Super Sentai

[Delta]

I have forked this from the toy discussion, so this will have to serve as an intro post. So here goes:
What do you guys think about Sentai? For those who do not know what it is, it is basically Japanese Power Rangers, and it has been going on for over three decades. Power Rangers is basically the western adaption of the more recent seasons. It is the longest running tokusatsu series (the genre shows like this belong to), and it got the giant robot concept from Spider-Man. I am not kidding. Spider-Man had a giant robot in Japan.

I actually started collecting Ranger Keys from Gokaiger in Japan. It is what the Power Rangers are derived from in the US. This season is the 35th Anniversary season, and they have PLENTY of marketing and merchandise to go with it. Well deserved too with the amazing pirate motif. The transformation device is pretty cool to own as well. The market for these things go way up too, so they kind of become collectible right off the bat.

Another Gokaiger fan here? Great!
Also, is collecting the keys not going to bleed you dry? I mean, that is kind of what previous collectible items in the line did, and importing only adds to the cost.

Regarding PR merch vs. Sentai merch, yes, the Samurai stuff is gimped compared to the Shinkenger stuff, but it is available here, borderline affordable and offers its own playability advantages.

Have you seen the Mobirates app for Android?

[nudist18]

I actually started collecting Ranger Keys from Gokaiger in Japan. It is what the Power Rangers are derived from in the US. This season is the 35th Anniversary season, and they have PLENTY of marketing and merchandise to go with it. Well deserved too with the amazing pirate motif. The transformation device is pretty cool to own as well. The market for these things go way up too, so they kind of become collectible right off the bat.

Another Gokaiger fan here? Great!
Also, is collecting the keys not going to bleed you dry? I mean, that is kind of what previous collectible items in the line did, and importing only adds to the cost.

Regarding PR merch vs. Sentai merch, yes, the Samurai stuff is gimped compared to the Shinkenger stuff, but it is available here, borderline affordable and offers its own playability advantages.

Have you seen the Mobirates app for Android?

Oh, I am quite the Gokaiger fan. I actually have a Gokai Green helmet coming to me soon. My favorite Sentai, will forever be Liveman though. Honestly, CSToysJapan has a lot of the ranger keys available in sets and capsule toy form at decent prices. Shipping isn't terrible either. Considering how irrelevant PR series often are to Sentai series, I decided to go all out on Gokaiger, because it will be NOTHING like it is in Japan when it reaches here. So I budgeted a nice bit of cash I had saved toward getting keys and a mobirates. Also, I did check out the app. Not compatible with my phone yet, but, still AMAZING!!!

[Delta]

Wow, you are quite the collector if you are having someone make you a helmet. And I consider myself crazy for wanting to complete the Samurai mecha lineup, which will probably run me over €200.
Good for you. Nice to see another fan.
Gokai Change! A~BARANGER!

[Daft]

I used to watch Changeman and Flashman during the 90's.

But I prefer Metal Heroes like Jiban, Jaspion and Cybercops.

[Delta]

Are those not 80s shows? Zyuranger was 92 if I am counting back correctly, so Jetman would be 91 and Fiveman would be 90. Go back a few more steps with Turboranger, Liveman, Maskman and you go back to '86 for Flashman and '85 for Changeman for the original runs. Is it not nice to be able to enjoy shows older than oneself?

[Daft]

Yes, they're from the 80's. But they were only aired here in Brazil around 94-95.

[Delta]

Well, consider yourself lucky, many places in the world never got any Sentai at all. The French got Bioman, there are some translations over in Asia (including one that rebrands it as PR), but that was it.

[Daft]

Tokusatsus were popular here during the 90s. Besides these, we also got Jiraya, Winspector, Solbrain, Black Kamen Rider, etc.

[Delta]

Well, Saban did adapt many toku shows back then, too. He took Kamen Rider Black RX and turned it into Masked Rider, and he recycled some Metal Hero (V.R. Troopers) and B-Fighter (Big Bad Beetleborgs), too. Only one took off, though.

[nudist18]

Believe it or not, the United States aired seven episodes of Dynaman back in the 80's. It was dubbed over, and they made it EXTREMELY hilarious. Still though, awesome to see another collector of the Sentai items on here Delta! This has me extremely excited! May I say, my newest additions to the Gokaiger collection, will be an entire Gokai Green suit, along with the boots and toy belt buckle. It is going to be AMAZING!!!! I cannot wait to field test this costume lol Also, it is awesome to hear you are a mech collector! Next to suits and helmets, that has got to be the most expensive thing to get. In a close second would be the transformation devices.

[Delta]

I am not a collector, I am a player. If I were a collector, I would have already tried everything to get my hands on a Zeo Ultrazord. I appreciate the BoA version of Shinkenoh / Samurai MZ for the added playability by changing the connectors, but I am also a bit annoyed that there are so many instances where the connectors have minute size differences, resulting in unstable joints everywhere on the Tora Origami adaption.
Yeah, Mecha are expensive, especially if you live in Europe to get ripped off on prices (the $30 MZs sold for €50 over here on release), but the play value scales superlinearly with the amount of stuff you have (i.e. with more stuff to combine it with, each piece becomes more fun), so I want to complete at least one mecha line. But doing this for all the seasons I would consider prohibitively expensive.

[nitram]

I'm watching some Super Sentai (and other tokusatsus) since more or less a decade because I want to watch full seasons in subtitled versions of some shows I used to watch when I was a child.

From the Super Sentai franchise, I watched Flashman (1986-1987), Maskman (1987-1988), Goggle V (1982-1983) and Changeman (1985-1986), from the 1980s, which I saw in TV in the 90s.

Some time afterwards, I was curious to see how Super Sentai looked like in the 2000s.
I chose to watch Gokaiger (2011-2012) cause it puts all the previous Sentai in the same show. It was the perfect plan to catch up with lots of Super Sentais at once. It was interesting.

Then, I watched Sun Vulcan (1981-1982) and liked it.

The series often have interesting soundtracks. The emotional thing works quite well.

The clichés are annoying. The standard episode scheme is: a plan of the vilains to conquer Earth + the Super Sentai discovers it + field battle + destruction of the monster of the episode, which gets big and is afterwards destroyed by the Super Sentai giant robot.

The drama inside is often interesting, notably if you watch lots of episodes in once, but they can be diluted by the clichés. And there are lots of episodes working like fillers, which contribute nothing to the general story.

The dramas of Flashman, Changeman and Gokaiger are quite elaborated. Flashman's one is particularly touching. Goggle V and Maskman are less interesting, and Sun Vulcan is cool mainly cause of the funny characters the Yellow in the Sentai and an employee of their chief.

Super Sentai have lots of fans in Brazil until today. I remember a Portuguese friend telling me how she was surprised to find adults guys singing tokusatsu songs in bars there :P

Besides Super Sentai, I also watched Gyaban (1982), Sharivan (1983), Shaider (1984), Spielvan (1986), Metalder (1987), Jiraiya (1988), Jiban (1989). The first three are a trilogy (space detectives) and movies interesting movies were released in 2012 and 2014. Spielban is a space detective-like series. Metalder is an android, the story is more mature, and there isn't the cliché of one episode = one monster: that's cool. Jiraiya is a ninja and Jiban a Robocop inspired hero. Hiroshi Watari, the actor who played Sharivan, Spielban, Boomerang in Juspion and the stunt of the Red Sun Vulcan was in Paris last month, but I missed him :(

I'm waiting a fansub to finish Juspion (1985, kind of space detective) before continuing watching to it and I'm looking for subtitles for Winspector (1990) and Solbrain (1991), rescue teams, and Machineman (1984).

All these are branded metal heros, cause they use metal armors. There's usually few main protagonists, often only one, whereas in Super Sentai they're often five.

And finally there is the Kamen Rider franchise. I watched Kamen Rider Black (1987) and Kamen Rider Black RX (1988). The first one is quite dramatic, and better than its sequel.

I watched all this to remember things I saw in TV when I was a kid. Now, adult, I find these series too childish. They don't attract me. Perhaps if they evolved like Saint Seiya (1986-1989), with a movie like Saint Seiya: Heaven Chapter: Overture (2004), focused on grew up fans, and well done animation like Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas – The Myth of Hades (2009-2011), instead of childish and poor made ones like Saint Seiya Omega (2012-2014).

[Delta]

Metal Heroes... I mainly know Gavan from the Gokaiger special, the Gavan movie and Super Hero Taisen Z. Also, I vaguely remember V.R. Troopers and Big Bad BeetleBorgs, Saban's attempts to bring Metal Heroes to western audiences at the height of Power Rangers. They also tried with Masked Rider, but only the Sentai adaption was successful in the long run.

I am watching Dairanger right now. Liked the roll call and the designs, and the plot is not bad. The special effects however are.

[nitram]

Gyaban is old, but it has nevertheless good and very good fight scenes. I prefer the old than the Gyaban new generation. In the new gen, I prefer Sharivan, he's fucking nerd almost bad boy and looks like a former boss I had :P  The new Shaider is too childish.
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[/size]What I didn't like in some crossovers movies like Super Hero Taisen is that it's always some heroes pretending they're bad guys to counter the vilains attack and afterwards they tell everybody: Ha, twas for our own sake!. And it's awful to see scenes like Kamen Rider Black killing Shadow Moon in two seconds whereas we were used to see episode-long confrontation in the original series :/
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[/size]I also vaguely remember VR Troopers, I think I was 5 or 6 years old when it aired in Brazil. I dislike the US adaptations, I'm on the original stuff. I think Japanese have convincing voices, there is more emotion than foreign voices, something bizarre I love.
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[/size]I'm not planning to watch other Sentai soon. If I change my mind, I'd watch the first ones, Bioman (a success in France and with an actor from Goggle V), Zyuranger, the first one traficked by Saban in the US, and with an actor from Jiraya.