Power Rangers

[Mark_Nguyen]

Granted, but something made them skip over Go-Busters (which I also liked a lot), and it's likely because most people in Japan DIDN'T like it a lot (whether it be due to their theme, the writing, or that it had to follow the uber-successful Gokaiger). Also, their making 2 x 20 episode seasons per iteration of the Sentai franchise means Saban has the elbow room to be choosier both in the show they use AND the available footage to go with it. Saban had its best success with dinosaurs, so skipping the spies to go with the dancing dinos makes a lot of sense for them.

I'm sure someone has crunched the PR franchise numbers and discovered that in the US, you don't need 49-50 episodes of a show per year to enable the best net profits from toy and media sales, so between that and escalating franchise adaptation costs it made sense that PR seasons were getting progressively shorter. Saban seems to have found a sweet spot for now with the last few years at 20 episodes per year, also stretching out the shelf life and release schedule of the toys they're producing while they're at it - why sell a dino morpher for one Christmas when you can do it for two, and keep it current with a new recolour or gimmick or whatever?

They might even be able to go fewer and/or stretch it longer... Could they stretch it out to 2 or even 3 x 13 episode seasons and keep it profitable? Nickelodeon live-action shows do this, albeit with completely different merchandising models.

Mark

 

[Samurai8472]

They're just following Super Sentai's lead. It was Toei's choice to do dinosaurs three different times, and Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger is a pretty obvious homage to Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger. With the exception of Go-Busters and ToQger, Saban has adapted every Sentai season since Zyuranger in order (although they used little from Dairanger and Kakuranger besides FX footage).

We have already seen Toqger elements that will pop up in Ninja Steel too with one of the Toqger generals apparently now an announcer in Ninja Steel.

I'm sure the various alien game show contestants will be sprinkled with Toqger ones. Fans of Toqger might recognize the contestants.


Also there is speculation that the hamburger morpher that Ninninger sixth ranger used might be ditched in favor of his guitar

I could see the star design on the guitar being more appealing than the burger.

That's probably why Ninja Steel choose to use the multipurpose weapon from Ninninger as the morpher instead of the sword.

To keep with the ninja star theme

 

[Christopher]

Granted, but something made them skip over Go-Busters (which I also liked a lot), and it's likely because most people in Japan DIDN'T like it a lot (whether it be due to their theme, the writing, or that it had to follow the uber-successful Gokaiger). Also, their making 2 x 20 episode seasons per iteration of the Sentai franchise means Saban has the elbow room to be choosier both in the show they use AND the available footage to go with it. Saban had its best success with dinosaurs, so skipping the spies to go with the dancing dinos makes a lot of sense for them.

Which is ironic, because Go-Busters was an homage to MMPR in a lot of ways, and it sounds like it might've been pretty interesting: http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-249-in-defense-of-go-busters/

 

[Samurai8472]

It had comedic elements(blue was the oldest so they kept teasing him as the grandpa of the group)

It was trying aim towards maybe the teenage crowd. In some ways it was trying to be like Kamen Rider series which are slightly in the teen crowd too.

Three kids who lost their parents to an accident 13 years ago. They were raised by a covert organization to battle computer based robots

The monster battles were interesting.

You had the MOTW on the ground. Then you had a giant robo with certain elements of the MOTW

http://powerrangers.wikia.com/wiki/CutterZord

So it was a two pronged attack. The main MOTW never grew.

Forming the megazord was also very delicate and dangerous.

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One of the very few sentai series to show a forcefield around the formation process so none of the monsters can attack it


Also no morphing sequence. It was done in real time like most Kamen Rider series

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Sadly these innovation/ideas didn't catch on and Toei went back to what worked best with Kyoryuger



Whole season of Go-busters is on youtube. Can't wait to hear your review Christopher!

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[Christopher]

The monster battles were interesting.

You had the MOTW on the ground. Then you had a giant robo with certain elements of the MOTW

http://powerrangers.wikia.com/wiki/CutterZord

So it was a two pronged attack. The main MOTW never grew.

That's an interesting approach. It's a clever way to deal with the awkward conceit of the human-sized monster being destroyed and then immediately resurrected as a giant.

One of the very few sentai series to show a forcefield around the formation process so none of the monsters can attack it

Which raises the question, why not use that force field all the time?

Also no morphing sequence. It was done in real time like most Kamen Rider series

Oh, that's very interesting. Morphing bit by bit during the fights. I'd like to see the MMPR feature film do it that way.

Whole season of Go-busters is on youtube. Can't wait to hear your review Christopher!

Maybe later, when I get around to it.

 

[Christopher]

Dino Super Charge returned today with "Besties 4Eva," about Shelby having to deal with a friend who kept stealing credit for things and ended up telling reporters she was the Pink Ranger (despite never actually knowing that Shelby was the real one). It went kind of predictably for such a story, and the conflict among the monsters was almost more interesting. It's notable for a monster with a particularly weird and stylized design, and what's even more weird is that the episode made him a chef when he was originally designed with an autumn theme instead of a cooking theme.

 

[Samurai8472]

Which raises the question, why not use that force field all the time?

.

It's probably one of those "it's been there all the time but we never see it"


Interesting photo on instagram today

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJivU2cjgq4/

chantzsimpson2 more days, then off to NZ

The helmet is probably lying around Saban offices

 

[Christopher]

Hm... A Zyuohger helmet with a Ninninger costume. Just a mistake, or...?

Anyway, I'm three episodes into Go-Busters now. A lot about it is interesting. The worldbuilding and tech are very clever, the new approach to the monsters is cool, and it's good that they have a specific goal, to obtain Enetron from the "tanks." And as we saw in the opening, the consequences if they succeed at that goal are Akira-level cataclysmic. So the stakes are high, and there's some good drama between the characters. But there's also some rather silly stuff that works against that, like the Buddyroids and the "weak points" of the Go-Busters' powers. Not to mention the irritating mangled-English announcements. "Let's Morphin," "Let's Driving," "Let's Changing"? Uuuuughh. And the production values are mixed -- the miniature work is excellent, with a real outdoor feel to the city scenes, but the CGI is pretty bad.

The fansub is imperfect, also. Some terms aren't translated -- I had to look up "sempai" in my Japanese-English dictionary from college. (Somehow I've retained far less from my year and a quarter of college Japanese than from my three years of high-school Spanish. Maybe because it's a more remote language family, or because I didn't stick with it as long.) And there's no translation of the onscreen captions that are used in a number of scenes. Also, why do they mute the sound on the main titles?

 

[Samurai8472]

Awesome. I look forward to your analysis of the show

And there's no translation of the onscreen captions that are used in a number of scenes. Also, why do they mute the sound on the main titles?

Do you know when the "no translations on the onscreen caption" are?

The uploader muted the sound on the main titles for copyright reasons.

Youtube probably has music recognition software like facebook that can instantly pinpoint the exact song.

It's basically so the uploads don't get yanked by Toei.

I'm impressed. Two years it's been uploaded and it hasn't been taken down.

 

[Christopher]

Do you know when the "no translations on the onscreen caption" are?

Generally at the start of an episode there's a caption in white Japanese writing, and when they go to the Go-Busters' base for the first time in an episode, there's a caption that crawls across the bottom of the screen in red text. I'd guess maybe they're place-and-time captions, but they seem too lengthy for that.

And if the title song is muted for copyright reasons, it's odd that they'd mute the main title song but not the end title song.

 

[Samurai8472]

Oh those.

Some are "remember to watch the show in a brightly lite room!" That's because of the Porygon incident from Pokémon years ago that gave kids seizures

The red captions are sometimes for promotional things

You'll see a lot of promotional/give away captions



BTW episode 7 will have the theme weaved into the episode fight and the debut of the main mecha

Episode 7 is really late in terms of new Super sentai. Usually it's episode 2 that the main combined form debuts

Go-buster's took time to develop and show off the individual mecha for 7 episodes.

 

[Christopher]

The red captions are sometimes for promotional things

You'll see a lot of promotional/give away captions

Yeah, I realized during episode 4 that they were probably some kind of superimposed ad like the banners we have in US shows.


Meanwhile, I'm being reminded of the annoying tendency of these fansubs to translate the second person plural/collective form (anata-tachi or kimi-tachi) as "you guys," even when it's spoken by a character who by all rights should be speaking more formally. It suggests that these translations are being done by Japanese speakers for whom English is a second language and who don't realize that's a slang/informal usage.

 

[Samurai8472]

You might get a kick out of this since you've seen Dairanger. By the way I saw the dvd box set for 60 dollars at the mall

From Akibaranger season 2. Akibaranger is basically a parody of sentai with a lot of easter eggs thrown in. They're not an official sentai and they're probably hallucinating the whole thing

It's insane

They actually had an episode where Toei lawyers threatened to shut down everything ha

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And the Americanized power rangers stopped by

http://powerrangers.wikia.com/wiki/Ep._5:_Delusional_Imports

Synopsis
A delusion has caused the origin of Super Sentai to go from Japan to the United States, making Nobuo's love for the franchise go international.

 

[Christopher]

BTW episode 7 will have the theme weaved into the episode fight and the debut of the main mecha

Go-BusterOh debuted in episode 6, actually. There was a song under the fight with the Metaroid in episode 7, though.

I liked the bit in episode 7 where Ryuuji used a super-strength push to boost Hiromu's super-speed. It was almost a Fastball Special.

 

[Christopher]

I admit to being rather confused by today's Dino Super Charge episode, since it's been so long a hiatus and this is the first time we've had the whole roster since then, so I kept struggling to remember "Who are all these people? Which Ranger haven't we met yet?" For all that I've been thinking that the Go-Busters have been hampered by having such a small team, I think Kyoryuger/Dino Charge went too far in the other direction. And on top of all the Rangers, they threw in Riley's brother as well. I assume we've seen him before, but I can't remember where. I'm also having trouble remembering who that candle-like villain guy is, though apparently he's working for some rival faction to the main villains. I guess what I'm saying overall is that these midseason breaks are too damn long.

Anyway, Kyoryuger's resonances with Zyuranger were made even more clear here, since the Titano Zord is quite similar to Titanus the Carrierzord in MMPR. Although rather than combining with all the other Zords, it forms its own ridiculously overpowered Megazord (though maybe we'll see a combination later). Gravity control? Seriously? With that, how would you ever need another weapon?


Meanwhile, I'm 20 or so episodes into Go-Busters now, and the YouTube list has switched to a different fansub with a lower-quality picture and less exact translation. I like the other fansub better, though it's interesting to get the parallax on the different ways that certain terms are translated (e.g. "the subdimension" vs. "hyperspace"). Anyway, there are five Busters now, but it's weird that one of the Buddyroid robot companions is himself a Buster. Why not just stay in robot form, like so many other robot allies in the past? Since he's built for combat in Buddyroid form to begin with, the distinction between his two forms seems arbitrary.

I'm wondering if one reason Go-Busters wasn't too successful (IIRC) is because of the toys. I assume those annoying announcements and techno-music beats that play when they morph or fire their weapons were emitted by the actual toys -- they sound like something coming from a toy -- and they're annoying as hell. I dunno, maybe the kids liked them, but to me they're irritating.

I still like the overall premise, the novel approach of having human-sized monsters and giant robots to battle at the same time. But I am starting to get a little tired of Enter being the only regular villain (Messiah isn't enough of a character to count). He was kind of interesting at first, but his schtick is wearing a bit thin now and I'd like him to have someone else (ideally female) to play off of, or to take over from time to time for variety's sake. I'm tempted to peek ahead on RangerWiki to see if such a character shows up, but I'm resisting.

 

[Samurai8472]

I'm wondering if one reason Go-Busters wasn't too successful (IIRC) is because of the toys. I assume those annoying announcements and techno-music beats that play when they morph or fire their weapons were emitted by the actual toys -- they sound like something coming from a toy -- and they're annoying as hell. I dunno, maybe the kids liked them, but to me they're irritating.

I still like the overall premise, the novel approach of having human-sized monsters and giant robots to battle at the same time. But I am starting to get a little tired of Enter being the only regular villain (Messiah isn't enough of a character to count). He was kind of interesting at first, but his schtick is wearing a bit thin now and I'd like him to have someone else (ideally female) to play off of, or to take over from time to time for variety's sake. I'm tempted to peek ahead on RangerWiki to see if such a character shows up, but I'm resisting.

The popular idea for why Go-busters failed was because there wasn't a gimmick

Outside of the core mecha the Go-busters didn't have any special Mecha arm attachment or power sphere or things like that

Second part of your review- I can only tell you to wait. Somethings coming.

 

[Christopher]

The popular idea for why Go-busters failed was because there wasn't a gimmick

Outside of the core mecha the Go-busters didn't have any special Mecha arm attachment or power sphere or things like that

I'm not sure what those would be. It seems they had the usual assortment of gimmicks -- the morphing braces, the spy gear that turned into weapons, the Buddyroids, the various mecha configurations.

Plus, of course, it's sad that the success or failure of a show should be based on how well its associated toys sell rather than the quality of the show itself. That's true in the US too, but not quite as blatantly, I think -- though it was more so in the '80s.

 

[cylkoth]

I'd assumed the popular theory over Go Buster's failing, was that it was too Power Ranger-esque Americanized. At least, that felt like the common complaint I recall reading back when the show was airing. They explained, or tried to explain everything, contrary to how sentai operated for years.

There was a scene the earlier Gokaiger series, where superfan and eventual sixth ranger Gai is talking to the alien team about the past Super Sentai, and puts his hand behind his back and whips out a massive Sentai history book about the size of Life Magazine and twice as thick, leading Doc (who was standing beside him) to ponder out loud "...hey, where'd that come from". The line was funny because that's how things always happened, except in Go Busters. Plus, as already mentioned, a boring main villian. Things did perk up at the mid way point in the season, but the damage was done by then. Worst of all, there were 2 Kamen Rider vs Super Sentai films released during their season where they were over shadowed by the more popular Gokaigers, with the as yet to be launched Kyoryuger featured heavily in the second. Ouch.

 

[Christopher]

I'd assumed the popular theory over Go Buster's failing, was that it was too Power Ranger-esque Americanized. At least, that felt like the common complaint I recall reading back when the show was airing. They explained, or tried to explain everything, contrary to how sentai operated for years.

That's what I like about it -- how logically worked out and scientific it all is. Much the same reason I liked Power Rangers RPM and Digimon Tamers. I've always been more a science fiction buff than a fantasy buff.

It's a shame fans didn't respond to the new approach. Separating the regular monster from the giant monster is inspired, and it allows a lot more variations on the action than the cliche of blowing up the small monster and having it immediately turn into a giant monster. You can have some team members fighting the small monster while another takes on the big monster, you can have the small monster defeated first or the big one defeated first, there are just so many possibilities.

Plus, as already mentioned, a boring main villian.

I don't think Enter's boring, just that he gets stretched too thin by being the only villain. It would be better if he had a sidekick or two to play off of. Or if there were more investigation of his backstory and origins. I'm guessing he's the avatar of one of the teleportation center's occupants, like Jin, but they haven't established any missing siblings or the like that he could turn out to be.

I do think "Enter" is kind of a lame bad-guy name, but there are times when I'm trying to suss out his stratagem and I can't resist phrasing it to myself as, "Hmm, what is Enter's Game?"

 

[Christopher]

Oh, dear... For some reason, episode 22, which debuts the new character Escape (who seems to be the female second villain I was hoping for), is blocked on YouTube because of copyrighted content belonging to Columbia. Maybe something to do with the fragment of a Spider-Man movie clip that was shown just before the end titles on episode 21 -- maybe there's a commercial that someone failed to cut out of the fansub?