I don't have my doubts we'll see see the Zyuland before series end. I'm just saying that the amount of possibilities they could explore (Such as having to work to save both earths from the Deathgalians) are just dashed once the portal was closed.

I do hope their animal form appearances are frequent, at the very least.

And in Jetman the year before you did'nt see the heroes combine the planes into the giant mech until ep. 4~5. Characters came first: some of them didn't want to be a Jetman, Ryu has to cope with the loss of his fiancee, then Gai showed up to be hard to manage, and the female commander in charge Odagiri had to deal with all of it and the pressure of the upper brass.

But at the time of these shows the time slot and target demographic were different than those of our modern Sentai.

I just finished watching it. I pretty much agree with a lot of people's opinions. I liked it but it was really rushed. I do wish they spread it out more like with Zyuranger and Jetman (as detailed in the posts above) so it feels like a journey and we're actually getting development on the characters. At least with some of the previous series (I'll use Shinkenger to Ninninger) either the red ranger, everyone except red, or everyone knew how to transform (and in some cases, use their weapons/abilities and their mechs) because they learned/were taught how to before the series. Zyuohger's was out of the blue and suddenly became experts at fighting, using abilities/weapons, and summoning/controlling their mechs.

Also, IMO the transformation/mech announcements are really cringe-worthy. I know it's suppose to fit with the whole jungle/animal theme but every time I heard it, I cringed a lot.

I do hope it gets better but it hasn't left a great first impression on me...

Well, it is less annoying than this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cVlTeIATBs

Also way less annoying than this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeABcIYLYO8

Dairanger did something like this as well. I can't remember if it was the whole team or not, but I remember at least one or two of them joining the team and immediately knowing how to morph and fight.

I'll never, ever get this criticism. Like, have you ever watched a toku show?

The heroes just know how to do all the stuff, pretty much always. It's a trope of the genre.

Is it good, or ideal? No, but it's part of what makes toku unique. And I kinda thought we all learned to accept this 20 years ago when Power Rangers debuted and a bunch of high school kids suddenly became world class super hero martial artists.

I understand enjoying a slower pace in team-building and introducing weapons and skills, but... come on. Like Lucha said, this has been done in Toku shows and even in American superhero comics and shows for decades.

Yeah, it's probably motivated by merchandise to have a near-complete arsenal and some mecha in the first episode, but I won't lament it. I thought that Zyuohger had a surprisingly strong first episode and I'm cautiously optimistic about the series going forward. Will be following it week to week.

I actually think it's great that toku doesn't try to run us through boring, repetitive "and this is how you transform, and this is how you fight, and this is what your weapon is called, and this is your special attack name," expository crap every single year/iteration.

It's like -- they're a sentai team, they know how to do all that crap automatically, let's get to the stuff that matters (i.e. action, character, plot).

I feel it would play to how the series was set up.
With how fast this episode moved, we had a normal zoologist find a portal to another dimension, encounter animal-people (Again), confirm the existence of aliens, and gain super powers.
But since they made sure we got immediately to the action, his reaction ultimately basically boiled down to "Neat."

What if he fumbled with the cube to show he didn't entirely understand it? Perhaps it could've made his first transformation a lucky accident. What if he didn't know how to summon the cube animal? That probably could've been a funny scene.
Instead, "All the crap was cut" to get to mindless action that we'll see for 49 straight episodes anyway.
I think we could've done well to stretch things out a bit.