Why is Yasuko Kobayashi so beloved?

[Ivanhobe]

As for Go-Busters being a flop, i would say that that is mostly due to the concept of the show being not too compelling for children, as far as actual writing i would say that Go-Busters is pretty damn good, speaking from personal experience, Go-Busters was the first time that a sentai kept me coming back every week to see the plot unfolding.

So if you were to blame someone for the lack of success of go-busters with its target audience, the writer is probably the last person i would blame, and i doubt that toei are deluded enough to think otherwise

 

[Aoiblue]

Also doesnt help that the show didn't really have a toy gimmick?
I mean...even when Gobusters first started airing bandai was still making....Ranger keys.

 

[Ivanhobe]

Correction, they are still making ranger keys.

Also, i coul argue that one of the reason for the lack of a toy gimmick in go-busters was due to Toei/bandai wanting to make the Mechas the selling point again. You have to admit that compared with the previous years, Go-Busters mechas are pretty darn good.

 

[Jack-Q]

As for Go-Busters being a flop, i would say that that is mostly due to the concept of the show being not too compelling for children

I said it before but i hate that reasoning; it´s arrogant.
Go-Busters is as kid-friendly as any Sentai can get with its cute talking robot animals and a hero that freezes when he sees drawings of chickens.
Having no gimmick can explain low sales but not low ratings.

 

[Goty]

As for Go-Busters being a flop, i would say that that is mostly due to the concept of the show being not too compelling for children, as far as actual writing i would say that Go-Busters is pretty damn good, speaking from personal experience, Go-Busters was the first time that a sentai kept me coming back every week to see the plot unfolding.

So if you were to blame someone for the lack of success of go-busters with its target audience, the writer is probably the last person i would blame, and i doubt that toei are deluded enough to think otherwise

You know, i hate overanalyzing ratings, but since that's the only concrete way to check this kind of claim...
Recently i was going through the ratings demographics of Go-Busters (available up to episode 35) to see how it's doing and compared it to other recent series (which can be very annoying and time consuming)..and it turns out, its ratings with teenagers are really bad - barely better than Go-onger's (which were abysmal), but fairly lower than Gokaiger and Goseiger's. Surprisingly, Shinkenger's ratings with teens weren't great either.

Go-Busters does best with kids (as always, of course), and although it started badly, halfway it seemed to have improved its performance with "male-1", which are younger male adults (where nothing gets close to Shinkenger). But with older viewers (male-2, male-3) and females overall, Go-Busters definitely saw a drop compared to all last three Sentai, too.

So, to sum things up...the tv stats don't seem to support the idea that the series drove away kids but was compelling to older fans. Kids' ratings are in fact very similar to the 2nd half of Gokaiger, if anything, Go-Busters seemed to drive away older viewers from almost all demographics, which would explain its general average.

 

[Guardian07]

Teenagers in Japan don't really watch tv, they're too busy struggling through high school and getting into a good university. It's when they become m-1(males age 21 to 30) that they have a lot more free time to watch stuff.

I think the reason why older viewers in Japan didn't watch Go-Buster is because of the various changes and breaks from Sentai tradition, and how different it was. Note that for people aging more than 30 years old to be watching Sentai, a lot of them must be long-time fans of the franchise.

Lynxara brought up an interesting point in a podcast about why Go-Busters isn't doing too well with kids. It's because the writing is not age-appropriate to children. It's not that it's "serious" of "too dark", it's just that the writing is tight and subtle, and requires keeping track of things and paying attention. As a result, the story probably went over the kids' head, and they just don't understand what's going on.

 

[MattComix]

Now that Go-Busters is due to end next week, I'm seeing a lot of comments on various fanboards along the lines of "we can't possibly have a happy ending, Kobayashi is writing this!" or "Kobayashi's the writer so the finale is sure to be epic!" Kobayashi seems to be one of the most popular tokusatsu writers out there if not the most popular one currently working in Sentai/Rider, so I'm asking: why do people love her so much? I'm starting to see some voices of dissent from those who didn't like Go-Busters, but it still seems like a lot of fans would be happy to have her write every series.

It's obvious why Toei loves her of course - because she wrote Den-O and Shinkenger!

For some it might be "We'll get a deathdark ending!" but I think for others it's that they know when she's trying and under the right production circumstances she can turn in a good drama toned series. TimeRanger does have the loss of a character but the ending is a combination of sad and triumphant. You feel for the characters like they were old friends but their heroic efforts were not in vain.

Personally I would not want her to write every series simply because she's too hit and miss. But if Kobayashi is going to write one I definitely want to see the writer who brought us Gingaman and TimeRanger as opposed to the writer that brought us Ryuki and OOO's.

GoBusters had some potential to be that IMO but I think GoBusters has other problems besides Kobayashi being off her game.

 

[Berty]

Gobusters is universally adored by the boys in the kindergartens where I work. The girls largely prefer Pretty Cure.

When Hibiki was running and they weren't satisfied with its performance, they told the fellow making the series to change it. He refused. They fired him. That is why there was a complete change of style. I preferred the previous style.

 

[lazycoconut]

For some it might be "We'll get a deathdark ending!" but I think for others it's that they know when she's trying and under the right production circumstances she can turn in a good drama toned series. TimeRanger does have the loss of a character but the ending is a combination of sad and triumphant. You feel for the characters like they were old friends but their heroic efforts were not in vain.

Personally I would not want her to write every series simply because she's too hit and miss. But if Kobayashi is going to write one I definitely want to see the writer who brought us Gingaman and TimeRanger as opposed to the writer that brought us Ryuki and OOO's.

GoBusters had some potential to be that IMO but I think GoBusters has other problems besides Kobayashi being off her game.

I agree it had other problems. Although I'm happy with the series we got, I wish there were some parallel universe where it was a hit and we could see how it would have turned out if she'd been able to do what she liked. I think it's helped the last few episodes that Toei seems to have left her alone whilst they got on with preparing for Kyoryuger.

A disadvantage Go-Busters has is that the impact of any character death (I think quite a few people are expecting Beet to be destroyed) is diminished by the characters having to return for three movies. With Timeranger, TimeFire's actor didn't have to be there for Gaoranger Vs Super Sentai, and with Abaranger they just had to make AbareKiller return for one movie - you couldn't do it effectively two or three times. It didn't help OOO either that Ankh's actor needed to be there for Megamax, I think there's something to be said for the way early Heisei Rider shows would make movies AU to the series

 

[Ivanhobe]

So, to sum things up...the tv stats don't seem to support the idea that the series drove away kids but was compelling to older fans. Kids' ratings are in fact very similar to the 2nd half of Gokaiger, if anything, Go-Busters seemed to drive away older viewers from almost all demographics, which would explain its general average.

To be honest, i have never looked to close at the ratings, i only knew that Go-Busters ratings were low in comparison with recent Sentai season.

The reason why i made that claim about Go-Busters not being too compelling for children, well, is basically this:

Lynxara brought up an interesting point in a podcast about why Go-Busters isn't doing too well with kids. It's because the writing is not age-appropriate to children. It's not that it's "serious" of "too dark", it's just that the writing is tight and subtle, and requires keeping track of things and paying attention. As a result, the story probably went over the kids' head, and they just don't understand what's going on.

Just to make it clear, i love Go-Busters, the show won me over really fast and i have really enjoyed it, though i admit that the last 20 episodes or so aren´t as interesting as the first 30.

My point is, i am an adult that really enjoyed Go-Busters, and from my perspective if someone tells me that Go-Busters isn´t doing to well with its main demographic target, i wouldn´t be surprised, i like the show and i find it compelling but i can see how the things that i like about it are things that most kids won´t appreciate.

So it really comes down to the writing, one of the things that i like about shows penned by Kobayashi is that they require some level of investment. They are not like other shows that grab you by the hand and bombard you with explosions, bright colors and cartoon-ish characters, shows like OOO and Go-Busters require you to invest in the characters and the world they live in in order to enjoy it, and i feel that at the end it really pays-off.

But again, i don´t think that that is something that children will do when watching these shows, if they do then great, but if they don´t then i wouldn´t be surprised.

So if you tell me that Go-Busters is doing well with young children, then i will be glad about it, but at the same time i am not sure that these children enjoy the show for the same reasons that i do, after all, i was a child once and i know that kids can watch pretty much anything. But if you tell me that Go-Busters lost audience with teenagers and older fans, well, i am not too surprised either, as it is Go-busters is radically different from most SS seasons so it doesn´t surprise that many fans were put-off by the show.

Speaking from personal experience, i have been watching SS since Gekiranger and at first i was put-off by Go-Busters, but i gave it a chance because i knew who kobayashi was and i ended really digging the show.

So in a nutshell, i really like Go-Busters and i think that the writing as been great for the most, but it doesn´t surprise that it isn´t doing well because the show is not what your usual SS audience is used to, if they dig it, great, if they don´t, well, i don´t blame them. The show does have a couple of issues but i don´t think that Kobayashi´s writing is one of them.