Member of the Doomcock Army, w/o respect we reject
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- Oct 22, 2012
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I don't care either way, what happens is what happens...... Do you really want a Fruit Themed Sentai team......?
I don't care either way, what happens is what happens...... Do you really want a Fruit Themed Sentai team......?
And no, angels should not be using arcade cards. They're "super beings"
..... Do you really want a Fruit Themed Sentai team......?
What if the Nolan Batman movies had Lucius Fox invent little toy cars for Bruce to use to unlock abilities in the Batsuit?
..... Do you really want a Fruit Themed Sentai team......?
..... To be serious though, I thought it was to differentiate them much more from Sentai. But a lot of other seasons have themes that aren't "out there" like magic or cards, or technological based Rider.
I do not believe a rider or sentai's theme can make or break the show. So far, I have seen shows with silly themes do quite well, while shows with what appeared to be "easy" themes not do well. In the end, Bandai/Toie can do what they want (which is what is best for their bottom line), and if it turns out that I enjoy the show, then it's a win for me also. After all, I am not their target demographic.
Yes. Yes it is. That's your answer.
Bandai clearly believe that the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai brand names help sell the toys (there's lots of studies supposedly indicating that parents are more likely to choose familiar brand names when buying for their kids). So they license the names and "sponsor" the shows - i.e. pay Toei to make them. In return they expect Toei to produce what is basically a half hour commercial aimed at small children. Bandai also buy up the space in the commercial breaks so that they're filled with actual toy ads.
Gen Urobuchi mentioned in an interview that after accepting the job to write a Rider series his first appointment with Toei was a meeting to decide on the series' theme. It turned out this "meeting" was actually a Bandai rep telling them what their theme was, then showing them the concept art for the Rider suits and other toys they would have to turn into a show. All the design work was Bandai-lead, and Toei just wrap it up in something that will keep kids staring at the merchandise longer.
While most of us on here would probably agree that we wish Rider and Sentai were less toy focussed, we also have to remember that this is why they've survived so long. They are regular, reliable sources of money and so Toei have kept at it instead of dropping them like Metal Hero or the Fushigi Comedy series so that they could try something else.
It's not so much that there are a lot of toys. It's that... they've just gotten stupider and stupider, and really inhibit everything else in the shows, such as action, plot, etc. Sometimes you'll have writers who can make it work (Who'd have thought that a fruit Rider would've turned out not half bad?) but the rest of the time, the show becomes dumber because the toys they're plugging are dumb. Actually the toys themselves may not be dumb, but shoehorning them into whatever story the writer may want to tell make it dumber. Not to mention many of them get forgotten soon afterward, perhaps because even the writers don't want to deal with them.
Drive and Goseiger I think are the worst examples of this. Literal toy cars? Who could take that seriously? I've said it before, but you could've had a key gimmick and it would've worked so much better while still going with the car theme. (Plus it'd have been funny after a year of padlocks.) Goseiger: angels who need to use arcade cards to do the simplest tricks? No... that's a horrible idea. Angels and cards don't mix. But because Bandai willed it, Toei is stuck with the material they're given.
What's sad is, I used to like the talking belts in Rider. Why? Because they sounded cool; they only said one or two words at a time in a "machine-like" voice. It arguably started with Den-O, but with OOO the belts officially became so obnoxious and blatant in their toyishness. Instead of single words, they now have to do a whole song-and-dance number or repeat words twice for no reason (like in W and Fourze). It really takes away from dramatic moments when they do this. Though granted, the shows do seem to be trying to tone that down toward the middle of the run.
It is what it is.
Ideally, I'd like for the writers to be able to choose their own themes for that year. But we're long past the days when toy companies would approach people to make toys based on their show.
It is what it is.
Ideally, I'd like for the writers to be able to choose their own themes for that year. But we're long past the days when toy companies would approach people to make toys based on their show.
It's all about the moolah now...
You know, after the 20th heisei anniversary, do you think this whole collectible gimmicks are still going to be in? I can see that things are getting more compact and mobile. Perhaps toys will be streamline or something.