The end of an Era.

Man... I- didn't think this would actually be a thing.

Assuming Toei really doesn't have any successor series/followup plans in the works, I'll just say my quick thoughts on it.

Sentai's always been a bit of a comfort show to me. Regardless of whatever drama was happening in the Rider threads, Sentai managed to always be some level of "Fun" no matter what was airing.

While I have no doubt life will just continue to chug along for me, and Gozyuger itself has been pretty entertaining despite this reveal that it's actually gonna be the swan song of the franchise. Seeing it go (if this really is it) does still sting quite a bit.

OFF-TOP: I just learned about Armosaurus, but I was watching the translation of Korean Armored Saurus. I remember suggesting that to change the comparisons with Sentai, we should try adapting something from Chinese or Korean tokusatsu, which is less well-known in the West. Apparently, someone at Disney thinks the same, but decided not to tie their hands to the PR brand.

Something about this rings fishy to me, like perhaps it is one of a few different things (in no particular order):

1. A purposeful fake leak to generate interest. I've wondered for a long time if TOEI ever does this and I've wondered more and more in the past 2-3 years.

2. A misunderstood/misconstrued rumor. Maybe true but not the whole story?

3. Classic Rumour, just people freaking out over numbers.

My reasoning for option 2, which leads me to as larger subject is:

We JUST learned before Zeztz released that they were planning a new initiative to DOUBLE DOWN on toku... Including but not limited to introducing a THIRD SHOW! So we can presume if they were willing to announce it in the works, they had active early production happening on a new sentai, a new rider, and a new 3rd toku, all for eventual international release.

So lets take this forward another step, after that Zeztz releases. Admittedly I do not know how Zeztz is doing, but do we really think that after 8 weeks of Zeztz they are suddenly so terrified about how well Zeztz is doing to that they go through with shooting a Sentai that has to have been nearly ready to shoot, when Sentai has a built in fandom, and a 3rd Toku would not? I just dont see this as rational.

So lets assume the rumour is based in real talk around the office, but is somehow misconstrued, That could be a few different things as well, here a few ideas:

1. Zeztz is actually doing great and they are wondering if they can make more money WITHOUT ASAHI in the future. Numbers-wise, when you think of how the entertainment industry works, people are not loyal to networks, they go where the shows they like are. So maybe they aren't going with Asahi and because of that they are planning to take a short break to put in extra work or to further re-orient the way they work (something they already did, episodes shoot i think 3-4 weeks further ahead of air now, among other changes)

2. The Sentai they had ready just didnt feel right and they postponed filming. This could also figure into the above in various ways, or it could jsut mean they are waiting a few months to release. Its happened with Rider a few times.

Theres plenty of other possibilities but I'll leave it at that. Ultimately, to wrap up, I feel its silly to imagine a company as large as TOEI with a property as rock-solid as Sentai, culturally, will toss it out like trash. At most we go a year or 2 without, and i highly doubt that. Maybe seasons get shorter, Maybe all Toku becomes streaming, but you don't go from a Huge company with 2 of the longest running series of this type and a 3rd baby on the way, to having only 1 Toku series.

Has anyone heard of mass firings at TOEI? 2 series gone (Tell me they cancelled sentai and started a new Toku at the same time and watch me laugh, they'd toss both.) would mean at bare minimum they fired 2 concept artists, 2 lead writers, 2 producers, and everyone under them, along with all the early work on 2 series, and based on the timing, almost certainly toy designs and early props for the next sentai.

Lets just think of all this stuff before we jump to conclusions, does it really make ANY sense?

EDIT: Wanted to add i hadn't read the full thread and I noticed most people are talking about this in terms of Power Rangers and i just think thats a bit short sighted. Power Rangers as a brand doesn't have half the juice that Hasbro thought it did 8-10 years ago, and thats why PR looks the way it does RN, a bunch of fading rumours, new ones fade in as old ones fade out. A few shoddy recent series, a single movie that was supposed to be a franchise, and a bunch of pretty cool comics that nerds love.

TLDR: I don't get the impression anymore that everything TOEI does internationally is as much in the shadow of Power Rangers as it used to be, and i somewhat doubt they think as much about it as people suspect.

IN FACT, Its worth considering that A modern PR show running alongside an internationally released SS might actually INCREASE interest in the Sentai... Since i think most of us here watched at least one PR show before we ever watched Sentai... In the streaming era, you aren't battling for blocks of demographic-rich airtime the way you used to, you are battling for what people do with their limited free time, no matter when that time occurs. If someone likes Sentai, they put on one after another.

they did?

Nope, it's very real from the looks of it. Google "スーパー戦隊 放送終了" and you'll see a good number of Japanese media outlets reporting about this as of the time of this post.
A major reason appears to be due to the income from events, merch, movies, etc. being inadequate to cover the production budget.
Which doesn't surprise me, because Bandai's annual fiscal reports have indicated how toy sales for Super Sentai was diminishing post-Kyoryuger (which did really well domestically among the recent Super Sentai shows toy sales-wise back in 2013) regardless of how well shows may be received by viewers and fans, such as LuPat (which won a Galaxy Monthly Award, not the annual one but still a great feat nonetheless), Donbrothers, and King-Ohger.

As far as I understand, the reason is that toy buyers are currently less interested in robots and vehicles. So a possible rebranding could actually be a return to the company's roots, without the mech battles.

The wiki states that the first episode aired on October 13.

There is some truth to this, I feel, especially in the anime side of things.

This is...certainly unexpected but not exactly suprising. Toy sales have been going down over the years (they really should have made KingOhger's articulation a standard feature among DX toys after seeing how sold out the robots were while the show was airing) and Kamen Rider is definitely the more 'popular' of the two.

If this really is a rebranding, then it would make sense. But if this really is the end of Super Sentai (barring a possible revival in the future ala Kuuga), well, at least we got the masterpiece that was Mirai Sentai Timeranger.

have you all lost your minds!