Toqger: A series in reflection (Spoilers inside)

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Toqger: A series in reflection (Spoilers inside)

Post by XIII »

Those that know me, know that I rarely pick up any of the new Sentai and Rider shows, but Toqger happens to be one that I picked up and actually quite enjoyed the ride, I know a lot of people pan it as it came after Dinobutts. But since I didn't watch that, I came into this with a completely open mind.

The train swapping gimmick I thought was a nice little addition into the show, made the fights a little more interesting, even if its a pain on the typesetters, who I guess hated this at times

The characters I felt were pretty well defined, not amazingly well as we have seen in previous shows, but well enough to keep you interested, the lack of memories of their past added a nice sense of mystery to it, I know some people didn't like this, but if they didn't have this aspect, there wouldn't really be any need to explain back story and the past would have been ignored.

The aspect of the Toqgers actually being kids in adult bodies added to the twists nicely, it also gives us a nice moral aspect to the show, do you keep on fighting and loose your childhood, or quit the fight and go back to being a child. I think they handled that well, at least they made them face the choice and not just hide the truth from them.

The Galaxy Line SOS movie was actually pretty fun for a Sentai movie, it made me laugh, it didn't feel overly long, it covered everything well, and Lady was kinda cool in her determination to return to space.

For a large part of the last dozen eps, I was beginning to think that Zett might have been Rights brother, hence the link between them, I kinda think that would have been a nice addition, but may have been more troublesome to explain away later on. The actual link was kinda weak sauce, but one that was actually thought out to make sense and give them a reason to continue to fight each other.

Right using darkness to try to beat Zett kinda reminded me a little bit of Blade, he continued to fight using the Undead power that he shouldn't use and that helped to stick a solid landing for the end. I would have liked to see a little more consequences to his actions of using the darkness. But hey, its only a kids show, so they can only go so far.

The ending with Zett being taken off into the Darkness I guess is an easy cop out to allow for a V-Cinema and the Vs. The toqgers returning to child form at the end kinda annoys me slightly as they made the choice to remain adults, they should have remained that way, but I can understand why they choose that outcome.

The ending was pretty solid in general terms for a Sentai show, endings do tend to be hard to land well, very few Sentai and Rider series ever actually make a solid landing, they always seem to be a horrid mess.

It has been an enjoyable Sentai all round for me, its not quite up there with Boukenger, Geki and Deka (my preferences) but it does well to earn a spot on my list.

There are a couple of aspects that did annoy me thou, so as a final few remarks, they are:

So few support trains, I would have liked to have seen a few more in the long run to make the final fights more interesting, only having 13 trains in end is kinda weak. Hell Boukenger had 18 mechas to use.

No movie tie in, you have the awesome Galaxy Line Express trains and you dont bring them in for a tie in, a wasted opportunity.

Glitter, when she powered up by taking over Zett's body, she should have gotten a new form, it seems like a wasted opportunity to do something cool and interesting
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Re: Toqger: A series in reflection (Spoilers inside)

Post by takenoko »

I really enjoyed Toqger, but it was obviously the less effort year. I thought Kobayashi's writing could save it, but it was just okay. And that's fine, I liked the characters and none of the stories felt like they hit the same lows that Goseiger did.

Hikari was clearly the biggest winner out of this year. How often do we get to see such a prominent introvert as a hero?

The Tokacchi and Mio storyline was cute, until it just kind of petered out, the way we expect from a Super Hero Time storyline.

Kagura was cute and fun. And I also liked Akira's offbeat non-humanness.

I wish I could have liked Right more, especially with his dark origins storyline and relationship to Zett, but there just wasn't anything there for me.

I liked the Shadow Line a lot. They were great. They all had their own things going on, and story lines that usually made sense for them. The Shadow Towns had just enough gimmick to make each one interesting. The chess theme of the Overseers was cool too. They were all just really stylish.
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Re: Toqger: A series in reflection (Spoilers inside)

Post by XIII »

Forgot to mention more of the shadowline, I liked the concept of them, the generals were interesting and enough internal bickering to make it seem like a normal functioning group, kinda reminds me of the place I work, lots of bickering and scheming.

Would have been nice to see a few more stories centered on the shadowline, even a bit more back story regarding how it came to be wouldnt have gone amiss
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Re: Toqger: A series in reflection (Spoilers inside)

Post by Catastrophe »

The problem I have with Kobayashi's writing is the pacing. I really enjoyed the last arc of this show, and some of the important plot element ones in the middle, but the others were kind of lacking.

I do agree with you though Take that Hikari is great. A real effort was made as to not leave him a flat character.

And I do like your point about the bad guys Az. I really enjoyed Nero as a character. He serves his master, has no ulterior motives and isn't stupidly evil so he comes across as quite likeable.
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Re: Toqger: A series in reflection (Spoilers inside)

Post by Lucetia »

I know it's a bit late in terms of when it ended, but just now finally finished up the series.

At first I wasn't too thrilled with it as the pacing seemed slow and didn't really push the story forward. When it got to about episode 30 or 35 (forget about when) you can tell it started to pick up a lot. Then there towards the end it seemed like it was moving really fast when if they started it early towards the start I feel like they would've had more time to explain things.

I felt the Right and Zett could've been explained more. Why was their home town the base? I mean I know that is when Zett first saw the sparkle, but what caused it to then become the base and not another city that had no sparkles? What actually happened to Glitter in that one scene? These are just a few questions I'm wondering about, but some of them could've been expressed had they started the story earlier, I believe.

While the transferring at the start was annoying, it seems like it finally served a purpose at the end where if all the transfers are done in sequence it activates Rainbow mode. First half of the series I felt just made this an annoyance, but at least it served a purpose in the very end.

The villains in this series I quite enjoyed. It was like they were divided into factions, but not at the same time. There are some things I'd like to see explained about them, but in the end it wouldn't have changed much.

Right, at the end, making the sacrifice to save the other four was a nice touch I thought and helped pushed the story. At the same time Wagon having Akira put up the pictures so they wouldn't forget also added another nice touch to it and showed that even if their memories were erased that their friendship could still overcome it.

I do agree with Azazel about the comments on the movie. I would've much rather preferred they pulled some elements from the movie and incorporated it into the show. Such as the Safari mode or the trains under dire situations. I remember watching Kyouryuuger and them pulling the singer, dinosaur and the song from the movie which added a nice touch. I was hoping to see something like that with Toqger, but that didn't happen.

Overall the series was decent, not great, but not bad. I attribute a lot of this to the start of the series. Had they started differently I think it could've pushed it more. I'd place it more in the middle of the pack of my list of toku if I was to ever make an ordered list.
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Re: Toqger: A series in reflection (Spoilers inside)

Post by mantis »

I really felt that the bad guys took center stage in this one. I really like how they had their factions within the group with each having their own motivations. I agree with Azazel in that the Shadowline reminded me of coworkers/people in school. I think the sentai team basically followed the same shtick but transferring of lines made it all the more interesting.

Did anyone else get the feeling they were hinting at Akira being gay? I not referring to the scene where he kissed the guy but other elements like feeling like a loner, being one way then discovering his true self but struggles with it, the rainbow motif, etc... I just felt it was definitely forward thinking and possibly testing the waters.

Overall I felt this series was quite strong and is probably one of my favorites of the current series along with Gobusters and Goseiger.
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