2011 Super Sentai - Rumor Thread

[Blade Dancer]

By the way, I co-sign Lynxara's suggestion of having a Robotic Sentai team.

ROBOTIC SENSHI FTW!!!! :buttrock: :P

So I take it you aren't one of the ones she would be afraid of getting lynched by if it ever came to pass? :laugh:

[Sage Shinigami]

Yeah, the only robots I've seen the team really care about lately have been the "little monster" types like the original five Origami or the Go-on machines or the Miracle Headders-- the ones that have personalities.

I'm okay with this as long as the mecha don't start talking. Jesus hell, I hate it when that happens because Toei pretty much ends up writing the robot like a Digimon, and that's such an off dynamic for Super Sentai.

This is pretty much one of the two things that keeps me from getting into Abaranger, I just detest everything about the robots.

I believe I'm firmly in the minority here when I say I LOVE talking mecha. In fact...I'm kinda annoyed when fantasy series have sentient robots/animals but they DON'T talk. This stuff bugs me:

Mecha: *indeterminable animal sound*

Senshi: "You say *insert translation for audience here*?"

Vomit.

I'd love to have a season with talking vehicles. (Go-Onger doesn't count.)

[GWolf]

I enjoyed the mecha in Abarangers. They were actual characters, so much better then the portrayal in Dino Thunder...yes, the episode where the Triceratops is turned into a human is weird, but still.

[Kamen Rider Rage]

when do the new Sentai news start coming?:disappoin

[GoukaiRed]

when do the new Sentai news start coming?:disappoin
I wonder too!

[garfield15]

I believe I'm firmly in the minority here when I say I LOVE talking mecha. In fact...I'm kinda annoyed when fantasy series have sentient robots/animals but they DON'T talk. This stuff bugs me:

Mecha: *indeterminable animal sound*

Senshi: "You say *insert translation for audience here*?"

Vomit.You mean like Gaoranger? (Or was that just Wild Force?)

Yeah, the Bakuryuu in Abaranger were really awesome and I thought they were tons of fun. I'd like something like that again.

[Lynxara]

Having someone translate for the robots is cheesy and dumb, yes. I like it better when a sentient or quasi-sentient robot has ways of making its feelings known without need for a translator, generally through its actions. This means that thought has to go into the robot's body language.

I think once you give the robot a voice, you've sort of broken the idea that it's even a metaphorical vehicle and get into questions like "Why does it even need to be piloted?" and "Why isn't it just the star of the show, why do we have lead human characters at all?"

I call this "the Transformers paradox" since generally in Transformers, the robots really are just the main characters. I believe wanting to avoid the Transformers paradox is why very few anime mecha shows will let the robots communicate directly with the pilots or audience.

The main non-TF franchise that did this was the Takara's Yuusha franchise, where the talking robot tended to be presented as main character and the humans as its sidekicks. The few Yuusha shows that try to make the human more important than just a mascot treat him directly as a superhero that acts as the Robin to the robot's Batman.

There are a lot of shows that will allow indirect communication (not through a translator, but through facial expressions or the robot occasionally taking an action in emergencies) and a lot of shows that just treat the robots like vehicles, but otherwise the robot is left silent to make sure the pilots still have agency. Plot stuff happens when the human decides it is.

This doesn't work too well in Super Sentai, where a core aspect of the formula asks us to identify with the five lead humans as the main characters. They really need to have most of the plot agency. So if you give the robots full sentience-- either you're letting them have too much agency, or it feels arbitrary that they still behave like conventional robots and need pilots instead of being properly alive.

It's possible Super Sentai will eventually cook up a way to do the Digimon-like robots that works, but I think the series would need to dramatically change some of its structural elements to get there. I'd really rather just see teams stick to traditional non-sentient vehicle robots or quasi-sentient "silent friend" type of robots. (I find "silent friend" robots more emotionally affecting, anyway.)

[dukemon22]

I'm biased in my love of Abaranger; I openly admit that lol, but everything else you said I agree with.

Except that; both in the case of Aba and Go-onger, the rangers were needed for the gattai.

And if you want to be technical, the humans were the partners in Go-onger, not the other way around.

What I mean is, this loophole in the logic leaves a place for the rangers to take prominence, when the mecha are characters themselves.

[Lynxara]

What I mean is, this loophole in the logic leaves a place for the rangers to take prominence, when the mecha are characters themselves.

I find this "loophole" really unconvincing and uninteresting unless the show is just willing to admit that the robots are the main characters. If all you need the human for is to gattai? That human is not a protagonist, it's a helpful sidekick.

It just really clashes with the basics of the Super Sentai formula if the heroes are filling a role usually reserved for helpful sidekicks. I'm not saying it renders the show nonsensical or terrible, but it absolutely doesn't work for me. I don't think it even works as a way to approach mecha in Super Sentai's formula without some serious refinement.

(Actually, if I remember what Zyuranger did with Daizyujin correctly, I believe I liked how it handled working a clearly sentient robot into a Super Sentai plotline. It could talk to them but generally didn't and there was a strong, specific explanation that detailed precisely why Daizyujin and the rangers needed each other.)

[garfield15]

Digimon Sentai would be awesome!

[Cirno]

Wasn't that basically Digimon Frontier? :rimshot:

[Lynxara]

Yeah and we all remember what a success that was. :loltongue:

I think you could make the two formulas work together, but you'd have to do a lot of disassembling and rebuilding. More than Abaranger did, though that show clearly had an interest in such things.

[garfield15]

Wasn't that basically Digimon Frontier? :rimshot:

Yes. Yes it was (without mecha). And it was actually pretty good....until that arc. Then it was shit.

[Shogun_Master]

No talking robots, please- it ruins it becuase, unless they were going for a Knight Rider feel, it's gonna turn out like shit.:redface2:

Anyway, I'd like them to do a season that has a kind of unconventional theme, something that you wouldn't really think too much about, but could be stretched out into a proper show.

[Gold Samurai]

And now we've got Digimon Kamen Rider.

[Shogun_Master]

Wait... What?:sly:

[Lynxara]

And now we've got Digimon Kamen Rider.

I'm not too crazy about the "partner animals" trend in Kamen Rider, either. I liked what Kabuto did with the Zecters but I didn't care much for Kivat in Kiva. I sharply disliked the disc animals in Hibiki and I dislike the Candroids in OOO, but the Memory Gadgets in W worked well enough for me. I guess a lot of it just comes down to execution.

[garfield15]

Wait, what's the difference between Memory Gadgets and Candroids? I think they're pretty well used in OOO like in episode 3

[Lynxara]

I stopped OOO at 2 so I can't comment on 3, but I find the Candroids galling on several conceptual levels.

1) It is completely insipid that they are literally something we watch the hero buy in the series, I don't give a damn about its stupid coin theme. Bandai is not known for marketing things subtly, but showing the hero buying Candroids in hopes that children will mimic that is just crass and distasteful. We do see Shotaro use the Memory Gadgets in W to make them look cool but that's far less obnoxious.

2) The engineering of the transformation offends me. Long, slim objects are very easy to make transform into something else, it's why we got an assload of Super Robots based on trains in the 90s. The Candroids are the same type of lazy, despicable engineering.

The Memory Gadgets didn't all transform and the ones that did transformed into different sorts of shapes. They all had specialized functions that were so clear they called for very little exposition. I dunno WTF the difference between the Hawk and Octopus Candroids really is, beyond shape. They both seem to fly.

3) The way the Candroids can show up en masse for cheap CG spectacle is offensive. It indicates their disposable nature in-series and out-of-series is clearly meant to try and goad children into buying lots of the same one. We only ever see one of each Memory Gadget and they're relatively unobtrusive.

It helps that they are portrayed largely as Shotaro's helpers, to compensate for his averageness. Philip and Ryu are badasses so they have one each. What does the use of Candroids say about OOO? I have no effing clue, their depictions seemed largely arbitrary in the first two episodes.

4) You get gob-stoppingly stupid scenes with the Candroids doing things like turning themselves back into cans and stacking themselves or turning into a road in episode 2.

I disliked the Memory Gadgets initially in W but later warmed to them because they could help W's attacks in clever ways and help Shotaro take care of himself when he can't be W. They were useful but never obnoxious.

I don't feel the same character connection with the Candroids that you see from the first episode on with the Memory Gadgets. The Candroids say nothing useful about Eiji or Kogami or even the setting, that I have seen. They are just totally arbitrary.

5) The Memory Gadgets were ignorable if you didn't like them. They just didn't play a major role in most episodes. The Candroids are going to be shoved into our faces constantly judging by OOO's beginning, which means I can't just ignore them at first and slowly warm up to them. I get actively annoyed during Candroid scenes and the direction doesn't let me focus on anything else. It's like the show simply doesn't want you to watch it unless you're going to like the miserable Candroids.

I guess the operative word here is "obnoxious." I am inclined to dislike animal helpers in Kamen Rider unless they've unobtrusive or given something sensible and logical to do. The Candroids are the very definition of obtrusive and I find their role isn't clearly defined. Factor in matters of taste like my problems with the design and I'm just never going to like them.

[Shogun_Master]

I agree, the candroids have a purpose in the show & they're very useful already- especially with the fat guy yummy.

Kivat, though, didnt make much sense to me & i also liked the Zecters... however, there was way too much that was never explained well in Kiva.

[Cirno]

I liked Kivat, ....a lot more than I did to Tatsulot, that's for sure.

[garfield15]

I guess the operative word here is "obnoxious." I am inclined to dislike animal helpers in Kamen Rider unless they've unobtrusive or given something sensible and logical to do. The Candroids are the very definition of obtrusive and I find their role isn't clearly defined. Factor in matters of taste like my problems with the design and I'm just never going to like them.
Yes, I understand all that and it makes sense, but like I said, episode 3 showed them being used in a very clear and interesting way. Also, they have the role of picking up the Cell Medals for Kougami. Yes, I know you hate him, but they have a role for something or whatever he's doing with them.

[Aoi Kurenai]

I think it's being a tad bit too critical of the Candroids to write them off so easily, and personally I think it's odd that anyone can get into something as gaudy in design as the Memory Gadgets and not the Candroids that actually have a nice sleek sense of aesthetic going for them. Especially when one says that they didn't initially like the Memory Gadgets, I feel the same leniency should be given towards the Candroids. The only thing that (so far) sets them apart is the design, the Candroids seem just as useful and well executed as the Memory Gadgets, and this actually started earlier on in this series than it did in Double.

I like them because I love the designs, they seem practical to the series, the whole "buy me" thing almost seems like more of a jab at the tokusatsu toy thing since it is in no way being subtle.

[Mr. Yellow]

I kind of feel like the Candroids fit in better with the overall theme of OOO's then the Memory Gadgets did for Double. Some of the gadgets seemed odd or they only appeared a few times. The Candroids appear to have one specific purpose, to collect the medals left by a defeated Yummy.

[Hidden Masta]

I think it's amazing anyone cares. Ever since the Disk Animals these things are just cheap money makers. There not meant to blow your mind with there usefulness. There meant for little kids to buy cause they need it for reasons they don't know. If the candroids are useful this season than yay Toei did good. If they do nothing then oh well it's not like a bought they damn thing cause in the end it's just a useless can/disk/camerathatlookslikebat.