Pretty sure Ohranger 23 was just an excuse to have Juri's actress in a bathing suit/bikini. Lmao. Haha!

Chouriki Hentai Ohranger!

My Changeman review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y31Dxf_lys

I spent the day rewatching the first 13 episodes of Dynaman since it has been months since I watched them. They're a mixed bag. There's some great episodes mixed in, but the fights are kind of boring, especially when they resolve around the same stock footage over repeatedly. It's also kind of clear that the show was not planned to have its running time cut down due to the time change as the episodes following this have scenes that are sped up or edited a tad poorly.

Insomnia hit me up so I decided to wrap up Sun Vulcan. Didn't want to give a full review so I gonna list up what I like and what kinda bothered me:

+ Good Ranger suit designs for its time
+ Vulcan Stick is probably the most OP Sentai side arm I've seen yet
+ Machiko Soga pretty much nailed it back then

- Bad child actors can get annoying at times
- Little plot progression
- Even plot heavy episodes hold tightly on the typical Sentai episode formula

Bandora/Rita's actor was there?!

She played Queen Hedorian and appeared as the same character in Denziman as well. Wish Sun Vulcan made more use of Denziman's plot while at it.
There were even pics of a scrapped Denziman x Sun Vulcan crossover:
https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net...rhtio1_500.jpg

Never understood whey they made it a sequel to Danjiman when they never did anything with it.

Why is Agito a sequel to Kuuga?

I don't get that one either. Nor do I remember anything that makes it a sequel other than people told me it was.

Anwyay, I did another batch of Dynaman episodes. They were fine. Nothing special, but I did like the wild west shoot out scene even if it was random.

Maybe they wanted to but never really got around doing anything worthwhile with it. Budget cuts? Most of the Denzi cast not being available? Who knows?

btw, just watched the first episode of Liveman and oh boi, that escalated quickly!

Watched episodes 18-21 of Dynaman today. They were fun. Nothing spectacular, but fun.

Sadly though, the ranger cast is just as bland as the cast from Changeman. There has been absolutely nothing in the way of devleopment at all for the cast. I'm 21 episodes in and it still has yet to be explained why these five people were chosen to be rangers.

Also, the villains have grown stagnant as they have accomplished nothing since Chimera's introduction.

Watched episodes 22-25 of Dynaman today. The episode with a fox monster was pretty awesome. On the other hand, they never explained why Rei is afraid of cats. They said she is afraid of them, but never went into details about it, making me question if I'm ever going to get any character development for this show.

This seems to be a common annoyance I have with all of the series from the 80s that I have watched. It seems like the rangers are just there because they need someone to fight the villains and to show off the toys.

So I'm still diligently working my way through Shinkenger, and while I still don't have much to say about the show I haven't already said (it's still great!), I do feel like talking about Shinkenger VS Go-Onger now that I've rewatched it. Especially since it meant taking a trip into Terebi Nihon no sekai.*

http://i.imgur.com/DJOXIpo.jpg

*note: Terebi Nihon no sekai = TV Nihon World.

Man their Go-Onger subs are awful da yo. It's like, can you even call this translating no ka? Ah mou, I guess I'll just have to put up with it...

But enough crapping on TV-N. They get enough hate without my help. The movie itself is pretty good.

Now, Sentai movies, VS or otherwise, tend not to be extremely memorable, but this one comes a lot closer to being great than most. It's a very fun, well paced adventure with a lot of good gags and solid action. The interactions between the teams are great, with a lot of focus put on Takeru and Sousuke. What makes it land so well is how the movie takes the inherently clashing tones of each show and makes them a source of drama on top of comedy.

Takeru is something of a brooding loner, constantly burdened by the weight of his duties as a samurai lord, and Sousuke is basically just some loud idiot who was handed a cell phone one day and told to go fight evil. Naturally they don't like each other very much at first. Again, it's nothing truly spectacular, but having a simple character arc like this is further than most of these movies get and it plays nicely off of the characters established personalities. It all feels very genuine.

I don't know, I can't really claim it's some masterpiece, but I like this one a lot. There's just something to it that puts it above the crowd for me. One of the few Sentai movies I ever have a real desire to come back to. It's a shame it doesn't have better subs yo ne... :p

I'm up to episode 4 of Hikari Sentai Maskman and I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit. Outside of the quirks that come with a show this old, my only real problem with Maskman is how technological it is. Maskman is a team with powers that are Mystical in nature. Despite this, their rather poorly decorated home base is filled to the brim with computers and heavy technology. Maskman is one of the earliest examples of a purely mystical henshin hero in Tokusatsu so I'd imagine that they just weren't ready to commit to a purely mystical hero but it still sucks that they didn't go the extra mile. Other then that, i'm enjoying the show.

So, Abaranger was one of the first Sentai seasons I ever watched, but I dropped it mostly due to the terrible bootleg subs (nearly incomprehensible and full of inaccuracies). Re-watching it now with Spanish subs (I'm sure there are decent English subs available, too, it's been over ten years), I love this show! I actually liked it even way back when, but now I can appreciate the story and characters in a whole different way.

Random things I love in the first few episodes:
- The opening song
- Dinosaurs and explosions
- The spikes in their suits and the way they move and scream, if I had watched this show as a kid I would have imitated them all the time. :lol
- Asuka, the heart of the Abarangers!
- I didn't even remember Emiri being this delightful, she might become my favorite Pink (if she counts as a Ranger?)
- Yukito was always my favorite character and it looks like I still can't resist an antihero with a heart of gold.

So do you need English subs? If so, Imagination Station subbed the entire show using Toei's DVDs.

^I'm fine with the Spanish subs, but thank you, Imagination Station looks great! Now I can finally make some of my friends watch Abaranger, too. Really happy to know that there are, in fact, quality subs out there.

Just finished watching the Ninninger vs. Zyuohger movie, I want a Misao/Kinji spinoff now.

Just finished Liveman on my vacation and boi, that final arc got me hooked til the end.

A bit of a shame that the Livemen couldn't fully save their friends, except for Go. I really wanted them to fully redeem themselves. At least Arashi went out like a boss.

Well, on to Gaoranger. Always wanted to watch this one because I used to passionately watch Wild Force back in the days.

I just finished maskman. The show starts off really good but to me personally really starts to drag on, there are a few memorable scenes later on but not much...

Don't get me wrong though, it's still enjoyable, but it has so much potential

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that was par for the course when it comes to older Sentai like this. I haven't seen a lot of pre-90s Tokusatsu, I've only seen Liveman at this point, but of the ones I have seen, they tend to have really good story concepts but just kind of begin to fall flat when it comes to actually *telling* that story. I don't usually watch Sentai for its storyline though, especially one as old as Maskman, so I don't mind. When it comes to these older Tokusatsu, I usually watch them because either the concept sounded interesting, I felt like watching a time capsule of a show that does a bunch of things that would never be done these days for whatever reason, or because I though the main characters were cute... That last one is, like, 60% of the reason I chose to watch Maskaman honestly.

That being said, I just finished episode 12 of Maskman and, as bad as this may sound, I was kind of laughing the entire time in the beginning. It was hilarious how little those ninjas cared about the lives of the ordinary civilians. They were just throwing around explosive Shurikens, crashing into buildings and wrecking everything inside, and just didn't give a damn that they were causing complete and utter chaos everywhere they went. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed when Haruka said she'd show them how a real ninja fights and just kind of drove the enemy away in a big truck. Oh well, still a pretty fun episode for reasons I don't think the writers intended.

I've come to realize that the differences between 80s and 90s Sentai are like the differences between Silver Age DC and Silver Age Marvel. Like DC, the 80s series were more concerned with individual episode plots and giving the heroes different abilities to distinquish themselves rather than having any sort of character growth. On the other hand, 90s Sentai was like Marvel in the way that characterization mattered over episodic plots, so series became more character oriented as they were the driving force for the series as a whole.

I absolutely did not get that from Jetman. Maybe it's cause I only saw half of it, but I couldn't stand that filler hell

Did not get what? The characterization? Did you miss everything that went on with the Gai, Kaori, and Ryu love triangle?

However, I'm also thinking more of the shows that Sugimura did and the ones that followed him (Car-Time).

That's all there was alongside "Kaori is a spoiled brat", "Gai's a womanizing asshole" "Ryu's there", "The yellow ranger's a country bumpkin" and "Blue ranger's greedy" as far as I could tell then. In my opinion, when the show is halfway through and none of the main cast have proven themselves likeable, it fails

Fixed that for you

What about the plotline with Maria and Ryua? When Radiguet found he enjoyed being a human and it made him go crazy? Tranza being so upset that he was mocked for being a kid that he became an adult?

I thought the cast was very likable as they were quite realistic.

I fully agree with Kaori being a spoiled brat, but that is just rich people for you.

The plotline with Maria and Ryu didn't really go anyway. Plus Radiguet only had 1 episode of that? That hadn't happened with Tranza by that point
I wouldn't call it whining, as it's understandable. Though I got really pissed off about Ryu telling Kaori "Look, I'm still in grief over the death of my girlfriend I had to witness" only for her to go "Then I'll flirt EVEN MOAR"

Maskman Episode 16 done. Going into this show, I expected Akira to be my favorite character but, after watching this episode, he's tied with Kenta for that honor. Kenta's had probably as many focus episodes at Takeru at this point and its really made me grow to like his character. While I never disliked him at any point, I've really been enjoying his focus episodes and his interactions with the other characters. I think the only reason I like Akira more at this point is because characters like him tend to be my favorite in a team. Probably because of how fun they tend to be...

Akira is the blue ranger, right? He ended up being my favorite and felt like he was the ranger with the most focus.

Ya he's the blue one. Nice to hear that he's getting more focus episodes later on. I like all of the guys so far but I'm not sure how I feel about the girls. I mean, they're not bad or anything but it feels like they're just kind of there at the moment. They did each get a focus episode, Pink even shared another one with blue, but still...

Just finished Gaoranger last night and I have ambivalent feelings about the show. I really dig the designs of the rangers and their power animals and the rangers themselves are alright but some of their allies kinda felt like assholes at times (GaoDeers and GaoGod) and the power animal snuff at the end felt kinda unnecessary. They could have ended the show right at episode 45 with Yabaiba hilariously failing his last stand against the Gaorangers.

Just saw the first Gokaiger episode out of boredom. I'm certainly happy I did that! Liking Luka and Marvelous a lot so far, and I can't express how much I love the suits and Gokai-Oh.

So I FINALLY finished Cowboy Sentai Shinkenger. I know it took me a while but you have to understand, this show is SUCH a slog to get through. EASILY the WORST Sentai I've seen yet. I feel bad I was so hard on Gingaman.

I don't even want to waste time talking about it because it's just that horrible. I watched the whole series and the only episode I even remember is the one where the Gold Ranger has some kind of sushi duel (???) with a random one-off character the audience is never going to care about, and the only reason I even remember it is because it might just be the single worst episode of Sentai ever made.

It doesn't help that it focuses on such a confusing, poorly written character. As if it wasn't stupid enough to have a sushi chef in a WESTERN, he has a stupid lantern sidekick with the kanji for "samurai" written as visibly as possible on its chest. They never explained where this guy came from (or maybe I just blocked it out because this show is so terrible I want to forget it), but no doubt the only reason he's in the show is to sell tons of stupid gimmicky toys to the snot-nosed brats that watch these things. Sentai is just so garbage nowadays. I remember when it used to get along just fine on quality storytelling, likable characters, and intense action, but lately, I just don't k-

HEY, wait a second! Quality storytelling? Likable characters? Intense action?

THIS IS ALL JUST AN ILLUSION!

http://i.imgur.com/2LcpHhV.jpg

What I'm actually here to talk about is that I've finished Samurai Sentai Shinkenger.

Unfortunately, the words weren't coming to me the way they did with the other Sentai I've watched recently, so I didn't post about it as much as I would've liked to, but make no mistake, this show is a real winner and I enjoyed every second of it.

Just to get the "negatives" out of the way first, it does indeed slouch in the middle. Sort of. The writing quality is just as good, there's tons of great episodes, and like the series as a whole there's a shockingly low amount of filler, with nearly every episode developing or otherwise fleshing the characters out in meaningful ways.

The thing is, the first 12 and the last 12 episodes are essentially pure Sentai perfection, so compared to that, it can come off comparatively... less epic, I guess? I generally prefer my shows to be a constant uphill climb, so this actually did hurt my enthusiasm for Shinkenger just a tiny bit. But hey, even Gekiranger, a show that is nigh flawless, slowed down a little around the time it introduced its extra Rangers, so I can't be too mad at Shinkenger.

Especially not when its high notes are so unbelievably high. Shinkenger has a flair for the dramatic unlike pretty much any Sentai I've seen. It's not that different on the surface but when it wants to create an engaging scene, be it a climactic sword duel, a touching conversation, or whatever else, it puts other shows to shame.

This is due in large part to the main characters being so phenomenal. Shinkenger sacrifices a particularly exciting overarching plot in favor of having extremely fleshed out characters and it works. Between the stellar writing and genuine talent from the actors, the Shinkengers themselves are hands down one of the single most well developed groups in the franchise. They all have layers, they all have growth, nobody feels left out despite the show ultimately being Takeru's story, it's just fantastic. Even Genta, a character I wasn't too warm on initially, managed to win me over big time by the end. They're all presented in a very real, genuine manner that makes them super likable.

Character is definitely where Shinkenger excels, and is THE reason to watch it, along with the action, to a lesser extent. However I don't feel like any of the other elements were bad or anything. The villains are on the average side overall, but I wouldn't say they're anywhere near as boring as guys like the Dethgaliens in Zyuohger. Juuzou and Akumaro pick up a lot of the slack in terms of overarching villains, by being really awesome and actually having plans, respectively, and the weekly monsters tend to have threatening, unique abilities that make for interesting episode plots. I'd also be remiss not to mention how I feel the show does an admirable job of handling the sheer onslaught of merchandise Bandai gave it to shill.

Ultimately I really enjoyed Shinkenger and would put it not too far behind Gekiranger in terms of quality. However, my Kobayashi bias is failing me once again, because despite being an excellent show I would call a must-watch if a good cast is what you're after, I think Gekiranger and Megaranger (especially Megaranger) are my favorites out of all the Sentai I've pounded out lately.

Which brings me to the conclusion of a rather long-winded journey of over half a year at this point, and you know what my one sentence review is this time? I'm sick of Sentai! Okay not really, but I've covered a bunch of shows I've always meant to get around to (and Gingaman), so I think a little break is called for. It's time to give some other shows the attention they deserve. And with that, there's only one thing left to say. Play me out, Takeru!

http://i.imgur.com/0TutU8M.jpg

AFinished 25 episode of Gokaiger. This is probably my favourite team of characters, they all have such loveable qualities. The suits look great, the mechs look great, I've been able to get a bunch of laughs, I've gotten interested in previous seasons, I certainly see why it's been praised so much by the fandom!

Nice to hear good things about Shinkenger. Granted, I hear good things about Shinkenger more often then not but they're still nice to hear. Shinkenger is pretty high on my list of shows to start next but I'm in the middle of Maskman at the moment, and Kamen Rider Black... and *sigh* Juspion, and I try my best to only watch one Sentai at a time so I probably won't be getting to it for at least another month or so. If you haven't seen it already, I cannot recommend Ryukendo enough. Its fun, its silly, and its probably my favorite none-Big Three Tokusatsu.

On a side note, Megaranger FTW!

Shinkenger could be a good show if you haven't seen the best Sentai has to offer it beforehand.

Maskman Episode 18 done. Anyone else find it really strange to go back to these old Tokusatsu and see them go to places like airports and subways and things like that? Not to mention see real life vehicles like cars and stuff? How often do we see things like that in Tokusatsu these day. Come to think of it, when was the last time we saw somebody that wasn't a random civilian driving a car...

I actually find it strange that Sentai does NOT go to those places anymore. It seems like we only see the same five locations these days. Even the gravel pit has seemed to disappear in recent years.

I also miss the summer field trip episodes the shows would do.