What You Might Expect from Yasuko Kobayashi as a Tokusatsu Head Writer

Knowing Yasuko Kobayashi is writing Tokkyuger, it's a good news/bad news scenario for me. Now looking at how she writes Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, you should get an idea of what to expect... but note not all of them appear in all her seasons. The problem is though she tends to rely too much on the producer or two, like Toshiki Inoue she has the tendency to recycle from Soda and even from herself and Toshiki Inoue.


Like Toshiki Inoue who she's worked with for some time either her as the head writer or him as the head writer, one might want to notice the blending in of past works (I would say she seems to love Hirohisa Soda's works) and blends them with their own twists. In the case of Fantasy Leader's favorite Super Sentai,Gingaman, she had Takatera as her producer. You can read from that link why he likes it so much. She seems to have much character development most of the time though I can only talk more about Shinkenger's character development since I haven't seen even half of Gingaman to talk much about it!


Two reds/anti-red. In Gingaman, Hyuga was supposed to become the next Ginga Red but the position fell to Ryouma when the former supposedly "died". In Timeranger, we have two reds- Time Red and Time Fire. In Shinkenger, we have two Shinken Reds- Kaoru and then her shadow warrior (and later adopted son) Takeru. In Gobusters, the final villain Enter became an anti-red himself. So far in series with anti-reds, Toshiki Inoue was only involved with Timeranger.


Cruel bitches seem to be present in most of Kobayashi's works. You have Shelinda in Gingaman, Lila in Timeranger, Dayu in Shinkenger and Escape in Gobusters. In Kamen Rider OOO, you also have Mezool. Oh don't forget she also wrote the live version of Queen Beryl in Sailor Moon.


Heroes getting wet in bodies of water. You could see that in Shinkenger with Takeru Shiba getting wet and in Kamen Rider OOO with Eiji getting wet.


Foreshadowing of events either in a dark way or a comedic way

For example in Timeranger you have the scene above. In Kamen Rider Ryuki there were some foreshadows towards Yui's death and in Kamen Rider OOO you get some foreshadows of Dr. Maki being the final enemy. In Shinkenger, there was a foreshadowing in the beginning that the 18th head was a woman (that was Ryunosuke mistaking Mako to be the 18th head) or that Takeru was actually raised as a shadow warrior.

Moral dilemma situations or choosing the lesser of two evils

In Kamen Rider Ryuki, it was either let Yui live or let the Rider War continue. In Shinkenger, you have the moral dilemma of Takeru as a shadow warrior and how his vassals were to respond. In Gobusters, you have Jin Masato's sacrifice himself or Enter will never be destroyed. In Timeranger, you have the moral dilemma of Ryuuya who did all the atrocities just so he could live and the rangers from the future making their decisions that could change their future.


Sometimes you get weaker midseasons

Shows that suffered from it are Shinkenger in the middle part when everything was too focused on toys than plot. You have a strong beginning and moderate end or bad end. In the case of Ryuki, the weaker middle happened when Kamen Rider Odin appeared causing some massive time travel headaches. See that face? 


Important relatives. 

Yasuko Kobayashi has them a lot then again, and so does Toshiki Inoue. In Shinkenger we have them as well as Timeranger and Gingaman.


I just wanted to live or somebody else to live dilemma

In Timeranger, Ryuuya didn't want to take over the world, he just wanted to live because he foresaw his death but did a lot of bad things along the way just so he could continue to live. In Kamen Rider Ryuki, the whole reason why the Rider War came to be was that Shiro Kanzaki just wanted his sister to live and in the end, he chose to undo everything because of all the pain he caused.

At times she just loves to put really cruel sadists in her script 

Like one, Kamen Rider Ouja from Kamen Rider Ryuki seems to be her biggest complete monster ever written in her scripts in all of Tokusatsu! You can also name Shelinda in Gingaman, Juzo and Akumaro were also monsters themselves in Shinkenger. Enter was one sadistic creature in Gobusters. In Kamen Rider OOO you have Dr. Maki who betrayed his boss and even murdered his older sister. In Timeranger you have Ryuya who sacrificed Naoto just so he could live. Another really cruel villain in Kamen Rider Ryuki is Kamen Rider Gai who treats everybody's lives as if it were a game only to get karmic hammered by Kamen Rider Ouja who betrayed the former. We haven't seen that yet in Super Sentai though.

You tend to get annoying doucehbag protagonists at times

Kamen Rider Ryuki had Shinji, Renn and Shuichi. In Kamen Rider OOO you get Ankh as one annoying douchebag and in Kamen Rider Den-O you could name Momotaros. In Samurai Sentai Shinkenger you have that annoying Tanba (who didn't really have much appearances). This also can lead to conflicts between them as well.


Terminal illnesses and near dying characters tend to creep into her scripts 

Ayase in Timeranger had the disease. In Kamen Rider Ryuki we have Shuichi/Kamen Rider Zolda having cancer and Yui who will die on her 20th birthday. In Go-Busters, it's revealed that Jin Masato was actually in some dying state but only in the final episode. In her version of Sailor Moon, Sailor Venus also had a terminal illness.


A weird sense of humor

Watch Kamen Rider OOO and Kamen Rider Den-O while both series can be fun but sometimes Ankh and Momotaros can get really annoying or you might also be entertained by Kougami's hammy humor. If you want more weird sense of humor, Shinkenger has some of it like Mako's exaggerated bad cooking, Ryunosuke's hammy reactions, Genta's comical role, Daigoyou and even Doukoku gets funny at times (and so does Shitari).

New characters that end up as "all of a sudden a revelation"

There are like Kamen Rider Odin in Kamen Rider Ryuki, sometimes they tend to corrode the story or add some conflict or both. In Timeranger, it was later revealed that Ryuya was behind most of the bad things that happened in the series. In Shinkenger, we later are revealed that Takeru Shiba was a shadow warrior and that he was made to act as the 18th head to protect the real 18th head Kaoru Shiba who even adopted him (which was funny and silly).


Bittersweet (and somewhat passable to really bad like Inoue) finales are quite common in her writing

You have Timeranger's ending where Tatsuya sees all his friends and the woman he loves to go back 1,000 years into the future and also Naoto is dead while getting Honami preggers with Domon (behind the scenes) which was pretty puzzling. In Shinkenger, well I would admit that seeing the Shinkenger team split ways was sad in a way though none of them died Takeru getting adopted was "shock" value. In Go-Busters, Jin Masato dies so Enter can be destroyed. In Kamen Rider Den-O, we see the people from the future depart to their time and the hero Kyoji sees them leave. In Kamen Rider Ryuki, the Rider War is undone yet Yui dies and all character development for the heroes is tossed out worse, Takeshi Hagino is still alive and probably will cause trouble again.


Mind-blowing final battles

In Timeranger, you have the year 2001 badly attacked and it could collapse anytime, even affecting the future before the Timerangers destroy a now insane Gien piloting the Neo Crisis robot with the V-Rex's new energy wave. In Shinkenger, the Sanzu river floods the surface world allowing Doukoku to launch wanton destruction as he pleases. In Kamen Rider Den-O, the Imagins from the future is really causing much damage but the finale was a mess. In Go-Busters, Enter's final assault was really, really that horribly cruel.


Passable to bad finales like her frequent co-writer Toshiki Inoue did in the past 

For bad finales, Kamen Rider Ryuki's reset button ending is worse than Toshiki Inoue's finale for Kamen Rider Faiz or Gai Yuki's death in Jetman. For the passable finales, Kamen Rider OOO's final battle with Dr. Maki just happened in what looked like a "parking lot" or backyard like it was with Kamen Rider Faiz (but had a definite conclusion) and probably some kind of tribute to Kamen Rider Agito's rather ridiculously high Rider Kick to defeat the final boss. With Kamen Rider Den-O it was a pretty messy finale as well but it didn't leave any villain in a coma, it had a more definite conclusion.