After I wrote my opinion on Yasuko Kobayashi, I could proceed with Naruhisa Arakawa and here's what I think are his prevailing styles to why I think he's such a major favorite aside from Kamen Rider fans:
Making references to non-Sentai Tokusatsu. Dekaranger had references to the Space Sheriff trilogy. For Gokaiger he took that THAT far with a Gokaiger vs. Gavan special. Well even the Gokaiger series IMO do have a few hints of Metal Hero elements as well like the heroes live in their mecha. For Dekaranger I'm reminded of Blue SWAT's concept of dealing with alien criminals. But that's just it. This is just what I think.
Just some nostalgic notes. For Abaranger, you may think of Zyuranger especially Mikoto would reminds some of Burai except he was really far more badass and had a longer tenure of being evil with a more brutal death scene. For Dekaranger, take a look above for references.
An unforgettable cast with much development. To be honest, I think he and Yasuko Kobayash are just somewhat par in this area. The Abarangers imo were more developed than the Zyurangers, the Dekarangers were memorable even with whatever flaws they had and the Gokaigers well... you've got a real crew of noble pirates. Abaranger, Dekaranger and Gokaiger imo were really pretty fresh entries in the Sentai genre by him IMO! :P Character humor for most of them are usually that funny (even Hoji as serious as he is gets to be funny). These characters somehow go from starting from weaker to stronger, which can be evidenced by how even jerks do mature. Ban for example starts off as an instinctive leader (and Hoji was doing a better job) or that Hoji was kinda arrogant but later learns to humble himself (but it's never without funny battles with Ban) or for Abaranger, Yukito shows his good side even if he does get annoying to his teammates or has anti-hero qualities. Mikoto may be a good example of a not so sudden change of sides or the shocking revelation part that is well-handled, I can't believe what I missed because I overrated Zyuranger even if that series wasn't really that good!!!! Or in Gokaiger, one may think of the development of the Gokaigers from just an adventure team searching for the Ultimate Treasure to going for justice.
We may have the monsters who reformed to tell the tale. We have Dryer Jigen from Jetman (he wrote that episode after all), Yatsudenwani (wh's funnier than Dryer Jigen) and maybe he was involved in writing Jerashid with Yoshio Urasawa. Correct me if I'm wrong. :P Okay I'm wrong... he was NOT involved with Jerashid's conception. (Thanks for the information Fantasy Leader)
Maybe this is just me but I think that he also makes references to some Anime and other cartoons. The most obvious may be Gokaiger to One Piece. For Dekaranger, I can't say which Anime might have inspired him. But this is again opinion, perhaps he got his inspiration from Pirates of the Carribean or even Peter Pan. Who knows?
Updated as of: June 7, 2012.
Nurashisa is creative and Gokaiger is what establish his name in Sentai history. Both his other early works such as AbareRanger and Deka Ranger lacked was a full functional villain team. Since I grew up in the 90's and spoiled. I was hoping that Abare Ranger would have 6 core members. But what I was really disappointed with the series was Abare Killer was a villain for the full run of the series till the last 5 episode he became a hero, I mean the media was promoting him to be part of the team in early publicized. The Evorians was not intimidating as Goma, Volt, or Tube Empire.
ReplyDeleteThe mistake made by writers is that they kill the muscle of the team Geildon after 2 episodes!!! Jannu was the only villainess and she was also Geildon by wearing his armor. And Jannu was as annoying as Maribaron from Kamen Rider RX. Dezumozorlya what was that? The evil entity was not a scary threat. And then Dekaranger, the heroes where cool but who where they really.fighting? The only threat I see was Abrella and his Mechanoids. There are more heroes then villains total overkill ! These series meant well and every fan has rights to enjoy or even like these shows , I am just pointing out the holes that the writings have.
I would not call those holes. What you pointed out there are just personal preferences.
DeletePersonally, I think Abaranger has been Arakawa's best work, which is something Dekaranger and Gokaiger can't match (though I still enjoy them both). There's nothing wrong with the series having 4 members rather than 5 or 6. AbareKiller was pretty unique as far as Sentai Warriors and villains go. I think it was pretty well thought out. I will agree that the Gorma, Volt, and Tube were better villains though.
I don't think writing Geildon out early was a mistake. There's not much he really needed to do in the series. Jannu was pretty important and the villain that the series should focus on. I strongly disagree that Jannu was annoying or even anywhere near the level of Maribaron (whom I think is one of the worst villainesses ever). Jannu was very competent and had a very interesting backstory, making her one of the better villainnesses in the franchise imo.
Dekaranger was in the form of a cop show, rather than your everyday sentai. While a villain cast would've been cool, I would not fault Dekaranger's concept for what it tried to do.
Sean, you haven't even seen Blue SWAT. Why are you making comparisons to it? Is that supposed to be when I said "Blue SWAT reminds me of Dekaranger"? If so, then that's MY opinion. Not yours. And I doubt Arakawa was actually looking into Blue SWAT when writing Dekaranger. Similarities are NOT the same thing as inspirations Sean.
ReplyDeleteI don't see how characters like the Gokaigers got much character development. And dude! He NEVER was planning to kill Gai! And Sean, you didn't even describe how Arakawa writes his characters. You instead just gave your own brief thoughts about the characters in general.
Arakawa had no involvement with the Jerashid eps.
Sean, theorizing what might've inspired a writer does not go into detail about how the writer writes. You're just guessing on this, which really doesn't help this post at all. Yes, it's obvious that Gokaiger borrowed a lot from One Piece, but you mentioned that already earlier in the post. Plus, like I said, inspirations don't really describe his writing style. Especially since we don't even know what inspired him in the first place!
I would save your "Dekaranger reminds me of this other show" for a different post Sean. On this post, you're supposed to focus on how Arakawa writes. Not what his shows remind you of.
ReplyDeleteAnd Sean, you can't really have an opinion on what inspires other people. There's things that inspire Arakawa and there's things that don't. And no one knows what they are. Saying it's your personal opinion that this and that inspired Arakawa is just making up stories about him. And that's just wrong. It's fine to point out One Piece since Gokaiger has very strong parallels to it, and also cause Toei owns both shows. But remember, you're supposed to focus on his writing style in this post, not guess on what might've inspired him. It's perfectly okay to theorize what his inspirations might've been, but to claim they are an opinion of yours, or to share them on this kind of post is kinda inappropriate for it.