Why does everyone hate Go-Onger?

[Lynxara]

My problem with Go-onger wasn't that it was a kid's show. I have a lot of problems with Go-onger on a lot of levels, but that wasn't one of them.

I like kid's shows, because a well-made kid's show is going to become a showcase very strong storytelling. Programming for adults can be more complex and sophisticated, sure, but also always offers writers the temptation of falling back on shock tactics or excessive topicality. If you want to write a good kid's show, there are no shortcuts. You really have to work for it.

Go-onger is what happens when someone's making a kid's show and doesn't want to work for it. It's basically the sort of show adults like as light entertainment, something silly and harmless you can watch to relax. Go-onger staples on some kid-appeal elements, and makes the characters and plots extremely simple, and otherwise makes no concession to the unique needs of children as an audience. There's no effort put into integrating themes or episode plots that kids could relate to or find particularly intriguing. As a result, I think Go-onger just bored kids. It has the lowest ratings average with the under 12 demographic of any entry in the Super Sentai franchise.

You know what a good example of tailoring writing to children is? Den-O. There's conflicts that kids can relate to built into every level of Den-O's writing. The Imajin can be easily understood as the impulses that might make a child want to act out for attention (Ryuutaros), to be aggressive to others (Momotaros), to be dishonest with others (Urataros), or to simply imitate adults (Kintaros). Ryotaro is in conflict with these impulses, but the show wisely doesn't say that these impulses are bad.

The show says you need to harness them, to control them, to learn how to use these impulses in moderation to be a stronger person. Ryotaro tempers the Imajin to create Den-O's heroic forms, and in times becomes heroic himself (usually a metaphor for maturity in children's writing). Den-O had the benefit of having this conflict play out against a backdrop of episode plots that were sometimes genuinely challenging, exploring aspects of causality that its audience is growing just mature enough to really understand. Showing kids how actions always have consequences, even over the span of years, is going to be thought-provoking and challenging for them.

Now, think about Go-onger. Does the writing have any layers even half so well-conceived as Den-O's? I think even the show's greatest defender would have a hard time coming up with something.

 

[RaiDK]

I'd argue it didn't have any of those elements, but that the wasn't the point of the show. It set out to be light hearted entertainment with fun characters and I'd say it did pretty well there. I wouldn't call gruelling theme heavy storylines a prerequisite for a good show.

Whenever anyone complains about Den-O not being serious and just being goofy comedy I really have to question whether people actually watched Den-O.

 

[kuroihikari]

I'd argue it didn't have any of those elements, but that the wasn't the point of the show. It set out to be light hearted entertainment with fun characters and I'd say it did pretty well there. I wouldn't call gruelling theme heavy storylines a prerequisite for a good show.

I also think that, and that's why I think the shows major downfall was the part just after the Go-on Wings introduction. It was fun before that, and during the "Will they, won't they?" period when the Go-on wings were looking down at the main team, it stopped being fun. The only appeal for me back then was wondering how Miu's shorts don't explode from how tight they are. When the team was united, then it started being fun again. However, by that time, I've basically lost appreciation of what the series was.

 

[lazycoconut]

Since the inevitable Shinkenger comparison has come up, I have to say: Shinkenger gets a ton of praise for having characters that are supposedly "real" and "relatable", but I don't think it at all a fault of Go-onger that it did not have such characters. In a wacky, far-out setting, trying to make characters that feel like "real people" just undermines that setting. And I watch toku not to see characters who could be like me, but who are better than me. That's the whole appeal of superhero and fantasy stories, that people get to do stuff we can't do in the real world. I surely can't be the only one who feels this way.

 

[Lynxara]

I'd argue it didn't have any of those elements, but that the wasn't the point of the show. It set out to be light hearted entertainment with fun characters and I'd say it did pretty well there.

I dunno. I don't think you need to make a show without any themes in order to make it something fun. You can have things happen and give your story a point, yet still create a joyful tone. Just look at Abaranger. I can tell you what it's about, it covers some themes that kids would find relevant, and it's also incredibly silly and funny in creative ways. I think Go-onger would've been a lot more fun if it'd just thrown in some actual ideas for the writing to explore, so the characters and jokes would have somewhere to go.

 

[Kalle]

Honestly I think what a lot of this thread is boiling down to is simply personal preference in what fans individually want from a Sentai series. Some people like their humor subtler and their stories / characters more thought-out, and that's fine. And some people like it on the wackier side, and that's fine too. ( Though really you can say that about every other season, so this is kind of moot. )

I do have a wide range of tastes when it comes to what I want in Sentai, but I guess I just tend to fall down on the side of screwball-iness where things are concerned. It feels more fun for me to enjoy that way? I don't know. orz

 

[Fantasy Leader]

My personal issue with Go-onger was that while it indeed was trying to be a fun and comedic show, I personally don't think it succeeded. I found the show to be more of an excruciating experience rather than an enjoyable one (to each their own). And I feel like whenever the show tried to be serious, that was just a betrayal of what the show had originally set out to do, which made it really frustrating to watch. As for the cast, I didn't find them to be a bunch of lovable doofuses. More like a cast of annoying idiots who couldn't do anything right. The only one I found enjoyable was Gunpei.

 

[lazycoconut]

As for the cast, I didn't find them to be a bunch of lovable doofuses. More like a cast of annoying idiots who couldn't do anything right. The only one I found enjoyable was Gunpei.

There was a thread on here a while ago about changes being made to characters to suit the actor, where people were talking about Gunpei going from serious to goofy because the actor couldn't keep up with the character as originally written. I don't know whether that's just speculation or there's any official word on it, but looking at clips of Kenji Ebisawa in real life he seems to be quite silly and funny, so it's a good guess ...

 

[Shougo B'Stard]

^ I based that on some things Ebisawa said on his blog when Go-onger was just starting -- he said he found it hard to play the tough, cool guy, and even went and studied a lot of old Blacks by renting Sentai DVDs. I think it's pretty easy to make the connection and see that they started to write Gunpei to better suit him. I mean...every other Go-onger character stays the same throughout the show, Gunpei's the only one who really changes.

I don't think the show should have gone as far with him as they did. It seems like they were listening to the internet trolls and wanted make Gunpei out into being the butt of the joke just to feed the trolls.

 

[lazycoconut]

^ There were actual trolls saying that? Apart from the episode where Gunpei worries about being the least popular hero in internet polls?