It's just I've seen so much toku over the last two years, in my opinions (which is all my posts ever are, they are never meant to be taken as facts) I'm done making excuses for bad shows.

Gaoranger 04. This episode highlighted some of the core flaws of sentai in general.

Minus Alata - and to some extent Ryuuji - I can't really think of a single other specific hero who felt LIKE a hero from the start. I get that Rangers become heroes over the course of the series but it just seems odd that the shows always bring together a bunch of rookies that bumble their way to badassery. Why not just pick those who are heroes ALREADY? They still have as much room to grow as a rookie does, but you don't have problems like this at the start. Or if you DO pick a bunch like this, it deserves a better explanation than 'well the Power Animals know best derp'.

Similarly, pretty much every other show starts with everyone doing their own thing, just a bunch of random people chucked together. Of course they wont function as a single unit if you throw a bunch of strangers together, what do you expect? Why doesn't this TEAM BASED SHOW think more about the TEAM ASPECT?

That isn't to say Gaoranger is a total wash, although dated in the execution, the villains have interesting designs, and seeing the Gaoranger literally claw off the footsoldiers faces is some fucked up shit that never gets old.

But yeah, the last two episodes have not been particularly great, I'm hoping the cliffhanger of this episode means a brighter future but if not then maybe I'll just write this one off. Maybe try a few more episodes of Maskman before leaping into Gokaiger. We'll see.

Okay, starting tomorrow, I officially (Re)start Go-Busters!

That aside, I have some interest in Zyuranger and Gaoranger as well. I think I'll head towards Zyu should GoBus not do it for me.

Zyuranger is really, really fun. Just be prepared for a lot of children of the week.

Yeah, I've heard of that.
How good are the child actors, and what are their general age range?

As good as expected and 7-10-ish, respectively.

You still have interest in Gao after my posts and everyone else calling it average? :P

Thanks!

I can deal with average. One of my favorite PR seasons is Turbo, after all :p

So I went and re watched the Boukenger movie today just because. It's funny, because in the movie the Boukengers face... The monster that killed the dinosaurs. And it featured Akashi's world travelling dad showing up out of nowhere to give him guidance. And BoukenSilver (played by Masayuki Deai, who would go on to play both KyoryuGreys) is pretty awesome in it, and manges to not get as neglected as most non core Rangers do in the summer films. There's a lot of this movie that retroactives reminds me of Kyoryuger.

Also, Akashi's dad is essentially Indiana Jones and it's awesome.

I'm not at all surprised. Kyoryuger is the most derivative of the Sentai series I've seen. I don't mean that in a bad way -- it was clearly reminiscent of past Sentai series by design.

Honestly, Gaoranger was pretty okay. The only horrendously awful thing that sours the series for me is the idiocy that happens way later in the show. Other than that, it's enjoyable.

I'm four episodes in and the show seems to embody every problem I've ever had with sentai but I also recognise I'm only just out of the gate, and if the length of toku shows proved anything to me, it's that ten episodes of shit can be followed by ten more of masterpieces...or vice versa.

Woah. People thought Gaoranger was average? It's one of my all time favorite series. Very surprised that you guys aren't enjoying it.

GaoRanger has a special place in my heart as it was the first Sentai series I ever watched. I really enjoy what it has to bring to the table, but there are a lot of better series out there. Nevertheless, I might not say it is average, but then, again, it was the first series I watched, so that might be biased.

Well I'm gonna give it more episodes but these opening four episodes have hardly got me pumped.

Trust me man if you can stick with it's excellent. It's always been one of my favorites.

Like I said, I enjoyed it well enough. But then Gao God happened.

I've always heard it's very solid, but not very original or unique. I think "Sentai-flavored Sentai" is the best description I've heard.

I actually liked that. It was interesting to see a deity take on human form basically just to dick around with the team.
I won't say it's crazy innovative or anything, but it's solid fun, with a believable cast, excellent music, and great mecha designs.

I've gotta agree with Den-O on this. Things get better, especially when Loki arrives on the scene and we get past the first of the Orgu gods.

He comes in episode fifteen right? That gives me something to watch towards.

Aside from the Rouki arc (which was great), I have to agree that I found Gaoranger to be pretty average.

Gobus 42.

This episode does a good job of summing up my feelings of Go-Busters in general - it may not be a "great" series, but when Go-Busters has a good episode it's basically better than any other sentai out there.

Great character focus, fantastic integration of the giant stuff, wonderful henshin hero fights. Honestly the last four or so episodes have all been really great, which is refreshing after so much meh through the twenties and early thirties.

A few nitpicks though. Didn't Enter say an already formed Metaroid is a waste of a card? So why is a Megazord any different? Also, wasn't it a plot point that Yoko couldn't transform inside the train? So what did the episode just forget that five minutes later? Or what?

While no reason was ever really stated(that I can remmber offhand), I think Yoko didn't want to start shit inside the train because it might fight back and there were innocent people inside.

I say this with most shows. Once a good main villain or 6th hero shows up in this case a two in one character they always pick up steam. The Rouki arc was absolute excellence, the Gao Silver arc after was great, Futaro as well I very much enjoyed, Gao God trolling a bunch of humans, TsueTsue & Yabaiba are some of the best comedic relief, what more can you ask for?

Again I'm not saying it's a masterpiece, but it's like pure distilled sentai. It has fun with the idea but it's formulaic in an enjoyable way. And in the ways that it's unconventional, it's really unconventional. Maybe I need to campaign it for Let's Watch Wednesdays...

I will say though, I would campaign HARD for Gao Figuarts. Just for the claw hands.

Gao Silver and Rouki two pack or GTFO :lol.

Actually the train and its dimension hopping cut her off from the command centre so she can't beam her suit in. When the others break into the train, she can call them, which sorta makes sense as she's contacting someone in the same dimension as her. But that doesn't make sense of why she can now transform and use her super mode.

Come to think of it, I vaguely remember this being an issue when we had the individual episode discussion.

Yeah it was really dumb. They make a point of it and then just forget about it a few minutes later.

Oh right, I had forgotten about that.

Yeah for a show with such careful story telling otherwise it was a bizarre misstep that felt like a bigger deal than it might do in other shows.

Gaoranger 05. God this is gonna be a long fifteen episodes isn't it?

As I'm not really feeling Gaoranger I thought I'd postpone it and check out the first episode of Gokaiger and it was pretty damn amazing, extremely silly, but still amazing. But then first episodes usually are, I'll be interested to see where this one goes.

Also man those Gokaiger suits and weapons, so so gorgeous. Seems a shame to have such gorgeous suits in a show centred around turning into other suits. And wow, for such an unconventional bunch for a sentai their teamwork is a thing of beauty. I really, really like how defined each character is already - I like Marvellous especially, he's just really cool. I'm not sure how I'll feel on him in the long term, but for just this episode his badass nonchalance was mucho appreciated.

If I was to have any complaints...that first Gokai Change was...amazingly lame. I guess for diehards of sentai it would have been an epic moment, but for someone who has no connection all I saw was extremely dated suits and a pretty craptacular power set and finishing move, I mean really, a bin truck? The rest of the changes were with teams I was more familiar with, and are more modern so it was a lot better then for me, but still.

You know for how much I love everything, I didn't really get grabbed by the first episode of Gokaiger, it took a couple episodes for me to really get into it. There is a lot of subtlety in Gokaiger that you can miss out on some things.

I'm surprised you actually haven't watched Gokaiger.

I can see why, it was very unconventional both in the kind of heroes and the general set up. Plus showing off your gimmick by kicking a Football that turns into a Bin Lorry isn't exactly an action scene to set your world on fire...

But I dunno, maybe it's just because I'm not that big of a sentai guy, the fact the Gokaigers felt so unlike other teams - and the production feels so much bigger than usual - I just dug it.

I tried to hold off Gokaiger to get more sentai knowledge under my belt first but sentai is just a franchise I really can't get into much. I don't want to be *that guy* but I just feel Rider provides richer, more focused storytelling and much more variety in their seasons.

I find most sentai is really fantastic out of the gate and usually pretty damn fantastic on the way out, but as it comes out of the gate full steam it runs out of energy fast and suddenly we're down to watching the same old show with slightly different helmets and monster designs. I can't think of any sentai - even shows I like - where you couldn't AT LEAST cut out about ten episodes from the middle with no impact on the wider show at all. And that is really problematic.

I love Gokaiger. It's the only sentai show that I've unreservedly loved watching for its entire run. The tribute episodes give the show a variety of stories and tones to play with, and that stops the show from entering into the repetitive middle section that plagues most sentai.

That the Gokaigers are so resistant to the idea of being heroes -- and that they kind of think Sentai is cheesy but still embrace all the silliness -- is so refreshing. And the best part is they're always like that! Yeah, they change and grow to varying degrees, but they're never fully comfortable calling themselves heroes.

The show's effects are also super cool looking. Their role call with space in the bg is gorgeous, Final Wave is beautiful...

And the action. Sweet fancy Christ, the action.

Really glad to hear that - especially about the characters - their unconventional nature as Rangers and the fact the show never set them up as heroes is so refreshing.

Thinking about it, Sun Vulcan, Megaranger, Dekaranger, Kyoryuger, Gekiranger, Gokaiger, Go-Busters, etc etc.
I've never had a Sentai series grab me with the first episode...

The first couple of episodes are usually my favourites :lol