Super Sentai Seasons: My Analysis of Their Game-Changing Villains!

Super Sentai tends to have the trend of game-changing villain. These villains when entered into the Super Sentai season, will change the situation in a significant way. Now I wouldn't really talk a lot about them but I'll talk about some of them:


Since Bioman is my first Super Sentai, I would talk about Silver as how he was a game changing villain. After the death of Mika, I always thought it would be wrong to just toss the concept of the Anti-Bio Particles. Finally episode 37 brought back the conflict of the Anti-Bio Particles. Silver is a villain who fights BOTH Bioman and Gear. What makes him a game-changing villain is that he has his powerful Bio Buster armed with Anti-Bio Particles which is even more harmful than the Bio Killer Gun. Though he has not killed any Bioman (phew) but you still can't help but worry if the next shot received might be the last of the Biomen. Make no mistake- his Bio Buster has also weakened any member of Gear hit by it. Worse, he pilots Balzion the biggest source of Anti-Bio Particles towards the finale arc.


Another of my favorite game changing villains is when they challenge the way they are a threat to the heroes. For example, Maskman had Kiros. When he arrived what does he do? He trolls the Maskmen, he is very focused on killing Takeru because he lusts after Ial and I love how he destroyed the Shot Bomber. In Kiros' case, his motives to beat the Maskmen is so Zeba will give him Princess Ial and he has really no desire to wipe out Tube, he wants to add Ial into his treasure collection. He would have an alliance with Tube but only to break from it for his own personal convenience. Some of them don't always appear per episode and only appear in selected episodes. Kiros was like that. Years later in Gokaiger, Basco arrived as one sadistic troll who... really menaced the Gokaigers more than the Zangyack did. The Zangyack were having their usual stupid plans, Basco was a cunning strategist and mastermind against the Gokaigers.


Some game changing villains aren't meant to last. In Bioman, Prince was introduced as Doctor Man's son during the first half but was revealed to be a Mecha Human in the second half. He was easily written off presumably to allow Doctor man's real son to show up in episodes 25-26. In Jetman, episodes 17-18 featured Empress Juuza for two episodes but she was so easily written off for some reason. They did present a greater danger than the regular villains but were written off too easily. Jetman also had the demon gods Ramu and Gogu, a concept that was later ported into Boukenger as the Questers Gai and Rei whose powers originally overrode the Boukengers until the Neo-Parallel Engine was fully developed against them.

Sometimes your game-changing villains who eventually get written off mid-season. For example in Kakuranger, Gasha Dokuro really is devoted to making the Kakurangers' lives so miserable to the point I think it's an injustice he was written off so easilyas he could have helped out his dad cause more mayhem. Others you might consider are Bomber the Great who was written off when Buldont returned all grown up and Gileel in Megaranger who was written off in episode 31 in favor of the psychotic Nejirangers.


An additional villains means more trouble for the heroes because they are more aggressive than usual and sometimes the villains. In Liveman, we have Dr. Ashura who is obsessed with using dangerous explosives and criminal warfare (in spite of his poor Math skills). Some of them may even usurp power from another villain like Megiddo getting replaced by Zenobia or Garoa getting replaced by Chevalier who was more aggressive no matter how half-brained his plans were. Some of them are trouble for the villains like Ahames manipulates everyone for her convenience, she even replaced Giluke by treachery and Zenobia framed Megiddo for crimes he didn't commit while planning to usurp Emperor Aton's throne. Long arrived midseason in Gekiranger first pretending to serve Rio but he had his own agendas which made him the final villain. In Shinkenger, Akumaro was certainly more troublesome and annoying to the Shinkengers... and he even planned to get rid of Doukoku too! Sad to say, Escape in Gobusters was hardly interesting compared to most game-changing villains.


Game changing villains can also happen when there's a change of important villains because the previous ones died. Goggle V killed off Igaana and Zazoriya and were replaced by Desmark. Changeman had Ahames take over Giluke's position though he did return back to life to get even with the former. Turboranger killed off the three generals (Zimba, Jarmin, Rehda) in favor of the Nagare Bouma. Ohranger had Emperor Bacchushund killed off being replaed first by Bomber the Great then his son Kaiser Buldont. Megaranger had Gileel killed off in favor of the Nejiranger Arc. Goranger, Gingaman, Gaoranger and Magiranger had villains replaced more often than not. Goranger had its generals, Gingaman didn't have a villain rotation but villains getting replaced when they run out of monsters, Gaoranger had the big bad changed three times before they became the final big bad Senki and Magiranger and three second-in-commands replacing each other under N-Ma's rule. Boukenger fought against villains competing for power while Goseiger's villain factions changed twice... first Warstar then Yuumaju then the last was


Sometimes the game changing villain is when an existing villain turns the tables against the others. You can think of how both Tran became Tranza and Buldont became Kaiser Buldont. When Tran became Tranza, he basically overpowered Radiguet Maria and Gure bullying them into submission and even created the super robot Veronica against the Jetmen. For Kaiser Buldont, he soon appeared to overthrow the usurper, Bomber the Great. My favorite part of Tranza was when he could even bully the complete monster Radiguet.

For my thoughts, it's really important to try and get interesting game-changing villains as much as possible.