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What are you watching (Sentai edition)
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06-22-2021, 08:50 PM
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Fish Sandwich
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
~Fish's Zenkai Tour!~
Episode 16 – Kyouryuu Sentai Zyuranger
Aw, sweet! ...It's the Power Rangers!
I know the purists are going to be upset with me for picking such a trite opening, but like, this is the part where I talk about the existing personal significance of each of these shows to me, and there is absolutely no getting around the mammoth in the room with this one. It's impossible for me to look at those iconic suits without immediately hearing epic guitar shreddage in my head. It's not just that Zyuranger is famous abroad for its PR counterpart; it's that it's famous for being made into THE Power Rangers. The ones who used those designs for three seasons straight, and who are still showing up in new comics and what have you regularly to this day.
Truth be told, Zyuranger marks the second premiere that's actually a
re
watch for me. Just like Bioman, however, it was something I saw really early on after getting into the wider toku world that's never gone beyond that one episode in all this time. I can't really tell you why? Just didn't catch my attention enough at the time, I suppose, and there wasn't even much I still remembered going back in. What makes it even stranger is that, after this revisit, I'm a little baffled I
wasn't
all over this show immediately enough to watch at least a little more of it?
The thing about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that I think occasionally gets buried in some of the more jaded toku fandom discourse is that it earned its extreme success with its target demographic by doing a genuinely great job capturing the kind of heightened heroic fantasy stories kids eat up, and, uh,
that's also Zyuranger's whole deal, as it turns out!
Zyuranger was created to be sort of a negative Jetman – something that would return Sentai right back to its roots as a show to appeal directly to children, and let me tell you, all the complicated drama and deeper characterization in the world would have trouble competing with how beautifully
direct
Zyuranger is. One of the big things I know about Zyuranger, that's usually said as a complaint for some reason, is that they're always saving kids, and even right here, in the very first episode, that's
immediately
how the show decides to frame the stakes. It's smaller and sillier, and it's also so much more tangible and personal. It's not some big alien empire blowing up the city that requires a technological team of experts to fight; this is a story about a witch who kidnaps some children because she's a jerk, and the ancient heroes who set out to stop her, because they're ancient heroes.
Another notable shakeup in the staff happened with Zyuranger as well, as this is where a new main writer begins a fairly beloved run of shows. Noboru Sugimura made his Sentai debut with Zyuranger, and while "make it for kids" was the mission from the start, it was his love of video games that resulted in him hearing that as "make a fantasy RPG", which is where a ton of the flavor here comes from. I mean, again, the plot of the premiere is straight up about a wise elder assembling the party to go raid the main villain's castle to rescue people being held captive.
Those strong fantasy influences are among Zyuranger's biggest lasting contributions to Sentai as a whole (of which there are many; I'll throw in the obligatory mention here that this is where the Sixth Ranger concept was born), forcefully kicking the door open for a great number of other shows to not merely downplay sci-fi aspects, but completely ignore them. I get the impression this was part of why the show did find so much success with kids in Japan, but also, speaking strictly for myself here, that's something I'm pretty grateful for. (Especially the sentient mecha. That trope has always been a favorite for me.) Yeah, I mean cool organizations are cool and all, don't get me wrong, but when you start throwing around terms like "legendary warriors"? Now you've got my attention!
There's a real liveliness to this premiere, since it doesn't need to even pretend to bother with anything technical. When your primary bad guy is some crazy lady riding around on a flying bike, you don't need to explain much about the hierarchy of her group of goons or what their goal is. She was sealed in a can waiting for the day she could do evil stuff again. When your heroes have the backstory of
being heroes
, you don't need to explain much about them. They were sealed in some closets waiting for the day they'd be needed to fight evil again. Are you here for elaborate motivations and detailed plotting, or do you just want to see the group taking on those villains; see the heroic leader swooping in at the last minute to save his comrades; see them all save those kids moments before they fall victim to a diabolical trap?
There's no wrong answer to that question, of course. There's more than one right way to tell a story, after all. While it's hard to judge a show based on one episode, it seems clear Zyuranger's big strength is in its dedication to feeling like an
adventure
above all else. The premieres I've watched so far all value their own things. Some wanted to wow you with raw action. Some made an effort to grip you with compelling drama. Others were just plain trying to look cool. With Zyuranger, I think it's very specifically appealing to the viewer's sense of
wonder
more than anything, asking you to imagine the story as if it were an epic legend unfolding on your TV screen, to the point that the very first shot of the opening is that of a book being opened. It was a flavor that was one of a kind at the time, and it's a testament to what a good flavor it ended up being that it's had so many other shows since taking pages out of that book.
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Last edited by Fish Sandwich; 03-05-2022 at
05:48 PM
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