After giving up the LWW of Magiranger, I find myself with free time and a desire to watch a more modern Sentai. So I decided to pick up Go-Busters starting after the retool. I'd previously gotten just beyond the introduction of Beet and Stag Buster before losing interest. It just became too repetitive.

But holy shit, does this show turn itself around or what? Episodes 28-35 (minus the Gavan crossover, which I skipped cause he was so shit in Gokaiger) are solid gold. It's like the show suddenly becomes a modern take on an 80s Sentai team while still managing to preserve the grounded and "realistic" tone that was always part of its mission statement.

After the events surrounding the Messiah shut down, the characters have gone from naive rookies to hardened professionals -- like the militarized Sentai of yore. The action is more exciting, the giant sized battles are actually integral to the plot, Enter is as awesome as ever, and the tone is straightforward and serious without coming off as grimdark. The show also appears to have found a new sense of adventure. Gone are the endless tower defense battles -- in their place we have some battles with more scope and variety.

In summation: Mane Li-Oh and his theme song... These are glorious things.

I had always enjoyed Go-Busters up till that point. But when the change up started happening, I started to get hyped each week to see a new episode. The new energy was great.

The retool is always talked about in reference to Go-Buster's failure, but it seriously rejuvenated the show in a way I didn't expect. I kind of thought it was going to become a slapstick kiddie show, but it definitely maintains its mission to keep things grounded and "real." Still no posedowns, still no elaborate role calls. It just adds a new sense of adventure.

Hopefully it keeps up the pace.

I'm only just on the Gavan crossover myself, but I can agree that the show seriously sagged after J and Jin were introduced. It was like after they entered the show the show stopped trying. The action was as good as ever, but all of the solid character focus and consistent world building were replaced by the goofball tone of my most hated sentai.

I'm really hoping what you say rings true of my opinion as well - and hey, you lasted on Magiranger longer than me! Didn't you give up during the 'good' part?

Well, I just watched episode 37 of Go-Bus, and it used one of my most hated stock sentai plots -- the "Let's fake a wedding to lure the wedding-themed MOW to us" episode. Ugh. Sure, they did it in a deconstructionist way that comments on how ineffective and stupid that plot is -- but I'm not sure how much that helps.

It's pretty funny how this stock-as-hell episode comes immediately on the heels of my praise for the success of the retool. I still think the retool is successful, but this kind of episode is exactly what I feared we'd be getting more and more of. If it weren't a bit tongue-in-cheek, I'd be more discouraged. Right now, I'm viewing it as an inevitable speed bump.

But even with that stock plot, this episode had some of the most badass mecha action I've ever seen in a non-finale sentai episode. Mane Li-Oh... You are the alpha and the omega. :lol

As far as I'm concerned, there is no "good" part of Magiranger. :lol

Eh, I guess it's a case of different strokes for different blokes. Because once Hikaru and Memmy join the cast the show starts becoming an epic showdown between heaven and hell.

I don't mean to come off as dismissive. There are good things about Magiranger. I just don't like the show's vibe.

After weeks of hearing that the show gets better when Meemy and MagiShine show up, I was disappointed when neither of their introductions really did anything for me.

If I don't care for Meemy and MagiShine, is it safe to say the show isn't for me?

Oh, I wasn't harping on your decision to drop LWW. If it's not doing anything for you you don't have to keep watching.

You must have stopped before the episode where Houka was dressed up as a sexy cavewoman. :p

Mind you, it was a Makito episode so I kinda ended up fastforwarding through most of it, but still... mmm, midriff. :D

Wow, I'm flying through this show. Thanks in large part to the sick days I've taken both today and yesterday.

Finished Go-Bus Mission 41, the one with Pink Buster. Man, that's a fun episode. Things have been pretty great over these past 4 episodes, fun with a hint of sadness always lurking around the edges.

I don't really have the energy to go into depth, but yeah, I'm kinda loving this show now. Kobayashi is executing like a mofo under extreme pressure -- she's such an ice cold pro. It's kind of a bummer that we won't see anything with this tone for a while, what with Sentai's current fixation with all-things-kiddie, but seeing how Kobayashi handles Go-Busters makes me really curious as to how she'll ultimately handle ToQger -- a show with a wildly different mission statement and tone.