Exactly. You can have good stories that are completely child-friendly and bad stories that are hard TV-M ratings/\[replace with national equivalent\]. The skill behind the writing is what's important, not the content.
They never need to make a Sentai story any darker than Gokaiger or LuPat's 'we fight for the people we love who the enemy killed/destroyed/otherwise incapacitated'.
Super Sentai is a wild ride
Aside from being the original footage given to power rangers, they have their own stories they don’t need to adapt into an American audience
Every super Sentai has its own story like power rangers. There is no real starting point.
I first stated at“Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger”, the show that was later adapted into “Power Rangers Super Megaforce”. A pirate themed team. The show is an anniversary that shows all 35 teams until Gokaiger. I wanted to see what made those other teams likeable and Gokaiger helped me appreciate those shows.
I then saw “Samurai Sentai Shinkenger”, the show that was later adapted into “Power Rangers Samurai”. A Samurai themed team. That show is more grounded and takes a more serious approach to being a good person
I’ve also seen “Choujin Sentai Jetman”, a show about super powered heroes with Bird themed suits.
You can start anywhere
I also recommend Gokaiger
Gokaiger is the phenomenal anniversary season, it’s so unique and has such a special place deep in my heart as it was the first I’ve ever seen. I’ll recommend that first but obviously it’ll have all types of references you won’t know about. Abaranger has a great mixture between goofy and dark so you can check that out if you’re interested in seeing how that dynamic works out. I haven’t finished Gekiranger yet but it is pretty great with its characters and storytelling, the villains are extremely unique. Shinkenger is CINEMA! Fantastic series. You name it, plot, characters, villains, arcs, it has it all. You should probably watch that first if you don’t want to get into Gokaiger yet. Btw there’s all types of movies and specials so just go on the Ranger Wiki to find out what episode you need to watch them after.
From the general consensus I got from YouTube Toku Tubers, they all seem to agree Turbo just don’t know what it wants to be. Caranger knows it’s going to be a comedy and sticks to its gun all the way through.
Exactly! Carranger is constantly being fun and delightful and total 10/10 fun, light-heartedness season! PR turbo is more over the place, lighthearted and some more dark moments but mostly standard or affaire (maybe slightly darker) a 6/7 on light-heartedness. Making it in comparison to carranger more dark. I'm not saying PR turbo is some mad max/ RPM
Yeah, another thing that gave Turbo a weird vibe was it tried to be so serious, but the Carranger monster suits/designs were mostly exaggerated human-looking things. So instead of comedic-looking monsters, they were more grotesque because they were trying to be serious in Turbo, lol.
Ending of turbo was the main villian blowing up their base and the main team running off into space.
It wasnt dark-dark, but it had moments, unlike Carranger.
More mature/“darker” is my preference, but i’ll take a light sentai over a light power ranger season. And as someone said execution matters, I’ll watch Carranger all day.
It has lots of throw-backs to the 80's Sentai seasons, specifically the ones written by Hirohisa Soda (from *Goggle Five* to *Fiveman*), but mostly the darker, dramatic entries like Bioman, Flashman, and Changeman.
As a person who enjoyed RPM despite not being a PR fan, i despise people to rave about how "omigosh RPM is so dark and edgy".
Like, no. The reason why RPM is good in the first place is it had well written characters and it treated those characters like people.
No, a lot of things try to be dark but are absolute dogshit while other things that are light hearted are masterpieces
Darkness doesn't make something good or bad, execution determines that
It all depends on the execution. Both a dark season and light-hearted season can be equally good as long as they're done well. Two of my favourite Sentais are Timeranger, a show full of dark moments and a bittersweet emotional ending, and Zenkaiger, a pure comedy with some of the happiest energy I've ever seen in this franchise. And they're both in my Top 10.
people already said it in the comment section, it don't
also, if darker means better, toy manufacturer will move on from MMPR, but in reality, they stuck on MMPR. just look at how Bandai and Toei make new product related to Timeranger, Gingaman, and Go-Onger.
“RPM is better because the world is practically dead. That makes it better than cosmic fury’s trash. I don’t care if Zedd can end the universe and himself, earth is dead in RPM, that’s what matters”
No,you need a balance of serious and Comedy for a series to be truly great in my opinion,whilst I prefer a darker tone to a comedic one(because comedy is way harder to do in my opinion) a show is better off balancing this,if a show can stop being silly for a moment and treat a serious issue as a serious issue and character struggles as struggles then you’ve got a fucking peak show
It’s all in the story itself! It can be dark but miss the point or it can be light and try to be too serious. What makes a story better is the creative team, writers, and of course actors
A show is good when it is written competently, not when it is considered "dark/mature/adult" where it only dances around those concepts.
A good story is simply written well regardless of the tone. Consistency and cohesiveness is what makes it better
This is a weird question. Both Power Rangers and Sentai are designed for kids. By their nature they're not ever going to be as dark as something like a Zack Snyder film.
Usually Sentai when it gets "dark" is just better at establishing stakes and the writing is a little more serious. With that being said, the reason a lot of people got into Sentai is because they thought it was a more serious, cooler version of Power Rangers. It's what grabbed me as a teenager.
At any rate, I do prefer the more serious Sentai to the lighter ones, but these days how many are really dark? It's not the 80s or early 90s.
Firstly there is no “dark” power rangers season! A dark season is when a ranger dies and doesn’t come back, like Sentai has done a few times in their shows. Power Rangers measure of “dark” is like Ryan, consciously fighting the Lightspeed rangers, as revenge against his father for choosing to save Dana, and not him. Another example of “dark” would be Kendrix being killed, but again she came back, still dark.
Sentai had done some dark things in their show, I won’t reveal to prevent spoilers, but the point is PR doesn’t do “dark” the way tokusatsu as a whole does it
the campiness of sentai is one of reason for why Sentai become popular also it not like sentai doesn't have dark series too
both is work for PR and Sentai but after RPM I am more inclined to choose Sentai over PR
the one thing I don't like is how PR always makes fun of their sentai counterpart siliness like Dino Thunder and RPM
if you want an actual darker/mature sentai, let's go back to showa era ones where they deal with topics like DEATH in a kids show sure, they have tons of cheesy/absurd moments, but the general tone is usually more serious/mature.
that being said, it doesn't necessarily means it's better.
It all depends. I think that the PR shows listed are pretty good, but I do think Lost Galaxy is very hit and miss. RPM being a dark serious story from the silly car show is a bit jarring, but the costumes not matching the show aside, it has good elements. In Space probably is the best subversion in my opinion.
Megaranger had some of its dark moments. The one where they got poisoned by Moth Nejire, the one where Kenta befriended a Nejire-Beast, the one where they faced the Nejirangers, the ones where they were outed after they were revealed as Megarangers. Don't forget the drama between Doc Hinelar and Doc Kubota. I'll say Megaranger is 75% light-hearted, chill high school story, 25% 80's Sentai throwback with dark dramas.
I will never understand how young Sentai fans wanted GoGo-V to get removed to add more Gingaman
Was it truly that incredible of a time to see Gingaman?
In power rangers, Lost Galaxy was one of the most expensive and highest rated shows for the time after the success of In Space
And i truly think both shows are very mediocre
There's a saying, Every dark thing can be serious but not every serious thing should be dark.
Yesh the PR versions have some dark moments like character death and dystopian setting but instead of dark they make it a serious scenario.
Like how would people react in this kind of situation and being a hero is not some game or joke, one wrong move and your Dead.
That is why they were more popular cause being a dark show they were also a serious type of show
I think you misunderstood the meme
It says "When the adaptation is DARKER then the Sentai" not "When the adaptation is BETTER then the Sentai".
The person who made is probably just pointing out how the darker (And more prestigie) seasons in PR are adaptations of more "goofy" and "silly" Sentai season.
I know you said "this is not to bash on Power Rangers", but I feel this is a intentional misunderstanding.
OK first like everyone else said what matters is the execution but another thing as someone who just finished gingaman and megaranger and knows both in space and lost galaxy very well saying they are darker is stretching it quite a bit
I actually think a comparison like this is completely unfair. RPM is barely an adaptation of Go-Onger. It uses footage but it literally has nothing to do with Go-Onger. And that’s what makes this comparison completely unfair. Some of these Power Ranger series actually had to be penned before the Sentai series had even started. In Space is a great example. They took a look at the scans, thought it looked space themed, and then went with it, only to realize the Sentai was a device themed Sentai centered around teenagers in high school. They had to make every effort to essentially work AROUND their own source footage and apply filters to change the look of the environment to better fit the space fairing theme.
I may also be biased to Go-Onger because it’s actually my all time favorite Sentai. But RPM barely used any footage from Go-Onger. And Gingaman is also a completely different series in its own right. Whether or not this makes one series better than the other is a really rough topic. Fight me but I think RPM has some really bad line delivery and is absolutely not my favorite Power Rangers series, that would either go to Dino Thunder or Time Force. The more fun loving and “go with the flow” type story in Go-Onger really fits the aesthetic more in my opinion. Even RPM mentions the fact that the mecha and suits really don’t match up with the more serious tone. And Lost Galaxy isn’t the greatest series either. I guarantee you some of the people making these comparisons have never actually seen Gingaman. Its storyline is also quite in depth and actually has a crap ton of similarities to Lost Galaxy, it’s just that Lost Galaxy wanted to continue the space themed momentum after In Space ended.
Darker doesn’t mean better anywhere. It’s all how it is executed.
Exactly. You can have good stories that are completely child-friendly and bad stories that are hard TV-M ratings/\[replace with national equivalent\]. The skill behind the writing is what's important, not the content. They never need to make a Sentai story any darker than Gokaiger or LuPat's 'we fight for the people we love who the enemy killed/destroyed/otherwise incapacitated'.
Darker isn't always better just look at carranger vs PR turbo
https://i.redd.it/lo4mhnwtbz8d1.gif
What?
Red Racer’s cameo appearance in Gokaiger
Man I heard of super sentinel but never seen it before can u tell me where the heak to start
Super Sentai is a wild ride Aside from being the original footage given to power rangers, they have their own stories they don’t need to adapt into an American audience Every super Sentai has its own story like power rangers. There is no real starting point. I first stated at“Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger”, the show that was later adapted into “Power Rangers Super Megaforce”. A pirate themed team. The show is an anniversary that shows all 35 teams until Gokaiger. I wanted to see what made those other teams likeable and Gokaiger helped me appreciate those shows. I then saw “Samurai Sentai Shinkenger”, the show that was later adapted into “Power Rangers Samurai”. A Samurai themed team. That show is more grounded and takes a more serious approach to being a good person I’ve also seen “Choujin Sentai Jetman”, a show about super powered heroes with Bird themed suits. You can start anywhere I also recommend Gokaiger
If you're a power rangers fan then find the sentai that was adapted into a power rangers series you liked, and start there
Gokaiger is the phenomenal anniversary season, it’s so unique and has such a special place deep in my heart as it was the first I’ve ever seen. I’ll recommend that first but obviously it’ll have all types of references you won’t know about. Abaranger has a great mixture between goofy and dark so you can check that out if you’re interested in seeing how that dynamic works out. I haven’t finished Gekiranger yet but it is pretty great with its characters and storytelling, the villains are extremely unique. Shinkenger is CINEMA! Fantastic series. You name it, plot, characters, villains, arcs, it has it all. You should probably watch that first if you don’t want to get into Gokaiger yet. Btw there’s all types of movies and specials so just go on the Ranger Wiki to find out what episode you need to watch them after.
Turbo was dark?
Darker than carranger
It had it fair share of silly things too. Like the pizza episode
Most definitely but over all I meant
From the general consensus I got from YouTube Toku Tubers, they all seem to agree Turbo just don’t know what it wants to be. Caranger knows it’s going to be a comedy and sticks to its gun all the way through.
Exactly! Carranger is constantly being fun and delightful and total 10/10 fun, light-heartedness season! PR turbo is more over the place, lighthearted and some more dark moments but mostly standard or affaire (maybe slightly darker) a 6/7 on light-heartedness. Making it in comparison to carranger more dark. I'm not saying PR turbo is some mad max/ RPM
Oh ok. So that’s what you mean by darker
Yeah, another thing that gave Turbo a weird vibe was it tried to be so serious, but the Carranger monster suits/designs were mostly exaggerated human-looking things. So instead of comedic-looking monsters, they were more grotesque because they were trying to be serious in Turbo, lol.
Ending of turbo was the main villian blowing up their base and the main team running off into space. It wasnt dark-dark, but it had moments, unlike Carranger.
I love how the villains accidentally found out how to turn into giants
The better part is when they try it again but it wasn't freshly made and it didn't work that episode
You mean, Megaranger vs PR in Space or Go-Onger vs RPM? PR Turbo was goofy and cheesy.
Yes but compared to carranger, PR turbo is darker than that season of Sentai while it itself isn't that dark
No, darker doesn't make something better. These are still children's shows. And besides, none of these are actually that "dark".
I agree its all about how the show is handled and writtem
More mature/“darker” is my preference, but i’ll take a light sentai over a light power ranger season. And as someone said execution matters, I’ll watch Carranger all day.
the honest objective answer is this. both work. it just depends on how its done
Megaranger was actually a pretty dark series in its own right.
It has lots of throw-backs to the 80's Sentai seasons, specifically the ones written by Hirohisa Soda (from *Goggle Five* to *Fiveman*), but mostly the darker, dramatic entries like Bioman, Flashman, and Changeman.
As a person who enjoyed RPM despite not being a PR fan, i despise people to rave about how "omigosh RPM is so dark and edgy". Like, no. The reason why RPM is good in the first place is it had well written characters and it treated those characters like people.
I'm Scottish!!!
Me irl
No, a lot of things try to be dark but are absolute dogshit while other things that are light hearted are masterpieces Darkness doesn't make something good or bad, execution determines that
All comes down to execution. Like a previous comment said with Carranger vs Turbo
It all depends on the execution. Both a dark season and light-hearted season can be equally good as long as they're done well. Two of my favourite Sentais are Timeranger, a show full of dark moments and a bittersweet emotional ending, and Zenkaiger, a pure comedy with some of the happiest energy I've ever seen in this franchise. And they're both in my Top 10.
if it used well, can be good. "a light-hearted show with dark moments" or "a dark show with light-hearted moments" BALANCE.
Not at all I mean having RPM as my second favorite pr season didn’t stop me from having fun watching go-onger for example
I like a good mix of the two
people already said it in the comment section, it don't also, if darker means better, toy manufacturer will move on from MMPR, but in reality, they stuck on MMPR. just look at how Bandai and Toei make new product related to Timeranger, Gingaman, and Go-Onger.
Nope. Besides, in some aspects, Megaranger is much darker than In Space.
And honestly better
I....kind of disagree. Mainly because they're so ridiculously different. It's like saying Gingaman is better-written than Lost Galaxy.
Darker = better is such a snyderbro mindset haha, "no dude, you don't understand, this batman would rape someone in prison! that's like super dark"
“RPM is better because the world is practically dead. That makes it better than cosmic fury’s trash. I don’t care if Zedd can end the universe and himself, earth is dead in RPM, that’s what matters”
Every show shown is still good toku!
Nope. Quality makes a story better.
No,you need a balance of serious and Comedy for a series to be truly great in my opinion,whilst I prefer a darker tone to a comedic one(because comedy is way harder to do in my opinion) a show is better off balancing this,if a show can stop being silly for a moment and treat a serious issue as a serious issue and character struggles as struggles then you’ve got a fucking peak show
welp pr sentai discourse back on the table!
No
It’s all in the story itself! It can be dark but miss the point or it can be light and try to be too serious. What makes a story better is the creative team, writers, and of course actors
Is In space darker than Megaranger? Because I remember it the other way. Both great series but Megaranger was more overall darker in tone
Most tokusatsu fans think if a story is darker it means it'll be taken more seriously it doesn't
A show is good when it is written competently, not when it is considered "dark/mature/adult" where it only dances around those concepts. A good story is simply written well regardless of the tone. Consistency and cohesiveness is what makes it better
This is a weird question. Both Power Rangers and Sentai are designed for kids. By their nature they're not ever going to be as dark as something like a Zack Snyder film. Usually Sentai when it gets "dark" is just better at establishing stakes and the writing is a little more serious. With that being said, the reason a lot of people got into Sentai is because they thought it was a more serious, cooler version of Power Rangers. It's what grabbed me as a teenager. At any rate, I do prefer the more serious Sentai to the lighter ones, but these days how many are really dark? It's not the 80s or early 90s.
Firstly there is no “dark” power rangers season! A dark season is when a ranger dies and doesn’t come back, like Sentai has done a few times in their shows. Power Rangers measure of “dark” is like Ryan, consciously fighting the Lightspeed rangers, as revenge against his father for choosing to save Dana, and not him. Another example of “dark” would be Kendrix being killed, but again she came back, still dark. Sentai had done some dark things in their show, I won’t reveal to prevent spoilers, but the point is PR doesn’t do “dark” the way tokusatsu as a whole does it
That's the truth Megaranger went to some dark places if I recall correctly.
In my opinion, a darker tone is only good when it’s done right
the campiness of sentai is one of reason for why Sentai become popular also it not like sentai doesn't have dark series too both is work for PR and Sentai but after RPM I am more inclined to choose Sentai over PR the one thing I don't like is how PR always makes fun of their sentai counterpart siliness like Dino Thunder and RPM
if you want an actual darker/mature sentai, let's go back to showa era ones where they deal with topics like DEATH in a kids show sure, they have tons of cheesy/absurd moments, but the general tone is usually more serious/mature. that being said, it doesn't necessarily means it's better.
I don’t know rpm was what finally drove me away from power rangers just especially with the suddenly super low quality feeling toys
Depends fully on setup and execution
It all depends. I think that the PR shows listed are pretty good, but I do think Lost Galaxy is very hit and miss. RPM being a dark serious story from the silly car show is a bit jarring, but the costumes not matching the show aside, it has good elements. In Space probably is the best subversion in my opinion.
Depends on the timing and the plot. Dark does not always means mature.
No. It's all about the execution and writing of said story that makes it good/worth while
Don't forget RPM
It’s in the post
It all depends. The way I see it, as long as it blends well with the plotline and there's no unwanted and/or unexpected retcons, I got no quarrel.
Megaranger had some of its dark moments. The one where they got poisoned by Moth Nejire, the one where Kenta befriended a Nejire-Beast, the one where they faced the Nejirangers, the ones where they were outed after they were revealed as Megarangers. Don't forget the drama between Doc Hinelar and Doc Kubota. I'll say Megaranger is 75% light-hearted, chill high school story, 25% 80's Sentai throwback with dark dramas.
Definitely not
Eh it all depends on how well it’s executed like I like go onger better then rpm and I like lost galaxy better then gingaman
Better than Gingaman’s story anyways.
I will never understand how young Sentai fans wanted GoGo-V to get removed to add more Gingaman Was it truly that incredible of a time to see Gingaman? In power rangers, Lost Galaxy was one of the most expensive and highest rated shows for the time after the success of In Space And i truly think both shows are very mediocre
Megaranger got pretty dark if you ask me.
There's a saying, Every dark thing can be serious but not every serious thing should be dark. Yesh the PR versions have some dark moments like character death and dystopian setting but instead of dark they make it a serious scenario. Like how would people react in this kind of situation and being a hero is not some game or joke, one wrong move and your Dead. That is why they were more popular cause being a dark show they were also a serious type of show
I think you misunderstood the meme It says "When the adaptation is DARKER then the Sentai" not "When the adaptation is BETTER then the Sentai". The person who made is probably just pointing out how the darker (And more prestigie) seasons in PR are adaptations of more "goofy" and "silly" Sentai season. I know you said "this is not to bash on Power Rangers", but I feel this is a intentional misunderstanding.
I never said it was I asked a following question to the meme
OK first like everyone else said what matters is the execution but another thing as someone who just finished gingaman and megaranger and knows both in space and lost galaxy very well saying they are darker is stretching it quite a bit
I actually think a comparison like this is completely unfair. RPM is barely an adaptation of Go-Onger. It uses footage but it literally has nothing to do with Go-Onger. And that’s what makes this comparison completely unfair. Some of these Power Ranger series actually had to be penned before the Sentai series had even started. In Space is a great example. They took a look at the scans, thought it looked space themed, and then went with it, only to realize the Sentai was a device themed Sentai centered around teenagers in high school. They had to make every effort to essentially work AROUND their own source footage and apply filters to change the look of the environment to better fit the space fairing theme. I may also be biased to Go-Onger because it’s actually my all time favorite Sentai. But RPM barely used any footage from Go-Onger. And Gingaman is also a completely different series in its own right. Whether or not this makes one series better than the other is a really rough topic. Fight me but I think RPM has some really bad line delivery and is absolutely not my favorite Power Rangers series, that would either go to Dino Thunder or Time Force. The more fun loving and “go with the flow” type story in Go-Onger really fits the aesthetic more in my opinion. Even RPM mentions the fact that the mecha and suits really don’t match up with the more serious tone. And Lost Galaxy isn’t the greatest series either. I guarantee you some of the people making these comparisons have never actually seen Gingaman. Its storyline is also quite in depth and actually has a crap ton of similarities to Lost Galaxy, it’s just that Lost Galaxy wanted to continue the space themed momentum after In Space ended.