The real versus in Lupin VS Pat. Split from: Lupin VS Pat 40 Released!

[Phoenix512]

With all the complaining about the Pats not getting all the toys, there's sorta of an in-story reason for why there's a slant towards the Lupins instead of being equal. It's the Lupin Collection not the Pat Collection. The Pats are basically being allowed to borrow their Lupin Collection pieces. There will be a time when the Lupins will steal back the Pats' Lupin Collection pieces and limiting the amount of the pieces they have will make things easier.

I myself don't really care about the actual toys so the lack of Pat toys isn't much of a big deal to me.

Split this into a new thread since it's a big enough topic to be worthy of its own thing -take

[resop2]

^
Also, as far as I remember, whenever you have a story/manga/anime/etc with a phantom thief, the phantom thief gets more screen time than the police.

[takenoko]

While the Pat toy thing can get a bit much at times, it's not like I don't get it. What bother me more is that the PatRangers are treated as extra rangers in a show where their names are a part of the title, where they barely even show up in some episodes. Yeah, there's an in-story reason for it, but also, it's all totally fiction, so you can write whatever the fuck you want. So I see it as a shortcoming of writing/directing/producing. Either the writer or director can find a good balance between cast members or the producer can't produce enough money to have them all around sufficiently.

Look at Kyouryuuger. It had like 10+ rangers and I feel like I know Ramirez, Tessai, Yayoi and her grandfather better than I know the PatRangers and Noel, who's still a total blank slate. Komura Junko is doing lightyears better on this show than Jyuohger, but remember this is only her second time being a main writer on a Sentai series.

The PatRangers are woefully underused, and with less than 10 episodes left, I don't see that getting corrected. I think we're close enough at the end to say that the versus thing was an interesting experiment, but ultimately sort of a failure in terms of what it adds to the storytelling.

It's too bad, because I really like Kei being a big brother to Kairi, Tsukasa being a big sister to him too, and the one episode where Tsukasa and Umika were friends. Like they sort of had a thing for a while where Tsukasa was sort of being a small supporter of the LupinRangers, but it feels like it's been several story arcs since that aspect has come up. Same with the storyline where Sakuya is crushing on Umika.

It's not good world building to go "Whoops, I forgot about half the main characters for several episodes at a time."

[ViRGE]

Phoenix512, you're not wrong of course. All of the Pats' collection pieces do have to go back in order to move to the final arc. Still, it's kind of absurd - and a clear sign that things went wrong behind the scenes - when the Lupins are running around with a bunch of pieces bearing the Pat logo. Either way, in the end I expect that Noel's big betrayal of the Pats is going to be that he'll steal all the pieces for the Lupins, so I'm not sure if fewer versus more pieces really changes anything here.

Not that I care about the actual toys either (sidebar: is anyone here big on toys? My impression is not), but it's a symptom of a larger issue. As Takenoko more eloquently notes, the versus aspect hasn't worked very well. And because the whole show is built on the concept, problems there have percolated to the top. In a 7 man band, only 3 characters have really been developed.

Narratively speaking, I feel like the show started stumbling around episode 30 or so. The existence of Splash Magic has me increasingly suspicious that the teams were meant to come together around that time, and that the story was changed towards the last minute to prevent that. Which is why the Pats have so little to do.

[BreadToku]

Narratively speaking, I feel like the show started stumbling around episode 30 or so. The existence of Splash Magic has me increasingly suspicious that the teams were meant to come together around that time, and that the story was changed towards the last minute to prevent that. Which is why the Pats have so little to do.

I personally believe the opposite. The teams would keep being on different sides, while Splash, and by extension Siren Striker, would have originally gone to the Pats as expected. I went searching for the earliest leaked images of Splash Trigger Machine, and concept art shows the extinguisher cannon being used by Keichiro and used to form Pat Kaiser (with the silver legs and the green machine being the left arm) . But then toy sales at some point indicates the Pat toys were selling a lot less than the Lupin ones, so Splash was when they started giving literally everything to the thieves. I know toy sales are an important part of the business, but there had to have been a more graceful solution than that.

The story beats, whatever they might end up being, probably won't change drastically even with all the toys in the Lupin's hands. What is affected however, is that the thieves get significantly more screentime because they are the one using the weapons that need to be shown off to sell merch. It's why there's a real chance we might not actually ever see Pat Kaiser, and thus the Pats fighting any giant monsters again!

All I really need from the narrative at this point is just the minimum you'd expect from Sentai, which is that the Pats will get to affect and be affected by the plot. I don't necessarily need to learn more about them personally at this point, they just need to do stuff. The series for the first half, met that bare minimum pretty easily. Sometimes the cops fought the monster, sometimes the thieves did, etc.

But at the show's current rate, I'm seriously worried that everything up until the finale is going to be only the Lupins handling every monster, remaining major villain and obstacle by themselves, while the Pats just provide parts for the big combined mech.

In spite of literally all of this, this is still my favorite Sentai in a long time! Any frustrations I might have towards this show is because I like it so much and wish it didn't have these factors that personally drag it down a little for myself.

[ViRGE]

Narratively speaking, I feel like the show started stumbling around episode 30 or so. The existence of Splash Magic has me increasingly suspicious that the teams were meant to come together around that time, and that the story was changed towards the last minute to prevent that. Which is why the Pats have so little to do.

I personally believe the opposite. The teams would keep being on different sides, while Splash, and by extension Siren Striker, would have originally gone to the Pats as expected.

You may be right. Though I think we're approaching the same concept from different angles. The fact that Splash Magic is introduced so early makes me think that it was always meant to be a team-up combination. A lesser version of VSX, as it were. But it's entirely possible I'm wrong on that.

[Catastrophe]

The thing with Splash/Magic is that its a combination that doesn't require Pat1 or Lupin Red, meaning it could have been used by say, Pat 3 and Yellow or something like that. The fact that the toy catalogues show Pat 1 with the splash arm is what makes me super suspicious of a retool.

Siren Striker being obviously intended for Pat 1 and given to Lupin X pisses me off, mostly because Noel is a shit character.

[kangchan]

Look at Kyouryuuger. It had like 10+ rangers and I feel like I know Ramirez, Tessai, Yayoi and her grandfather better than I know the PatRangers and Noel, who's still a total blank slate. Komura Junko is doing lightyears better on this show than Jyuohger, but remember this is only her second time being a main writer on a Sentai series.

Look like Toei is training Komura Junko to become another Kobayashi Yasuko (the first work of them is animal motif - Gingaman vs Zyuohger; the second work is half police motif - Timeranger vs LuPat). Junko's style somehow similar to Kobayashi too. Moreover, Kyoryuger is first time Sanjou Riku write for Sentai. But he was done well than Junko in character personality.

Back to topic, I heard some rumors on Rangerboard that due to kids prefer Lupinranger's toy rather than Patranger, so the toys that was intended for Pat in toy catalog, was moved for Lupin used in film to attract toy sales.

[Catastrophe]

Kyoryuger is an anomaly. Sanjou is a god tier writer and not a single episode in that series is wasted. I'm pretty sure he wrote every episode as well.

I get that they want to try and switch up the Sentai formula to try and freshen it up, but realistically all they need is a good writer that will do most of the episodes and the series will turn out decently.

[ViRGE]

The more I think about it, the more I believe that this show should have just been LupinRanger to begin with. And not just because that's where it's pulled to in the last couple of months anyhow, but because of how it's affected the plot development and the build-up of characters.

The villains in this series are badly underbaked since the focus is on the heroes and their own fight; a fight that's really not gone anywhere and isn't working very well. However if this was just a Lupin series from the start, then the writers would have been forced - if only by necessity - to develop better villains. I could very easily see a Gekiranger-like series here: start with the 3 man band, add a couple of 6ths along the way, and have a couple of face characters among the villains. That would have made for a much more interesting distribution of the 7 regulars than what we've gotten here, where the show at times just discards 3 of them.

They spread themselves too thin with two teams. And as a result it's become a problem near the end here when the show is mostly being held up by 4 regulars and a bunch of foam-rubber monsters.

[takenoko]

Hmmmm. You're probably right, but I think I like either of the two extremes. Either more focus on the Lupins and the Ganglars OR have the versus of the Lupin and Pat be more deep? Have the Pats more involved in the Lupin's lives and adventures. Make Tsukasa or even Kei an official ally, thus forcing one of them to be forced between their alliances (Noel, you don't count for this, since you're a Lupin). Just this most recent episode shows the formula can work, just don't ignore the Pats for stretches of time.

The problem now is this weird half baked versus. The relationship between the Pats (mostly led by Kei) and the Lupins just sorta doesn't feel well thought out in terms of where the writer wants to take it.

Let's look at the three act structure, for example. Not all stories need to follow a guideline, but it can help. If LVSP did this, they could have structured it such that the Lupins and Pats were constantly in each other way, the Lupins could be ruthless thieves that would piss off the police, rubbing it in their faces, etc, that could be the first part. For the second act, things get more muddied, maybe one of the Pats questions their feelings on the Lupins or maybe the Lupins get stuck with the Pats and they're forced to help each other and a begrudging truce begins. And for the final third, real character developments happen, alliances occur when they realize they have a common enemy, etc. And each of these chapters can be split off by a major battle or plot discovery, like the end of the second act can be when the Lupin and Pats combine their mecha for the first time. That would be a very logical way of script doctoring the series.

And some of these elements do exist currently. The problem is that they're mostly incidental or lack any meaningful long term effects. Tsukasa suspecting the Luipns' true identities, Kei begrudgingly admitting that the Lupins are helpful, these things happen, but they don't mark a major change in the characters since their attitudes might totally flip back depending on what the episode story requires the Pats to be doing.

It's this stagnation for the Lupin VS Pat arc that probably sparks frustration in fans. Kei and crew are a little more amicable towards the Lupins, buuuuut have no qualms against openly firing upon the Lupins if the episode requires them to be minor antagonists. In that sense, it doesn't feel like even with 10 episodes left, much progress has been made since the first quarter of episodes.

The character to character and episode to episode stuff has good stuff in it, but if you step back, you see the impermanence of the character growths (or total lack of any commitment in Noel's case). If you want to just maintain the status quo, that's fine, but imagine the heights LVSP could have reached if the main writer had had a clearer vision of where she imagined the LVSP character final growth to be.

[ViRGE]

Hmmmm. You're probably right, but I think I like either of the two extremes. Either more focus on the Lupins and the Ganglars OR have the versus of the Lupin and Pat be more deep?

That's probably a good way of putting it. The show tried to do something new, but much like Noel, hasn't really committed to it. It's left one foot firmly planted in the trappings of a traditional Sentai, and the other in the VS concept. As a result it keeps tripping over itself when it wants to serve one of those masters, because the other foot is on the wrong side.

At times it feels like the real VS is which path the writing wants to go down.

[Phoenix512]

I think in general that thieves are more interesting than the police officers that chase after them. You can do only so much to make a police officer interesting. There's no way you could have Kei be like Zenigata from Lupin III who has admitted that he wants to reform Lupin III than to capture him. It would be a cool episode if Kei acted like a thief but there's limits on what you could do on a Sentai show.

There's a good way that you could have the true VS which is to have the Lupins and the Ganglars fighting each other for Collection pieces while the Pats trying to protect the Collection pieces instead of having the Ganglars having all of them and have the Lupins trying to steal them.

Another idea I had was there isn't a Patranger at all until it makes an appearance as the extra ranger which should Kei and no one else as a ranger but still have everyone else including Noel as the double crossing Lupin/Pat X.

I do fine the series to be entertaining but I don't have a problem with the Pats being the super B team because they don't have the potential to be as interesting as the Lupins.

[hiro9796]

Glad someone or two actually noticed something already went wrong with this series second half, or at least from episode 30. Giving the toys to Lupins was the worst lousy excuse to exclude Pats from doing Mecha fight. Not to mention, everything just doesn't fit, especially for the fact that the image shown earlier for Splash was Ichigo with Splash Buster and the toy sounds for SirenStriker obviously indicate Great Patrise, Chou Keisatsu Change and Patranger noise, meant for Ichigou. Based on the powerup I can see, they might have intended to give every core members of Lupins and Pats power up forms. Red, Blue, Yellow, Ichigou, Nigou, Sangou uses Victory, Magic, Scissors and Blade, Siren, Splash, Crane and Drill respectively. It would had been a 6 in powerups plus Noel as Patran X/Lupin X finisher.

Yes, the pacing seems obviously slow, villains are just sitting in the back watching a long beatdown movie of themselves and we did not even have the conflict where the core member of Pats having trouble whether to agree help Lupins or not. Zamigo hardly do anything and didn't even fight Pats to draw attention of Lupins.

Honestly unlike you Phoenix512, I see no interest in Lupins anymore when we already see their true face more than needed while Pats doesn't even have the bare minimum. Not to mention that there's not even an episode where people actually condemn Lupins for a careless mistakes when Pats was absent, which gave Lupins the more reason to care/not to care about their fame and pride while Pats face such thing, at least I think on a small scale, like in episode 14,15 and 19.

True, I don't see where the VS concept fits when everything is just on one sided for Lupins. Not to mention, everything feels to work on their favour every time because they knew the collection's power beforehand, which is the annoying part and they don't have any weaknesses in there. Truth to be told, a good series is only good if they had their justified ups and downs, which they can make up with working harder or something. Noel's allegiance is obviously BS when he only cares for the Lupins more, as in blatantly than Pats. Obviously, his character was supposed to be as someone who want to feel the thrill of working on both sides, meaning he should not had interfere in any way when Pats went to get Splash. That was the Pats' obvious one and only second chance to get something with their own effort other than Crane and Drill. I mean, even Goody go as far as giving Biker away to Kei-chan although I'm frustrated why it doesn't happen again or why Noel isn't the one doing that for once with Splash. Well, if Noel was present early hand with that attitude by episode 30 when episode 14 and 15 was broadcasted, that's totally swindling another' team's hard work that doesn't belong to anyone else in any way, provided there is no justified extenuating circumstances that forces Lupins to get away with it.

Toy asides, what's the value of having Pats here anyway? If everything onward for the main villains were all capable by Lupins themselves, this is the worst series I could ever ask for. Everyone else had pointed out their points and I agreed the story lacks this and that when the basic concept for it aren't even well developed.

[ViRGE]

toy sounds for SirenStriker obviously indicate Great Patrise, Chou Keisatsu Change and Patranger noise, meant for Ichigou.

Bloody hell. Really? I don't keep up with the toys at all, so this blows my mind. They didn't just make a small change here, but rather made a very sudden and jarring change. No wonder the show got messed up...