Did you, per chance, post on reddit asking which series to watch? Because the person I'm thinking of started with Shinkenger, and was interested in both Gekiranger and Dairanger.

Jetman was enjoyable to watch through, but I personally felt that the constant bickering between both the Jetmen and Vyram got tiresome. That isn't to say it isn't a great series though, it's definitely worth checking out. Also look into Liveman. I just started it and love it so far, and lots of people say it's the best series of the 80s.

Also, other people post up their reviews of Sentai, so you should be fine. However, I'm not an expert on the rules here, nor am I any sort of authority figure on this site, so don't take my word as law.

Yep! That was me on Reddit! I posted similar greetings there and on a few forums (like here), because I really wanted to dive in with both feet to my new fascination with Super Sentai and sought as much input as possible. I did go ahead and start Gekiranger and Dairanger after Shinkenger. Bought the Shout! Media DVDs of Dairanger around two weeks ago.

I'm a little leery of going into the 80s, since I know it would represent a downgrade in special effects, and maybe also action and storytelling. I have no doubts that several of the 80s shows are good and have great characters, but... yeah I guess I'm just a little distrustful. I'll track down the first few episodes of Liveman and decide if it's for me.

I watched Gaoranger and let me tell you, It's all about GaoSilver

I can't really comment on the quality of 80's Sentai as I've only seen 2, Sun Vulcan and Liveman, and good god is Sun Vulcan a chore. So my opinion on 80's series is a solid 50/50 on good and bad.
Jetman is a decent series, but a lot of it's praises stem from about 7 episodes of it's 50 episode run, so keep that in mind.

I felt the same way about 80s Sentai, but once I watched the first two episodes of Liveman, that all changed. There's slightly less going on, and the effects aren't as good, but it's still definitely worth watching. It's also from 1988-1989, so only three years prior to Jetman and five prior to Dairanger, meaning it isn't THAT big of a drop in quality. In fact, i'd say it's only slightly below Jetman in terms of effects, and about on par or a little better in terms of story. The image quality isn't that great.

It also has one of my favorite mech designs

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20140603023212

Give it a try whenever you feel like it and let me know what you think. I personally prefer old school Sentai to new school Sentai, so I hope you enjoy it, but if you don't I can't blame you.

The dynamic between Vyram and Jetman is literally my favorite part of that show, so obviously YMMV.

The special effects aren't really that much of a downgrade. I'd say that for the most part, special effect quality is pretty consistent from the early-80s through the mid-90s. There is a technological leap in the late-90s, but...

A lot of the 80s shows are actually going to look better than the late-90s/early-00s shows. This is because the 80s series were mastered to 16mm film, while the late-90s/early-00s shows were mastered to extremely poor quality analog SD video tapes. Since you can get much higher "resolution" from 16mm film than the SD video of the late-90s, Toei had access to superior-quality sources for their DVD releases of the late-70s-through-early-90s shows. Because it was drawn from film, the DVD release of Maskman looks infinitely better than that of Megaranger, which-- despite being more modern and having better special effects-- was drawn from analog SD video. (The exceptions to this are Gorenja and Jetman, but that situation is more complicated than I'd like to get into right now.)

As far as storytelling goes, from what I've seen of the 80s shows, there is a bit of a difference. The characters and stories are a bit more simplistic in the 80s, but unexpectedly, they're also darker, more violent, and less overtly childish. This has to do with the timeslot for the show being in the evenings back in the day, so the content was geared more toward the whole family, not just children. Today, Sentai's timeslot is Sunday mornings, so the content is targeted more directly at children; however, the storytelling is more varied and sophisticated. (Of course, I'm generalizing, there are exceptions to all of this.)

As for action? The martial arts fights of the 80s are more brutal and intense. The 80s choreography is not quite as reliant on wire-work, so things are a bit more impactful and less fanciful. Comparing Changeman's fights to Kyoryuger's is kind of like comparing Sonny Chiba's The Streetfighter to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Both are awesome, but they're pretty different stylistically.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is, all eras of sentai have their merits. If you can overlook the age-related flaws of 90s sentai, I don't think it'd be a stretch to get into the stuff that came before.

1980's Sentai may look kinda weird at first, but they actually can be very good. I definitely recommend Changeman, Flashman and Turboranger, as they have strong story telling elements and are great sentai in general. Maskman and Liveman also seem to be pretty good too.

Turboranger is from 1990, not the 80s.

Turboranger wss 1989. Fiveman is from 1990.

Ahhh my mistake.