Apologies for the double-post, but I'm moving the 'Sentai Recommendations' convo from the chatroom to here - partly for permanence, mainly because I don't want to clog the thing up with words. So, without further ado - Troy's thoughts on various Sentai, starting with the original conversation, condensed to important bits!
]Me: ...Would any of you be interested in getting into Sentai?
-after a while, and some unrelated stuff-
]Me:....Right. Commence recommendations.
]Me: With some comparisons to PR, as per my limited knowledge.
Adannor: I dunno
Adannor: on my own I'd probably start watching the series backwards- grab the newest, then the one that came before it....
]Me: You might want to watch some other Sentai before starting Gokaiger. Jyuken Sentai Gekiranger, which Disney turned into... Jungle Fury. Though it starts off slow, it soon turns into an incredibly enjoyable ride, filled with kung-fu, kung-fu and more kung-fu.
Adannor:
"You might want to watch some other Sentai before starting Gokaiger"Why's that?
Adannor: I mean, I've kinda watched Decade first and I think it went ok XD
Adannor: As a primer for the franchise of sorts
]Me: It lets you appreciate the huge amounts of cameos, guest appearances and callbacks that appear in the series. Really, Gokaiger is lots of fun on its own - but when coupled with background knowledge, it becomes pretty darned awesome. With Decade, all you really have to know is what the Riders look like. Anyway, back to Gekiranger. The two main villains, Rio and Mele, are probably the best villains I've ever seen in any toku show, bar none - they basically turn into half-billed villain protagonists, and have plenty of character development, motive examinations and scenes by themselves.
]Me:I was rooting for them all the way. Did I mention the plot? It's pretty tight, too.
-after yet another while-
Adannor: and how does the Jungle Fury compare?
]Me: Jungle Fury is a horrible, horrible mess. Right. One thing you should keep in mind when watching Sentai, though (and this to any of the series) is that it is not Kamen Rider. While drama and darkness is apparent in many of the better series, on a whole, it's tone is far lighter than its sister show. Group fights. Cannon finishers. Attacks being called by things that aren't the belt, all the time. Giant robots. Explosions, followed by poses. Roll calls that happen once an episode. Stock transformation sequences, activated by calls that are not 'Henshin.' It's really a different beast - but if you can get used to the tropes featured therein and learn to appreciate them, you'll find that it's actually pretty darned fun.
Adannor: Yeah, I knew that.
-after a wiki walk-
Adannor:*Suppose your first ever exposure to the Batman franchise was the campy 1960s television show. Then someone mentions to you, "Hey, did you know that they made a film version of this?" and hands you a DVD of The Dark Knight. Yeah, that's kind of like how Power Rangers RPM compares to its Super Sentai source material and the Power Rangers franchise as a whole.
Adannor: What can you tell me about this pair?
]Me: ...Also, a second thing you should keep in mind is that it is not Power Rangers, either. Many of the characters in PR are far different from their Japanese counterparts - and that's opinion, of course. I've never seen RPM - but can it match the darkness of Jetman, where the MOTW is a faucet that eats people and drips blood? Can it match the visceral, bloody fight scenes of Dairanger?
]Me: But I digress.
Adannor: >MOTW is a faucet that eats people and drips blood?
That sounds less dark and more camp =/
]Me: Trust me, I'm horrible at describing it because I only saw the episode once as a child. But there is blood, and there is a faucet, and it's probably not one of the giant ones, either (at that stage, at least). I'll go check in a minute.
]Me: Anyway, Go-onger is an incredibly lighthearted series. The tone is highly comedic, the villains are ineffectual for the most part... though there is action, it just doesn't seem to be the main focus of the show. It's still enjoyable , provided you have the right mindset, but people just couldn't handle the clash with Gekiranger's darker, story-driven plot.
-after yet another while-
]Me: Ah, there we are. Faucet Jigen. Disguised as an actual kitchen sink for most of the episode, it sucked a hapless victim in whole. The only thing the viewer ever sees of him after that is a flow of blood gushing from the tap whenever it gets turned on...
]Me:...So. RPM. Serious, apparently. Probably a lack of gore... so I'm sure that the quote wasn't referring to Sentai as a whole, but rather Go-Onger, which is pretty much accurate.
]Me: Second recommendation! (Filling the chatbox with walls of text, yeah! We should move this to the Toku Thread I made.) Gosei Sentai Dairanger. The source of the first White Ranger's suit, Dairanger once again revolves around a bunch of martial artists, sent to fight an opposing, ancient evil with the power of KiRyroku - Qi-Power. As an older series, Dairanger is generally darker than the post-Timeranger Sentai, which includes Gekiranger - the monsters are often unnervingly weird, and there is quite a bit of blood in the fight scenes, which are always well done and fast-paced.
Adannor: ">We should move this to the Toku Thread I made." copy that there?
]Me: Sure.
And so here we are. I'm perfectly willing to take any questions and answer them with my limited knowledge - but of course, you can always continue other conversations in the foreground. I'll update this periodically - maybe I'll even move this stuff to its own thread, coupled with a little of my own Let's Watches.
Dairanger clip to close! Plus a little Goseiger, but we all know which one's better. ;D
-waves- 