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Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Sat Apr 13, 2019 11:07 pm
by takenoko
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Previous episode rating: 3.44 / 5 (9 votes)

Alt Title:

Cool fight, Red. But I still don't like you enough as a character to feel like you deserve to steal the spotlight like that. Also, I can't stand that he has no personality. Is he a loose cannon goofball? Is he a super serious fighter? Does he have rage issues and fly off the handle? Nothing the writing/dialogue does supports how he's portrayed, which gets me to...

What's the deal with the writer? I can see how I could really enjoy this episode, but for me it was just a bit meh. And I can't put my finger on why. Maybe...

Maybe it's green having no consistent personality either. He starts off as rude and willing to kill one to save the many. But he flips on that in one episode. And now he's got a girlfriend with a dog and giving speeches to his brother to save the innocent. ???? My head has characterization whiplash in this series.

Everything just feels so rushed. Is it the rush to introduce the toys? I can see myself liking this series, but right now the bad pacing and bad characterizations are killing my immersion. The focus is wrong. It's toys over characters, flash over substance.

Also Tankjou is still alive? Oookay.

Characters for me:
Towa - He's the one we can most argue has had an arc. At least he's kind of arrogant, but he's been humbled.
Bamba - He's stoic, but he's learning to not stab innocent girls to save the trolley
Asuna - She gets a few comedy bits and she's cute and stuff, please give Asuna more things to do.
Ui - She could be more annoying, but she's honestly alright. They also don't really give her enough to do considering she's a regular cast member. I guess you don't need a helper for the fish out of water characters when said characters have no personalities and aren't given scenarios to react to that aren't related to beating up monsters.
Mushroom guy - Wants to raise monsters and talk smack about his comrades. Goofy and literally too cowardly to be interesting or threatening?
Tankjou - He wants to take over the world. That's a personality trait right? No, he's got a cool voice and design, but he's cardboard boring.
Melto - Blue hair
Koh - We spend the most time with him, but disappointingly, his inconsistent character and just lack of any charm makes it hard for me to like him. Am I the one being difficult here?
Professor - Na nu

I'm almost 40 years old, please give me something more than cool visual designs and action pieces! I'm starving for character and story!

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:06 am
by Lunagel
Christ this was ham-fisted.

I mean the flashback to something that happened 3 minutes ago was bad enough, but it's just so damn irritating to have these literal 180s without any real motivation behind them.

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 1:07 am
by takenoko
/me looks

Who the fuck is Yamaoka Junpei

It looks like he's written whole series before that were only 12 episodes long. You'd think he'd have snappier writing than this. Did they take his scripts and cut them into 50 pieces or something? So far he's written every episode, and I'm not impressed.

This is where the theories gears part of my brain starts turning. I've seen good writers come into the TOei factory before and had problematic writing. I'm wondering if there's Toei exec meddling. Just how much freedom do these writers get in this creative process with probable hard deadlines for when a toy is introduced?

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 5:42 am
by Catastrophe
To be fair, Kamen Teacher was pretty good. But I do agree for the most part. I'm still of the opinion that Sanjo was the best Toku writer of the decade between W, Drive and Kyoryu just because he was an experienced writer but from a different medium. These are the type of people that need to be doing series rather than just 'new blood'.

I like Bamba. He's easily my favourite of the group. That's really the only good thing I have to say about the episode though.

Why do the big bads only consist of two guys that live in the woods? I miss the days we had an array of interesting generals (Kyo, ToQ).

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 5:55 am
by kangchan
I'm feel sorry since before the series air, I too hyped for this series, since this writer is new and hope he will give the fresh air to Sentai (just like writers of Kamen Rider, they almost new for Toku - Takahashi Yuya Ex-Aid, Muto Shogo - Build etc.).

But after 5 episodes, I felt this series too boring (focus too much on mecha battle to promo toys) and too rush (don't feel any character development). Thinking should I drop to watch this series, however will wait for 5 more episodes to see how it can be improved.

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:01 am
by hiro9796
takenoko wrote: Sat Apr 13, 2019 11:07 pm
Everything just feels so rushed. Is it the rush to introduce the toys? I can see myself liking this series, but right now the bad pacing and bad characterizations are killing my immersion. The focus is wrong. It's toys over characters, flash over substance.
Well, at least from what the pattern for Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, they always introduce 4 series of catalogue. On December the year before the new show starts, on February, Early April and then on July. It's all on Heroshock. They introduced what are the toys they going to release in the shows accordingly, with the monthly spoiler being released at the end of the current month. The first catalog is the basic robots and their equipment. The second catalog is the auxiliary mecha combined with the main robo, sixth ranger and the vehicle/animal mode for sixth ranger. The third catalog is for the sixth ranger's robo, red's upgrade and by chance combining the robots of the core ranger and sixth ranger. The last one was on the ultimate form for Red, an extra robot for Red to pilot himself or it can do it independently and then the ultimate combination between the core, sixth, the extra robot and/or with auxiliary mecha.

Right now, they already released up to the third catalog. Surely enough they are rushing to introduce the first few toys in the second catalog, it's normal by Episode 5 but I have to admit, they are releasing a lot of them this year compare to last year because Ryusouls are collectibles like Zyudenchi, Kyuutama and Ranger keys. They want children to collect them all? Sure any kid wants them but parents aren't that easily giving them the pocket money to buy every single one of them. It's tough enough to even convince them to buy just all the robots that can combine together into one since Go-Onger. I'll tell you, they are releasing a lot of toys this year so I'm not surprised that Bandai is rushing Toei to promote them as fast as possible and meet the required profit. I do kind of looking forward if this years robot can pretty much slapped everything on them, like Engine O G12, Samurai Ha-Oh and ToQ Rainbow.

I have to agree. This show is pacing up too fast, Tankjou showing a bit of his power is normal at this pace but the Rangers themselves felt like they already bonded up to 10 episodes, even though it's only 5 episodes.

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:21 am
by BreadToku
I don't see how the toys have anything to do with this episode, or rather the whole series being rushed. If anything, the toy advertising part is also being glossed over quickly. Look at how quickly new souls come and go with no fanfare whatsoever, and also that they never showed the unique mecha formations where Pink and Blue make up the head. I mean they could still do the latter, but it'd be a lot less impressive at this point.

It feels like the opposite problem that LVSP eventually had for itself. That show had a lot of focus on it's characters and the one-to-one dynamics between each ranger for the most part at the cost of making us care about the story and conflict. Ryusoluger on the other hand, has so far been pushing character focus aside to get through the meat of it's story. I know I personally prefer the former any day, but I'll say it makes this show kinda unique if rather disorientating.

Honestly my concern is that with the current pacing, we might hit a stretch of the show where absolutely nothing is happening. Though if that does happen, maybe it'll be a chance to show some insight into our characters? Eeeeh, I'm doubtful.

I have no idea what the future direction of this show will be like, but as it is now is a really rocky ride. Still, I'm intrigued to see what happens next, if only because it seems impossible for this breakneck pace to last forever.

Also I'm glad they brought back the silly dance EDs if only for the hilarious whiplash when coming right after a dramatic scene of our characters dying of poison and another fearing for his brother's life.

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:55 am
by Catastrophe
Sentai hasn't usually had an issue with toy introduction, since it makes sense to introduce mech slowly over the course of the series.

It's not that part that feels rushed. I go back to episode 3 which felt like 4 plots of episodes crammed together. It's more like that.

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 8:16 am
by takenoko
Well, if it's not the toys, I don't know what excuse the writer has lol.

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 11:16 am
by Catastrophe
Lack of experience?

Kyoryuger had the same timeline of mecha introductions and had the batteries to push, and didn't suffer from these issues.

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 3:38 pm
by Go-On Macaroni
hiro9796 wrote: Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:01 am
takenoko wrote: Sat Apr 13, 2019 11:07 pm
Everything just feels so rushed. Is it the rush to introduce the toys? I can see myself liking this series, but right now the bad pacing and bad characterizations are killing my immersion. The focus is wrong. It's toys over characters, flash over substance.
Right now, they already released up to the third catalog. Surely enough they are rushing to introduce the first few toys in the second catalog, it's normal by Episode 5 but I have to admit, they are releasing a lot of them this year compare to last year
Uh, not exactly. The catalogs that leak onto the internet are up to the 3rd quarter of toys but the show's promotion is only in the first quarter and will be there until about episode 12-13. Timing of the catalog leaks never seems to match the same as the timing of the show.

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 5:19 pm
by hiro9796
Go-On Macaroni wrote: Thu Apr 18, 2019 3:38 pm
hiro9796 wrote: Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:01 am Right now, they already released up to the third catalog. Surely enough they are rushing to introduce the first few toys in the second catalog, it's normal by Episode 5 but I have to admit, they are releasing a lot of them this year compare to last year
Uh, not exactly. The catalogs that leak onto the internet are up to the 3rd quarter of toys but the show's promotion is only in the first quarter and will be there until about episode 12-13. Timing of the catalog leaks never seems to match the same as the timing of the show.
This year Ryusoulger start at March but the catalog release was somehow standard as if the show started in February. Yes, it's weird that third catalog already leaked but I do remember roughly in which month each catalog was posted in Heroshock. In any case, the leaked was earlier than expected because it was still following the trend that new Sentai Series start in February and do not forget that there is the Super Sentai Saikyou Battle for 4 weeks straight. Originally, Ryusoulger should had reach Episode 9 by this week if it started on mid Ferbuary. That's pretty much it why the leak is earlier than the current episode. However, for most of the time, we don't really care about it because we rather not being spoiled.

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:32 am
by ViRGE
I may be alone in this, but I really liked this episode? It was by no means perfect, but it was really good.

In terms of action, this is by far the best episode the series thus far (admittedly, it's only been 5 episodes). The ground fight against Tankjou was fantastic; it was highly kinetic and there was some good use of wire-fu there. And similarly, the robo fight really showed off how well the main robo can move, dancing around those explosions.

I also liked that the Ryusoulgers aren't sitting around waiting for things to happen, and instead are already trying to figure out how to stop the Druidions for good. Figuring out "we need to stop the guy making the MOTW" is typically a late-season thing, if it ever comes up at all. It's smarter than average for a Sentai, especially at this stage.

The MOTW was kind of a waste though. However, as a running gag I'm starting to warm up to Bamba immediately turning into a wanna-be serial killer whenever a Minusaur turns up.:lol:

Side question: what are Kishiryuu-Oh Milneedle's weapons supposed to be? I don't recognize them.

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:03 am
by takenoko
Japanese wiki says they're called Knight Maces.

Re: Ryusoulger 05 released

Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:22 am
by hiro9796
That's weird. I can understand if the weapons are spiky as maces but Bamba pretty much fight like boxing with the Milneedle formation.