Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

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DarkRobin
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Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by DarkRobin »

First of all, I'd like to point out this topic is supposed to focus on comparing Super Sentai sereis with themes on animals, not dinosaurs or mythical creatures, or teams who used animals themed mecha like Hurricangers.

I myself have not seen too many Super Sentais in the past. I know there are at least four Super Sentai series with teams of rangers whose uniforms or powers on based on animals

Choujuu Sentai Liveman:
Similar to Gekirangers, it had an original team of 3 rangers and 2 additional rangers joined later. Their animals were falcon, lion, dolphin, bison, and rhino.

Choujin Sentai Jetman(This is the very first Super Sentai series I ever saw. The only one had, also the best drama):
The rangers from this series all are birds themed. This series never had an addition rangers to join the team, but they did have other team of bird theme rangers that showed up for short period.

Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger:
Five original rangers with a sixth special rangers. Their animals were lion, tiger, shark, bison, eagle.

Finally, JyuKen Sentai Gekirangers:
I believe I don't need to cover the details on this one.

The one major difference between Gekirangers and all these other animal themed series is that, while the Gekirangers like or Sentais, require machines to transform, they develop and achieve powers on their own. But all other Sentai draw their powers pretty much all from the machine theyare equipped with. The only exception is Gaorangers, who were chosen by Power Animals and endowed with powers by them. Once again, Gekirangers create those all by themselves. And except for Gekirangers and Gaorangers, all other animal based Super Sentai teams had nothing, at least nothing much to do with the animals of their suits or mecha. For example, while Livemen and Jetmen have suits, mecha related to ceratin animals, they themselves have no relation to those animals at all. Jetmen's theme may be about biirds, but nothing about the birdonic energy that made they powerful give them power of birds at all, just powerful.

Gekirangers actually give meanings to the animals they represent, better than the Gaorangers, who are like hosts to portion of their beasts. Also, the martial art aspect of the JyuKen storyline makes the fighting skills and animal themes all better.

One thing completely unique about the Gekirangers among these series, possibly among all Super Sentai series is their mechas aren't machines at all, but enlarged phyical form of their powers.

The short version, Gekirangers show true connection between the rangers and their animal whereas the previous animal themed Super Sentai rangers didn't have much if any connection between their animals. Gaorangers is one exception, but Gekirangers make the animal powers make more sense.

Any comments?
Anyone see other difference or similarity I have not noticed?
Last edited by DarkRobin on Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:35 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by Saejima Kouga »

You forgot the KakuRangers. They do have animal themed mecha, but if you pay attention to their poses and different aspects of their fighting, they do (even though they're ninjas) show a little bit of animal themed fighting styles.
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by takenoko »

I thought it was pretty good for an animal based show. The story wasn't as compelling as Magi's, but it definitely had some strong moments. I really liked the GekiRangers, but I probably liked Rio and Mele even more, those guys really made the show.

I think they made right just enough use of the animal theme. In Gao they kind of beat you over the head with it. Personally, I think the martial arts theme played a bigger role than the animal aspect
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by Saejima Kouga »

I agree with the Mele/Rio part.

And as far as the animal theme vs Kung Fu, I guess it's cause the GekiRangers had used their Ki to create animal based mecha is what makes them different...?
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by Warrior of Zarona »

I'm watching Gaoranger currently, and I suppose it's the only animal based theme I can compare Geki too, but since Geki is fresh off my mind, the one thing I do like is that both shows have the warriors truly in sync with their animals. I'd like to say Gaoranger was more in tune with their wild instinct animal sides, what with all the animalistic behaviors they present, while Gekiranger is more like the representation of the animal and its styles using Kung Fu as the medium.
Spoiler
I still don't understand completely what the Power Animals are. They're obviously living creatures, but they look like mecha and form like a mecha when it comes time to combine into the King of Spirits. Then again, Gekiranger was sort of the same way in terms of design of the mecha.
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by Saejima Kouga »

Gingaman was also an animal based group for mecha and fighting styles. I knew that there was another one missing.
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by DarkRobin »

Saejima Kouga wrote:You forgot the KakuRangers. They do have animal themed mecha, but if you pay attention to their poses and different aspects of their fighting, they do (even though they're ninjas) show a little bit of animal themed fighting styles.
I thought someone might mention that. As you said, they were ninjas. I never saw that series, only saw what the Power Rangers installment had of them, and they didn't have fighting styles based on animal
Saejima Kouga wrote:Gingaman was also an animal based group for mecha and fighting styles. I knew that there was another one missing.
I thought the Gingaman's animals were space beasts, if we were to be specific maybe that one need to be out. I only saw Gingaman's American installment, Power Rangers Lost Galaxy. They did not show much about their powers being animal related. The Pink Ranger did fight wild cat, her galactic beast once or twice.
Warrior of Zarona wrote:I'm watching Gaoranger currently, and I suppose it's the only animal based theme I can compare Geki too, but since Geki is fresh off my mind, the one thing I do like is that both shows have the warriors truly in sync with their animals. I'd like to say Gaoranger was more in tune with their wild instinct animal sides, what with all the animalistic behaviors they present, while Gekiranger is more like the representation of the animal and its styles using Kung Fu as the medium.
Spoiler
I still don't understand completely what the Power Animals are. They're obviously living creatures, but they look like mecha and form like a mecha when it comes time to combine into the King of Spirits. Then again, Gekiranger was sort of the same way in terms of design of the mecha.
Yeah, Gaorangers was the first team that demonstrate true manifestation of animal powers. But I don't think they had much of animal instincts. I do recall that they had some animalistic behavior such as fast traveling by flying and running their fours, the lion, bison, tiger ranger running like their animals, while the eagle and shark ranger fly and "swim" in the air. I saw this in the Power Ranger installing, don't know if Gaorangers have indeed done this before. I did definitely saw them fight an enemy with at least two of them dragging the enemy with hands on the ground; running with fours, like animals.

But Gekirangers took it to the next level by achieving the power of animals themselves. However, it'd seem the Gaorangers had been somewhat more animal-like than Gekirangers sometimes.

Once again, Gekirangers are unique some far in the way, not just about their mecha, but their strength and powers come primarily from themselves, or within them. Whereas all other rangers, including the Gaorangers acquire their powers from external sources.

It'd be a thrill if they make a movie with Gaorangers meeting the Gekirangers.
:mrgreen:
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by Saejima Kouga »

Don't compare the Power Rangers to the Sentai counter parts. It's way different in Sentai (usually) and in this case for sure is. What I recommend is checking out KakuRanger and Gingaman to see for yourself.
The Gaorangers also use their claws on the enemies, which is something animals do. And if memory serves me right Gingaman did the same sort of thing.
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by DarkRobin »

Saejima Kouga wrote:Don't compare the Power Rangers to the Sentai counter parts. It's way different in Sentai (usually) and in this case for sure is. What I recommend is checking out KakuRanger and Gingaman to see for yourself.
The Gaorangers also use their claws on the enemies, which is something animals do. And if memory serves me right Gingaman did the same sort of thing.
Yeah that's right, I can't believe I forgot the claws of Gaorangers, the Power Ranger installment also had them. This is really ironic, because those claws were my favorite.

As for Gingaman, I can only give my comments when I do get to see them. Then the Kakurangers, they weren't truely animal themed were they? But I'll take your word.

Ultimately, it'd seem Gaorangers and Gekirangers truely got in touched with animal hearts.

For some reason Gekirangers are the only that made me feel showing true powers of animals.

If we go back a bit. It was weird for the Jetmen that their theme was chosen to base on birds, yet that was really nothing birdy about them, powers or anything.
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by Saejima Kouga »

Kakurangers are Ninjas. Their suits don't reflect anything about animals. However, all the mecha are animal based. But my point is the fact they did stances and poses to make you think of animals. Tsuruhime did crane/bird poses and even some of her attacks were based on such movements. Sasuke did primate gestures and like Tsuruhime reflected some of it in his fighting. I remember different times Jiraiya would leap into the air and he would be positioned something like a frog would be doing when flying through the air. I didn't like Seikai and Saizou much, so I don't recall much on them. XD
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by eldar »

A more valid comparison would be with shows like dairanger and hurricanger since gekiranger has more in common with them then the assorted animal shows who are all lumped together because of a shared mech theme.
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by Kogashi »

Add in the fact that it's a mainly martial arts animal based one I think it leans more towards Diaranger, or maybe a mix of Gaoranger and Dairanger, style wise... as for comparison can't really say. Saddly I haven't seen too many earlier sentais. ^^;
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Re: Gekirangers compared to other animals themed Super Sentais

Post by DarkRobin »

eldar wrote:A more valid comparison would be with shows like dairanger and hurricanger since gekiranger has more in common with them then the assorted animal shows who are all lumped together because of a shared mech theme.
Maybe in terms of martial arts they are comparable to Gekirangers. But right now we only comparing the Sentais' association with the powers of animals.

For a while Gekirangers seem closer to animals than any other Sentais, especially Jan, but as time went on they focused only on martial arts concept. Most Gekirangers never demonstrated their likeness to their beasts, if they had it'd be the perfect way to work with the animal theme.
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