.

Well, no, Enter totally wanted to improve Messiah. He just felt that if Messiah felt and acted more like him, well, wouldn't that be an improvement? It is if you're Enter, and you've spent the first couple quarters of the show wishing Messiah would understand your plans better. That's why I say that casting Enter in that role makes enough sense.

Enter has a pretty clear motivation, and what he does doesn't actually violate his motivations in the show's first half. Nothing about it is illogical, actually, except the parts that the show kept off-camera. That's why I think even the show's creators knew it was a kludge, but went ahead with it anyway because they thought they could make it work.

Enter wants to be the perfect human. It would make sense for him to pick a human that has superhuman abilities and is able to think under pressure; Hiromu. In addition to his powers, Enter wanted Red’s emotions and feelings so that is why Enter picked him.

Yeah, but the other two also have superhuman abilities and emotions and feelings? There's no reason to assume Hiromu is better except that he's Red, and in Sentai, Red is Strongest.

The build-up was that they DID kill Escape; Enter just got a back-up of her. Then, it switched over to how the Busters deal with Escape when her backup was corrupted and she was uncontrollable at the end.

Man, no. In fiction, you have not actually killed a character if said character not only comes back the next episode, but comes back completely unchanged. Enter and Escape return perfectly intact way too many friggin' times before the plot about Escape getting corrupted gets started. You end up with a show where the heroes look like they beat the villains a half-dozen times except, ha ha, they didn't.

 

[Undrave]

Escape only came back while Messiah was still active no? To me it felt like Escape became weak to being killed when the Go-Busters destroyed Messiah the first time, then she got absorbed by Messiah when he came back incomplete so there was no way for her to be separated.

 

[SomeoneElse]

I'd say the biggest problem of Go-Busters is that after around BeetBuster and StagBuster joins the team, the show simply stopped being the intense and dramatic show it set out to do.

People here say that Wizard wastes it's potential by not doing what it set out to do, but that's just hogwash based partially on unreasonable audience expectation tha anything.
Go-Busters was pretty clear from the beginning to be this new exciting thing and for a while was very much so. The Showa-esque setup was nice, the characters seemed interesting, the drama had great potential, the villains were the most intimidating Super Sentai has had in a while, and the implications of further focus on the maintanence crew and personel behind-the-scenes is great.

But unfortunately, due to horrible timing with real-life events not unlike what happened with Ohranger and the radical mood whiplash from the more lighter and excessively comedic Gokaiger, the show had to be retooled.

And as yet another showcase of how Toei's retools almost never ever, ever work, the show was gutted of those elements. As Lynxara pointed out, what left out were characters from a different kind of show.
It really isn't the characters' or actors' fault, but because they are now taken out of the grittier show promised, so calling them boring or bland is really just pointing out the symptom of a larger disease.

This is not helped by a story without any aim whatsoever. Plot awkwardly stumpled into the mid-season climax without any of the necesarry motions before it, which then gets replaced with the most transparent Gotta Catch 'Em All MacGuffin hunt in tokusatsu.

In summary, Go-Busters stopped being Go-Busters in the first quarter of it's run and got replaced by a mere husk, a shade of what Go-Busters was going to be.