[Sh Ranger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

YOU! ME! DANCING!

Haha, I like how you use Ryouga's stoicism for comedic effect. If the show did that more often, I think he would've been a much more endearing character.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I'm getting on this wavelength of yours!

Well, now that Fish has started this, I also feel obliged as a Zenkaiger fan to properly represent my favorite.



Juran quickly became an inspiration to me. A lot of people were depressed at the start of 2021, following a year of dealing with you-know-what. It was the same problem for me. Going in to Zenkaiger, I was hoping it would once more show people the true meaning of justice that Super Sentai is loved for, to remind people what it's like to be a hero and hold on to hope in the face of despair.

From the first episode, I got pretty much exactly what I wanted in Juran. Without going in to too much spoiler, he's introduced as a fun party-loving dude who's trying his best to adapt to his sudden new co-habitation with humanity. When Tozitendo show up and start terrorizing people, some of the humans lump all the Kikainoids with them and Juran is left to deal with the invasion on his own.

However, despite that prejudice towards him, prejudice in general being what I'd consider as one of the show's main themes, Juran still goes out of his way to protect a scared human kid from Tozitendo, as it was simply the right thing to do. This act of heroism stabilizes the relationship between humans and Kikainoids and that feeling sticks throughout the whole show, as an exploration of alternate worlds becomes the stage for a celebration of people's differences. None of that would've been possible without Juran's spontaneous moment of selfless heroism and that's why he's always at the front of my mind when I think about Zenkaiger.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AkibaSilver

But yeah, while I skipped on the Zenkai episode, I'm glad they decided to bring back the crossover for the special anniversary? I know someone mentioned it being a waste of a week which could go to a "proper" episode, and we've been ragging on Kouta sending Mai off to be a ToQger (She'd have been a great ToQger! The Shadow Line would have never turned her heart into an apple, or whatever!), but the Gaim/ToQ special back when I first saw it all those years ago was a nice change from the Super Hero Taisen "Everyone must fight for no reason for the first 90 minutes of movie" model, and while the others were alright - even if I'd completely forgotten there was a whole Ninninger/Drive one, yeesh - and this one comes closest to that ideal I have in my head of what a crossover between Rider and Sentai 'can' be? The heroes complement each other, without just shouting about heroics or justice or abstract ideals, and they're fun!

Thanks for the acknowledgement and likewise, I respect your opinion as well. It probably helps that Zenkaiger/Saber is like my favorite SHT pair ever, so while I'm against the concept on principle, I was glad that the content was actually okay and not too harmful, even though I'm not exactly the Shindais' biggest fan. Everything is disliked by someone, but I can't truly begrudge the existence of something that has the potential to make someone happy, even though I personally don't get much out of it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

(the other featured episode was Ohranger 15)

Oh, good choice! Inoue writes the best Yuji focus episodes.