[MarsHottentot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Annuga

I guess that's {because Japanese?} people's believe that kids deserve better

I'm answering what I'm guessing you were meaning to say!

Generally speaking, this has always been true. I remember seeing Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets (Space Battleship Yamoto and Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, respectively) back in the late 70's and never being able to take American action cartoons seriously afterward. Anime talked to you like you could handle what they were telling you, cartoons talked to you like you were five.

Of course, in the 70's and 80's, the American way of thinking was "no one over eight years old watches cartoons".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Kain

I agree. Just because its a kids show doesn't give them an excuse to be lazy or make a poorly written show. Kids are not stupid, hell kids today barely even have a childhood anymore thanks to technology and politics, so they need more things that make them think. Sentai and Kamen Rider need to evolve as kids have evolved, but they seem to be regressing.

Well, we should acknowledge a few things and paramount among them is that the actual production of a television series, particularly one as complex to produce as tokusatsu, is rife with variables. One of the biggest, of course, is budget. Budget can adversely affect just about every aspect of a show, including scripts (see: Kamen Rider Hibiki). Changes may have been made on the fly. I can't recall which, but I just read that some toku show's final episode was being written ON THE DAY OF FILMING!

There's also the fact that writing for a younger demographic is just easier. While you and I might have been of above average in the kind of programming we can handle and how much we were annoyed by repetition, etc., that's not true across the board. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was an interminably goofy and poorly written program (please, set aside your nostalgia goggles) that was such a huge success that Japan's Sentai began to cop some of it's moves - a complaint I read about at the time in old school Toku curmudgeon Damon Foster's Oriental Cinema (yeah...) and Heroes on Film (compare Oh-Ranger to, say Jetman - right?). Young kids don't care about production values or shoddy writing. They LOVE repetition. And best of all, they probably have a parent who will buy them whatever they want because "kids". Plus, you hook 'em early enough, you'll have a number of them for life *cough*powerrangerz*cough*.

I think the big problem with Kamen Rider Ghost is that we so often get a generally well written and teen / young adult geared KR show that, when they give something to the booger eaters, it feels completely egregious. Doubly so if it's messily executed.

Of course, then you have ambition scuttling shows - like Ninninger's "choose your own adventure" take on show writing. Should have given Sentai lovers a great show in the editing room. NOPE. Apparently, Ninninger's merch sales is the worst in almost twenty years. Soooo, maybe we'll see the pendulum swing back toward an older demographic.