[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS - SERIES WRAP-UP



Let’s talk about Kamen Rider Gavv.

I’ve been keeping up with Gavv the last few weeks, usually watching it on Wednesdays when I’ve got a day off from Go-Busters. (“Day off”, like it’s some second job… you guys know what I mean.) I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit, especially compared to Gotchard, which I found to be mostly pleasant, but rarely something I thought about between episodes. I’ve liked how Gavv wants to talk about things like imposter syndrome, emotional abuse, and the ways that sacrificing for others can look like selflessness and heroism, but can also act as a cover for a lack of self-worth. There’s a density to it, both in a thematic way (the Valen introduction episode!) and a dramatic way – like, it’s a show that is juggling multiple parallel plots, but in ways that allows them to start to thread together in fascinating ways. Every episode can feel stuffed with different locations, characters, and plot points.

Go-Busters is not that kind of show.

It’s not a worse show, though. Go-Busters was a remarkably entertaining series of action, drama, humor, and characters that only became their best selves when they learned to rely on one another. But it was never a dense show, across either an individual episode or the season as a whole. Where a show like Gavv might cut away from one character to catch us up on another, or mix a comedic subplot with a darker one, Go-Busters was A Go-Busters Episode every single time. It knew what kind of show it wanted to make – the Go-Busters organization defends the Earth from the threat of the Vagras – and pretty much did that to the best of its abilities every single time. Some stories might tilt heavier into humor or tension, but the Superheroes Fight Monsters stuff was sort of the breadth and width of this thing.

I realize you could easily say that about every single other Rider or Sentai show, and you’re not necessarily wrong. The difference between Go-Busters and Gavv is less about the genre they’re operating in, and more how they choose to tell their stories. Go-Busters felt like a show that could be operating in real-time, for better or worse. To its strengths, it came across as a theme park ride, locking you into a breathless battle against monsters with only a small team of soldiers to save the day. To its weaknesses, it felt like the aperture was too small, too boxed-in; stories were occasionally about the non-combat versions of these characters as theoretical constructs, rather than other avenues for storytelling that could add contrast to the military action. It’s intentional (several stories are directly about how little the Go-Busters think about their lives beyond fighting the Vagras), but it still felt like the storytelling options were hampered by the design.

To put it yet another way, something like Gavv (or Geats, or Ryuki, or Fourze) is like a multi-dish meal – Thanksgiving, for those in Canada or the U.S. You’ve got your main dish (turkey, vegetable loaf), and then you’ve got your mashed potatoes, your mac & cheese, your cranberry sauce, your green bean casserole, your stuffing. Through the meal, you have bites of each, where the flavor profile encourages different combinations as the meal goes on. With Go-Busters, it’s like a nice hearty stew. There are tons of individual ingredients – meat, vegetables, starches, broth, spices – but they’re all in there at once, and each bowl has more or less the same stuff in it. It’s filling, and even delicious, but each bowl is roughly like the bowl before it, or the one after it.

That was pretty much me and Go-Busters. Episodes felt less like reactions to the stories around them or the evolution of the characters, and more like a fresh bowl of Go-Busters stew. Problems or dilemmas would start and stop within the same episode: Nakamura has problem, and now it’s solved; Yoko’s mad at Ryuji, and now she isn’t; Hiromu is a bad teammate, and then he isn’t. There weren’t discrete arcs or shocking evolutions of the characters, just little problems to solve in a story. I liked those stories, even if I’d’ve liked them better with a little more variety in the meal I was being served.

This was a show that I liked from the jump, but never really loved in the way I’ve loved some Rider shows. The cast was uniformly fun and committed to the material. The costume designs were strong and memorable. The action was reliably well-executed. The episodic storytelling featured fun obstacles for our cast, and a few solid guest-cast character interactions when appropriate. The overall mission against Enter and the Vagras explored interesting ideas about how best to work on our shortcomings without feeling like those shortcomings make us less able to meet the challenges of the world. It’s a solid show for talking about how to work in a group, rather than worry about our own successes or failures. I liked it all the way through.

But I miss the scope and scale of other shows, that feature more than a gray metal base and a group of coworkers. I miss simmering multi-episode subplots about dissension in the ranks, I miss shocking reveals about the ancestry of our heroes, I miss day jobs… god, I miss cafes. The focus of this show on the essentials of military-inflected superhero storytelling made for thrilling adventures against the Vagraas in defense of the world, but not nearly enough other things for my liking. Go-Busters killed for me at telling stories about the Go-Busters, less so telling stories about Yoko, Ryuji, and Hiromu.

I’m very glad I watched it, in case of any of this sounds like I regretted it. Even the most forgettable episode of Go-Busters was a precision delivery mechanism for toku action. (Best one was the wrestling episode.) There’s a warmth to this cast of supersoldiers that grounded almost every adventure in a relatable emotion or clear metaphor. The people making this show knew how to tell solid 20-odd minutes of clever superhero stories. It’s a show I’d easily recommend to others.

I just… I don’t know, it felt like it was too limited in its goals or choices to me. I don’t know if that’s something inherent to Sentai, rather than Rider; I don’t know if it’s specific to this show. But it left me feeling like I’d watched half a series – the superhero action, but none of the domestic drama or real-world conflicts that add context or contrast to the superheroics. Absolutely solid action/adventure, but not enough besides that for me to get wrapped up in.

Fun show, though. I’m glad I finally watched it.