On the bright side, the characters are pretty enjoyable... Well, four out of the five Jetmen, and the commander, are. I just wish they had more interesting things to do.

...So, is it Blue or Yellow you find boring? I'm pretty sure it's blue, but I can't really remember anything about Raita(?) so I dunno.

Actually I quite like Blue and Yellow, it's Gai I can't stand. I honestly do not get why so many people like him.

I can understand not liking Gai since the writing for him is very inconsistent. One episode he wants to quit the team and take Kaori with him, then the next five episodes he is a complete team player, only to have another episode of him wanting out. However, the reason people like him is because he did break the ranger cast mold at the time. The Soda era of the series featured pretty cookie cutter characters that did nothing to stand out from each other. The moment their team got together they worked as a team until series end outside of the occassional episode where they were brain washed or something. Gai, on the other hand, was consistentely breaking the rules that had been established for the last 8 years of the franchise.

I guess I can understand that from a technical standpoint, and the inconsistent writing is probably the biggest reason why I don't like him. I mean sometimes he and Ryu have an interesting Cyclops/Wolverine thing going and then... Yeah then he's being an absolute friggin creep to Kaori.

Like in episode 17, holy hell, this guy just raised every single red flag in the book.

You're definitely not alone in that opinion. Honestly Jetman is a good Sentai, but it definitely isn't the best one as some people make it out to be.

I'm going to disagree on that. I'd say it is the 7th or 8th best Sentai series out there. It's villains are still highly developed and the overall plot is well written to make it excel over its brethren.

Considering watching Dekaranger and Magiranger

You don't know what you're talking about. :p

A friend recently recommended me to try Gekiranger, as it's apparently one of the better animal-themed Sentai shows. Gonna check it out later.

Enjoy~

I'm in the middle of Gekiranger, and your friend is 100% correct. You will enjoy it, especially once you hit the late teens/early twenties.

I think Gekiranger is one of the strongest Sentai shows, and certainly the best Sentai of the aughts. I rewatch episodes of that one sometimes.

I just finished Gingaman and Zyuohger within a week of each other, and I'm not sure what series to focus on next. Probably Abaranger or Go-Busters.

Gekiranger is easily my favorite Sentai, so I always endorse it~

Gekiranger is hands down the best show to come after Carranger. It has excellent villains that they remembered to actually develop, a really good ranger cast that grows, the second best evil twin ranger episode ever, the fight choreography is outstanding, and a great soundtrack. My only complaint is having to listen to Bae's commentary during every mech battle.

50% of that is a good idea; the other half is Magiranger.

Could you tell me why Magiranger's a bad idea? I admittedly only wanted to try it out as it's got some of the best suit designs imo

Magiranger is not as bad as people make it out to be, it's just that it isn't that great of a series because the ranger cast kind of sucks and the episode plots are all over the place. It also uses a lot of CGI instead of having actual fights.

However, the villains are awesome and they make up for the show's weaknesses.

Pretty much this, though I'll never say a cross word about Hiroya Matsumoto. The villains are, indeed, awesome. I was down on Magiranger when we started watching it during its LWW, but it really kind of grew on me. The biggest issue with rewatching it now is all the CGI. It's very, very dated looking stuff. The Robo designs are nice, though.

Magiranger is far from a perfect show, but I found it to be enjoyable. In fact, I'll probably grab the Malaysian DVDs after I finish Hurricaneger.

It isn't. At least, it's not a bad show. I thought I was going to find it inane and stupid at first (and this is me) due to its overall goofy style, but it really won me over as it went on. The writing is deceptively sharp. The main cast play off each other extremely well, with nobody getting the shaft in terms of screentime, the villains are interesting, and the pacing is impeccable. The overarching plots never stagnate and there's series-spanning mysteries with solid foreshadowing and great payoffs.

Basically the only bad thing I have to say about it is that the ending theme makes my ears bleed.

It mostly boils down to the cast being incredibly unlikable for me de gozarimasu desu. They all have fairly simplistic character traits and, at least in the 15-ish episodes I watched, never really develop much de gozarimasu desu. In particular, Pink and Green are especially terrible: Pink is pretty much every obnoxious girly trait you'll ever find in Japanese media and Green's actor is completely useless at his job de gozarimasu desu. The show also found room to squeeze in not one but two annoying sidekick characters with vocal tics de gozarimasu desu. The story isn't terrible and the designs are legitimately good, but I really could not get past the cast de gozarimasu desu.

If the old Let's Watch Wednesday threads are still around you can watch my gradual, multi-week breakdown with this series leading up to me dropping it de gozarimasu desu.

To be fair, the speech tics are especially annoying when Terebi Nihon-kun-tachi just slap them at the end of every sentence and call it a translation.

..Not that it isn't a bit much anyway de gozarimasu desu.

Yeah, if Magiranger has a "problem", it's how over the top it is, which can be off-putting. That being said, the characters definitely have a ton of growth, more as a group than as individuals, but even on that front most of the Rangers have clear arcs.

I'd honestly say the main cast is one of the best parts of the show, and I'm kind of surprised to hear all this hate for them.

Green is probably the worst actor I've ever seen in a tokusatsu. He is aggressively terrible.

Huh. Part of me has been tempted to check out Magiranger at some point. Mostly because I really, really like the ranger suits. It's the capes.

Hey, I remember that! I made it up to episode 21 during the LWW before the thought of watching another second made me want to jump out of a closed window at the top of a tall building.

For me, it boiled down to...

Bad Guys = Kinda Cool!
Ranger Suit and Mech Designs = Very cool!!
Heroes = Bghfuiopadfhgdfbjkaf!!! (translation: terrible)
Mandora Boy = KILL IT (de gozarimasu desu)!!!! DIE DIE DIE (de gozarimasu desu)!!!!!

WHAT THE S*** WHY IS GEKIRANGER SO GOOD?!!!

Uh, hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So after some waffling about which Sentai to watch next I just did what I always do and watched whatever felt right at the moment. Which means Megaranger will have to wait a little while longer. Maybe not that long though, because I just watched the first 8 episodes in one sitting.

First off, yo Matrixbeast, why'd you undersell the premiere? It was great! It had solid pacing, some cool action, and gave me a good idea of who the characters were. I loved how Jan isn't able to transform until a kid's life is on the line, at which point it just clicks. It gives you a great idea of why this guy is qualified to be a hero, and he didn't even have to ride any meteors to do it, unlike some other guys (not that I'm naming names).

And then, wasn't everybody saying a while back that "the main cast is kind of bland and underdeveloped" is a somewhat common complaint from people? Because every episode I just saw was like, 75% fleshing out the characters. I mean, people say this about Go-Busters all the time too and I don't get it. Having developed protagonists is like, the whole advantage of having a smaller team size.

Anyway, I'm not even sure where to begin talking about what I like about the show. The much touted villains have actually been the least interesting part of the show so far (which I'm sure will change soon), and they're still totally enjoyable. There's just a lot about the show that works. The characters are likable, the episode plots have been solid, the action is great (I love how they designed GekiTouja specifically to let the suit actor actually move around), the theme song is still easily one of the greats of Sentai. Um... and also some other stuff I'm forgetting.

I mean, I probably don't even need to be explaining this to anyone who's seen the show already. It's good. I'm enjoying it. It reminds me a lot of my beloved Go-Busters if you swapped the high-tech gadgets out for martial arts, right down to not doing well with the audience in Japan at the time for some reason. Kids these days, I guess.

Man, that bad, huh?

People like to complain about Ran and Retsu being underdeveloped because once the additional rangers get added in, their stories get a little under cut.
Though, for the 20 or so episodes where it's just the main trio, they're amazing, and I love them.

I actually really think they're not as underdeveloped as everyone says they are. I just started agreeing because I wasn't up to argue with everyone :lol

The villains get much, much better. They're easily the best part about the show. Once their actual stories get kickstarted, it's awesome~
Gekitouja is great. It's an awesome suit. I really dislike how bulky the toy is in comparison to the sleek suit in show. Theme song is a favorite of mine, too! It was even in a Taiko Drum game :lol

To put into perspective how much I love Gekiranger, it's the series that made me sit down and give Sentai a second chance as a whole!

I really want to watch Geki again myself, but I've been waiting for there to be fansubs that have quality to them.

Why must Gekiranger's theme be such a glorious ear worm? @_@

Because Tani is awesome.

And you just became Matrixbeast's best friend.

I don't doubt it. I'm already vaguely aware of a lot of Gekiranger's plot, and the prospect of this show getting better than it already is has me excited. It took me about 10 episodes to start saying Carranger was the most brilliant thing ever but I was super into Geki pretty much right away. I mean, I watched 8 episodes and I was only aiming for like 4. :lol

I'm still trying to figure out which Sentai to focus on next - I'm around the 25-30 mark for both Abaranger and Magiranger, but for some reason I'm not really feeling either one. I really like Timeranger so far (about 15 episodes in) but I'm reluctant to continue since the Over-Time subs I'm using are only 30 deep. I may switch it up to Kamen Rider for the next week or two...

Keep going with Aba. You are at the point when the show just goes all out.

Gekiranger Is the S*** Part 2: Episodes 9-14

Turns out I stopped right before they started to do more stuff with Rio and Mele. They're definitely getting more interesting now. In fact, they were doing so much stuff that episode 9 didn't even have an obligatory mecha fight. Bandai probably wasn't too happy about that!

Also they continued to do tons of stuff with the protagonists. I don't know about later but right now I'm definitely liking Ran and Retsu plenty. They're sort of low-key but that's what makes them work, especially given how crazy the other guy on the team is. Speaking of which, Jan is delightful. He's an unholy mix of a small child, a puppy, and an energy drink, and yet the show knows exactly how to write him so that's he's more adorable than annoying. I can't begin to count how many hilarious background gags he's responsible for. It's not a small number.

Also, I'm starting to see why the episodes are just straight up called "training". Not only are the heroes constantly trying to improve on themselves, but now Rio's getting in on the action too. It's literally the entire plot at the moment. The way the show explicitly plays up the contrast between the teaching techniques of the heroes and those of the villains also helps the A plots and the B plots feel connected when they otherwise wouldn't, which goes to show how sharp the writing is.

So yeah, I'm definitely still digging the crap out of this show. Super duper excited to pound out even more of it.

Finished Zyuohger and only watching now Uchu Sentai Kyuranger.

Gekiranger Rocks My Socks Off Part 3: Episodes 15-21

So, uh, this show got way better. I'm genuinely surprised by this because because the last batch of episodes I watched wasn't a significant improvement on the first 8, which, given how amazing those first 8 were, wasn't really going to be a problem, and yet, here I am, watching a great show that somehow got even greater.

I mean, it was just awesome episode after awesome episode. I realized how much more I was suddenly enjoying the show midway through the first episode with Sharkie Chan (and wow what a name that is), and just when I was ready for that to be my new level of enjoyment, the AMAZING three-parter that introduces the Super Gekirangers comes along.

What even was all that? No wait, I know what it was. An awesome culmination of all the parallel storytelling that's been going on with Rio and the Gekirangers' training featuring awesome character development for both parties resulting in awesome engaging drama and awesome high energy action involving awesome jet-pack powers(!) for our heroes.

This show is f***ing spectacular. Back in episode 4 where Rio first met the gang it was all like "oh man, this guy's totally invincible", and whereas a lot of inferior shows would probably just feel like the villain gradually became enough of a wimp to be beaten once there were new toys to sell, here they've been constantly making it a point that's he's only been getting stronger since then, but of course, so have the Gekirangers, making their victory feel very well-earned and extremely satisfying.

It's just so well written! I don't care if Ran and Retsu DO get undercut from here on out, they've already got more fleshed out, developed characters in 21 episodes than a lot of Rangers do in 40, so frankly they could just coast by on that alone and I wouldn't care. Not to mention basically everything else that's great about this show.

Can you tell I'm gushing? Is it apparent how much I like this series? I mean, dang, I thought I was praising Carranger...

The worst thing I have to say about Gekiranger so far is that its gorilla dude isn't as cool as Larri from Zyuohger. But then, who could ever be as cool as Larri?

It brings me a smile to see others enjoying Gekiranger so much~

And it brings me a smile to see Gekiranger. :p

I suppose this was inevitable, given how much I enjoy even mediocre shows. I loved Carranger a lot but Gekiranger really is taking me right back to the feeling I had watching Go-Busters.

I'm digging Kyuranger for what it is so far but I was really hoping to get another three-person Sentai after Zyuohger. It's actually part of the reason I decided it was finally time to get around to Geki. Something about them is just really up my alley. I guess the smaller team size makes the show feel... calmer? More focused?

I can't really put my finger on it but basically I've known for years now that I would probably like Gekiranger and guess what? I really like Gekiranger.

--

Oh, and also:

You're a prophet, Lucha! The best part is you weren't even talking to me there. :lol

It's just that, so many people put Geki on the backburner of a franchise with 40 current installations, so it keeps getting pushed back and back so I'm just waiting, because I know they'll love it :lol

Man, Gekiranger is such a fun series. High energy and action, great stories, and amazing characters (With the best villains in the franchise, imo).
I should get back to Carranger, but now I wanna re-watch Geki :lol