[Suzu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Random

In Sentai, the women always have to wear colours that are viewed as more feminine. Even when they get something like white or blue, it has to be with pink accents or a more dainty shade.

I don't really see the problem here as we are not talking about real people forced to wear something. Also, Blue Dolphin for example had a darker shade of blue like most male rangers while NinjaBlue had a lighter shade as most female rangers.
Also, the pink accents are more of a stylistic thing. The color combination just works very well and the designers know that. Not to mention most teams with a white don't have a pink, so the color is unused anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Random

But the problem is that colours often denote personality. [...] Their personalities and stories reflect this too. They rarely get to have a role that's anything but "the girl" and when we do have a more standoffish or tomboy type character, they almost always have a soft side that just needs to come out.

This is a common generalization that isn't entirely true. First of all "THE girl" is a bit of a redundant term when most shows for years now had two females (and some had even more, such as Kyoryuger, Magiranger or Dekaranger).
More importantly though: We had various types of female characters in almost every suit-color ever used for females. Just some examples of different characters for each color:

For White, we had the ditzy, well-mannered and warm-hearted White Swan, the cool, responsible, but somewhat conflicted Ninja White, the calm, friendly, but still kinda fierce GaoWhite or the energetic, down-to-earth and fun-loving Shironinger.

For Blue, we had the smart and gentle, nature-loving Blue Dolphin, the happy and somewhat childish tomboy BlueSwallow or the quiet, mature and responsible MagiBlue.

For Yellow, we had the tomboy mechanic Yellow Racer, the motherly, hard-working but still spirited GekiYellow, the cute and somewhat naive Go-On Yellow, the tomboy-ish, short-tempered and somewhat childlike GoseiYellow or the sassy, stubborn and tough GokaiYellow.

For Pink, we had the calm and sweet princess Pteraranger, the energetic and creative MagiPink who tends to jump into action a bit too quickly, the cool, serious and reserved BoukenPink, the motherly yet stern ShinkenPink, the high-spirited tomboy KyoryuPink or the smart and inventive MomoNinger.

(Just to remind people: We also already had female rangers wearing Violet (KyoryuViolet), Cyan (KyoryuCyan 2 and 3), Silver (Go-On Silver, DekaBright), Gold (DekaGold) and Oranger (DekaSwan).)

As for the soft side... what's so bad about having one? It's not that it's exclusive to female characters. Most male characters that are a bit rough around the edges do have a soft side as well. Take for example GokaiRed. Yes, he could be pretty serious and stubborn, but he was super-caring and protective over his team mates and clearly also cared if civilians, especially children, were in danger.

Also for the role thing: Most characters that are not Red or the Sixth ranger tend to be not as vital for the story because Red is traditionally the protagonist and the Sixth comes in for toy promo so they focus on making him interesting. There can be some stronger focus on Blue (Dekaranger had that, Go-Busters to some extent and Ninninger does that too) or even some of the villains (as seen especially in Gekiranger, but we also had some more villain-focus in Toqger), but mostly you have Red and the Sixth as the show's main focus characters.
There are authors that write very balanced teams, such as Yasuko Kobayashi (Gingaman, Shinkenger, Go-Busters, Toqger) and some that tend to focus more on certain characters, such as Riku Sanjo (Kyoryuger) or Shou Aikawa (Boukenger).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Random

Usually with the help of a male character that's a love interest.

This is something I hear a lot of people say and it is simply not true. Out of those 18 characters I listed, how many have an explicit in-show love interest? 5. (And out of those I left out, the number of characters with a love interest is fairly low)

White Swan: Yes, she was part of the legendary Jetman love triangle and yes, that played an important part in her development.

MagiBlue: She had a love interest with MagiShine and, like White Swan, got married at the end of the show. However, she had plenty of development before Hikaru appeared and even when he was around, most of her development was rather related to him being her teacher than her future husband.

GokaiYellow: Her (potential) love interest appeared in a single episode and was a childhood friend. However, in this episode her development up until that point was confirmed instead of her actively being influenced by Cain.

MagiPink: She easily fell in love, so she had some minor and one major love interest. However, whenever those were relevant, it was actually more a development for her brothers (Makito accepting her wish to be happy and Kai basically understaning her better) than for herself. Though the body swap episode with Kai did include some development for her, but it was really late in the series.

KyoryuPink: KyoryuRed being her love interest had little to no impact in the story. When Yayoi appeared revealing her massive crush on Daigo, Ami did wonder if she was jealous, but decided that she probably wasn't and it didn't matter. While she did end up dating Daigo (and eventually marrying him prior to the events of 100 Years after), their feelings were never a major plotpoint anyway.

As for ShinkenPink: While she did not have a specified love interest in the show (though people do ship her with ShinkenRed a lot), yes: her personal dream was to become a bride and a good housewife. She was finding her own identity between being a normal girl and her heritage as a Samurai. She worked hard to learn how to cook even though she was bad at it and she wanted to be a dependeable and strong mother, as well as a dependeable and strong Samurai. That's actually a pretty good way of portraying a female character as it makes clear that you can define yourself with traits associated with any gender.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Random

Letting them use colours that aren't typically associated with their gender is a good step towards giving them stories that aren't as well.

Many of the stories told about females in the Super Sentai universe are pretty gender-neutral. To name a few that haven't appeared in my post yet, the stories of ShinkenYellow, BoukenYellow, both Toqger girls, both Ninninger girls, GokaiPink, YellowBuster, GoseiPink or the Dekaranger girls for example, would have worked for a male character as well with little to no changes at all (it's the same for many of the characters mentioned above as well). And still they chose females to fit that role. (I mean... they wouldn't necessarily have to. Sun Vulcan had no female Ranger at all and most Kamen Rider series don't have female Riders either)

Sorry, but I just don't see why people complain so much about the oh so stereotypical and one-sided portrayal of women in Sentai when it simply isn't the case.
As a woman myself, I am perfectly fine with whatever color a female character wears as long as she is well-written/ catches my interest. Actually, I don't even care much about the male/female ratio on a team, because I'd rather have one more well-written male character than a poorly written female one.