[MidoGreen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

Kyoryuger 48 - Plus final series thoughts.

I know everyone thinks I'm this bitter old bastard who hates everything, and this post isn't going to help my case, but I fucking hate happy endings. Okay, no I don't hate them that's wrong it's just... When everyone lives, everyone is happy, what is the point of it all?

Death is a cheap device to make things seem more immediate than perhaps they are, and after about a century of cheapening death in every single medium ever it seems largely like we've forgotten the importance of death as a narrative device when implemented correctly.

With that in mind, if every hero died and they completely lost the battle and all the rest - sure it would be completely anti climactic but I find it similarly anti climatic if everyone lives. How can I appreciate it was a big epic battle for the entire planet, how can I appreciate all the character moments leading up to this, if all the heroes do is walk away with a bloody nose? And I mean ALL of them, Utchy died in 47 just to wake up in this episode with absolutely no fanfare at all.

In the end, because of how it ended, it never ended up feeling like a big deal at all. There is two ways to ask 'what was the point of all this' at the end of a series, one is because they show left you so emotionally devastated you'll be crying about it for weeks and remember it for months or the other is because a show is so terrified of altering status quo or alienating a single person in an audience of millions that they play the ending as safe as physically possible. And safe is exactly how this ending was played.

Overall that was Kyoryuger's ultimate sin. That it was happy to play it safe, to get by on doing the bare minimum, never trying to attempt anything daring or progressive. No matter what purists say, all sentai exists to do is entertain toddlers and sell toys. In that regard Kyoryuger may very well be the best sentai ever made, it's huge, loud, colourful and has solid effects that make for consistently epic battles throughout the series. But the frustrating thing was, through all the fun, I could never help wriggle free from the feeling that Kyoryuger could and SHOULD have been so much more than it was. I don't even mean in some fanficcy way, if anything these last five or so episodes highlighted the sheer quantity of wasted ideas.

Every character was fascinating, every character had a unique dynamic but minus Daigo - and to some extent Ian and Utchy - evey character was ALSO entirely underdeveloped.

Personally by the end Nossan was the character who infuriated me the most, in how much he was wasted. He may have been another hero with a sister, but it was much more of a family dynamic than a sibling dynamic, thanks to Rika.

I can't think of another sentai hero who has a family, or at least a LIVING family that they actually fight for. It's always their 'nakama'. But of course they used this like what.....twice in the entire run of the whole show? Fucks sake man.

The utterly wasted potential doesn't just hurt Kyoryuger for me, it breaks it. It isn't a bad show, it's an entertaining show but I think if the show had ever attempted to break free of its self imposed shackles it could have been my very favourite show. And so that makes me sad.

I think that was my ultimate frustration with Kyoryuger. It was good, but it had the potential to be so much better. Toei was just too gunshy after their experiment to break the Super Sentai mold with Go-Busters failed.