Some Issues I'm Having with Super Sentai as of Late

Well I can't deny it but it seems my vibe for Super Sentai or Tokusatsu as a whole is probably not as great anymore because as I've said, I have bigger vibes like Chinese movies, Japanese movies, C-Drama and J-Drama are stuff I love better than Super Sentai or Tokusatsu in general.  As said, I've instead focused on my celebrities blog and what went beyond the Tokusatsu.  Here's my issues with Super Sentai as of late:

Having loads of mecha for the sake of toy sales and most of the time, it becomes just a toy commercial.  In Boukenger, I enjoyed some of the mecha but the others are boring.  Go-onger I don't hate it but it does suffer from too much mecha.  Shinkenger is a nice season but heck, Mougyudaioh and Daigoyou were really taking some space that could have been used for character development and then so did Goseiger a season I tend to dislike which in turn didn't immediately get me excited for Megaforce.  I could understand Gokaiger doing this because it was a huge anniversary season and I really wanted it to be the franchise finale since I feel like Sentai has aged past its prime but I guess Toei still has the financial side that if they stop Sentai while it's still hot, they can't earn money from Power Rangers either.

The villains and a lack of nightmare fuel.  I would say that most of the villains are more comedic than nightmare fuel for me.  One, I was even thinking that while watching Shinkenger, Doukoku might be an angry general but most of the time, he tends to be more for laughs.  Maybe I should also add that I feel like villains lack the classic touch of the Hirohisa Soda villains that some people grew up with.  Then again maybe I can understand this because Sentai has gone more for the lighter and softer direction.  But a few did stand out like Long in Gekiranger and Basco in Gokaiger but most of the villains tend to move to a less cruel direction.  
I'd also say overly relying on gimmicks.  I was hoping Riku Sanjou could come up with a good season but Kyoryuger is samba and dinosaurs?!  I agree with Shogo B'Stard when he said that this show makes dinosaurs glad that they're dead.  

I would also probably bring the issue of Gobusters while it was a cool concept by Naomi Takabe and then a more or less burned out Yasuko Kobayashi wasn't helping things either.  Gobusters had a cool concept but it lacked villain development with only Enter and Escape.  Enter was more of an annoying personality without real plans either.  I was excited about the series at first but I guess Takabe really sucks for me now post-Kiva and post-OOO where she still had great ideas back then.  For Gaim, I guess her ideas are meant for kids so let's give credit to that.

I wonder what issues others have.  I'll be honest I used to devote a lot of space here because this blog did really fast, it has reached 1,000,000th mark but as said, I have to be honest with myself.

Comments

  1. I'm hoping that this is just a phase and that Toei will grow bored of the lighter, sillier toku antics and return a little more to the style of blade/kabuto at least.

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  2. onestly, I feel like reading from your blog makes me feel that you're the Nobuo Akagi and I'm the Luna Iwashimizu here. Oh well, guess I have to watche the older Sentai series to understand... :P

    Oh, as with Go-Busters, I really felt that the spy concept was just for show. They never really acted like spies. For one, the Morphin Brace and the Transpod were, well, noisy. And their appearance was flashy as hell, but yeah, they're Sentai, so I think I can excuse that. But maybe they could've retained the colors, but made it a little less flashy, thus making them really feel like spies...

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  3. I can see where your concern comes from and I respect that.

    Mech design in last decade (from Hurricanger) were blends of hit-and-miss. Design has become very bland and uninspiring and Boukenger started a trend of "cluster-schmuck" mecha, where they were deliberately made them look incomplete, forcing to buy more to form abomination of mess. This especially was tragic for mech in Shinken~Gokai.
    Despite that era, there are some mecha that looks pretty decent. Engine-Oh is pretty well designed (just wished they didn't get to combine with other Engines to make a big mess) and Go-Buster Oh was pretty descent as well (didn't like the design of the mask though).

    As for Go-Busters, I may be minority, I quite enjoyed it for what it was. In some way, I enjoyed it more than Gokaiger. It was a breath of fresh air and introduced new elements (leather suit, henshin sequence, Buddyloid, etc.). The series did gave me impression that Toei does have more ideas and hopefully some of its inspiration would incorporated in future series.
    Go-busters just came out in bad timing I guess.
    May not be perfect, but I thought it was really good.

    As for Kyoryuger... it makes me want to appreciate Go-busters more.
    While the toys are selling well and has bigger appeal to kids than predecessor, the series just don't click on me too well.
    Maybe I'm just not the target audience (obviously) or maybe it's the fact I enjoy tech-savvy series like Go-busters more.
    I can understand the appeal and what Toei was trying to do with this, but I feel like this is just Toei's DESPERATE attempt to bring audience they lost last year.
    I don't care about the story, characters, mechs, and villains.
    It's not very good or bad; I just don't care.

    Next year sentai is going to be called Tokkyuger (train motif), and I'm really looking forward to that; especially the fact I was train-fan (Thomas the Tank Engine) when I was a kid. Hope for the best.

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