I enjoyed finally finishing that show late last year! I do probably prefer Time Force by like a hair but they are so close and there are of course as usual certain characters in both that I prefer in the other! My only criticism of the Timeranger ending was that in a way, it was too dark and sad, whereas Time Force was already pretty dark for Power Rangers standards so perhaps had a slightly better balance but I definitely have times when I'd rather watch Time!

I'm watching Go Busters having ordered it from Brazil.

This was adapted as Beast Morphers. I like Go Busters preferably however.

On another matter I'll watch Oh - Bouken to catch up on DVD through 2021.

Hopefully I can see the new magic themed show soon.

So remember when I said Go-Busters had a reunion on another thread? Tokyo International Film Festival followed it up with a Magiranger reunion panel and Gingaman VS GogoV panel. They only got Ginga Red and Pink's actors but seems like all 5 GogoV members showed up, with Harada who played Shou/Go Green doing it remotely from an RV. Reason being he is currently doing a caravan trip around Japan it seems. Gingaman VS GogoV was hosted by Kazuyoshi Sakai aka Soutaro/Gao Black from Gaoranger and Go-Gamego-Re/Turtle Grongi from Kuuga.

Finished Kaku this morning and am on Oh (King) Ranger. Watching in order. Car Ranger finished so Mega Ranger will be be next.

So according to Bandai's financial highlights Kiramager so far made 2.7 billion Yen in domestic toy sales by the half-year mark. Considering they expected 2.5 billion by the half-year mark I guess things were a little optimistic despite the pandemic. Guess we will have to keep on watching and see if they reach that 5.5 billion Yen goal.

Tokyo International Film Festival has released a Master Class video on the History of Super Sentai.

http://ukiyaseed.weebly.com/ukiyasee...-sentai-series

So Komiya expressed interest in doing a dub of Beast Morphers with her fellow Go-Buster castmates during this year's Tokyo International Film Festival. That is cool and all but I am curious what Hiroya Matsumoto playing Nate, a more calm and gentle tech guy, would feel like considering Jin is more of a flashy and outspoken tech guy. He was also more of a tough guy when he was Tsubasa/Magi Yellow in Magiranger so that would be interesting to see. Or maybe they pull a switcheroo and get Beet J. Stag voice actor Yuichi Nakamura(currently Garza in Kiramager) to do Nate and Hiroya plays the role of Steel. That would be interesting.

Currently watching Oh and have started the Gold Ranger's run. Also for Mega Ranger have gotten to Mega Silver Ranger. When do the Psycho Rangers show up?

I'll finish both in December. Time Ranger may also be finished at that point.

They're only 20 minutes each on my DVDs.

If you just started MegaSilver's debut, you're probably in and around Ep. 24.

The Nejiranger's formal appearance is in and around Ep. 37 or 38!

https://www.grnrngr.com/sentai/series/megaranger

Happy 15th to Boukenger.

To celebrate, I’m sharing this fanart I found on Twitter (and for gashatfreak, be careful for mild spoilers. You have been warned)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Euki1WFV...jpg&name=large

It lacks all of Bouken Red's lucky charms. Truly Kevin Sorbot levels of DISAPPOINTED!!!! :lolol
Other than that love the details put into it.

Some interesting information I’ve discovered.

Gokaiger wa soriginally only meant to have three writers (Arakawa, Komura and Shimoyama), with everyone else coming in after the earthquake.

Jin Hikasa left as Goseiger’s chief producer due to a mix of feeling someone younger should be handling the series and wanting Go-Onger to be his last Sentai work.

Kobayashi wrote ToQger with the intent of it being her last Sentai season.

Arakawa was supposed to write the Gokaiger two-parter in Zyuohger, but he was too busy to do it.

Junpei Yamaoka was chosen as the head writer for Ryusoulger because he was from the same generation as the parents of the kids. He is the youngest head writer for Sentai in the last decade.

Kamen Rider wasn’t allowed to have the same hierarchal structure for its villains that Sentai has to make them different

I rarely have Sentai thoughts, but sometimes I have thoughts like:

What if... Toei randomly decided that one day that a whole Sentai team were mostly girls and then there's only one guy?

It's a never-ever, but it'd be a hilarious set-up. It doesn't even need to be a full series, have it something like a TTFC mini series. Get the otakus in on this, I'm sure they'd love it.

Well Akibaranger does technically have more women than men I suppose! I don't actually think it's that bad to have casts of either equal men and women or more women than men on TV as opposed to most well-known countries media you tend to see shows that are either just mostly men, or all women, and sometimes I just don't want to see gender differences emphasised by the media like, non-stop.

I think these things are highlighted currently because they are unusual, because for so long the narrative of cinema and entertainment has assumed men to be the default audience.

Oh, tomos, you must hate it whenever you see I've replied to you, I'm so sorry. I'm not digging at you personally, we just both seem to be preoccupied with the same issues.

May I perhaps interest sir in some Girls x Heroine? :p

I know, I know, not exactly sentai, but simplistic as these shows often are, there's a lot of joy to be found in them too!

*bangs mug on table* One of us! One of us!

"Not even a full series, draws in the otakus, has more girls than guys" is exactly what Akibaranger is

Oh, right! How could I have forgotten?! Short-sighted memory is pain. But what I had in mind was a larger cast something akin to to 6-member team lmao. I didn't bring this kind of thought because of notions Sentai being for what it is, it's just a for amusing thought not too dissimilar to anime shows where there's this one dude and a whole bunch of girls. Except this is a Sentai team and not all of the girls have to be fawning over the dude. Plus points if the dude is pink sentai member.

They're not wearing helmets or masks! You've failed me yet again, Dreamcaster.

But I suppose I'm already on the door with Girl Gun Lady and unintentionally watching Precure every week.

It's on the list.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EcHyybwVAAAsDfE.jpg

HAHAH! *sends you cut-out pictures of small sentai helmets to stick onto your TV*

Honestly though, this stuff is really good, Phantomirage is probably my favourite of the shows, and I wouldn't have even known it existed had it not been for Genm bringing it to my attention. But now here we are, and I stand in front of my computer every morning trying to learn the dance routines of each of their henshin sequences. This is my life now.

Yeah, I recall Arakawa specifically asked Inoue to write the Jetman tribute episode. Which is super fitting since Jetman was the first Sentai Arakawa wrote on.

To add more detail to this, he was working on three different anime shows throughout 2016. I'm amazed he even had time to write 5 episodes of Zyuohger.

Does anyone know if Shirakura really said that the mindset behind creating Zenkaiger was that they want to create a show that felt like unintelligent people were making it?

Updated sales chart

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...5yfgx5jy61.png

Kiramager was sooo good. It might just be my #1 Sentai of the ones I've watched (which honestly isn't even half). I hope its legacy as a quality series outlasts its sales reputation.

Yeah, I loved Kiramager a lot; top 3 series for me (though it probably won't be for long if Zenkaiger continues being this good). I will be very sad if this is its main legacy.

Personally I'm starting to feel like the main reason behind Sentai doing badly recently isn't down to any individual series' faults (though there's certainly been some odd toyline decisions in each of the past 3 lines), but that Sentai probably isn't that popular anymore. I mean, like... when it's been on the decline for over half a decade now, and even ninjas and robot dinosaurs don't work, I don't think doing this badly so many years in a row can be put down to faults of individual series alone.

It also probably makes sense that Sentai's post-Toqger toy sales decline does coincide with Ultraman coming back and Kamen Rider's sales absolutely exploding...

I just want to chime in with the Kiramager love. I really enjoyed it, the first show in a long time I have really liked, but I feel the toys were definitely kind of hit and miss. Was the Yodon Changer ever realised as a toy? I don't recall seeing mention of that. I am a sucker, I would probably have picked that up if I'd known about it.

Oh, i just answered my own question and found it on ebay and saw the price... so that's why I've never looked into buy it, I guess, lol.

Yeah, the Yodon Changer was a Premium Bandai 'dark' recolour of Kiramai Silver's changer; hence why you won't have seen it with normal toy news. Mandarake has quite a few of them at around 6000 Yen if you want one

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/...amager&lang=en

Only as a P-Bandai item that came out as the show was ending.

Oh, this completely passed me by!

THANK YOU SO MUCH! I just ordered one. I always get nervous about how sites like Mandrake calculate shipping after, but, well, I guess I'm in for the long haul with this Yodonna business.

The massive sales drop Gekiranger took always disappoints me.

I’m not that shocked. The show barely used its auxiliary mecha and despite having 2 torsos with 5 legs between them, they only ever used the same two legs in every fight. And then there’s the focus on the GekiHammer and GekiFan, neither of which had toys, over the GekiSaber, which did. Plus since there were only two basic weapons, one of which was Red-only, it made it hard for any kids who weren’t insane enough to by two GekiTonfas short handed when it came to doing group role play sessions. (Whereas with Boukenger, they could use the Dual Crusher and SurviBuster to make up for the lack of girls’ weapons)

I feel they deliberately scaled back the Kiramager toyline, since there wasn't a gimmick and they didn't try to incorporate any combination feature with all the mechas. I had seen an interview somewhere that this lack of giant combination with all the mechas was something they wanted to rectify in Zenkaiger

As for the sales, should we consider the goals Bandai has for the Sentai line? Sales are down but maybe Bandai might start to scale back even more on production costs and their expectations for the brand. Ultraman sales have apperently exploded compared to past years, maybe now Ultraman is part of their A-Line and Sentai gets relegated.

Just some thoughts

While the lack of the hammer and fan as deluxe toys did it no favors, I don't think 2 non primary weapons would result in a 3 billion drop.
The fewer deluxe mecha with weaker connectivity was also a likely cause. I just feel the drop was incredibly drastic, especially when put against the more casual decline.

Like, when looking at it, it looks less like "Weaker sales due to less product" and more "Abject failure."

I think also far too much weight is put on the show in regards to the success of the toyline... like, it obviously matters, but a lot of it will come from the kids thinking that robot looks cool or their grandparents thinking they'll like it for christmas, you know? The success of these toys lies mostly on their merit as toys with their use in the show only being one of many factors. Maybe the other toylines that year were far more interesting to kids, or Gekitohja didn't look that cool, or martial arts wasn't as grabbing a theme as magic or cars.

Like I said elsewhere, LuPat did show us that low sales does not always equal to the story's quality or success as it got an award for its narrative. That said Kiramager as a show was good despite making only 4.5 billion on domestic toy sales alone. Sucks it did not do well but then again, I guess we do have to thank its failure for giving us the wackiest milestone team ever so far in the form of Zenkaiger. :lolol

Only just noticed this. I don't know if Shirakura said this about Zenkaiger, but according to Wikipedia, he has made basically that exact statement about Den-O before.

Considering Zenkaiger's style, though, I'd have to imagine the same attitude applies in spirit, even if it hasn't been said out loud. :lol

I'm finishing Mega Ranger on Wed. this week.

From Saban Era I that means I'm left with Oh , Galaxy Man - Time Ranger.

I'm at present watching the shows Go Busters forward through Kira Mage.

I'm thinking with Hasbro maybe not adapting after Dino Fury this year I've switched over.

Here's what also lead to that decision.

We had the one year skip after RPM which would have given us Samurai in 2010. Gosei and Gokai were a disaster
due to the hybrid thing. (Gosei as Part 1 and Gokai as Part 2)

On top of that we lost out on 8 series worth of possible shows for Power Rangers due to Nick.

The 8 show loss was what mainly lead me to switching over.

I've seen Geki - Gokai recently which was a big part of why I got out of Power Rangers.

I'm nearly finished with Go Busters at the moment. (Hasbro decided to adapt this)

Once I clear Go Busters I'll run into the problems I talked about - See skipped show list below -

To Quger
Zyu Oh
Kyu Ranger
Lu Pat

Focusing on the homepage may offer some insight:

"Power Rangers is being worked on now with a creative steward and a big streaming partner. We haven’t brought that to an announcement stage yet. – Darren Throop, CEO eOne

Hasbro had previously mentioned that future Power Rangers entertainment would be coming via streaming and more adult-focused, as well as maintaining an offering for kids as well."

An adult-focused show probably doesn't bode well in terms of adaptation. As much as I want to see adaptations continue, there is a possibility that we may see a pause at the very least.

Looking at what Hasbro has done with Transformers and taking Power Rangers history into account, I would speculate that live-action adult-oriented material will be paired with something animated for kids.

The main question is continuity, as two different directions could imply that one or both will clean house and start anew. Hasbro doesn't hesitate to release another G1-inspired Transformers continuity, so it wouldn't be shocking to see them do the same with Power Rangers!

I feel as though they'll experiment and see if that doesn't establish renewed interest in the franchise. If it's a less-than-stellar result, they may switch back to adaptations to save face. Looking at Transformers again, I think about how Hasbro used Car Robots as RID in 2001 to give them and Takara time to produce Armada/Micron Densetsu. I view this as indicative of their approach to Power Rangers as they can use another Sentai adaptation as a buffer to give them time to develop something original. If they're current intentions for original content are a failure, they may use Sentai again to bridge the gap while they again develop something original.

I'm afraid that Hasbro is operating under "Comics Industry in The '90s" logic in which they throw anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks!

Another kicker in the deal is how this works for Sentai Distribution in the West, especially if Hasbro isn't adapting Sentai! Would Hasbro still retain distribution rights or would those go lax and become open-ended? Part of me wonders if one of the reasons Hasbro is staying silent is because they're deadlocked in negotiations regarding this matter. They may have thought owning Power Rangers would be the same as Transformers, cause while Hasbro has it in the West, it's Takara-Tomy in Japan. They may have thought a partnership with Toei wouldn't be all that different, only to realize long after that it's more complicated and nuanced than they anticipated.

I don't see a permanent end to adaptations, just a pause or hiatus. That being said, I also don't see Hasbro or Toei being entirely forthcoming on the matter given both have a tendency to operate under tight-lipped obstinacy!

There was recently a poll in Japan which ranked the popularity of the first 33 Sentai series by decade. First off is the 70s/80s.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3D8ZhfX...pg&name=medium


1. Gorenger
2. Sun Vulcan
3. Liveman
4. Denziman
5. Bioman
6. Changeman
7. Dynaman
8. Battle Fever
9. Turboranger
10. Goggle V
11. Flashman
12. Maskman
13. JAKQ

And then the 90s.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3D89-uX...name=4096x4096


1. Kakuranger
2. GoGoV
3. Dairanger
4. Carranger
5. Jetman
6. Megaranger
7. Zyuranger
8. Gingaman
9. Fiveman
10. Ohranger

And finally, the noughties.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3D8_smX...name=4096x4096

1. Dekaranger
2. Shinkenger
3. Timeranger
4. Magiranger
5. Boukenger
6. Gaoranger
7. Go-Onger
8. Hurricaneger
9. Gekiranger
10. Abaranger

Hurricaneger and Battle Fever being so low is really surprising to me; Zyuranger too a little.

On the other hand, Goranger, Dekaranger and Liveman are so deeply unsurprising :lol

In my opinion:

- Changeman is the best Super Sentai series in Showa Era
- Timeranger is the best Super Sentai series in Heisei Era

Look forward to Dekarangers Twenty Years After, probably!