[Aoi Kurenai]

After her last few shows, I'd be more hopeful for new cast members if Takebe isn't the producer. She seems to enjoy picking people who didn't make the cut for previous shows or people she personally knows. (which I think can sometimes lead to less than inspiring performances)

As far as the writer situation...

Over the last two years, it looks like Toei has been in the midst of transitioning their two regular secondary writers to head writer positions. Komura and Shimoyama have written more episodes as fill in writers than anyone else in Toei's stable. We're probably going to see Shimoyama again sometime soon if only because their current stable of head writers has shrunk. It's actually very interesting if you look at credits over the last five or six years.

There have been about 11 writers on all of Sentai since Gokaiger, secondary or head, and of those, the two regular secondary writers have become head writers. The only other semi regular person is Nobuhiro Mori, who did episodes for Go-Busters and Ninninger. (14 in total, plus a crossover special) I think it's possible Mori becomes the writer on Kyuuranger if Toei wants to keep that transition rolling. Mori has written more for Kamen Rider but it seems like Toei likes stunt hiring for Rider's writer position, so I could realistically see Mori as head writer on Sentai in the near future. There's a new writer doing secondary episodes for Zyuohger, but I don't know that Toei would want to give someone that head writer credit after just a handful of episodes if they don't have some sort of pedigree in the manga or anime world.

I still wanna push for Kobayashi to come back but she doesn't seem to do Sentai these days without Utsunomiya as the producer and he's doing Zyuohger, so chances are high on him returning so soon.

If you wanna take a guess at potential producers, Sentai has only had three in the last six years:

Takaaki Utsunomiya: Gokaiger, ToQger, Zyuohger
Naomi Takebe: Go-Busters, Ninninger (and these both bombed so I dunno how realistic a choice she is)
Takahito Ohmori: Kyoryuger (is working on Ex-Aid so I'd say he's out)

Since Toei producers will often do Sentai and Rider, also in play is:

Kazuhiro Takahashi: Ghost (but it looks like he was removed from the head producer position, so, again, not sure how realistic this is)


So! The choices for producer are 1)Someone whose only Sentai have sported toylines that completely bombed 2)Someone who was, in all likelihood, taken off the job late in the game on his first series and 3)Someone who is doing the current show and a back to back producer has not happened in a really, really long time.

Creatively, Sentai is not in the most enviable position for choices.

Of course after two years of shows and toylines doing badly, Toei could hit us out of left field with someone like Toshiki Inoue as writer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LockonStratos

What IS Inoue doing these days? I've literally heard nothing about his career after Decade.

I'm not really sure about the Rider thing, as I think he only can go down as far as that's concerned, judging by the way his Post-Agito shows went, getting progressively worse. Doesn't necessarily mean they're shit, but the trend is definitely downward overall.

In addition to what Lucha mentioned, he's writing a manga called Sword-Gai, which is getting an anime adaptation later this year. (it runs in the same magazine as the Kuuga and Ultraman manga)