Decline in Ratings for Super Sentai
 

So I was just browsing through the wikia page for Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger when I happened upon this statement:
"With an average rating of 3.9%, Kyoryuger has the worst viewing figures in the history of the Super Sentai franchise."
I was not surprised that Super Sentai in general was decreasing in ratings but quite surprised that Kyoryuger had the lowest ratings, even beating out Ohranger's low ratings. What do you guys think is the reason behind Kyoryuger's low, low ratings? (Still love this Sentai regardless)

Overly simplistic mecha design?
*Shrugs*
Petty reasons have been the downfall for some programs.

I wonder if it has to do with Daigo's character or something... Or I could be way off on that...

Well, he didn't help. He was completely unrelatable to audiences by being literally perfect, bolstered that there was no one for a child in the audience to project themselves onto, outside of maybe Souji...

Daigo was alright to me besides that fact you just pointed out that he was too perfect. My favorite character had to be Amy(not just because she was pretty) since she embodied that strong, independent girl among a team of guys who could take care of themselves, well until Yayoi and Yuko joined. Kinda disliked the fact she was whittled down to Daigo's girlfriend but I still found that moment to be very cute.

Yayoi was so far from "Strong" and "Independent" that it's insulting to Amy to lump them together. Yayoi was literally defined by her inability to stand alone. :lol

Anyway, there's probably a large reason for Kyoryu's poor ratings that we're missing. Hell, it might just have to do with being Go-Buster's follow up...

Oh haha I meant that she was the only female member until Yayoi showed up. I didn't mean to lump them together, I knew that Yayoi wasn't the independent type anyways.

Hmm yeah that could be it... I'm kinda expecting ToQger to have low ratings too despite that I'm really enjoying it.

Ratings may be down but toy sales were at an all time high.

But ratings were still down. Why?
If toy sales were up, then it can't be a decline in interest in Sentai, so what happened that caused kids to tune out?

Well another thread here on Tokunation, addressing Kyoryuger's rating back in April 2013 was talking about the fact that the ratings don't account for DVR recordings and such they are slightly inaccurate(I mean most kids don't wake up that early to watch Sentai in Japan I believe).

I don't think ratings are a good indicator of viewership these days. People record shows, they watch it online, etc. This downward trend has been ongoing since Shinkenger, and not even Gokaiger really caused that big a boost in viewership. So it's not really surprising that Kyoryuger drops further, and I guess ToQger will as well.

If you look at the numbers, the decline in ratings for Sentai are consistent with ratings decline in all Japanese TV. Ratings also don't take into account DVR or online viewership.

The numbers seem more alarming than they are.

Yeah I agree and I think Toy sales are the important factor. I mean I barely watch any shows live anymore myself.

Actually, this development is only natural looking at Japan's demographic as well. Japan has an extremely low fertility rate these last years, so there are less children and it's pretty obvious that less children also means less people who watch children's TV shows (I think the ratings for Kamen Rider also dropped, but not as much). Broadcasting a show at 7:30 in the mornig automatically gets you a much younger audience, because most older fans tend to sleep longer- also, these days, it's fairly easy to watch the shows online or get the DVDs, so basically, you don't even have to watch the broadcast live.
The toy sales, however, were fairly good with Kyoryuger, which means Toei will want to keep the show- if the ratings keep on dropping, Asahi might have to consider a new slot to broadcast the show. It could be moved back to evenings, like in the 90s, when families watch together- might be worth a try.

Toei doesn't care about rating as long as the toys have high sales, which is what they did with Kyoryuger.

Secondly, the ratings do not account for people who watch them via DVR or streaming.

Now if they were to move the show back to evenings, we might get another age of more mature Sentai series again like we had in the late 80s and 90s.

I wouldn't be surprised if that happened but then it would be less kid friendly again as the sentai airing at the end of the 80s & during the whole of the 90s didn't really have that many kid friendly things in them but then again the majority of popularity of shows comes from product sales these days.

And as long as you have good toy sales, it's all good. Well at least that's what Toei goes by.

Actually the only one that is happy with good toy sales alone is bandai.

Yes people take the ratings far too seriously some times but the thing is though when nobody would watch sentai why keep a show on the air nobody watches.
Keeping Sentai alive costs a ton of money for both toei and tv asahi so when the ratings drop so low that its not feasible for them to produce sentai anymore they will stop and it would pretty much become a toy only brand.

Ohranger had (and I think still has) the best toysales in sentai history and carranger also had pretty good toy sales. Still Toei and Asahi moved sentai to another timeslot because of bad ratings so they do matter. Sentai will probably not be cancelled as long as the series average is around the 3% mark and they would rather try another timeslot before they cancel the show completely.

I think that the decrease in ratings has to do with why the ToQger designs look more lazily done than these past grew years of sentai.

I mean if ratings go down, why should Toei continue putting in a lot of money into a show, when they can just spend less.

Now I love love love ToQger, but you have to take this into consideration.

Why would you think they were "lazy" when they designed the suits?

Just because they are extremely basic doesnt mean the people who designed them didnt put effort into them.

Its safe to assume they are delibaretely basic so they could prodcue tons of them to make the color change gimmick work.

I think the ratings may drop down over the years since people could have grown tried of Sentai. From what I've seen that kids still love Sentai while the older fans stop caring years ago. Kamen Rider is doing better in ratings could be that Kamen Rider always been known to be more popular then Sentai.

Actually yeah, it kind of does in a way.

I mean, the suits just lack any and all form or flare. They're disjointed, with comparatively complex visors on simple helmets which due to the track piece all look WAY the hell too-samey aside from Red. The actual costume is bare-bones, lacking even a simple ring above the boots and gloves. The track detail on the chest is so minimal and stops halfway on the torso, as well as just being uninspried.

I mean, I hated the Kyouryuger suits, but you can tell they tried. There's a lot of different things working together on those suits. Basic can work, see Zeo or Time Force, but this just doesn't. There's no cohesiveness on the ToQger suits.

I actually appreciated the core Kyoryuger suits a lot, the overkill came in all the spare rangers. At first the Kyoryuger suits seem busy...almost complex, until you see those extra rangers and realise they're all just a big block of colour with a few basic trimmings, hell the changes to the helmet design from ranger to ranger is so minimal it's barely even noticeable. As the role call grew bigger, the more the individual rangers seemed to disappear.

The fact that ToQ appears to be doing that deliberately, feels like a grab of desperation but then if anything this thread might be a decent wakeup call to the franchises mortality. Is it possible that Sentai is running out of ideas? Maybe, I mean how'd you keep something fresh when it's gone on this long? By the end of our lifetimes, is it possible that sentai shows could no longer exist and it simply becomes a toy only line? This actually seems like it might well be a reality.

Ya I agree with you, Sentai might not even live to the 50th anniversary for all we know. Now Rider might also follow this path but not soon.

Sentai could do so much more if it just moved out of it's comfort zone. Sentai suits have way more of a "standard" then, say, Rider suits.

Compare red rangers over the years, and you can see there's a general theme they rarely depart from. Now compare, say, Gaim to Kuuga. Holy shit, are they even the same thing? Hell, at one point KR ahd a rider who was two different colours split down the center. Kamen Rider seems incapable of runnign out of ideas, as it's had so many unique series and hasn't even done "popular" stuff yet. Sentai has done Dinosaurs THREE times, Kamen Rider had a single suit in a single series that was dino-themed.

What's stopping them from really doing something different? They don't need to be more complex, just, I don't know, change it up? If they've got those ridiculous track pieces on the helmets, why can't they, like, do something besides put them over the visor?

It just seems like being "basic" or running out of ideas isn't the problem. It's the lack of creativity or ambition.

Rider seems to be doing better simply on the principle of its perceived edginess with the audience. Japan sees sentai as a more child focused show, whereas with Rider they see it as much more of a cross platform thing, that even adults can openly appreciate. It's sorta like how everyone is a fan of Batman, even if comics are seen as a platform for kids.

Whether this is actually true, is a personal thing, despite both being toku they are two very different shows that still manage to tackle very similar things. And we saw what happened when sentai tried to be more like Kamen Rider so who knows.

Ambition is part of my appreciation for Rider, and why I love it over sentai. When you hear 'fruit gimmick' for Gaim you roll your eyes and then suddenly there are like monsters, and samurais and knights and all this epic shit happens and it's just like DAMN. When it comes to a sentai, it seems to go for much more obvious themes and you pretty much know entirely what you're going to get, perhaps that is why it's hard to get excited for sentai, where something like 'trains' feels comparatively fresh, TRAINS.

I'd be really interested to see sentai tackle rings, switches, coins or USB sticks, just to see if they can create a show as similarly inspired as Rider did, from a seemingly uninspired gimmick.

Wait, which was that?

Also, I'm not saying the themes or anything need to be similar, I'm just saying if Kamen Rider can take and orange and make one of the coolest suits in the franchise, why is Sentai taking a train and making one of the worst?

Go-Busters.

Also, we actually posted at exactly the same moment, so my post wasn't actually in response to yours but the one above it, I have since rewritten my post to respond to you also.

Here's the ToQgers without their tracks.


http://http://s1329.photobucket.com/...18d83.jpg.html

:lol We're on the same WAVE-LENGTH.

And yeah, I mean just compare the mentality. Kamen Rider did trains once, and look how unique they took it. Meanwhile ToQger is like "trains? Slap a train track on the helmet and chest, it's almost lunch."

Those aren't tracks on the chest, they're those crossing cajiggers, I think.

Right but you get my point, though? Instead tryign somethign new, they take just a generic ranger form and slap train details over it.

Sentai wasn't always like this. Dekaranger/SPD had AWESOME implementations of the motif.

Yeah, I do see where you're coming from, but for me, I'll just enjoy the bright men jumping around and shooting explosions.
Also, and I know you don't think this way, I do let their simplicity slide because of the color changing.

Before the tracks came on. I wonder if the image will show.

[URL]http://http://s1329.photobucket.com/...18d83.jpg.html[URL/]