What do you like about Gokaiger?
 

I’ve been on Twitter a lot lately and a few days ago I came across an interesting post. He guy wanted to know WHAT exactly was so great about Gokaiger, WITHOUT mentions the returning actors or the tribute episodes. As someone who’s never seen Gokaiger as anything spectacular or worthy of the provided hype, I’m interested in seeing what you have to say on the matter. The same rules he set apply, so you can’t say it’s the legends or the tributes.

The fact that it can function well as a standalone series. The biggest example would be episode 4 where it is the start of the non-tribute episode. It simply focused on GokaiBlue, and it worked very well.

There's also the fact that the cast are highly charismatic, iconic, lovable, and written well. While not all of the Gokaiger receives the equal amount of focus, at the very least each and everyone of the entire team has an arc, something that is seldom seen in series after Gokaiger except Go-Busters. Because the biggest criticism of Sentai especially lately is that either they focused on Red too much, or the entire team is underdeveloped.

The characters being written well is why I have hopes for Kiramager and so far they are leaning to that. And charismatic teams are pretty rare too, the last I remember was either the LuPat (still heavily focused on Red, or rather LupinRanger which we all know), and Kyoryuger (no need to say about this one).

I'm not sure exactly what this proves, since asking "What's great about Gokaiger besides the tributes?" is kind of like asking "What's so great about Super Sentai besides the heroes in colorful spandex fighting monsters?", but there was definitely plenty to love about Gokaiger besides that.

There are people who love Gokaiger way, WAY more than me, who remember it way, WAY better, and could answer this question more thoroughly, but the obvious thing that jumps out at me is the main cast, who were generally extremely likable. Captain Marvelous in particular is a huge favorite for many on account of what an absolute role-model he wasn't, making him a completely unique style of Red.

Hopefully that gets the ball rolling. I don't remember well enough to say, but I'm pretty sure some of those episodes not relating to tributes were pretty dang great in their own right, too. Is it better than every other Sentai ever? Probably not, but what Sentai is?

If the purpose of that question is to accuse Gokaiger of relying on people's existing knowledge of old shows to be good, like it's just cheap fanservice, I'm going to have to fundamentally disagree, though. One of the things that makes the tributes so great in the first place is how they still work entirely on their own merits, because they still had to be written for a target audience too young to be familiar with everything being referenced. If you deny Gokaiger that, you might as well deny Shinkenger its excellent characterization, or Gekiranger its stellar plotting. If you ignore the central core of what makes a show work, then of course it won't look great.

Yeah I'd like to add that when Naruhisa Arakawa writes Gokaiger, it really does seem like he watched the previous Super Sentai to understand them better so he can craft a fitting tribute as well as continuation/epilogue. This can be seen in Super Sentai Strongest Battle, where he respect each and every Sentai Ranger that he didn't write, and wrote them as if they came right out of their respective shows, and some even redeem themselves a bit (Takaharu)!

It's important because we all complained about how Rider crossovers/tribute always screw the continuity or writes the characters differently that they seem a bit out of character for the sake of the plot (Taisen movies). Sentai may not be as popular especially these days, but crossovers are their strongest strength.

Pretty much this!! While they're far from extremely deep characters and can at times stick closely to their tropes, the Gokaiger crew is just full of personality and it was a joy watching every single one.

And, if I may; it's frankly why the legacy stuff works so well. I won't brush it over as if it's some superficial element -- in a lesser series, that would absolutely be true. But this was my very first Sentai series. Beyond little pieces of information I'd heard here and there and a generalised idea of their PR counterparts, I knew jack all about any of the past 34 sentai teams. But what makes it work so well is the passion the creative team puts into it; the abundance of care into making everything work, and most importantly, how the Gokaigers interact with it and how it acts as catalysts for them.

For instance, the Shinkenger tribute; yes, it's naturally about Shinkenger. You've got Princess Shinken Red and Tanba returning, the aesthetics and musical beats are faithful reproductions, and Gokaioh gets a wholeass powerup that makes it look like Shinkenoh. Awesome. Great Shinkenger tribute.

... But it's not just a Shinkenger tribute; it's used as a framing device to tell a story about Gokai Blue. The two episodes in question here heavily delve into his backstory; lead to a revelation about one of the villains; and has him learning to trust his teammates and strengthen his bonds with them. It's a 2-parter that's very high on emotion and is the cornerstone of Joe's development. And it might not have worked quite as well if we didn't have Princess Shinken Red working as a one-time foil and granting Joe both validation and the power needed to vanquish the monster of the week.

So that's what I'd offer. Everyone focuses on how great the tributes are, and yes, they're pretty great; but what people often fail to mention is how those tributes don't just simultaneously play alongside Gokaiger's own stuff, but is used to bolster Gokaiger's own stuff in a way that feels authentic.


And there's so much more I could go into about that: about how the Gokaigers being aliens who don't know about Super Sentai means that their learning about them and using their powers slowly leads to them embracing their best selves; about how the Gokaigers have their own independent power; about how the anniversary aspects are as much about looking to the future as they are about revering the past. Ultimately Gokaiger is a very fun, emotionally-high series that uses its anniversary status to its advantage every chance it can get.

Gaaaah of course Fish ninja's me with like half my point while I'm writing!

Well, heck with it, I'm glad he did because he put into words certain stuff I couldn't. Yay!

Oh, I would like to add another too, is that Gokaiger is strangely a very good gateway to Sentai as a whole. I feel like this is what anniversary season should be: Celebrating the past but also attract new viewers so they can be new fans. Even Kamen Rider Decade technically succeeds on this aspect.

Because while Gokaiger is not the first Sentai I watched, it's the first full season of Sentai I watched weekly.

When you think about it, every time the Gokaigers meet the Legends, the Gokaigers are basically us, the viewers, learning about that particular Sentai.

Pretty much! Beyond even that, Gokaiger was my gateway into Tokusatsu as a whole, and so it's a very special season to me even if other Sentais have since eclipsed it as my favourite. It introduced me to this vast world of incredible stories and loveable characters and... well, yeah. There's a reason people recommend this one as a first Sentai all the time! It's damn good at it!

If I had to narrow it down to non-tribute stuff I can still think of at least two major elements.

The big one is that I love the characters. I thought the main cast were really dynamic and distinct with well-developed personalities. I especially liked that, on the whole, they mostly weren't very heroic. They were a crew of self-interested assholes and well-meaning screw-ups. Marvelous, in particular, was a fantastic example of a great chaotic good hero: he'll do the right thing if it suits his personal interests, and even if it doesn't he'll still try to convince you that it does. I'm a lot colder on Gai because I find the fanboy angle kind of annoying, but he still had his moments.

I also really loved the action scenes. The show did a great job of choreographing dynamic fight scenes where each character, again, felt like they had a distinct personality and style. I never got tired of seeing Luka go full God of War on mook waves while Doc bumbled and floundered his way through the same fight. Even ignoring the form changes, I thought Gokaiger had some of the best fight scenes in the franchise.

Honestly, it's been years since I've last watched Gokaiger, and I've still barely scratched the surface of watching the series before it. I can only remember bits and pieces of it at this point, and most of those memories started resurfacing as I read through other people's replies. But I think it still has a place in my heart to this day because, much like Kurona, it was my introduction to not only Super Sentai, but tokusatsu as a whole.

I may have missed many elements, past-sentai related or not, but I don't remember ever feeling lost while watching. The tributes didn't feel like tacked on fluff and the transformations never really felt forced or pandering, they felt like natural progressions of the story of the Gokaigers as they learned about the people of Earth. Whenever they did a full team transformation, I would look at them fight and think "so this is how that team fought in their series?". It got me interested in each team as they appeared, not just with the suits and flashy effects, but the story of each team (even with spoilers. I'm not that much of a "NO SPOILER AT ALL" kind of person). And its not like when an episode focused on a main character that the anniversary elements were thrown out. Often, they would use the past powers, i think, to emphasize the character's growth and show their bond with the others. Heck, I still use the ending theme to remember the names/order of past series.

Not to mention while I often have trouble remembering names, real or otherwise, I still remember not only the characters' names (Marvelous, Joe, Luka, Doc, Ahim, Gai), but what they were like in their series. I don't think I'm any kind of authority on character writing, but if someone as forgetful as me can still remember things like how Doc was originally just a one-time hire but turned into Marv, Joe, and Luka's clutzy nanny because he cleaned their pigsty of a ship, then they're probably pretty well-written characters.

I like the the homages.

Great casting, great premise, the personality of each ranger was diverse, and we finally got the answer to WHAT IF THE RUN-OF-THE-MILL HARDCORE TOKUSATSU FAN BECAME A RANGER. And cool theme song.

While there's a lot to like, I feel the biggest problem is the main cast.
Absolutely none of the Gokaigers are interesting. And considering 2 of the characters are "Lean against something while giving an indifferent smirk" kind of "Cool", there's a bit of a problem.

Sentai isn't well known for being ground breaking, and that's fine. But for the big anniversary series, the characters are just so bland an uninteresting. There's a big problem when put side by side with the Goseiger cast, they actually make the Goseigers seem more unique.

I feel the lack of a human cast to help ground them really hurt, since they never underwent a change.

But hey, a lot of people think they were cool, so I'm in the minority.

They've officially release Gokaiger episode 1 on YouTube

https://youtu.be/-IV8Y9gcrOY

EDIT: Idk about you guys......... but it's unavailable in my country. Bummer Toei, bummer.

I can relate to the sentiment of Gokaiger being overrated. Honestly, if you take out the Legendary Rangers, it's average. Not bad, just average. That's how I feel anyway. I think Zi-O did a better job at balancing the anniversary elements with its own plot, even if that plot barely made sense.

Unlike Zi-O, heir to all Riders, Gokaiger didn't really have much ties with their predecessors' powers other than being pirates who take what they want. They weren't ordained for the task like Zi-O was. For the 50th season of Super Sentai, I'd like to see something in a similar style to Zi-O, barring the time travel confusion.

Even the critically panned Super Mega Force handled the mechanics of the powers better, albeit at the expense of justifying the pirate motif. The time limit helped to raise the stakes and was a reminder that the powers were copies rather than the originals. This is probably an unpopular opinion though.

Was it really stated that the Super Megaforce Ranger Modes were "copy powers", or are the Super Megaforce Ranger Keys the copies which allow access to the power an individual Key represents? If a Megaforce Ranger used a Ranger Key, would the Original Ranger be able to morph into the same form? Would it create the same strain as Dino Thunder White and his clone?

More on Gokaiger, I do wonder if they struck the right balance between Tributes and Team Characterization. However, I do like the idea of Gokaiger being more about themselves than a "traditional" Sentai. It comes across as a "Kamen Rider Sentai" well before the Go-Riders!

A different thread had someone use a screenshot of the OG Kamen Rider which said "Human lives are more important than even peace and justice." Gokaiger operate very similarly as they take a dim view to Innocents being oppressed by Zangyack, and Zangyack comes across in similar fashion to Shocker.

There has almost always been this argument as to whether Gokaiger is a rip-off of Decade, and I wonder if it's true. In a sense, Gokaiger takes the original Sentai pitch almost literally: It's like Kamen Rider, but with five of them.

Those are both good points. White Dino Ranger and his clone experienced strain due to drawing the same power from the Morphin' Grid and if that's the case for the Legendary Ranger Keys and the originals, it could be that the Morphin' Grid limits the keys to function for about a minute per use before severing their connection as a way to prevent strain.

But they did receive a task, albeit indirectly. Yeah, the Gokaigers wanted to obtain the Greater Powers for themselves, but slowly they are learning the meaning of being a Super Sentai, which is what the Legends wanted all along.

That is why when they finally obtained the Greatest Treasure in the Universe, they waited for Gai to make that decision, because by then, they are willing to use that treasure to protect the universe. If the early Gokaiger immediately obtained it, they would just keep it to themselves and use it for selfish reasons. Because keep ib mind, while we know that Gokaigers have some selflessness in them, at the time they are selfish. It took them interacting with Super Sentai to finally embrace that conscience.

What's great about Gokaigers? They can turn into past Super Sentai teams and utilize those teams powers.

honestly the only thing i didnt like about gokaiger was the giant fights. they followed an entirely strict pattern of removing what makes the monster interesting before it grows giant, meaning that the fights are entirely forgettable. the most notable giant fight is the sneak brothers, because they use a baseball bat and that was great. the other forms of combat are all really well handled, though, most notably the last fight which is like, legit the best fight in sentai history imo

and yeah, the series works as a gateway series despite relying on a lot of continuity (i find that this is actually a great way to handle these sorts of things, transformers animated is another good example), and the characters are all well developed even if not particularly complex. gai is still in my top ten sentai rangers