Ryusoulger 02 released

[DaVinci030]

Is this something worth reviewing?

That screws up. Reencoding for v2.

[ViRGE]

Not a whole lot to add to this one that hasn't already been said. The mecha action is great, but the story and the characters are a mess right now. Admittedly, I wasn't expecting the series to keep playing things quite so straight as in the first episode, but wow, it feels like everyone lost some IQ points between episodes, especially red. If the first episode didn't feel especially Sentai-like, this one certainly did.

Also, the method for making Minusaurs is absolutely disgusting.

[arromdee]

"I left my family for two years to do X" makes sense if it's hundreds of years ago, and you need to be on a ship or otherwise do something where it is obvious that your family can't come along. It doesn't translate to modern times as anything more than a reason for divorce, especially if he's staying in the same city.

This smells like an attempt to use a stock plot, only not realizing that it doesn't work in the setting.

[Catastrophe]

I've never been a big fan of having to base the conflict around some random person. It was very weak this episode for sure.

[Des_Shinta]

Yeah, it's a 'meh' show so far, though outside of Ui, no-one's personally managed to piss me off. Which is something Sentai's not managed to do since Jyuohger, and even that was a spotlight over two prior years before that of endless aggravating frustration. Even last year, I almost immediately disliked half the cast. Year before, my Bile at the idiot plots and their instigator made it entirely unappealing. Here though? It's just the dumbass youtuber girl so far. Kou's Naivete is tolerable...at the moment. And the faulty team Dynamic? We've had far worse, as they're still mostly functioning as a team.

Hell, two episodes in, and I'm less pissed off than I was (and still am) at Zi-O. As I don't feel Ryusoulger's given us an Idiot plot yet, just a poorly constructed one.

Which considering Sentai's shape right now--especially after the teamup special--is almost as bad. You can fix poor story construction if you know how. It's more difficult to fix a story that's literally built on a character not doing the thing that'll resolve the entire conflict the story runs on.

Fart jokes...No-one likes fart jokes. They're not funny even to little kids. A powerup's Use as a teargas bomb's been done, more tastefully, and without *AS* overt a sound effect.
Though by Proxy, Part of why I'm less irritated with this entry right now over the last few at their same points in the story is the humor doesn't feel as forced, unnecessary, Dumb, or in conflict with the story trying to be told. It's still there, the show still has the standard sentai silliness, but it feels kind of...muted, as if they're not trying to have it, but someone's trying to inject it in smaller doses.

And I'm not even sure how to distinguish these powerups from one-another, as there's not a real good indication for what they do, unlike the Zyudenchi whose names were literally an amalgam of their creature theme and effect, or the fullbottles where you could think of what their related motif might be capable of. Considering that was a BIG problem with the Kyutama for people that hampered their sales, You'd think They'd know better. And it probably doesn't help that not even the Heroes that use them can distinguish them. It was funny when Gokaiger did it with the ranger keys because there was setup and payoff to when they'd do a change wrong, but it doesn't feel right here.

Agree on the characterization still being off-kilter, thus we didn't need a 'victim of the week' plot as of yet. They could've held off on them for a few weeks--make sure characterization and establishment exposition was firmly there first through a few Minusaur battles with the team establishment as the focus, THEN they reveal they're incubating them through sucking the lifeforce out of people with related body horror. It seeds a mystery in the interim, while they get everyone on Track. Hate to Bring up the Kyouryuger comparisons since...well, they're there to be made, but they dealt with this better by the Team Red acting as the audience surrogate in a new situation by which they set up everyone else and the preliminary exposition to get people on board, with the monsters in that time playing a smaller role which only impacted the character arc at each respective member's relative starting points BEFORE going to the expected monster-of-the-week and interim-arc-story structure. It brought up Sentai's already-long-standing red overfocus issue, but it served as more effective storytelling by which to properly introduce us to everyone instead of throwing us into a situation without a good means by which to convey that as...they already know each-other, so telling it to each-other would make them out to be dumb. And one thing they shouldn't be doing (Again) is showcase the team being morons as that's a factor to help sentai drop into the shape it's in. The gaps will only get worse if they're not filled fast.

I've ended up dropping most post-Kyoryuger sentai out of sheer frustration at some point with them. While I followed their stories through spoilers to their ends, here it's just...I don't know, they're short something That'd make me come to hate the show, but it's also lacking what I feel would make it engaging as well. Maybe I--like some of the rest of us here who dislike the current state of sentai--am just burned out with the franchise to the point that I can't bring myself to care.

Mechs and the lego robot thing are neat though. I don't think a lot of us expected for them to use the mix-it-up-pegs gimmick in the show itself like this. First Ep Showed we were finally after years of bad ones going to get good mecha fights again, but I didn't think it'd be like this. On the fence for buying one if only to do custom displays with it.
But again as with the years before and MOST Current Toei properties, Action scenes and a Toy Gimmick can't carry or obfuscate a poor story. And between the poor transformation, the costumes I don't like, and the transformation Trinket/device and main weapon that I don't care for...I feel like it's going to be a struggle to stay invested.

[WannaFantaMan]

Was it just me or did the minusarus kinda look like a Duke Org from Gaoranger.

love the costumes but hate the transformation. OR more specifically, the little dancing headmasters around them leading upto the cool part of the transformation which isnt epic enough to warrent the "dramatic"(?) lead up to it.

i kind of like that they arent altogether, and with it. a lot has just happened to them. HOWEVER, remember they are starting in MARCH, 4 weeks later than a typical Sentai. they may just cram the first episodes to compensate for time. which will suck and cause some fans to step away and lose interest. I was hoping to see Red/Blue/Pink be solo a little longer until like ... the teens when theyve mastered being Ryusoulgers, then Black and green show up and tell them they are still too weak. this way the 6th ranger if any, can join in like the mid to late 20 early 30s. that pacing would have been fine.

did i mention i LOVE the asymmetrical costumes?

The costume designers did an OUTSTANDING job in my personal opinion. I think a decent amount of thought went to the civilian costumes this time around and less on I don't know, actually doing something original instead of reskinning 95% of Kyouryuger OTL.

[hiro9796]

Oh yeah, I totally forgot to complain about the fencing subplot. I just hate how it's resolved. Bad writing, bad!

And he gets them back without learning a lesson or changing his ways. Why is he even apologizing? If you thought what you were doing was wrong, don't abandon your wife and child for two years. Everything about it was unsatisfying.

I agreed too. Why you're acting like you are single in the first place when you have a family to watch over, as in a wife and a kid? Even if I'm not married yet, I can easily tell that before you try to achieve whatever goals you have in life, you need to watch over your family first if you are married. It's top priority as a human being for yelling out loud! If I were the wife, let's just get divorced first before you try to go achieve whatever you care. Go die if you want. I don't care. I'll find another guy who at least knew that responsibility priority before achieving his dream. Simple. Why? I can't have a lifetime partner do anything as he please when he does not want to carry out the responsibility of being the head of a family. It's common sense after all.

In any case, the subplot does not make sense. If you want to be number one in fencing, you can do it while watching after your family. There's no need to leave them in the first place. If you try your best, the results will surely be fruitful. Even if it's not, in the end, you would realise something more important than a dream that you couldn't achieve. The warmth of a family.

In any case, if I were to be blunt, that fencing guy does not deserve to have a family if he left them for two years of just trying to look cool. He's a failure as a father and the head of a family. The end.

[hamn8rjr]

Seeing human-level Sentai members fight the mech-level monster was a pretty cool concept that I hadn't seen before.

uh, you remember in Operation Overdrive/Boukenger when the red cut down a giant monster with one swing of Sentinal Knight/Zubaan, right? anyway, I still like this so far. dinosaur knights feels interesting. I mean I still wish they had a dinosaur Rider, but still nothing on that. and before anyone mentions FangJoker or Putotyra, those are dinosaur forms, not dinosaur Riders. but still, it's still early in the show. and they could be trying to make up for lost time. let's not judge the entire series on the first few episodes. Kyuranger felt a little rushed. they got all nine members in the first five episodes, and two more before it got to the teens, but it was a good series full of twists. give it time before you bash it like a couple pachycephalosauruses.

[KRDangerousZombie]

I'm still on a 3/5 so far, the only character that i actively dislike is the "S N S" girl so it has less of an uphill battle than ex-aid at least. but to be fair, at least that had a cast of characters by this point rather than two characters and some cardboard stand-ins.

The horror victim of the week being an unlikable dickbag who abandoned his family did make me think "If you can tell the energy is leaving his body and making the enemy stronger, just end him right now and save yourself some trouble" is a bad sign, but the action is pretty damn great. Having the human-sized ryusoulgers being like "fuck you i'mma fight you anyway" towards the giant kaiju was pretty badass, the on the ground fighting was pretty neat and RyusoulAce with it's RyuseiOh legs and quick movement was pretty fun too. salty that Blue & Pink are pretty surplus to requirements so far, but i'm hoping when the show finds it's feet and is out of "throw toys and gimmicks at the screen!" mode that we'll learn more about them and they'll get time to shine.

Also i really hope that they bring back some of that dark humour like the teamamerica hammer gag in future episodes.

[midorininger]

The costume designers did an OUTSTANDING job in my personal opinion. I think a decent amount of thought went to the civilian costumes this time around and less on I don't know, actually doing something original instead of reskinning 95% of Kyouryuger OTL.

right, i do too, but it was the transformation i disliked.

[Aeikozz]

i feel kinda bad for ya'll episode 2 and this series really isn't looking any better..