[Bionichute]

zyuohger is still one of my favorite sentai series of all time, with some of my favorite, and thematically solid, villains (even if naria got shafted badly, and even then i understand why). lupat mainly suffered from severe and obvious rewrites due to the toyline not doing well (a lot of foreshadowing with the butler man doesn't pay off, patranger obviously were going to have a larger role but ended up being put aside because lupinranger were more popular) but it was still overall an enjoyable season, far from the worst sentai's produced.

so i don't reaaaalllly get why people are so worried? i know kiramager is really good and will be hard to top but... idk i'm sure the series will be fine overall, sentai usually pulls through in its anniversary seasons

edit: i was just gonna leave this but i love zyuohger too much to not elaborate

So, Zyuohger's theme is the connections we make with each other and the positive interactions those leave, mostly shown by how these two different worlds interact and how a lot of episodes involve minor characters. Well, the villains represent negative connections, poisoned and severed connections.

Almost all of the villains hate each other. Azald hates Cuval, Naria hates both of them but is completely loyal to Genis, who hates everything, and Cuval hates Genis. And of course, the only positive connection in all this is Naria and Genis... who kills her without a second thought.

Genis himself is LITERALLY thousands of beings connected, and he hates it. Genis perpetuates a cycle of hate and distrust through the death games, distancing himself from both his minions and the actual worlds he destroys simply so he can make himself feel better about a situation he chooses to hate. The only person Genis has any connection to is himself, through a mix of egotism and self-loathing.

The entire set up is genuinely more thematically solid than Sentai usually gets, especially with its villains (maaaybe Liveman's villains beat it out? i haven't watched all of liveman though). I do really think that Genis is like, top 5 Sentai villains. Of course, there is a GENUINE chance that I'm looking too deep into this because Dogranio was Genis-lite without any of the thematic writing choices, even without considering rewrites.

Guess we'll have to see how the villains of Zenkaiger play out.