[Switchblade]

Kyoryuger is the second Sentai series that I just couldn't stand to sit through all the way. I actually made it further into Goseiger than this, but that was my first Sentai and I was trying to fill the gap left in my life by the essential cancellation of Power Rangers post-RPM. Objectively, I do think Kyoryuger was better than Goseiger (as are most forms of norovirus, to be fair); I've just seen enough Sentai now that I'm less patient when I think it's bad.

Now obviously I can't speak for the entire series as I only made it to episode 10, but I can discuss what I didn't like about it (and one of the big ones apparently was still an issue up to the finale).

First and foremost, I don't think Riku Sanjo should write Sentai again. I like Sanjo a lot; the Rider shows he worked on were fun and I can't necessarily blame Fourze's shortcomings on him since he was just the assistant writer there. But if there's one thing that Kyoryuger has made clear, it's that he's still in a mode where the show has THE HERO and his support staff. I don't know if there has ever been a PR or Sentai that's so red-centric; not even Power Ranger Nickstic Force. Galvantula hit the nail on the head: Daigo is a total Mary Sue and everyone on the show bent over backwards to validate him for it. The Kyoryu Gray arc was the nail in the show's coffin for me: we had a chance for Daigo to show real vulnerability and to find something that he wasn't the best at. But nope; his only flaw was being "too perfect" and he overcame it by waiving it off with some "teamwork" bullshit.

And what really sucked about the Daigo focus is that the show had some characters with a lot of potential. Ian, in particular, was being built up as a return to the Black Condor style of antagonistic team member. But he pretty much fell into line with all the rest after a couple episodes and his background arc about losing a mysterious jewel? Yeah, Daigo's wearing it as a necklace.

Could I have gotten through all of that? Maybe, but the other thing that killed the show for me was that I found it aesthetically off-putting on every level. Everything was just so cartoony and childish: the monsters, the mecha, the dancing, and especially the incredibly stupid special attacks. Inflating like a balloon was dumb enough, but the fart gun... ugh. And the sound... oh dear god, the unending onslaught of loud, glaring, obnoxious sounds. If it's not the gun voice screaming at the top of its high-pitched lungs, it's the minutes of extended tweeting and blaring of the mech combinations. The nice thing about subtitles is that you can watch the show without audio, but before Kyoryuger I never wanted to actually do that.

I forget who said this recently (I think it was Locke or Matrixbeast), but Kyoryuger is a show for five-year-olds. Yes, Sentai usually aims for a younger audience, but usually it seems like there's something in there for older viewers. Kyoryuger gave me nothing that felt like it was even trying to entertain someone who could tie their own shoelaces. It had a lot of potential, but it was too busy burying its nose in Daigo's rectum and screaming at the top of its lungs to take advantage of it.

tl;dr version: