As usual, the torch passing scene from one Sentai team to another is great.
Now let's get to the overview of the show.
Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters Review
The show has 3 or 4 episodes with battle damaged effect which is pretty neat.
If i want to talk about Go-Busters, i have to talk about the things that happened behind the scenes and it's reputation which is an interesting subject. First off, Go-Busters has the most lowest TV rating for a Sentai in the last 10 years or so. It doesn't help for the fact that the toys didn't sell well too which i personally think that the marketing people saw it coming thus making Legend Mobirates toys from their previously commercial success Gokaiger. I mean some of Go-Busters toys need Ranger Keys and all. So you can say ratings and sales-wise, Go-Busters was a flop.
However, according to the TV rating demographic, it seems that the show is mostly watched by young adults instead of kids which Sentai was intended for. Reason for that is because Go-Busters tackles a concept that are more appealing to older audience than kids. The story is somewhat mature despite being light-hearted at times and the characters aren't your cop-out heroes straight out of any kids shows. They're people who practice actual professionalism. The ones who work with logic and reasoning and not feelings. This is a pretty fresh concept in teamwork that you don't see often on another organization team squad-esque series like Dekaranger or Boukenger. Because of this, The three main characters suffers from being too plain for any sort of fun elements which is understandable why kids don't enjoy it. Until these guys came along...
I think these guys surpassed Go-On Wings as the best extra rangers duo.
It's the show's extra rangers, Beet and Stag Busters. Beet Buster/Jin Masato is played by the guy who previously played MagiYellow on Magiranger and Stag Buster/Beet J.Stag is voiced by Yuuichi Nakamura, whom i will always remember as the guy who voiced Graham Aker/Mister Bushido from Gundam 00. With their appearance in Episode 15, the show started to become a little bit more light hearted. Jin is the fun-loving guy with a Buddyroid who is a stoic, narcissist and self-paced. They helped making the show more fun to watch and i think this is when kids demographic started to grow. But out of the two, my favorite is definitely The Juice.
It doesn't help that when i see him, i saw Graham saying over-the-top things.
I love this guy. He rarely talks or communicate, he rarely has any scenes and if he had any, he's like a background being all silent and stuff. But he just leaves a big impression on me. Everytime he's on screen, he's doing his own thing and don't give a thing or two on what happened on the actual focus. He could role playing with a kids plaything. He could be seen talking to a tree for no reason. He also do a lot of weird things in a background of people talking serious things. He just don't give a crap. And when the focus is on him. He always overshadows Jin which makes him really angry. He talked silly, he acted silly, but at times he can be sentimental. I dunno, i always have a soft spot on strong and stoic yet dumb characters. There's an appeal to those kind of traits that i find magical. Speaking of favorite characters...
Look at him. Greeting the heroes with a pizza on his hand. He's smooth.
This villain, man. This freaking villain. This collection of data named Enter is the most potent villain ever in a Sentai. From his looks, he looks like a faggot who like to spew some french words (thus sometimes i call him the FFF - Fabulous French Faggot). But behind his camaraderie, He's the most smart and sly villain ever in this show. From as early as the 3rd episode he proposed the most sensible plan ever to defeat the Go-Busters which is send giant monsters all at once thus defeating them by shear number. Sadly he is working under a boss who is powerful but not smart enough to come up with a plan. All he wants is result and not planning on how. You know, like any real life bosses.
He's also a fun villain. With his smarts instead of shear power, he's pretty much likes to play around with the heroes and outsmart them all the times. Which is a good thing cause if you have a villain this smart, the heroes need to work smarter thus the only way to foil his plan is to outsmart him which they did a few times. But Enter never let his emotion plays him for the most part. So when the heroes outsmart him, he outsmart the heroes next time which is a continuous loop of who can outsmart whom. And when i say he's a fun villain, he is. He enjoys doing bad things and treat everything like a game. But surprisingly he does not look disturbing like some psychopath, instead he looks like your ordinary villain which is kinda cool considering his action.
As shows progress and even when they introduce a new villain called Escape, He was never downplayed. He's kind of out-shadowed on the mid episodes, but when he started planning something later on, he becomes more smarter and dangerous than before. He came out with plans that may look like he's running out of ideas, but it's all for another bigger plan that is almost flawless. Not gonna spoil it cause it's just brilliant.
If i have to put him to a list of Sentai villains, he is auto number 1 on the list. He is that great of a villain.
Now let's get to the overview of the show.
Even being a cluster, it still looked impressive.
The production value of this show is amazing. The fight choreography is well done seeing it's from the same guy who worked for Power Rangers fight scenes before, Koichi Sakamoto. There's a lot of technical moves, high paced and swift action despite all being wire-frame and all. But the most impressive part of the show is it's giant robot battles. The first robot, Go-Buster Ace might be the most well designed robot in recent times. It's simple yet it makes up for a lot of agile movements thus can create some amazing fights. Also what's rare about this show is that they rarely spam the final combination mecha like any series before this and for a good reason. It's unstable and are only useful as a trump card and all. Most of the time, the fight only consists of Ace, Go-Buster Oh, and other combination robots not more than 3/4 unit combination.
The story on the other hand, while it's solid, it has a lot of issues. I heard that due to the unpopular response to their target audience, they have to retool the show a few times thus making the show having 3 climax midway, 3/4th way and the actual finale. Can't help that they throw out blatant advertisement for the new Gavan movie as a two-parter of the show. But despite of that, the show doesn't fall flat. The priority is maintained and while there are some slowness after the first arc, the show tries it best not to derail it. It's like Kamen Rider Hibiki if they put some effort at the 2nd half of the show.
I guess that's it about Go-Busters. It's an interesting Sentai season. It might not be the show the franchise wanted, but it's a show that the franchise needs.
Bye Bye Go-Busters. You may not be the best Sentai, but you are consistent.
Let's move on to:
Juuden Sentai Kyoryuger - First Impression
The formula now is that it's going to be a fun season... I think.
I think now that it's coming a full circle of patterning. Ever since Gaoranger ended in 2002, The cycle of Sentai has always being this:
- Recycled theme, proper mood Sentai series (Hurricanger, Gekiranger)
- Recycled theme, fun mood Sentai series (Abaranger, Go-Onger)
- Original Theme Sentai Series (Dekaranger, Shinkenger)
- Original Theme Sentai Series (Magiranger, Goseiger)
- Anniversary Sentai Series. (Boukenger, Gokaiger)
And then rinse and repeat. (By the way, Go-Busters may look like an original series, but the element of computers and cyber stuff resembles Megaranger)
Now about Kyoryuger. My first impression is great. I have nothing to expect as of now, But it does look promising. Red looks like a mix of Hot-blooded Red like Dekared, Gekired or Go-On Red but minus the annoyance, instead they add in the wild attitude of Gokai Red. Pretty neat. The rest of the member needs some time to see if they're any good. But i have to admit Kyoryu Blue will obviously be the funny guy of the show.
The action is standard so far. But being the first episode of all, i'll check out more soon. And i guess that's all for the review...
...Wait. What about Kamen Rider Wizard so far?
Well... I have to admit I put the show on hold so far and i am 4 episodes behind. Why? Cause it just feels very underwhelming despite it's cool design and concept. Also it's kinda boring and no character is interesting. Even when they introduce the new Rider, He's just obnoxious to look at. But i won't drop the show yet, i want to see if they can redeem itself.
And i guess that's all for now...
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