[ComicGuy89]

I stopped watching about after Beet and Stag Buster were introduced. I'll probably get back to it sometime. It's really not that it's a bad show. I love the characters, they're better developed than most Rangers I've seen. The characters feel authentic and their interactions believable. You know it's good when they can make Buddyroids believable.

Yet, somehow, I had no real incentive to follow it. I can't place my finger on why, exactly. I think the best explanation I got is that it took itself too seriously. There was a lack of over-the-top awesomeness that is usually part of the Super Sentai tradition. The realism in the fights was really cool at first, but I started to find it very limiting and repetitive. There was nothing outlandishly cool like some of the crazy stuff the Gokaigers or any other Sentai team pulled during their runs. It becomes pretty obvious when Beet and Stag Buster were introduced. While I was awed at the cool stunts pulled by the Go-on Wings, the impressive backhand style of Shinken Gold, or even Gokai Silver's rather loud debut, the Beet and Stag Busters felt rather boring to watch. The coolest part of their suited scenes at that time was the henshin and that's not a really good sign. I guess the most interesting things about the Go-busters fights were the strategies they devised to defeat the enemy, but other, more mature shows do them better, and it's sad when Super Sentai forgoes its crazy action to imitate more realistic shows.

There's also the problem of Go-busters feeling eerily empty. Super Sentai usually never has a large a cast as Kamen Rider, and they have to work to disguise the limited number of sets and extras. Usually the illusion works, the scenes felt alive despite only focusing on the Rangers and a few costumed monsters. On the other hand, in Go-busters, it seems really obvious that there's no one around except the Go-busters and their monsters. A lack of people screaming, a lack of extras around needing help, a distinct lack of chaos and disorder. There's a bit of that in the earlier episodes with them helping out civilians in realistic ways such as evacuation, but they seemed to have abandoned that later on.

Continuing this empty feeling, the cast seems positively tiny. Despite showing us shots of many workers, I can't get past the feeling that the Energy Management Center is just the Go-busters and three other guys. It really breaks the illusion. The villains too, at least up to where I watched, were just Enter and Messiah, and Messiah does not make for a proper character per se. The Gokaigers' Zangyack were pathetic and consisted only of four somewhat significant characters at first, but whether it's because of the footsoldiers running around, or the shots of the enemy fleet, you always felt that they were at least a large force, not just two guys like the Vagrass were.

In summary, I think two points summarize why I lacked the initiative to watch Go-busters continuously. First, the show is not over-the-top in the way Super Sentai should be, and loses a lot of fun along the way. Second, the world is empty and unconvincing, there's no illusion of a living, breathing city to rescue. I have no doubt it will improve later on, Super Sentai usually do much better in their respective second halves. I look forward to seeing what will happen later.