Yah, I suppose so. It was fitting of the character, but I always felt like it was split between being a realistic 'showy' thing that we've come to expect from Gai, but not too smart of a thing to do.

The Birdonic Waves gave them superhuman capabilities.

I'll need to rewatch some of the first few eps, I'm drawing a blank again, haha. Did that stay with him out of costume though? Also cool siggy!

I don't remember honestly I think it might've been forgotten after the first couple of episodes. And thank you!

Yeah, they had the powers out of costume. Most of them discovered their abilities on pure accident.

Oh, yep! I misread your post as "do they have them IN costume" as in how Disney had them always have super powers outside of costume but not inside.

Okay, so if Gai had somewhat superhuman strength, how'd a knife manage to stab him??? This is what's been pickin' at me for quite some time.

Gokaiger 43. Damaras had gattling gun sleeves and only used them when he grew? What an idiot.

Basco is by far the best character in this show, even if he's barely in it. I wish his literal backstabbing would have marked the end for Damaras, it would have been a better death than what he actually got.

Never thought an episode focused around Doc could be so entertaining though, but his wild fighting style comes packed with an energy that I've felt Gokaiger has somewhat lacked for a while now. I get that part of the show is about the Gokaiger becoming a "true" sentai but this evolution seems to come at the cost of a lot of personality.

In the flashbacks when they were just a bunch of rogue pirates fighting the Zangyack they are actually a much more interesting team, because they are a group of individuals each with their own style and way of dealing with issues. To function as a truly well oiled team, requires them to lose a lot of individuality and fall in line together, I get that that makes them stronger but it also makes them kinda boring too.

It just sorta feels like they're going through the motions and ticking boxes a bit at this point, I wonder if this was the point of the production where most of the crew and suit actors had left to go start working on the next series. The all green change in celebration of Doc was pretty fun though.

He doesn't have the necessary levels of resilience. Gai has super strength, but he's not pulling a Superman and lifting buildings with one arm. He's not invulnerable.

Oh, I know. I think what I was expecting around the time that scene comes about was him being strong enough to not allow a simple knife to break the skin. I usually see Sentai members as being somewhat peak human most times, which is why they don't instantly die whenever a MOTW hits them before they morph, so that always puzzled me. Still though, I thought it was done well since it's fitting that Gai would get stabbed and not say anything, so he goes to the wedding anyways and just dies on the bench. The cool/badass character always does things like that.

I've not seen the show but I've always found the approach to superheroes in toku fascinating. In toku the suits make the hero, whereas in comics it's the other way round. No one approach is better than the other, but it's just interesting that a simple inversion of concepts can create two such uniquely feeling genres.

Well since I'm almost done with Jetman and my re-watches of Dairanger and Gokaiger, I think I'll finally watch a Showa Sentai. And I decided to go with Liveman. Time to see how dark this puppy is.

I've heard people say Liveman is dark, always wondered about what made it dark. I'll need to add that to my watch list.

Liveman is my favourite classic sentai. Got the V2s to rewatch at some point.

Gokaiger 44.

After watching Go-Busters I forgot the norm for sentai was to coast at Christmas. Dairando seems pretty interesting, especially given how pathetic the other guardsmen was, but this episode was insanely boring.

Jetman 18, Gai Dies!

I actually liked this episode, which made the ending rather tragic. But I guess it makes Radiguet all the more despicable.

I feel the major flaw of this episode was the breakneck pace it moved at. Human Radiguet coming to and befriending/falling in love with someone, healing her illness, Gai breaking his cold exterior and expressing his fears, Vyram deciding to help off Juza, Radiguet regaining his memories and returning to his normal self, Juza's death, and Semimaru hatching. All in 17 minutes. This really should have been a 2 parter (Rather, a 3 parter, I guess, since it directly followed last episode). It would've made Radiguet's connection with the girl a lot stronger, Gai's "Death" have more impact, the rest of Vyram turning against Juza be more interesting, and the ending be fore dramatic.

However, that said, it was still a nice episode.

Gokaiger 45. A clip show this close to the end? Come the fuck on!

To be fair, this one does serve a bit of purpose. They're simply informing Ninjaman of what all has happened since he was sealed up as well as explaining who they are and what they can do.

That's just a framing device, not really plot relevant.

Exactly.

Yeah, that episode could have benefited from being a two parter.

Oh well. For what it was, it was still enjoyable.

Anyway, the most recent episode was decent. It wasn't anything special, about Kaori facing her fears, but it was nice. There wasn't much to say about it beyond it expanding upon Kaori's relationship with her butler.

I also think this is the 2nd episode in a row that didn't shoehorn in a giant robot fight, which is nice.

Kyoryuger vs Go-Busters: I thought this was an absolutely fantastic movie, that has a great use of the Go-Busters, and Kyoryugers. I loved seeing Geki and Ryouga too. Just totally awesome movie. Great to see all the characters back and still makes me sad that Kyoryuger is over with.

I kind of want to watch ToQGer now from it but the announcer for the morpher is annoying to me.

Uh...

MOST Sentai series from the late 90s until just recently have always had a clip show as either episode 44 or 45. This is nothing new.

I believe it started with Gingaman and then ended with Gokaiger. THe only one that didn't have a clip show there was MagiRanger, and that was because they did theirs back in the 30s.

Clip-Shows still suck though.

Watching Kyoyuger for the first time, up to like ep 15 and man I want that Gabutyra sleeping bag the commercial showed.

Oh yeah, I hate them and they are a waste of time.

On the positive side, it means one less episode to watch when marathoning a show.

The worst are series like One Piece and Wolf's Rain that put 4/5 clip shows back to back though.

Okay? I've only seen like two shows before Gokaiger and after the 90s so it hasn't been most for me, which is why it came as a shock when Gokaiger wasted one of their last episodes.

Gokaiger 46. Wow really? Filler? This close to end?

I did like how Ninjaman fought with them, and the team morphs are always fun but the Kakuranger have a really lame looking powerset, almost as lame looking as Goggle V and Fiveman. I remember quite liking the first episode of Kakuranger I watched, though. Oh well, hopefully with this out of the way Gokaiger can get on with things.

I wouldn't call it filler because it involved them getting the last Grand Power, but I thought both the Kakuranger episodes were pretty dull and forgettable, even with Ninjaman making a big cameo. I would've thought they'd put a bit more gravitas in the final Grand Power.

Lol I loved the Sleeping bag, I want it too. Are you enjoying it?

Yeah but that happened right at the end, before that it was just a generic monster of the week plot. They sorta used it for character development I guess but it only told us stuff we already knew which is frustrating because at this point we still only really know half (or less) of the stories of each Gokaiger. I mean we know fuck all about Gai, where are his family, his friends, his home? What was he doing before the Gokaiger came along? How was he able to just drop real life and become a space pirate? I guess we'll never know.

But 'eh, I'm probably not the best judge as the whole Grand Power gig has been boring me to tears for about thirty episodes now. For a show that started with so much energy, and really seemed to try and play against sentai tropes, it's really relaxed into a very formulaic series. Not a bad series so much, but I'm finding it a lot harder to be excited for as I was a while back.

Yah, Japan goes all out with their toy commercial. Was a thy bit surprised to see Utchy in the commercial for his KyoryuGold roleplay toys. We don't get that enough here.

So far, yah. I'm beyond enjoying it. I was onboard since say one with the Kyoryugers, I though maybe I was gonna feel, well, I guess not like the samba dance angle, but it feels like they rarely do it. It takes time to get used to that but the show does a good job of entertaining. I love how Luckyeiro and Candelira do the dance with them too. From what I've read on here, I think I'm in the unpopular vote here by saying Daigo is awesome. He sorta just places himself into everything. I can see how that'd be annoyin to some, though I think it's funny.

Kyoryuger is a big ole pile of wasted opportunities but as I cut out all the filler and watched a much shorter, more condensed run of episodes it was pretty much pure entertainment from start to finish.

Go-Onger 03.

I know it's a trope of sentai, but the way characters speak entirely in exposition in this show is especially bad as it rarely has any context. And it's a shame too as the show seems to have a pretty interesting mythology for us to discover, but I'd rather it just let it play out rather than just having it scream at us. It's a show where the gimmick is actually part of the show which is the best way to advertise toys in my opinion.

Although it's a little rough around the edges, and kinda dated, this show has some pretty big scale fights for a show that pretty much no one talks about. The mech action especially has so far been a lot more progressive than say Gokaiger for example, where they literally used the same bits of CG animation over and over again and fought in cockpits that felt entirely separate from the action. Is action so unimportant to this fandom? It's one of the most crucial things to me.

Sadly though, I hate pretty much all of the characters. The acting is terrible, and so far the five of them are either morons, obnoxious, an asshole or something inbetween. Not exactly the kind of heroes I want to follow around. The suit actors have better chemistry than the actual cast.

It really didn't need to be a two-parter, no.

Especially as Ninjaman was fucking annoying as all hell, I gritted my teeth through that two parter. The Go-Onger one was definitely the best two parter.

Gokaiger 47. Marvelous is caught in a close range explosion unmorphed and all he has to show for it is some blood on his chin and a singed jacket? Sigh.

Sally is just another one of those hideous costumes standing in for what are I assume meant to be cute characters in tokusatsu, so I really didn't care about this episode at all from that perspective. Basco being an irredeemable bastard on the other hand, is something forever enjoyable. At least Gokaiger had one good villain.

For Kakuranger, it's less about their powers and more about the characters using them, which is why you weren't as drawn to the Gokaigers using them (Who only has Gai and Don as the comedic characters) where as the Kakurangers were all complete asshats (Tsuruhime not as much, but she does join in on the fun once in a while).

What is it with sentai and mixing ninjas with comedy?