[Kurona]

What's Zenkaiger's aesthetic theme, huh?

Hm. Maybe this is too early to talk about only halfway into the show, and maybe it's too big an answer for the question; but about 10 episodes ago we got this line, and I decided to save a screencap of it because I figured that by the end of the show, it would do a damn good job of summing up what Zenkaiger is about; and the core at what I love about it all.



It's a bit of a running thread throughout this writer's work -- people from different worlds running into each other. In Lupat this was a case of people trying to achieve their dreams and save their loved ones coming to clash with an institution (law enforcement) that in theory exists to do just that but in this instance fails to provide in ways that only Sentai powers can; and with both Zenkaiger and Zyuohger it's a much more literal case of people from different worlds crossing over and becoming a team despite their differences.

When it came to Zyuohger I think the result could be very mixed at times, but when it comes to Zenkaiger I think Komura's mastered it. The Zenkaigers are a wildly varying and clashing bunch -- a fortune teller whose fortunes don't work and whose passions get flared up at the most unexpected things; a bookworm who gets distracted by every second thing; the world's stupidest yet most perceptive white ranger; a weirdo cook whose concerns consistently lie only with cute little animals; and an uncle who's competent enough trying to keep things together but mostly coming to clash with the cat guy. Throw in a band of pirates who are nominally good guys but really just do whatever they want in the most obnoxious ways possible and you've got one of the wildest, most dysfunctional bands of toku heroes I've ever seen! And yet, every time; they're able to save the day. Every time, they grow closer. Every time, this band of ragtag becomes more of a family.

It's very general Sentai stuff - extremely fit for a 45th anniversary - but I can't stress enough how different these characters are from each other and how ultimately ragtag they are... and that follows through to the aesthetics. Zyuran, Gaon and Vroon share a ~general~ body shape but aside from that? When we first heard and saw leaks of this group none of us could really quite believe what was going on, because it was just so insane. We're so used to a uniform team of spandexed heroes; simple suits that are all basically the same and mostly differentiated by helmets and maybe a slight change in the pattern. But Zenkaiger? No, no; you got a dragon wizard, a funky dinosaur dude, akaranger and big one's lovechild and gokai red if he was a golden crocodile! There is little to no consistency here... and that's kinda the point! It definitely helps that they're all based on main mechas from different Sentai seasons which of course themselves had different aesthetics from each other because they're all embodying a different world on their own beyond whichever popular season they happen to look like; they're all bringing something totally unique with no connection to anything else, and so beyond a couple design conventions that apply to maybe half of them at best it's difficult to pin any one theme to any of them. The mechs being a couple of Kamen Rider Ws, a crocodile pirate ship and a goddamn Kaiju? I think that only proves my point further; none of these look alike!

And then, just because someone who was added in so late works so perfectly with the themes (or, given how I'm describing this team; perhaps because he was added so late?), Stacey as a dark prince with a completely different evil ranger aesthetic who also features a mech unlike anything else in the show just adds to all this!

When your own world expands, you run into all kinds of people. And they'll look nothing like you; sound nothing like you; won't have the same interests, some of them will be almost your exact opposite and have ideals and goals you can't comprehend. But at the end of the day you're all Super Sentai, you're all family; and you all understand an evil ruler when you see him and know you gotta take them down -- and at the end of the day, that's what matters.