Gokaiger 14. (last episode was 13 I got the number wrong).

I was kinda dreading this episode, but it actually turned out to be one of the funniest sentai things I've ever seen. I dunno it was just so damn silly, but what tipped me over the edge was the line 'what the fudge?' from Marvelous delivered with a face desperate not to laugh as that ridiculous music plays over the top of utter chaos. Brilliant. Red Racer's cameo is by far the best we've had in the whole show. More than any other, it makes me really want to watch Carranger.

I don't think they've ever used the Carranger keys before this episode have they? Kinda glad, I forgot how ugly those suits are, especially when lined next to the Turboranger suits which are actually kinda lovely. Best change this episode was seeing the Zyurangers and not getting their arses immediately kicked, though.

Oddly it was Zealo-however you spell it, who came off bad. That suit looked really, REALLY poor quality. Especially in the Mecha battle, it looked like that suit was covered in rips and ready to fall apart. And I mean in the parts where it wasn't supposed to look like that, obviously.

I had briefly gotten Carranger and Turboranger confused and was mildly taken aback by your statements over which suits were bad.
Man, I need to stop getting those two series confused, but it's so annoying that PR Turbo used Carranger's footage, not Turboranger's >.>

The Turboranger suits are borderline basic, but there is this sort of oddly unified look about the classic series suits. I'm not saying they lacked individuality or originality but I dunno, it's hard to describe I guess. It just sorta feels from Dairanger onwards the suits became steadily more complex and diverse from one another.

And I didn't even know Turboranger existed until about a month ago. Much more interested in Carranger though after watching this great episode.

Carranger sounds like a fun series, and I'd be all for it getting subbed.
I just need a sub group to agree with me :lol

Hero Subs or whatever they're called have subbed half the series. We just need them to finish the second half...

Oh? That's great!
I didn't even know the first half was subbed. Now the problem is getting the second half subbed before I get invested in the show, like what happened with Kakuranger.

I'm thinking of watching Carranger after I finish Gekiranger and Gokaiger. I doubt it'll be done by then, but I've already watched the first three, I really wanna see the rest.

I love the Carranger episode. Just every second of it amuses me.

Especially Insarn's and Jealousitto's ridiculous flashback in their school uniforms and the cherry blossom tree and then Insarn's ridiculous ballet performance to express her love. It's just so silly from beginning to end in such a fun way, even the fight's with the parts like Jealousitto's "I'll catch the sword!" *Slash* "Well... Done...". The Turboranger/Carranger confusion also made me chuckle quite a bit too.

Carranger is in progress of getting subbed, they update it quite regularly too so I'm going to wait until they're a bit further, but I definitely want to see it too.

Yeah it really was quite wonderful. Insarn's dancing was TERRIBLE and so out of time to the music, it was great.

The CarRanger episode to Gokaiger is one of the best.

Isn't it? Red Racer is still a hilariously awesome guy even now. I love that the Grand Power of Carranger is basically nothing :lol

The Grandpower is the admiration of children, I think that is kinda rockin'.

Gobus 46. Isn't it nice when a sentai thinks of the bigger picture?

I openly admit that this is just a nitpick, I've said it before and I will probably say it again, but this episode drew attention to the fact that the Go-Busters are just so damn skinny! You don't want to go full on Henry Cavill? Okay fine, but is it hard to at least get actors who are lean, with a bit of defined muscle? The shots of Hiromu using that weight training gear were laughable because even my muscles are more defined than his are, and I don't fight to save the world on a day to day basis. Hell Ryuuji's MULLET is more defined than his muscles are.

The fighting was still pretty good this week, this wasn't a touch on that time Ryuuji turned the heat lamp on himself to get an edge - seriously that was SO awesome - but overheating Ryuuji is always a great thing to see as the show uses it so sparingly. Meanwhile although I think Enter is majorly overhyped his Messiah form is pretty sweet all the same. Powered Custom may be a largely pretty lame upgrade, but the effect for Hiromu's teleportation is gorgeous. Plus I love it when the suits get messed up and we get to see all the inner workings beneath.

Gobus 47. DAT TWIST.

This third ending has certainly had better build up than the others, although considering the Stag Beetle was a whole new kind of Metaroid, he was fairly uninspiring.

If nothing else, watching this with ToQ in mind, I'm really quite sad that all the progression Go-Busters made to drag the mecha portion out of the 90s has already been completely erased. I mean it's still not "good" but Go-Busters is probably the first time anything truly new had been tried in sentai for about twenty years. Even failed experiments should be recognised, but then Japan seems to enjoy things vanishing into a sea of homogeneity.

Gobus 48.

Do you reckon Enter will sing this to Hiromu? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnmciJLM4VQ

It's nice to watch a show this late in, that is still playing with its own internal mythology and logic. As a sci-fi nut, I really love Gobus world, especially the earlier episodes which put focus on the giant robots and other such technology of the world.

The action was pretty good this episode until they moved the fight right to the crews reflection. Who does that? It's kinda like when they were in the Messiah Universe (I don't remember the name of it now) and they framed the battle there right in the view of a massive piece of graffiti. It had no in show context, why not just cover it up or not stage the fighting right in front of it? Nitpicks to you, maybe, but as a film student every detail is about suspension of disbelief and creating a world you can believe in and things like that for me are distractions which rip me right back into the real world.

You mean Hyper Space?

Ah yeah that was it. It's been barely mentioned since the shows first ending and the show has shifted so much I entirely forget the name. Hyper Space!

Alright last episode before the last episode, gonna watch this, take a gaming break and then smash out the final episode and a final thoughts wrap up post.

They are no Gokaiger, but the chemistry between this team is gorgeous. This is why it's important to have a dynamic and not just throw a bunch of strangers together. I really liked that Jin got to do something worthwhile to, considering how superfluous Jin and J have basically been so far.

Sadly, I think this ending has so far been the weakest of the three. Escape's ending was frankly pathetic, and Enter went through so much in about ten minutes it kinda almost felt like a meta commentary on this shows messy and unfocussed writing. I mean SIC Red Buster was cool, but he was in that form for like what...ten seconds? I woulda been FURIOUS if I waited a week and that was all I got. Why even bother designing that suit? Then we get all that fucked up imagery of people wired into Enter and how it resonates with what happened to the Buster's parents, but fuck that, that isn't important, MEGAZORDS! Not just any old Megazord, a cheap, flappy and painfully tacked on Megazord. Yay?

I'm not the biggest Dairanger fan, but if there's one thing I can't take away, it's that theme.
Dairanger's theme is one of my favorites. I can't get enough of it.

IT'S TIME FOR FINAL BUSTER!

For all of its epic action, the nicest thing about this finale was how subdued and most importantly...final it was. I mean there was some pretty melodramatic set up, but the episode knew when enough was enough. And even during the very melodramatic parts, it was strongly acted enough that the melodrama was easy to swallow. I've said it before, but chemistry between casts like this is oddly rare in sentai, despite it being a team focused show and I really wish we had more teams with this tangible a feeling bond.

Also was really surprised to see, in this day and age, that Jin actually died. I would normally complain about a character exit like that, but with the amount of toku that creates EPIC character deaths and then retcons them five minutes later this was really nice.

Out of all the sentai shows I've finished, it probably has the best core cast I've ever seen. Gokaiger will probably take that spot when I finished it, but just for now, what an incredible cast, what an incredible set of characters and what wonderful acting.

Most importantly this is the first, and probably only sentai in the last fifteen or so years, that doesn't feel like it's still trapped in the early 90s - at least for me. This is a high concept show, which adds much needed fixes, crucial updates and modernising across the whole production and it works for great effect.

For whatever reason sentai seems happy to just exist in this permanent bubble where the stories, special effects and characters never really change, they just put them in a new set of clothes - pretty much literally in sentai's case. This a franchise that doesn't seem so much scared of change, but is simply perfectly complacent in a comfort blanket homogeneity, this seems to be a Japanese Culture thing as this is something that seems to permeate through pretty much all typically Japanese mediums, franchises etc Some westerners love it, but me not so much.

With that in mind, I am so so so grateful for Go-Busters existence, this is a season that rejects your homogeneity, refuses your nostalgia and attempts to play on, mix up and experiment with every cliché of the franchise and whether it's ultimately a success or not is up to you, but either way, rock on Go-Busters, you crazy rebel.

So...it's your new favourite show? Eh...not really. There is kinda an elephant I've been waiting to address. The main reason Go-Busters hasn't been immediately propelled into my favourites is that well. The writing kinda sucks. The show gets action, it gets the franchise, it gets characters but we're missing a crucial thing here - story. It easily has worse storytelling than Dairanger and more filler than Kyoryuger, it's that bad. It's messy, it's unfocused and poorly paced. It's a show without a single feeling of urgency, that still somehow manages to find a way to slow itself down all the way, slow itself down to the point of irrelevancy.

This show is almost completely directionless, it has THREE endings and maybe this is because of alleged behind the screen crap but it doesn't make the viewing any better. Go-Busters bumbles its way to each of its three endings, and with two of those endings the show comes back with an entirely different tone and focus that actively makes pretty much everything that comes beforehand feel entirely purposeless.

Overall Go-Busters issues make it more of an average series for me, I mean the series itself isn't "average" but it's not as horrible as Dairanger, not as fun as Kyoryuger and although in many ways much more progressive than Goseiger, I just liked that season more overall. The only real people I'd give this a straight recommendation to, are those who don't like sentai. Because it does attempt to be so unique, and mix up the formula so much, it's pretty much THE sentai for non sentai fans. And I think they could do a lot worse. Take from that, what you will.

One statement I've never really liked when it came to assessing or judging a show is "It could be worse," because it doesn't instill me with much confidence or desire to watch at all.

:lol

I dunno, I was just trying to wrap it up, as before I added the paragraph the whole post was just sorta left hanging. I dunno how to articulate it better, as in, 'as a sentai made for non sentai fans, at least they got something like Go-Busters and not something like Dairanger' lol. But that doesn't change that it is such an unfocused, sloppy mess of a story spotted with good characters and high production values.

I do get what you're saying, and the concept of "Bad X, Good Y" is something that seems to reverberate in Sentai often.

I guess when a show boils down to "It could be worse," I just start thinking about how things could get worse :lol

It's just because I really don't like to give numbered ratings because then people fix on that and don't actually read your points. A number is a terrible description of the quality of a season, especially something as long as a toku show. So I just try my best to do wrap up paragraphs so the final posts flow nicely but I guess I run into just as many problems with those.

So err, I give it a B-?

I'm a little confused. Where did the mentality of "Blue is 2nd in command" come from? In a good majority of both Sentai and Power Rangers that I've seen, Blue has rarely taken that spot...

Yeah, sorry dude, but I rate DaiRanger a 10/10 while I give Go-Buster a 2/10.

BTW, Blue has come off as second in command in the last 10 years. The only exception is really when blue is female, and then if yellow is a male, yellow tends to be second in command. Green tends to be the inexperienced one, black is the hardened one who sometimes has a chip on his shoulders, pink is the Zelda/Peach of the group, and if yellow is a girl, she is usually a strong female tomboy of sorts.

Go-Onger 28. Giving this show a rewatch since I didn't finish it when it was originally being released.
I didn't care for the mechs much back then, but after watching RPM and getting my hands on a High Octane megazord they have become some of my favorites. The suits are neat. The Engines way of talking gets kind of old.

I can't really get into this show. The Wings are cool, the 3 Ministers are likable, but other members of the cast lack any real charm, except Gunpei at times, when he's trying to act all cool. The characters mannerisms seem more strange/ annoying than funny. Though lighthearted and fun, much of the comedy falls a bit flat as making a funny face seems to be the punchline to a lot of gags. The gags don't really flow well into the scene.
The plot and character development seems more about the 3 Ministers than the Go-Ongers.
I don't hate the show, but so far it's a bit lacking.

Blue seems to have a 50/50 chance of being serious and worthy of being second in command or being the goofy one, unless they're girls because BLECK! Girls! Black however seem consistently the ones likely to be second in command outside of maybe Goseiger that I've seen.

Finished Goseiger. I don't regret it, it was somewhat entertaining. Mainly cuz the main villain and Goseiknight kicked ass. I came into this show kinda jaded cuz the last time I saw anything related to Goseiger was when Roboknight did his little "rap" and I was just: done. Thank the Sentai lords for Moune, cuz most of the cast, especially Alata and Dumbo, I mean, Eri were just painful to watch. I love the Gosei suits so that made it better. Worst super mode ever though, really, the hell was that?! Oh, the professor dude was pretty cool. The whole time Sen-Chan was on-screen I was: "Get oughta there, Sen-Chan! You're too green, man!! No, Sen-Chan!!!"

Tried starting Go-Busters, they're fucking five. I have a very hard time taking Toku characters seriously when they're either young as hell, still in high school, or look like they're still twelve years of age. I got through Fourze okay cuz that show didn't feel like it took itself so seriously. Gobusters though, unnghh. The goddamn silver one seems to be the only one I'm okay with out of incompetent mentors/staff guys, children and frenchie villain. Perhaps someday I'll get through it, not anytime soon though, I started Zyuranger and have Kyoryuger set up after that.

That was one of my issues with Goseiger. The cast looks like they are all still 12.

Maybe it's because I'm not a huge sentai guy but I find it funny how opposite my tastes are from you guys. I felt Dairanger failed on pretty much every level it was possible to fail on, I found Gosei Knight pointlessly tacked on and Alata is my all time favourite sentai red so far. He was the reason I made it through Goseiger's admittedly kinda terrible middle.

I thought the entire cast for Gosei was awful, which was offset by the pretty cool story.
Then again, I didn't like Gokaiger, so I'm a tad different from everyone else :lol

The Gosei girls are gorgeous, even if Eri is probably one of the worst pinks of all time. Hyde was a really, really cool second in command. And Agri was...eh..."the other guy" but his suit actor had loads of personality so I always enjoyed him in the fight scenes.

I liked Hyde, but that was about it. They all seemed kind of...Dull. I don't really care for looks since that doesn't make them spontaneously interesting (Eri was flat out awful, though), and Agri was a tad too bland.
I liked GoseiKnight, actually, but that was just because he seemed to be the only one to be taking shit seriously.

Yeah Eri sucked and Agri was bland. Gosei Knight had potential, but was wasted by being so tacked on.

In terms of Alata, he was never written to be serious - he always took things seriously when needs must, he was fierce in battle, a strong leader and loved his friends and the world and battled tooth and nail to protect them/it.

But his whole characterisation was to be like the wind, hence being of the Skyick, in one moment soothing, soft and gentle and the next fierce, raging and unstoppable. I really enjoyed the complexity of his characterisation, with every mood change feeling natural. He could have easily felt like he was flip flopping but they always made it work. That is why he is my very favourite.

Gosei Knight was a very badass 6th. One of my favorite aloof robot heroes ever.

But overall I really did love the team dynamic. They felt more like friends and relatives than a lot of other sentai have in the past. Alata's care free positivity also really helped sell me on him.

So far my favourite team - in terms of shows I've finished - is Go-Busters. They are a pretty mixed bag individually, but together they just work, they are a team with such incredible chemistry and a sort of refreshing dynamic that they weren't just a bunch of random people who happened to live in the same area or what the backstory usually is for sentai teams.

Anyone got a link to 199 heroes? The Overtime torrent is so damn slow I could probably watch the whole of Gokaiger twice before it finishes.

Its all on Youtube if you don't mind watching it there;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjAlH17WmcM

Quality is lpretty awful though.

EDIT: Actually watching scenes, quality is SUPER awful. It looks like someone filmed watching a sub with a camera!

Thank you!