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What are you watching (Sentai edition)
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04-13-2021, 07:21 PM
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8462
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 6 – Dai Sentai Goggle-V
"The one with the ribbons or whatever?"
If you had asked me to describe Goggle-V off the top of my head before watching this premiere, that's about as good a description as I could give you. I mean, sometimes it definitely seems like that's all Toei themselves even remember about the show, given how references to them down the line generally play out.
Here's the thing about that though – it's not at all hard to see why that's the distinctive element Goggle-V gets boiled down to, because thematically, it's a little all over the place and complicated to describe. Please bear in mind how much I praised Sun Vulcan for the digestible concept of all the animals under the sun fighting against technology as I attempt to summarize the follow-up to that.
Essentially, the show is about a struggle between the forces of Evil Science, and those of Good Science, which is simple enough on the surface, but the way that has to be filled out is where things get muddled. The team's suits incorporate notable ancient civilizations as a motif, connecting to the greater technology theme by representing the wish to never see what humans have built up destroyed again. This is admittedly kinda neat for how weirdly emotional it is, and it's also something that is
not at all self-explanatory.
A strong point of most Sentai suit designs is how looking at them can give you immediate context for what the show is about, even with no prior knowledge, and yet with Goggle-V, that process is completely backwards, which is hard not to see as a flaw. The team's fighting style also features an emphasis on
rhythmic gymnastics
, of all things, hence the ribbons, which ties into the larger themes because... uh... I think just because Toei wanted to spice up the fight scenes.
You can maybe see why it's hard to pin this show down to one broad idea now? Like, why
aren't
the ribbons a valid choice? Even the title of the show is some second choice afterthought. The working title that they were likely never even planning to use, Mirai Sentai Miraiman, actually reflects the show's technological focus way better, and the final name is only "Goggle" V instead of "GoGo" V to avoid brand confusion with something Honda was selling at the time. This is a real story! I found that out trying to figure out what the heck goggles had to do with this show, and
I still don't even know why they're named after eyewear.
It's a bit of a mess, is what I'm saying!
But now that I've spent most of this post totally ragging on Goggle-V, I should probably hurry up and mention that I thought the premiere was pretty good! Nothing to complain about, even.
We're basically back in Denziman territory, with a group of civilians, presumably with attitude, who are recruited to stop the baddies for the year, and using that formula again after that gap with Sun Vulcan made me realize how much I actually prefer this approach. It's a lot trickier to establish personality when your protagonists are all gruff military prodigies than when they're people from completely different walks of life. Even without time for establishing deeper personalities, as is the case in a fast-paced first episode, simply seeing the protagonists having different hobbies or careers instantly makes them distinctive, and there's obviously a lot of value in that for a Sentai. Not much about this formula is different from the last time they used it, but like I said, that's mostly a testament to how perfectly Denziman already had things nailed down.
That aforementioned technological focus is Goggle-V's biggest distinctive element, and something I found rather charming. As I touched on with the whole secret agent fascination, hero tokusatsu is in large part about appealing to the dreams of children of the times, and it's neat to see the burgeoning recognition of just how much the rapid march of scientific progress was capturing the attention of the youth. The support squad at the team's base is literally called the Computer Boys & Girls, which I tell you, without the slightest hint of irony, might be one of the most genius ideas a toku show in 1982 could have. Being a little kid who gets to push buttons to help out the heroes is
such
a perfect fantasy to offer to the target audience like that. This is the era when personal computers were still a luxury item for a household, you know? Something kids would see in magazines, or at that one particular friend's house on weekends if they're lucky. They were mysterious, and cool, and kids
admired
them.
I know those first paragraphs made it sound like I was decrying this show for bad theming, but that's not my point. Goggle-V has
complicated
themes, but many of the choices the show made were still very considered and strong. It was fun to finally give this one a slightly closer look.
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Last edited by Fish Sandwich; 03-05-2022 at
05:14 PM
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