Zenkaiger 07 released

[takenoko]

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Last Zenkaiger's rating: 4.05 of 5 (18 votes)

Alt Title: An evil Zenkaiger?!

Feels like we see a lot of human/Kikainoid couples... Does that mean Kikainoids are... fully functional?!

Man, don't piss off Yatsude. She'll clang your chest

Oh man, Vroom just pounded the hell out of GaoWhite. Even if a fake, that's rough to see

Oh, that's disappointing. I was hoping to have the giant Kikainoids fighting against their Sentai Robo counterparts. Can they only be giants in their transformed forms?

Okay, I can see where all the early budget went

After seven episodes, that was pretty fun and felt worthy of being an anniversary series for the first time?

[Aeikozz]

Do they even know the story they're trying to tell with this series?

It's just this episode felt more like a response to people complaing they don't use enough of the Super Sentai powers.

Now just over load the episode with this.

It's just a mess. this series is straight mess.

[ViRGE]

Wow, a Monday night release. You guys really are moving at full force.

Anyhow, this week's episode was a lot better than the last two. It helps, of course, that this one is finally moving the series' first big plot threads forward - everything up until now has been the prelude of putting the 5-man band together. But it also gives us our second human, and the first face villain in Sentai in quite a while.

At this point I'm not too sure what to make of Stacee. The writers are clearly going to hold back on giving us too much on the character's origins all at once. In the interim, however, that means that we don't know a lot about him besides what we've seen here. It was an oddly low-energy debut, though. He's not a scenery chewing big bad (Enter) or a sporty arch nemesis (Basco). Even the name is kind of forgettable. So he didn't make a very strong impression one way or another.

That suit did, however. Yikes. I've never truly found a ranger suit (good or evil) ugly up until now. Purple, black, and red in that combination just do not work as a full suit motif. And the helmet is the deformed cherry on top. Someone heel-face-turn this guy pronto so that he can have a new suit!

As for nostalgia, why is it that villains always get the cooler use of historical powers? The Zenkaiger can summon attacks; Stacaesar gets whole teams of heroes. He even gets robos (in their original boxes, no less!). It's just not fair!

Oh man, Vroom just pounded the hell out of GaoWhite. Even if a fake, that's rough to see

GaoWhite's had it coming for 20 years!

Oh, that's disappointing. I was hoping to have the giant Kikainoids fighting against their Sentai Robo counterparts. Can they only be giants in their transformed forms?

The series thus far has been inconsistent on the whole matter. We saw Jyuran fight in his transformed state giant-sized briefly in episode 1, and then nothing until now. So clearly they don't need to be mecha pieces (or those ugly CGI animals) in order to fight giant-sized.

But in that case, why have combining robots at all? For the toys, of course, but this doesn't help sell it within the show.

The real confusing bit is that in trying to go even bigger, they instead summoned a giant-sized cannon. Which is as cool as heck. But somehow I don't think we're going to see it much (if ever) again. That whole fight seems to have just been an excuse to get the robot rangers to fight the robos they were designed after. Which, now that it's done, it's back to combining robots.

I will give Toei credit, though: they've certainly been keeping up with the curveballs on this series. It's been hard to predict what will happen next, in part because they seem to be Calvinballing it a bit. Gokaiger had a very clear pattern to it, particularly with how Toei used nostalgia elements. Zenkaiger seems to ignore it one week and then double-down the next. (I still think Toei relies too heavily on it, especially since this is barely an anniversary year, but it's hard to call them out for abusing it when they haven't been hitting the nostalgia all that heavily up until this episode).

Episode 8 preview:

Spoiler

Is that a bloody golden Gokaiger?!

[takenoko]

To be fair, I wrote the comment about them fighting their counterparts in real time, so it was before they actually started doing that (so I was pleased with that development)

I probably should have done some research, but why Stacaesar? If it's a pun for something, I don't think I know what it's supposed to be. It's not even an obvious Japanese word like the other bad guys. Stacee? suteishii? Stealthy?

Suteishi 捨て石 【すていし】 (n) (in the game of go) a sacrificed stone

Oooh... that's not a good sign for our boy

[Phoenix512]

But it also gives us our second human, and the first face villain in Sentai in quite a while.

Yodonna would like a word with you. It's only been 7 months since she appeared.

[ViRGE]

But it also gives us our second human, and the first face villain in Sentai in quite a while.

Yodonna would like a word with you. It's only been 7 months since she appeared.

D'oh! I knew that felt like too long.

[resop2]

Wait, isn't a Stacy is supposed to be a Japanese girl who died around age 14-16 after a fit of laughing that lasted for about a week and turned into a zombie that could only be killed if they were sliced into 168 pieces? This Stacy is a non-zombie guy. I call shenanigans!

So, two new face characters, all guys? And I thought that Lucky season was a sausage fest. And, after that dream sequence special, this is just cruel.

Why doesn't Kaito just shoot at Stacy's gun when he is summoning the Fake Sentai Bogusgers?

I was expecting Leo v2 to say that he couldn't attack Stacy because he was too cute.

[Kurow]

5/5 what a great episode! I had a smile the entire episode. The amount of fan service was so good that it just made me happy.

Some things about the episode.

- The six member or rival is a fusion of Ul and Phillipu from the Kamen rider universe lol and his theme is a ninja as people said that he would probably going to be. His background story also is very similar to kamen rider decade in where the enemy army (Dai Shocka) created the decade and di end technology. He can even summon copy of past sentai teams just like di end summoned past secondary and alt riders.

- The new versions of the old robots looked good some even look like the originals from that time. It was so funny when they said "they look like us".

- That preview man. That preview was the best part of all. I know that I can't talk about it here but it made me just happy after so many years... excellent choice.. because they are the best after all.

[TheNinjaDragon]

Wait, isn't a Stacy is supposed to be a Japanese girl who died around age 14-16 after a fit of laughing that lasted for about a week and turned into a zombie that could only be killed if they were sliced into 168 pieces? This Stacy is a non-zombie guy. I call shenanigans!

I'm pretty sure this Stacey has nothing to do with her (and not sure how you came to that conclusion). It's probably just a name the writer decided to give him.

5/5 what a great episode! I had a smile the entire episode. The amount of fan service was so good that it just made me happy.

Some things about the episode.

- The six member or rival is a fusion of Ul and Phillipu from the Kamen rider universe lol and his theme is a ninja as people said that he would probably going to be. His background story also is very similar to kamen rider decade in where the enemy army (Dai Shocka) created the decade and di end technology. He can even summon copy of past sentai teams just like di end summoned past secondary and alt riders.

And I'm pretty sure he's the rival Sentai of this iteration.

[Doublesteel]

Cant take Stacy seriously, everytime he cranks his gearlinger, all I hear is the intro to the power puff girls...

Everything else? par for the course, ie... lame

[ryujin]

Right off the bat, i give this a 5, i was really entertained.

I never expected a massive Geartlinger doubling down as the bazooka finisher for the giant forms, that was cool, i thought the 4 kikainoid members were gonna combine as one

This has me interested in Boukenger, i never watched that one.

Spoiler

And man oh man, is that a GokaiGold in the preview?, can't wait to see the next one

Edit: Forgot the spoiler tag, sorry about that.

[Connie_Edogawa]

I've been enjoying this series so far, and this episode was no exception.

I LOVE that when Stacy summons the mechs, they appear from their toy boxes. that's a hilarious touch.

[msf232]

Noticed something- the thread link in the wiki page goes to the thread of episode 6, not this thread

[Dante ShadowRoadz]

I fell behind with last week's episode, so having that one and this back to back made it all feel more cinematic on my end. Stacee is an intriguing blend of rival-villain tropes, though we can already tell he's got redemption/death flags waving in his future. I actually don't hate his Stacaesar form, a bit more Battle Fever J than I usually like with Villain-Sentai designs, but it works in line with matching the neo-retro fusion of Zenkaizer. And the fact that he can summon whole teams AND their mecha as well, it seems like a huge leap forward from the basic ability mimicry we're used to. Even then, it didn't lose its tone to being too serious nor too lighthearted for the threat to feel proper.

Spoiler

Drat, I guess I shoulda thought more on them tying it back to being the anniversary, I never woulda guessed GokaiGold.

[Ashki]

This episode just hit all the right notes.

I REALLY loved the interaction between everyone this episode, ESPECIALLY the scene between Kaito and Gaoon. Every episode is packed with character development, and it almost never feels forced. In this case, we learn more about Gaoon's aversion to his own race and why he keeps protecting the human race. I also like that it had some good commentary on certain attitudes of racism that would never be allowed on TV in the US. It was handled really well, including the tension-break jokes.

On the flip side I think they did a great job of giving us JUST enough background on Stacee to make him a good "mysterious villain". We know his motivation and how he's looked down upon for being half human. However, he was quite guarded about saying too much, leaving me to believe he may not even know his own history. If so, I hope they do the amnesia trope as good as they've been doing everything else.

That little touch of metal on Stacee's ear seems to be the only giveaway that he's not fully human. I'm guessing it'll turn out he's Kaito's brother at some point, since the family villain trope will almost certainly be used.

Also, the fact that Staceasar's helmet and chest design is literally a robotic and more armoured version of Battle Japan really works. I know some people are having issues with his appearance, but Battle Fever J was the third (and until fairly recently officially considered the first) Super Sentai, so it's definitely a treat to those of us who prefer the older shows. It's an interesting choice, since BFJ's theme was dance, not ninja... but Battle Japan used martial arts for his "dance" style, so I guess it sort of works. I wonder if he'll be using Battle Fever Robo as his personal mecha later on...


Seeing all those classic mecha was a total treat, and it makes me want to finish building my pepakura model of Change Robo. I really like that we were seeing finishers and various attacks as well.

And the cannon finisher.. How long has it been since we saw a proper one of those?They had a version of it in ToQger, but it just didn't feel the same. And speaking of finishers, it was great seeing the GoRanger finisher being used against itself, although the GoRanger clones failed to produce enough power because they didn't start with Peggy.

There were also so many little callbacks and easter eggs to older shows, which I never get tired of. This show actually makes me want to go back and finish some of the older series I'm halfway through on (I keep getting sidetracked and forgetting about them). Gokaiger didn't have that effect on me, as much as I loved it.


Betting time:
1. Stacee first appeared in episode 6. What episode does everyone predict he'll switch sides (I don't see him needing a redemption arc, per se, just a realisation he's nothing more than a tool for his "father")?
2. Also, will Stacee be the "related villain" trope, and if so, what'll be his relationship to Kaito?
3. Finally, how will they nerf Stacee's powers once he changes sides?

I've given my wager for question #2 already, so I'm curious what everyone else is predicting.