I must admit, I was impressed by the idea that you could connect the robots into any formation. Thinking back to when I was a kid, I know that I would loved that kind of flexibility with the toys I had.

I've heard rumours that sentai was doing badly in the toy sales department, which, to me is crazy, because it feels that every year Toei is pushing the Rider shows to ape the sentai formula more and more. Whenever I have been seen all the toys in shops, I've always been impressed with them so I would never have know that they were underperforming so.

Hasbro and Bandai have also been rivals in the toy market for ages, so Hasbro importing Bandai toys is something that will never happen regardless.

Let's put it this way, the last show that meet expectations in the sales department was Koryuger, which was around 7 years ago. Ever since the sales have been shrinking and not been meeting expectations. In the last three years, it has gotten so bad that Sabers first quarter, one of the weakest in the last decade, probably because of the pandemic, has made more than those series in their entire run. And Kiramaiger has only brought in about 1/3 of Koryuger's earnings.

There's no way of sugarcoating it, Sentai's dying.

And I wouldn't really say Rider is becoming that much more Sentai like. Or at least, only on a superfical level.

I remember some of the original Transformers line being pulled from Bandai properties, but I guess that's so old as to not be relevant in this situation. I still can't help but think that it seems like a considerable investment of resources and money, but I understand that I'm not privy to the full extent of information to really make a judgement on that.

Gosh, this is some really sad news. It makes me feel that I should buy some Kiramager toys (though, of course, I'm not, that stuff is expensive, she said, cradling pointless idol merchandise that she paid far too much money for).

It surprises me that things are going so badly for them. I guess I always assumed that the brand was too big to fail. Certainly, whenever I see the stuff in toy shops, there's so much of it that I assume it must be doing well, whereas, by comparison, smaller toku franchises like the Girls x Heroine stuff take up far less space on shelves and have far fewer lines, which I personally think is sad, but that's me.

I mean, we each have different opinions, but if you'd shown me that first episode of Saber without the credits and asked me what it was, I would told you with the utmost conviction that it was a new sentai show.

I mean, I don't think it's dying. Its sales have phenomenally dropped, sure, drastically so compared to both its former glory and Rider... but that's still a lot better than many, many other toy franchises around it; including Ultra. I doubt Sentai's actually going away any time soon, it just has to scale back what it does and what it sells.

I can give you the numbers so you can look at it in context.

https://www.reddit.com/r/supersentai...ith_kiramager/

https://www.reddit.com/r/KamenRider/...ed_with_saber/

I actually think the "Too big to fail" argument is kinda a reason why it's dying. A fail to modernize, change with the time. Which kinda leads into the "Rider is becoming more like Sentai" thing. Riders is a franchise that's far more willing to try something new out. Which helps that the only thing that really needs to be followed for a Rider show is the "Cross of Fire" concept and the 3 major design concepts of Rider, big, bug-like eyes, a gem or object on the forehead, for example, Saber mostly uses the swords for that and a horn or something standing up from the head.

I personally think it's very similar to Ex-Aid's first episode, with a newbie gaining the power of a Driver, while having an unknown connection to the threat with a fight and victory against the first monster which also grows giant during the fight. Minus the mook fight in Ex-Aid and the order of the monster growing giant, the two episodes are very similar.

Gosh, those are some sobering figures. Thank you for sharing though, it's fascinating to be able to peak behind the curtain!

I won't say you're wrong, because I imagine this adequately describes a lot of the Heisei era's approach to aesthetics and reasonings, but please note that I making a sour expression about the issue of what constitutes the key themes of a Rider show and its design, lol.

Again, my impressions are somewhat back-to-front, leading to perhaps the accusation that I have not made it to the Heisei era yet, let alone the Reiwa, as I always believed that sentai was a lot more freeform in its formula, whereas Rider was the show that required a specific alignment of concepts to work.

I've never seen Ex-Aid, I'm afraid, save for in passing, so I can't comment on the similarity.

I think a smaller scope would be good. I'd love to see a more affordable, smaller mech/figure line, to be honest—not gacha stuff, but something a bit more detailed.

You know guys those rumors in the fandom say this time We don't like to talk a Japanese culture what has this kinds of problems in hard times it does not make sense to me.

You know guys those rumors you say at the fandom we don't like to talk to a Japanese culture like Sentai what has these kinds of problems in this hard it does not make sense to me.

I don't understand what you're saying, sorry.