'10 Sentai Wishlist: Ten Things I Want To See From Sentai 2010-2019
Sigh. '10 Sentai reads just plain poorly. That said, can anyone think of a better term to describe the 2010-2019 decade? If you can, please tell me what it is. I'll edit any future articles to swap out the relevant words.
*sighs* I digress. With Feburary just weeks off, and Samurai Sentai Shinkenger just about over, images and information for the next show has started slipping out in magazines and such. The new series will be known as Tensou Sentai Goseiger, and though we've yet to see images featuring the main villain group, the actors playing the characters, or the scale-size robo, there's still quite a bit to look at.
...To be totally fair, I don't so much mind the costumes. They're reminiscent of 1983's Kagaku Sentai Dynaman, and while they're not nearly as well thought-out or cool as the Shinkengers, they're pretty cool anyway. That pose, though....I have to say, poses are usually somewhat of a big deal for me. There are tropes present in Sentai like in most forms of media, and I've grown used to most of them, even to the extent of liking them. But the poses kind of take me out of the action normally, with the exception of certain series like Shinkenger, and this one is definitely back to normal. What are they supposed to be, band members?
Then there's the weapons. Last year's series being sword-focused, I kind of missed the blasters so I'm glad to see those again, and the design isn't even that bad. The individual weapons are just a tad gaudy, but that may just be from afar and they could look far better upclose. Also admittedly, it would have been nice to see more grunts looking like Nanashi Renchuu, which look threatening in and of themselves without any MOTW, but they were always the exception rather than the rule, so I can live with these.
With the mech missing, the only thing I can really comment on is their change devices.
...WTF. A giant tiki head? For God's sake, why? It wouldn't be so bad if they were just meant to be simple henshin devices. They change over, boom, done. You see it once or twice an episode for two seconds. But no, they've made this one into a card-using Sentai.
For the record, I love cards in Toku. Provides a wide variety of attacks and abilities. While Ryuki was sort of a failure (cards seemed to appear out of nowhere), Blade used them to great effect without making the series feel too toyetic. When I first heard about Goseiger being a card-based Sentai, I was pretty excited. Later they would announce the head writer as being the person who does Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, and I was almost positive 2010 Sentai would be just as good as Shinkenger, at the least.
...And then I saw this ridiculous changer, which not only looks poorly made, but poorly thought out. There's no way this could be simple to use in battle. Its even worse than Faiz's belt in the early episodes, which had more parts than a 1/144 Gundam model.
I'm not making more comments than this about Goseiger until I actually see it, but I confess Goseiger doesn't seem like the series that will start the Sentai renaissance now that its really annoying little brother is out of the picture.
However, it IS a new decade. Things always change up a bit in each new decade. With the 80's came the mecha, the 90's the Sixth Senshi, and combining robos, and with the 00's...apparently just more combining robos and more rangers. I'd blame Power Rangers, but until Sentai noticeably improves, I'd just be making myself look stupid.
In any case, though Sentai is known for its rigid formula, and generally changes are rather gradual, this doesn't stop me, from having my own wishlist of things to see from Sentai for the next ten years.
1.) A female Red: Okay, let's start off nice and simple. Sentai got the first Red ranger in its 33 year history with Samurai Sentai Shinkenger (Power Rangers was NOT first. Whoever she was, she was a villain, so who gives a fuck. I'm not a big PR fan anymore, but I would've given them this if they'd really DONE it.), as True ShinkenRed makes her appearance in episode 44. But aside from this being quite the boring plot twist (Takeru is a much less original character if he's not the true Lord of the Shiba clan), she's not the main Red. He's the guy we've been seeing for over forty episodes. Still, this is much closer than we've ever been before. Goseiger is probably shooting as we speak, so its much too late for them to go for a main female Red this year. They've got to gauge fan reaction and toy sales first. (That means, if she's a really annoying character and fan reaction is poor, it'll set us back. I believe we would have had a female Red in the last decade if the Japanese hadn't hated Timeranger so much.) But if she takes off, I fully expect Sentai to run with that and set us up with a female Red in 2011. What I DON'T want to see is a male Pink. Its a Double Standard, yes. I'm sorry, but, Women Can Wear Pants, Men Can't Wear Dresses.
2.) Stylish mecha: C'mon man. I nearly had my cousin into Toku after he saw Shinkenger episode 1. Then he saw those pathetic Origami and he lost interest. The 90's was FILLED with great robos. Daizyujin all the way up to 1999's Grand Liner. Even 2000 had a few good robos. Things didn't start to truly fall off until you introduced Go-Onger's Engine G6. Whoever designed these last three years (Goseiger included) worth of robos has got to go. Either he's been around a long time and fell off, or he's new and sucks. Either way, dude's gotta go. The designs lately have been so ridiculous you wonder if the designer isn't making a fool out of Toei and Sentai fans by seeing just how much money people will waste on poorly designed pieces of plastic.
And its inexcusable. C'mon, the toymakers are freaking BANDAI! That means somewhere in the same freaking building you have...*breaths deeply*....THE PEOPLE WHO DESIGN THE FUCKING GUNDAMS!!!!!! C'mon man. Sunrise gets Gundam Exia....
...while Toei is handed Samurai Ha-Oh.
I don't get it.
While we're on the subject, I'd love to see the gattai robo not appear in the front of the series. Instead, I'd rather each individual member piloted their own transforming robot, with a gattai mecha coming in later being the second robo. And bring back carrier mecha! Not the weak ones from Abarenger--the ones of Zyuranger & Dairanger fame--that somehow fit all the others in or on it.
3.) Return of vehicles: There's just so many times I can look at lions and tigers and gorillas and think "Awesome", and I believe I hit my limit. And no...no mythic monsters either. Dragons, Phoenixes, Griffiths...we've done that too. We'll see them again, but I've had my fill for awhile. Let's have a few years of vehicles in Sentai again. Speaking of:
4.) Talking vehicle mecha: We've seen talking mecha twice to my knowledge. Abaranger and Go-Onger. One is beloved by most and seen as the last truly quality Sentai series...and the other has guys with gas pump swords. I actually LIKE talking mecha--it brings more of a personality to the series, and makes the bond between Senshi and mecha far deeper. I'm all for emotional depth, but again, I'm sort of sick of animals, talking or otherwise. So I want talking cars, planes, and such this time--and NO, Go-Onger doesn't count. Its half vehicle, half-animal. No doberman police cars next time--just a police car will do.
5.) A Return of the Evil Sixth: Its been too easy lately for the Senshi. ...Don't believe I just said that, but hey. Its true. After Abarekiller I think the writers gave up on the evil sixth since they didn't think they could top one who was the True Villain for the series. (Technically Rio would come along and take his shot, and almost made it too, but its the same problem: He was the bad guy too long.) Since that time, we've been given these sweet, nice sixths who pop up and give out hugs and candy to the core team while they show off their super awesome "extra ranger" powers. Dekamaster, DekaBreak, MagiShine, BoukenSilver, GekiViolet, GekiCHopper, Go-On Wings, and ShinkenGold. Most of them were great characters, but where's the challenge? Whatever happened to the days of GaoSilver and the Gouraijer? The sixth needs to return to being the ultimate Third Option. You've got the good guys, you've got the bad guys, and then out of nowhere comes the sixth who's a force of nature unto himself, striking down EVERYBODY with no mercy. The sixth should be a force of nature that everyone respects or fears. Not, permanently evil because then you've got Abarekiller again, but for a good 5-7 episodes, definitely.
6.) Red Versus Sixth: Antagonist Sixths are missed. There's also nothing like seeing a Red face down a sixth. Genta being a Hero from the start is great, but the story lost quite a bit with him not being an antagonist at first. Takeru is SO hardcore, he REALLY needed someone to challenge him and only him for a nice character arc that would have developed him AND the sixth at the same time, and Juuzou couldn't pull that off. I don't champion Power Rangers anymore, but nevertheless there's nothing like that Green With Evil mini-series MMPR did back in the day between Jason and Tommy. THAT'S how its done. I said before sixth should be a force of nature, and he should. But, don't make Red a leader for nothing. The antagonist sixth should force the Red should become better, stronger, and think smarter. Once the whole arc is over, the team should be stronger for it, with a better leader and a new member. But let them earn that.
7.) Fold Everything Into The Series: Putting my cards on the table. I like the toys. And I don't care if you give the team new weapons/toys every episode. Weapons, mecha, some kind of vehicles...whatever. Don't care. Just make sure it all fits into the plotline. An example of this is Gingaman. Their individual weapons (a staple of each team since the 80's) turned out to be long-lost artifacts stolen by the villains' weapons collector, and they spent an entire episode trying to get them back. They would come into play a short while later when their mecha (which, to that point, had a very kaiju-ish look) sacrificed themselves to save a city and needed to be recreated to be used again, which would allow them to gattai to create Gingaioh.
As my cousin would put it, I likeded that. Gekiranger would go on to do something similar, folding the team's individual weapons into the plot as it went along (not so much the power-ups, but eh...). Design all the toys you're going to have for the full year in pre-planning, and work them into the plotline.
8.) Return of the Power-Ups: Power Rangers managed to add one toy to the series that everyone except the 80's Sentai fans (who still think more than two robo mecha is overkill) love: The Battilzer. The Sentai writers loved it so much that right after its introduction in Power Rangers in Space, they would create their own for the entire team to use in the Lights of Ginga. It would be several years before they would do it again in Abarenger, but I always appreciated these. SWAT Mode, MagiLegend--one of Sentai's odd points is that the villains seem to get stronger, but the team generally only ever get stronger through Theme Power-Up or Inspirational Speech Power-Ups. This isn't a HUGE problem, because Sentai's great at this, and its why most fans tune in every year.
...Occasionally however, it can hurt a if used too often. This is where the power-up comes in. Gaoranger could've been far better if they'd received power-ups sometime in the mid-30's/late 40's, instead of having them continuously get stomped by a number of primary villains at once only to win each time anyway. If the power-up becomes too much of a problem, simply make explanations for why they can't be used often. Ultraman fights for three freaking minutes--there's no reason why Sentai power-ups should be better. While Power-Ups are certainly fun--they provide shiny new costumes, and logical reasoning for the heroes to beat the villain despite really doing nothing new tactically--but if you aren't careful, you end up with "KaGeki", an "invincible" power-up which had never been discovered even in practitioners of GekiJyuKen who existed for millenia...and still gets surpassed no more than 10 episodes later when the villain finds his own transformed mode.
Now, there are several ways to go about this. You can give a power-up to the entire team, which enforces the teamwork ideal Sentai supposedly exists to show off (Abare Mode, SWAT, MagiLegend).
Or you can give one to the Red to drive home the fact that he's the leader (AbareMax).
But whatever you do...please. No more Accel Tector/Inroumaru power-ups. There's just something lacking in the fact that it can't be used by the entire team at once, but can be traded between them like a blunt. ("Pass me the power up, it was MY focus episode!")
The other thing I suggest is that, if you're going to give the Red a power-up, give the Sixth something too. The sixth should always be a force of nature, and simply because you're making the Red seem cooler doesn't mean your extra Senshi has to lose out.
9.) Better Focus On The Overall Cast: We all love Red. Generally the leader, and (when someone REALLY does their job) one of the coolest characters, the series always focuses really heavily on the Red. Which is cool, but...you've got other members on the team. I'd love to see a series that, even if it DOES focus on the Red, does so doing the show through his viewpoint. This entire article? Came from my having an idea of wanting to see a Sentai series where the Red was our only character at first, and he had to slowly win over Blue, Black, Pink, and Yellow. Some through fights, others through contests, and others still through other means. This keeps Red as the focus while also developing the cast as well.
10.) New themes: Dinos, Ninja, Martial Arts. Y'know, it wouldn't be so bad if they reused themes from the 80's for the first Sentai of this millenia. But to use themes from only ten years prior? Its somewhat reminiscent of how during the Silver Age at DC, they would re-use plots every so often because they estimated that kids would grow out of it after four years and you'd be dealing with ones that were new to the series and thus, could be told the same sorts of stories. It appears to be the same with Sentai, particularly given the target audience is 3-5.
That said, you do anniversaries every year; so why repeat things if you're acknowledging the continuity. Sentai needs an infusion of newer themes. Just having an older theme would work for me--Changeman's military theme, for one (I'd like a series of fighter pilots, personally). But there are themes yet undone. A series centered around pure elements--like, they're literally human personifications of certain elements. A series of monster senshi that fight back against their own friends and family while trying to protect the human world. A Knight Sentai. That's three ideas I thought up, the second one being incredibly solid, and they don't even pay me for this. Professional writers could easily come up with enough differing ideas for the central theme to last well past their own careers.
Hm. I think that'll do it for me. Time will tell if we get any of these. I'm certainly hopeful, and I'm not asking for something completely ridiculous like tossing out the mecha entirely, or reversing the gender ratio of the team. (I'd totally watch this if it was Sentai-like and not mahou shoujo. If it were, make it Nanoha inspired.) The truth is, these are quite the fanboy requests as opposed to my asking for something considerably more creative (and interesting), like, setting the stage for this in different time periods, or on Earth-5 or whatever.
*sighs* I digress. With Feburary just weeks off, and Samurai Sentai Shinkenger just about over, images and information for the next show has started slipping out in magazines and such. The new series will be known as Tensou Sentai Goseiger, and though we've yet to see images featuring the main villain group, the actors playing the characters, or the scale-size robo, there's still quite a bit to look at.
...To be totally fair, I don't so much mind the costumes. They're reminiscent of 1983's Kagaku Sentai Dynaman, and while they're not nearly as well thought-out or cool as the Shinkengers, they're pretty cool anyway. That pose, though....I have to say, poses are usually somewhat of a big deal for me. There are tropes present in Sentai like in most forms of media, and I've grown used to most of them, even to the extent of liking them. But the poses kind of take me out of the action normally, with the exception of certain series like Shinkenger, and this one is definitely back to normal. What are they supposed to be, band members?
Then there's the weapons. Last year's series being sword-focused, I kind of missed the blasters so I'm glad to see those again, and the design isn't even that bad. The individual weapons are just a tad gaudy, but that may just be from afar and they could look far better upclose. Also admittedly, it would have been nice to see more grunts looking like Nanashi Renchuu, which look threatening in and of themselves without any MOTW, but they were always the exception rather than the rule, so I can live with these.
With the mech missing, the only thing I can really comment on is their change devices.
...WTF. A giant tiki head? For God's sake, why? It wouldn't be so bad if they were just meant to be simple henshin devices. They change over, boom, done. You see it once or twice an episode for two seconds. But no, they've made this one into a card-using Sentai.
For the record, I love cards in Toku. Provides a wide variety of attacks and abilities. While Ryuki was sort of a failure (cards seemed to appear out of nowhere), Blade used them to great effect without making the series feel too toyetic. When I first heard about Goseiger being a card-based Sentai, I was pretty excited. Later they would announce the head writer as being the person who does Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, and I was almost positive 2010 Sentai would be just as good as Shinkenger, at the least.
...And then I saw this ridiculous changer, which not only looks poorly made, but poorly thought out. There's no way this could be simple to use in battle. Its even worse than Faiz's belt in the early episodes, which had more parts than a 1/144 Gundam model.
I'm not making more comments than this about Goseiger until I actually see it, but I confess Goseiger doesn't seem like the series that will start the Sentai renaissance now that its really annoying little brother is out of the picture.
However, it IS a new decade. Things always change up a bit in each new decade. With the 80's came the mecha, the 90's the Sixth Senshi, and combining robos, and with the 00's...apparently just more combining robos and more rangers. I'd blame Power Rangers, but until Sentai noticeably improves, I'd just be making myself look stupid.
In any case, though Sentai is known for its rigid formula, and generally changes are rather gradual, this doesn't stop me, from having my own wishlist of things to see from Sentai for the next ten years.
1.) A female Red: Okay, let's start off nice and simple. Sentai got the first Red ranger in its 33 year history with Samurai Sentai Shinkenger (Power Rangers was NOT first. Whoever she was, she was a villain, so who gives a fuck. I'm not a big PR fan anymore, but I would've given them this if they'd really DONE it.), as True ShinkenRed makes her appearance in episode 44. But aside from this being quite the boring plot twist (Takeru is a much less original character if he's not the true Lord of the Shiba clan), she's not the main Red. He's the guy we've been seeing for over forty episodes. Still, this is much closer than we've ever been before. Goseiger is probably shooting as we speak, so its much too late for them to go for a main female Red this year. They've got to gauge fan reaction and toy sales first. (That means, if she's a really annoying character and fan reaction is poor, it'll set us back. I believe we would have had a female Red in the last decade if the Japanese hadn't hated Timeranger so much.) But if she takes off, I fully expect Sentai to run with that and set us up with a female Red in 2011. What I DON'T want to see is a male Pink. Its a Double Standard, yes. I'm sorry, but, Women Can Wear Pants, Men Can't Wear Dresses.
2.) Stylish mecha: C'mon man. I nearly had my cousin into Toku after he saw Shinkenger episode 1. Then he saw those pathetic Origami and he lost interest. The 90's was FILLED with great robos. Daizyujin all the way up to 1999's Grand Liner. Even 2000 had a few good robos. Things didn't start to truly fall off until you introduced Go-Onger's Engine G6. Whoever designed these last three years (Goseiger included) worth of robos has got to go. Either he's been around a long time and fell off, or he's new and sucks. Either way, dude's gotta go. The designs lately have been so ridiculous you wonder if the designer isn't making a fool out of Toei and Sentai fans by seeing just how much money people will waste on poorly designed pieces of plastic.
And its inexcusable. C'mon, the toymakers are freaking BANDAI! That means somewhere in the same freaking building you have...*breaths deeply*....THE PEOPLE WHO DESIGN THE FUCKING GUNDAMS!!!!!! C'mon man. Sunrise gets Gundam Exia....
...while Toei is handed Samurai Ha-Oh.
I don't get it.
While we're on the subject, I'd love to see the gattai robo not appear in the front of the series. Instead, I'd rather each individual member piloted their own transforming robot, with a gattai mecha coming in later being the second robo. And bring back carrier mecha! Not the weak ones from Abarenger--the ones of Zyuranger & Dairanger fame--that somehow fit all the others in or on it.
3.) Return of vehicles: There's just so many times I can look at lions and tigers and gorillas and think "Awesome", and I believe I hit my limit. And no...no mythic monsters either. Dragons, Phoenixes, Griffiths...we've done that too. We'll see them again, but I've had my fill for awhile. Let's have a few years of vehicles in Sentai again. Speaking of:
4.) Talking vehicle mecha: We've seen talking mecha twice to my knowledge. Abaranger and Go-Onger. One is beloved by most and seen as the last truly quality Sentai series...and the other has guys with gas pump swords. I actually LIKE talking mecha--it brings more of a personality to the series, and makes the bond between Senshi and mecha far deeper. I'm all for emotional depth, but again, I'm sort of sick of animals, talking or otherwise. So I want talking cars, planes, and such this time--and NO, Go-Onger doesn't count. Its half vehicle, half-animal. No doberman police cars next time--just a police car will do.
5.) A Return of the Evil Sixth: Its been too easy lately for the Senshi. ...Don't believe I just said that, but hey. Its true. After Abarekiller I think the writers gave up on the evil sixth since they didn't think they could top one who was the True Villain for the series. (Technically Rio would come along and take his shot, and almost made it too, but its the same problem: He was the bad guy too long.) Since that time, we've been given these sweet, nice sixths who pop up and give out hugs and candy to the core team while they show off their super awesome "extra ranger" powers. Dekamaster, DekaBreak, MagiShine, BoukenSilver, GekiViolet, GekiCHopper, Go-On Wings, and ShinkenGold. Most of them were great characters, but where's the challenge? Whatever happened to the days of GaoSilver and the Gouraijer? The sixth needs to return to being the ultimate Third Option. You've got the good guys, you've got the bad guys, and then out of nowhere comes the sixth who's a force of nature unto himself, striking down EVERYBODY with no mercy. The sixth should be a force of nature that everyone respects or fears. Not, permanently evil because then you've got Abarekiller again, but for a good 5-7 episodes, definitely.
6.) Red Versus Sixth: Antagonist Sixths are missed. There's also nothing like seeing a Red face down a sixth. Genta being a Hero from the start is great, but the story lost quite a bit with him not being an antagonist at first. Takeru is SO hardcore, he REALLY needed someone to challenge him and only him for a nice character arc that would have developed him AND the sixth at the same time, and Juuzou couldn't pull that off. I don't champion Power Rangers anymore, but nevertheless there's nothing like that Green With Evil mini-series MMPR did back in the day between Jason and Tommy. THAT'S how its done. I said before sixth should be a force of nature, and he should. But, don't make Red a leader for nothing. The antagonist sixth should force the Red should become better, stronger, and think smarter. Once the whole arc is over, the team should be stronger for it, with a better leader and a new member. But let them earn that.
7.) Fold Everything Into The Series: Putting my cards on the table. I like the toys. And I don't care if you give the team new weapons/toys every episode. Weapons, mecha, some kind of vehicles...whatever. Don't care. Just make sure it all fits into the plotline. An example of this is Gingaman. Their individual weapons (a staple of each team since the 80's) turned out to be long-lost artifacts stolen by the villains' weapons collector, and they spent an entire episode trying to get them back. They would come into play a short while later when their mecha (which, to that point, had a very kaiju-ish look) sacrificed themselves to save a city and needed to be recreated to be used again, which would allow them to gattai to create Gingaioh.
As my cousin would put it, I likeded that. Gekiranger would go on to do something similar, folding the team's individual weapons into the plot as it went along (not so much the power-ups, but eh...). Design all the toys you're going to have for the full year in pre-planning, and work them into the plotline.
8.) Return of the Power-Ups: Power Rangers managed to add one toy to the series that everyone except the 80's Sentai fans (who still think more than two robo mecha is overkill) love: The Battilzer. The Sentai writers loved it so much that right after its introduction in Power Rangers in Space, they would create their own for the entire team to use in the Lights of Ginga. It would be several years before they would do it again in Abarenger, but I always appreciated these. SWAT Mode, MagiLegend--one of Sentai's odd points is that the villains seem to get stronger, but the team generally only ever get stronger through Theme Power-Up or Inspirational Speech Power-Ups. This isn't a HUGE problem, because Sentai's great at this, and its why most fans tune in every year.
...Occasionally however, it can hurt a if used too often. This is where the power-up comes in. Gaoranger could've been far better if they'd received power-ups sometime in the mid-30's/late 40's, instead of having them continuously get stomped by a number of primary villains at once only to win each time anyway. If the power-up becomes too much of a problem, simply make explanations for why they can't be used often. Ultraman fights for three freaking minutes--there's no reason why Sentai power-ups should be better. While Power-Ups are certainly fun--they provide shiny new costumes, and logical reasoning for the heroes to beat the villain despite really doing nothing new tactically--but if you aren't careful, you end up with "KaGeki", an "invincible" power-up which had never been discovered even in practitioners of GekiJyuKen who existed for millenia...and still gets surpassed no more than 10 episodes later when the villain finds his own transformed mode.
Now, there are several ways to go about this. You can give a power-up to the entire team, which enforces the teamwork ideal Sentai supposedly exists to show off (Abare Mode, SWAT, MagiLegend).
Or you can give one to the Red to drive home the fact that he's the leader (AbareMax).
But whatever you do...please. No more Accel Tector/Inroumaru power-ups. There's just something lacking in the fact that it can't be used by the entire team at once, but can be traded between them like a blunt. ("Pass me the power up, it was MY focus episode!")
The other thing I suggest is that, if you're going to give the Red a power-up, give the Sixth something too. The sixth should always be a force of nature, and simply because you're making the Red seem cooler doesn't mean your extra Senshi has to lose out.
9.) Better Focus On The Overall Cast: We all love Red. Generally the leader, and (when someone REALLY does their job) one of the coolest characters, the series always focuses really heavily on the Red. Which is cool, but...you've got other members on the team. I'd love to see a series that, even if it DOES focus on the Red, does so doing the show through his viewpoint. This entire article? Came from my having an idea of wanting to see a Sentai series where the Red was our only character at first, and he had to slowly win over Blue, Black, Pink, and Yellow. Some through fights, others through contests, and others still through other means. This keeps Red as the focus while also developing the cast as well.
10.) New themes: Dinos, Ninja, Martial Arts. Y'know, it wouldn't be so bad if they reused themes from the 80's for the first Sentai of this millenia. But to use themes from only ten years prior? Its somewhat reminiscent of how during the Silver Age at DC, they would re-use plots every so often because they estimated that kids would grow out of it after four years and you'd be dealing with ones that were new to the series and thus, could be told the same sorts of stories. It appears to be the same with Sentai, particularly given the target audience is 3-5.
That said, you do anniversaries every year; so why repeat things if you're acknowledging the continuity. Sentai needs an infusion of newer themes. Just having an older theme would work for me--Changeman's military theme, for one (I'd like a series of fighter pilots, personally). But there are themes yet undone. A series centered around pure elements--like, they're literally human personifications of certain elements. A series of monster senshi that fight back against their own friends and family while trying to protect the human world. A Knight Sentai. That's three ideas I thought up, the second one being incredibly solid, and they don't even pay me for this. Professional writers could easily come up with enough differing ideas for the central theme to last well past their own careers.
Hm. I think that'll do it for me. Time will tell if we get any of these. I'm certainly hopeful, and I'm not asking for something completely ridiculous like tossing out the mecha entirely, or reversing the gender ratio of the team. (I'd totally watch this if it was Sentai-like and not mahou shoujo. If it were, make it Nanoha inspired.) The truth is, these are quite the fanboy requests as opposed to my asking for something considerably more creative (and interesting), like, setting the stage for this in different time periods, or on Earth-5 or whatever.
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At least the Samurai Ha-Oh toy doesn't break if you look at it cross-eyed.
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