Super Sentai Discussion

[Suzie Miyazaki]

Kamen Rider Samurai.

Called it. xP

[[Kaisu] Elizabeth Clarke]

... How does it flip out if your hand is in the way?

[Suzie Miyazaki]

It'll probably just slap your hand =/

[Riley Jaffrey]

Seriously, can Gokaiger just end already? It's getting really old really fast. Boring as hell, all of two or three characters I like, Joe and Marv are hard to tell. Really, just Ahim. Seriously, how the hell did this drop in quality so far?

[Kiriha Kyuuseishu]

From Rangerboard, for the Gokai finale:

The only reason they brought them out was because Papa Gil refused to die, and even then that was as a last resort on top of several other tactics. This is a team that uses pragmatic strategy, not more firepower. The Super Modes don't offer much that they couldn't already do with a team's base powers, or the several other things in their arsenal.

That there, is heroic nonsense. Only in fiction does god damn pride override survival instinct. I can believe that the sole reason they didn't use them is pride, and that just makes them stupid. It would have been one thing if they used a super mode against, let's say Basco, and still got laid out cause Basco's that badass. I was expecting this from Gai but for some reason, he got hit with a heroic version of the Villain Ball. I would have been fine with them using them and them not working, cause at least they can say they gave it their all.

But no! You wanna wait till the last god damn episode to say "oh btw, we had these the whole time herp derp McGerp!" Well slag son, you just messed up all my damn rewatches cause all the possible tension just got thrown out the window! It would have been far better for the super modes to have never appeared at all rather than to have this...this farce of a display.

I'm sorry bro, my suspension of disbelief has just been horribly violated. I'll get over it in time, but I'm gonna be ticked off for a little while XD

[McKenzie Williams]

Found this interesting, from Commander Crayfish on Rangercrew, about Overdrive:

A ) The plot coupon is totally irrelevant. The Crown of the Gods and its immortal protector, Sentinel Knight. The driving force of the season. Completely irrelevant until the finale, even as we're told that it is so crucial and powerful. Sentinel Knight, who banished the gems across the universe, has no idea where they are, nor can detect one of them is directly under his nose in the mansion the entire time. You want to unravel the underlying problem with Overdrive? Here you go: who the hell placed the clues? Who put the weird numerical value "proximity to treasure" readouts out there? SENTINEL KNIGHT DOESN'T KNOW WHERE THE GEMS ARE. Someone else, some other group of people, has been moving around the components of the assembled Corona Aurora and leaving behind clues for others to follow and NO ONE EVER CALLS ATTENTION TO THIS. The entire mystery of the season is predicated on not explaining anything about how the mystery works, because the moment you examine it the entire architecture of the show collapsed in on itself. No one cared.

I remember I asked Jackie, who placed the clues? Is there, as I later came to fanwank, some secret Order of the Crown who exist to make sure no one ever assembles it again? A group perpetually one step ahead of both hero and villain alike, working at cross-purposes to Sentinel Knight to double obfuscate any would-be Crown users? She didn't know. The entire conceit of the season is based on something the creators never worked out in the first place. The UTTER apathy that hangs over this season is made plain when you try and summarize the storyline, because it MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. We are missing WELL over half of the backstory, and no one is at all befuddled for its absence. Not to mention how completely irrelevant this makes Sentinel Knight.

[Kiriya Watanabe]

Akibaranger, a quote I found which is pretty good:

The thing is if this is incredibly perverted I would feel kinda insulted that that's how Toei views there adult fans....

Which is exactly my problem. It doesn't feel like they're throwing us a bone, it feels like a slap in the face.

I'll wait until the first episode has been before complaining any more though.

[Sakurai Shiba]

That said Akibaranger isn't so much a toku aimed for adults as much as it is aimed towards the otaku: The lone guy can't get laid, his two comrades are walking female stereotypes, and the villains are women in adult videos!

[Suzie Miyazaki]

Aye that's what I'm concerned with. Which is disappointing because I like how the outfits look.

Also I haven't seen the episode yet but with civillian superpowers, the name "Megazord", the badguy being a computer virus the sunglasses for transformation trinkets and well ... "It's Morphing Time!" it sounds like Go-Busters is a bit of a tribute to Power Rangers.

... Suck it Sentai purists.

[AoBlue's Team]

Gokaiger finale.

Waiting until the end to use Super Modes? "Pride" was the reason, wasn't it? You get curb stomped, so bring out Super Modes? Like against Basco? Of course not! But against the Emperor, sure. Why not? Especially since his only real thing was his durability.

Pride is no excuse! If you die you have no pride. Survival instinct over pride. Seriously. If I'm in a situation and should have gun drawn, guy with knife, I decide, "No. I'm too proud. I'll go nightstick."

I die. Was it worth it? No. Pride never beats out survival instinct.

The Emperor. Sure, he can sit and fight from his throne, cool and all...but I hate it that they went that path. I'd rather have him have something else going for him and that's how he forged the Empire. Not much of a problem, since I'd say Basco and Damaras had him beat, hell, even his three bodyguards. I can live with durability, but his skill?

Brings me to the third bodyguard. What was his point? I don't remember which forum I read this on, but I'm jumping in on the theory that they realized he was still alive and just killed him off in the finale, otherwise they had nobody for the other four to fight. He had no point; he could have been offed at any time. He had no real impact.

Oh hey, looks like the characters are still one dimensional...did they really grow over the course of the series? No. Describe any of the characters in depth. Go on; you can only get words. Joe is "stoic", for instance. Can you go into much depth? Not really. People like to say the characters have depth, but they don't, not really. There's a great writeup on this on Rangercrew which I'll grab later.

The Zangyack fleet losing? With so many ships, how did the Earth not burn faster? How did it survive? And how did the Gigant Horse destroy millions that fast? One would assume the ships were spread out over the planet, though, due to the sheer number. And did nobody realize, "Oh shit, I should take evasive action"? We know Gourmin can think and aren't just idiotic.

Cameos. Nice, I guess one Dairanger didn't age, looks like GoGreen is still young (never saw the series, but he looks pretty damn young), never saw Go-Onger outside of attempting the Nigorl episode (I love his suit and wanted it in RPM very badly), but Miu has a fat face. I said it. And Houka is how I remember her from the four or so Magiranger episodes I watched before quitting due to the lightheartedness. And then we have AkaRanger at the very end. Badass and something I truly enjoyed.

Overall was Gokaiger good? If you like fanservice, sure. But I don't like fanservice. If I were asked, I wouldn't call Gokaiger a season. It's fanservice filling 51 episodes, not a season of 51 episodes. It was a weak series overall with attempted character development, but not very good overall. And the villains...they were a joke. I love good villains, like Gekiranger, like Goseiger (well, Bladerun). Maybe that's why I also don't care for Shinkenger that much, another fan favorite season. Strangely, I like Deka, but bias of course. It's a police season.

How could it have been a good finale? Um...Insaarn actually did something instead of being a useless "point, shoot, make my monster grow" character? She was badass at points, with that whip and stuff, then she goes down like a bitch and just dies when it sounds like she could possibly do something interesting. Oh, and Damaras getting Oiles's corpse? I guess it was just buried or something, but seriously? She could have staged a coup, become the final villain, made Mecha Giles (or something), been awesome (Damaras and Basco would be too obvious for final villains, after all). Damaras was interesting, his death pisses me off, though. He could have held on if he wasn't doomed to die by plot. Basco's death still irks me with how he went down rather easily in the end. In the end, only Basco was interesting. Oiles started to show some good development, then he dies. Barizorg was doomed to have none, of course.

But the biggest problem is that the Zangyack became a joke so damn quickly. For a few episodes they were great, then what happened?

Will I ever watch Gokaiger again? Probably Vs. Gavan. Taisen, if for no other reason than to see what a mess it is and hope for something good (oh, and Long is in it, and hopefully Narutaki's backstory, even if he is playing at being Doctor G, and they have a bastardized Kani Laser suit...). Will I ever watch episodes again? Episode 4 I have on DVD since I enjoy it, and the tease between Joe and Ahim (damn it, why the hell did you guys not follow up on this? The opening says "romance"!), and it's a good episode in all honesty. It's with Deka 37 on my DVD, so it's just favorite episodes.

Gokaiger, overall, you get a C rank. Generously. Truthfully, D+.

[Suzie Miyazaki]

Shinkenger Returns

Interesting, not sure whether the whole overarcing plot was unneeded or kept it from being a rather fun little "experiment" of sorts.

Or if you choose to view it from a Stanislavski-an point of view it gives you an internal view into the minds of the Shinkengers and what sort of media they like and how it merges with their views of themselves.

Like in Ryuunosuke's case is he geuinely supportive of his lord or would he rather be the hero? Or does his fantasy show that he has more resolve and drive than the other Shinkengers and can break out of his Lotus-Eater. Then again there were a lot of furries in his segment ... make of that what you will.

Unless the illusions were supposed to be random, in which case ignore me.

Best bit has to be during the ShinkenOh battle where Genta is hanging on for dear life. It made me laugh so much.

Either way it was weird, but enjoyable. The sushi challenge in the Wild West, the cop show, the Ouran Host Club shout out. It was just pure unadulterated fun.

It's fairly good if very odd but probably not for everyone.

[McKenzie Williams]

I never actually bothered with Returns.

[[Kaisu] Elizabeth Clarke]

Go-Busters is giving me a total Rescue Fire feel... Which is totally epic.

It's cheesy here and there, but hey, I'm not complaining.

It's Time for Buster!

[Jerome Stark]

I get more of a Force feel from it. The control room primarily, with how the desks move and rotate, but both Force and Fire in how Hiromu gets his bike into his Zord.

[[Kaisu] Elizabeth Clarke]

Yeah, the control room is more Force, but the shots of the Enetron tank in the distance and the whole 'SHOOT GIANT VEHICLES OFF OF HIGHWAY RAMPS WHOOOO' reminds me of Fire.