Kamen Rider & Super Sentai retrospective #3: 1993-1998
Dairanger in 1993 was more disturbing than scary or cool. Just look how the villains are dressed; it’s like you’re watching an S&M porno. They didn’t even have enough personality or creepy ways of killing their victims. They were just going after children like pedophiles, but were also never killing them because this is Heisei, we can’t have deaths. When Bantorra was doing the exact same thing in Zyuranger, it made sense there, since she hated seeing happy children after losing her own son. Here the villains do it because they are evil without a reason.
And if you think that wasn’t much, look at the grunts of this season. I can only describe them as gay butlers. This is disturbing. Hell, not even the story was making any sense. The villains were made of clay by their emperor but then the big twist comes, the emperor is also made of clay and was created by his general. So the general is the only actual villain… only he’s not because he also turns out to be made of clay and we never see the original. This is bullshit.
No wonder the American version didn’t use anything besides the monster and mecha footage. It created its own villain, Lord Zedd, it threw away the bullshit plot, and kept going in the same episodic fashion. The result was the Power Rangers version being much simpler but at least it wasn’t 50 episodes of gay pedophile butlers doing S&M in a story that made no sense.
Kakuranger in 1994 was like Turboranger, a childish version with slapstick comedy and silly villains. There is nothing to talk about it since it was a completely throwaway season with nothing memorable about it. Not even the Power Ranger version did much with it other than making it seem the villains were relatives to Rita Repulsa and using the ninja costumes only in the filler movie. You know, the one with Ivan Ooze and the terrible CGI mecha.
Listening to the audience complaining about the franchise losing its dark atmosphere, the creators intended for Ohranger in 1995 to be brutal like in the Showa era. And then chickened out when the metro gas attacks happened since they didn’t want to scare the children. As a result the tone of the series was constantly jumping from serious to comical, and created a ridiculous mood whiplash that the audience didn’t like. This season had some of the lowest ratings in the whole franchise because at a time when Neon Genesis was challenging its audience to deal with its social problems, Tokusatsu was playing it safe just for selling toys.
By the way, the audience realized this bullshit because they were young people of the 90s, instead of the feelfag millennials of today. You can bet a thousand bucks that if it was airing two decades later, it would be praised like a deconstruction or some bullshit for going against expectations. It would be hailed as another masterpiece like Akame ga Kill or Mirai Nikki because mood whiplashes are not awful storytelling, they are the deep feelings I felt deep in my feels, bro. Jesus Christ; even children were not fooled by this bullshit 2 decades ago.
Anyways, the American version, dubbed Power Rangers ZEO, did much better since it was never trying to be very serious, and was even somewhat exciting to see the new villains seemingly being a bigger threat than Rita and Zedd. They weren’t but it was great fan service nonetheless.
Unfortunately, America did not handle the Kamen Rider franchise as well, which is why it never managed to be popular in the west. The adaptation of Kamen Rider Black was dubbed Masked Rider and was changed to a ridiculous degree. What used to be dark and depressing was presented as a silly family friendly comedy, with its own fluffy mascot and bloodless battles. And that’s why the Showa era is the best. Oh well, at least it reminded people it exists and paved the way for a comeback in the 21st century.
The next season of Super Sentai was Carranger in 1996. Unlike the previous seasons that were trying to be light and fluffy, this one is a self aware parody of its own formula. So yeah, it was essentially the Gintama of Tokusatsu. Is it hilarious and worthy to check out? Not really because the humor was aimed at 10 year olds. It wasn’t fan service for the adults who were following it for decades and never went all out. So it sort of fizzled away for not being extreme enough.
As for the American version, it was a mess. They couldn’t use most of the footage because it was very space oriented, while the Power Rangers were still earthbound. And even the footage they could use was just a bunch of jokes, which either didn’t translate to English or were too silly to use in their version. It’s also the point where the original actors ended their contract, left the series, and got replaced with a less interesting cast that had to deal with an audience that was getting fed up with the franchise.
The result was a very un-engaging season. Power Rangers Turbo, which must not be confused with Turboranger from the Super sentai franchise, felt like filler compared to what came before, since they moved from fighting an interstellar empire of evil, to using cars for chasing a submarine that was placing bombs in a city. That’s the problem when you try to have continuity all the time while being a slave to whatever footage you are given from a franchise with no continuity.
Megarangers is a very special case, as it used a lot of trends of that time which instantly increased the ratings and in a way saved the franchise from discontinuation. Getting powers from videogames, moving through the internet, having your base in space, and using a lot more CGI in special effects, made it more entertaining than the previous 4 terrible seasons put together.
This was still not enough to make it a good season, since the heroes were goofy highschoolers and the villains had no charm. This is extra disappointing when you see how they were trying to make it akin to Bioman and Liveman, by having a megalomaniac evil scientist. You could see the ruthlessness of Dr. Man and Dr. Bias on every step of the way. Dr. Hinelar on the other hand acts like he doesn’t care much, which is extremely damaging in a franchise where the bad guys are 90% of the charm.
In the meantime, the Power Rangers variation went all out since the producers believed that because of the very low ratings this would be the final season. In Space threw in every single villain and hero for a battle that was taking place all across the freaking universe, while Bulk and Skull become the most likable side characters of all times. The finale was supposed to be solid, since Zordon sacrificed himself for eradicating all evil in the galaxy and the rangers would have nobody to fight anymore. Yeah, evil was defeated with a cheap copout but it still was an amazing way to end the franchise right here. And they didn’t, because the ratings went up and Saban wanted to keep milking it like there is no tomorrow.
Gingaman continues using popular trends. I really enjoyed the space pirates theme, and the epic fantasy heroics it was implementing. Sadly, it was good only as a cheesy Saturday morning cartoon, since the bad guys were all 1 dimensional.
Also, from this season on, almost every major villain will not have a human face showing, which makes it very hard to care about them. They probably did it so the western adaptation would need to film fewer new scenes, which means it could keep going with lower budgets. Well, thanks a lot, you took away the appeal of the villains. What am I supposed to like now? The heroes? Fuck the heroes; nobody cares about them.
As for the American version, Lost Galaxy was a complete mess. Nobody expected another season, so when they were pressured to make another one out of the blue, they didn’t have the time to stitch together a coherent plot, since they didn’t even know what footage they had to work with, as Gingaman was still airing. Hell, they didn’t even have the time to build the sets for filming, they had to use costumes from previous seasons, as well as soldier uniforms from the Starship Troopers movie. As much as I appreciate the creativity, it was an awful installment that didn’t know where it was going or how was it supposed to carry on from the satisfying finale of In Space. But who cares if it keeps making money, right?