Possible Reasons Why I Think Super Sentai Violence and Seriousness Decreased After Timeranger

I was noticing the trend of old school Super Sentai vs. new school Super Sentai.  One may think of Super Sentai during the 80s to the 90s.  Maybe some of those who have seen Zyuranger just recently may be shocked at the violence it has.  Dairanger is also the bloodiest Super Sentai to date.


One may consider the time Ohranger aired.  There was the Sarin gas incident back in 1995.  This casued Ohranger to tone down, leading to some inconsistency (read this post by Fantasy Leader).   For one, I would have done the same thing if I were in Toei's place.  Now for reasons why I think Super Sentai violence toned down and I also got them from a private conversation with another person.


1.) The 9/11 Incident.  Now I'm just using Cobra Commander's picture in acknowledgement of the real late Cobra Commander, Osama bin Ladin.  Nobody can forget Cobra's ahem Al Qaida's attack in 9/11 and it was global scale.  People wouldn't want anything too depressing.  Then again, Gaoranger aired BEFORE 9/11... Time Force was airing that time and it was forced to tone down due to executive pressure.  So why do I believe 9/11 caused it?  Nobody wants to be repeatedly reminded of the irreversible tragedy that Al Qaida did at World Trade don't they?  So we ended up with less serious stuff.


2.) Parental complaints.  Now another factor I would think is parents in Japan may have complained that the violence had gone TOO FAR.  Now I even think that Shinkenger if produced in the 80s or 90s would have become a violent, dark season in contrast it it becoming a fun, light season because it was produced post-Timeranger.  Parents may have wanted to tone down the violence in Super Sentai.  If Ryu and Kaori were to comment on their successors, I think they might actually say, "Well I'm glad villains like Radiguet are no long around."  But somehow I always tend to think badass action, darker shades of every color available and extremely cruel sadists for villains were some of the few stuff I love about old school Sentai.


3.) Increased censorship in Japan.  I was thinking that it's possible Japan has decided to make more censorship ratings. Evidence?  Even today's Super Sentai or other Japanese Toku lacks humor like Ryu falling into the girls' area or you might seen how watered down most fight scenes are.


4.) To have more mecha, it's possible you must have less violence or maybe not.  Again, cutting down violence may have allowed room for more mecha which means more toy sales.  If Ohranger's toy sales were good... I guess Toei had a greedy side now.  I mean take a look at the mecha explosion as it happened.  Carranger could have just had the VRV Robo but for some reason, they even temporarily returned the transport mecha in the form of the Victory Trailer.  Gaoranger then started multi-gattai as an experimental concept that worked pretty well.  Later shows tried to experiment on how to deal with multiple mecha for better or for worse.


5.) I might as well credit Power Rangers too.  Now due to the fact that Yuuta Mochizuki met Austin St. John (I would prefer it better IF it were Alex Heartman meets Tori Matsuzaka).  You may think of it that James Maclurcan met the Go-ongers' actors (too bad it wasn't Boukenger).  Now let's think... one way or another, whoever is in charge with Power Rangers will buy footage from Toei.  I mean, think of how horrible footage editing was in MMPR.  Later they had to film their own footage.  Now you can't have too much violence if Power Rangers is popular can we considering that some Sentai footage will be inserted into Power Rangers.

Now this is a mixture of some truths but I would say this is mostly speculative.  So feel free to disagree with me!

Comments

  1. Just so you know, that was the Hanshin Earthquake that happened in 1995, not the Tokyo Earthquake (that happened all the way back in 1923).

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  2. Oh, and the Hanshin Earthquake happened BEFORE Ohranger made its debut. Here's the timeline...

    1995/01/17--Hanshin Earthquake
    1995/03/03--Ohranger debuts
    1995/03/20--Tokyo subway sarin gas attacks

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