DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

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Ratings

Poll ended at Sun May 21, 2023 11:50 pm

☆☆☆☆☆ Don to Happy End
16
59%
☆☆☆☆ Sonoshi?
4
15%
☆☆☆ Sonoza?
1
4%
☆☆ Sononi?
4
15%
☆ Sonoi
2
7%
 
Total votes: 27
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DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by takenoko »

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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by kangchan »

After ToQGer, this is the frist series I hype for every week. This is not the best Sentai series, but after many years of flat / boring / bad series from new writers, this series give me the feeling of how good Sentai is. The cast is perfect with good acting, the villain is interest since we have all of them is human. The plot is not really to save the world, but explore about the point of view: human, Noto and Jyuto.

I know some of audiences cannot stand with this series, since it change many things in Super Sentai. But with me, it look like the Jetman version 2 in Super Sentai. Maybe we will not have any series like Donbrothers later.
This series maybe is the final series that Inoue write, since he is old and would retire in near future. So I treasure every input he wrote in this series.
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by godstriker8 »

This is the only Sentai that I've finished since Gokaiger. I got far in Go-Busters and LuPat, but still fell off those.

Mostly because the characters are amazing by Sentai standards, and play off each other perfectly. So perfectly, that for the first time ever I actually didn't want the sixth warrior to show up, because I was worried they would ruin the perfect balance struck by the core 5 members (and hilariously enough I was right since Jirou barely did anything during the series and the core team never really accepted him).

I also loved the Inoue style mysteries + love triangles.

5 out of 5.
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by Aeikozz »

I've already hype much i appreciate this series. Again not since Gokaiger have I enjoy a sentai that was just so amazing. It's Mainly story. don't get me wrong the powers up and the zords they were cool and all but it's the fucking story that kept me around. Every single fucking episode felt like a peice of art. There are multiples episodes i will rewatch just for shits and giggles when i'm bored.

It's just so good. That story is so beautiful and this ending? like i said i feed the episodes before had all these looose ends and i swear it they did it on purpose just so that they could see what everyone was concerned about and ADDRESS it in the Very next episode! Tsuyoshi is getting his Great ending even though it felt like he was fucked.

Such a great series. Story is proof that needs be good period can make up for anything else.

I love this series. Triple SSS Tier! YOUR AMAZING YOU HAVE THE HOTTEST DANCE! THANK YOU FOR PLAYING! BUCKETS OF TEARS! I WON'T FORGET YOU!

METATASHI METATASHI!
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by Lunagel »

I'm glad people liked this series but man, I have been waiting for it to end for like 3 months now. While the cast is great and clearly they have a good rapport with each other, ultimately the rest of the show was bogged down with issues. I'll break down my opinion:

1) Cast - Obviously these guys hang out a lot offscreen as well as onscreen, which helped out with building a sense of unity within the team. They play off each other well and are clearly having a lot of fun with their roles. Sonoza in particular is exceptionally good at keeping in-character even when the camera's not focused on him.

2) Characters - While they started off strong, the characters have devolved into mere caricatures of themselves. There has been no significant (earned) progression of the characters all season. When a series ends, you have to ask how the characters have learned/grown/changed. Tarou is still basically the same (they're trying to shove something in last-minute about him finding happiness but it's not like that has bothered him all season), Haruka is stuck with the label of plagiarist for the rest of her life, Shinichi has not changed a bit, Tsuyoshi is still obsessed with his wife, Tsubasa should really just flee the country, and Jirou has had a completely unearned resolution(?) of his good and evil sides after a 3 minute pep talk. Honestly, the Nouto are better main characters, at least you can see their progression and their change gradually over the course of the series.

3) Theme - Normally I wouldn't even include this because it's a given, but I've never seen such a poorly-used or thought out theming before. The story of Momotaro had absolutely zero influence on anything besides the ranger names. What if Zenkaiger had no machines? or if Kiramager wasn't about sparkly mages? The theme is supposed to give a basic idea of what the show will be about but what even is this show about?

4) Gimmicks - Here's the sticking point for me. How well did the show use its toys? How well were they incorporated into the show? The answer here, awfully. The Avatar Change dropped off almost immediately after Jirou was introduced and Murasame shows up so intermittently it's hard to remember he's still in the show. It's hard to want to buy a toy if you don't show me how cool that toy is.

5) Plot - Off the rails. There are so many things that happened that either have no good reason for happening and/or have zero explanation for happening (I'm looking at you DonKiller and DonKillerKiller). Let's start with Jin. He is in prison. Why? Because he did something wrong with raising Tarou apparently. Only he's not actually in prison, he's watching over the Jyuto and can leave whenever he wants? So is he being punished or not? Murasame is a weapon created to kill the Jyuto, only he tends to attack the DonBrothers because... they're in the way? We're never told what "Mother" is. The Anouni are the bad guys because they attack humans but actually it's the Hitotsuki that are the MOTW and the Jyuto eat the Anouni so really they're the victims? Also you can only see Anouni when you put on sunglasses to see this weird cgi world that is... never explained what it is or why they can use it. Master is the "true hero" who also becomes ZenkaiBlack and helps in a fight only he's showed up like three times and why he's in this world is... never explained. The Jyuto kidnap Natsumi and put the rest of her friends in a coma, then order Tsubasa not to tell anyone what happened for a year or else... what? If Natsumi was just turned into a Jyuto I don't see anything that would change if Tsubasa actually told the truth. Shiina Naoki turns out to be Haruka from a future parallel dimension who came to our world because...?

Taken in individual chunks/episodes it looks okay but when you put it all together, you get a huge mess of a plot that has no coherent progression or goal, just exists to tell bit by bit what sounds good at the time without any thought for how it affects what comes before/after. This is perfectly encapsulated with the revelation of Rumi being a figment of Jirou's imagination - what was the point of having her walking around Tokyo by herself if she's not even there? Why are you showing us something that never actually happened, probably not even in Jirou's mind? When Jirou says goodbye to his friends during his introductory episodes, it's pretty clear that they're exasperated with him and are only humoring his delusions of becoming a hero, but would someone like Jirou imagine his friends doing that?

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I went in to this with high hopes and really trying to like the show, but ultimately the bad writing and clear disdain Inoue has for Sentai tropes just left a bad taste in my mouth.
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by takenoko »

>3) Theme - Normally I wouldn't even include this because it's a given, but I've never seen such a poorly-used or thought out theming before. The story of Momotaro had absolutely zero influence on anything besides the ranger names. What if Zenkaiger had no machines? or if Kiramager wasn't about sparkly mages? The theme is supposed to give a basic idea of what the show will be about but what even is this show about?

Kiramager was about sparkly mages?

I dunno, as far as Inoue's wild rides, this one is probably one of the better ones? At least it's not him being hateful and cynical like when he writes for Rider stories. I get why people might find Inoue's bold faced disregard for standard plot structure annoying and extra work, but on an episode to episode level, it's pretty fun, cause the characters and moments are fun. After years of Sentais that are terrible and formulaic to a fault, having someone who knows how to write stuff that's interesting (if not flawed) was a breath of fresh air for me
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by Lunagel »

takenoko wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 5:17 pm
I dunno, as far as Inoue's wild rides, this one is probably one of the better ones? At least it's not him being hateful and cynical like when he writes for Rider stories. I get why people might find Inoue's bold faced disregard for standard plot structure annoying and extra work, but on an episode to episode level, it's pretty fun, cause the characters and moments are fun. After years of Sentais that are terrible and formulaic to a fault, having someone who knows how to write stuff that's interesting (if not flawed) was a breath of fresh air for me
Like I said, taken in individual chunks, it's entertaining, but as a complete whole, it's awful. It's like with the Star Wars sequel trilogy - no one could decide what the ultimate end goal was or how to get there, so you just end up with an incoherent, inconsistent mess of a plot. If I want something that only needed individual chunks, I'll watch Pop Team Epic, but Sentai is not a individual chunk-type show. Yeah, it's formulaic, but that's because the formula works. It's up to the writer to make it fresh and that is something Inoue has done so, but in a way that completely destroys the overall show.
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by takenoko »

Come on Inoue, one episode to go. Wrap it up!
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by kangchan »

Lunagel wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 5:30 pm
takenoko wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 5:17 pm
I dunno, as far as Inoue's wild rides, this one is probably one of the better ones? At least it's not him being hateful and cynical like when he writes for Rider stories. I get why people might find Inoue's bold faced disregard for standard plot structure annoying and extra work, but on an episode to episode level, it's pretty fun, cause the characters and moments are fun. After years of Sentais that are terrible and formulaic to a fault, having someone who knows how to write stuff that's interesting (if not flawed) was a breath of fresh air for me
Like I said, taken in individual chunks, it's entertaining, but as a complete whole, it's awful. It's like with the Star Wars sequel trilogy - no one could decide what the ultimate end goal was or how to get there, so you just end up with an incoherent, inconsistent mess of a plot. If I want something that only needed individual chunks, I'll watch Pop Team Epic, but Sentai is not a individual chunk-type show. Yeah, it's formulaic, but that's because the formula works. It's up to the writer to make it fresh and that is something Inoue has done so, but in a way that completely destroys the overall show.
I think sometimes we need to refresh and out the "normal". If we follow the "normal" structure or rule, we will not have the series like Donbrothers - one of few series never like before. Of course, Inoue's style is not follow the traditional and without explanation.
At least, Donbrothers make us follow how the story progress each week. We don't know how story going or what happen next.
Compare to Zenkaiger last year, the whole progress from plot to cast of Donbro are better so much.
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by Aeikozz »

Lunagel, must every sentai have a theme?
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by Lunagel »

Aeikozz wrote: Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:57 pm Lunagel, must every sentai have a theme?
When that theme is tied into the core marketing and toys, yes.
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by Aeikozz »

i keep forgetting they sell toys off these shows.
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by Disney2123 »

DonBrothers has been the best Sentai I have ever watched. InuBrother kept his identity a secret and never transformed or untransformed in front of his teammates' faces. Once a Festival, always a Festival. Toshiki Inoue learned from his mistakes from random death to love triangles.
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by Blackcondorguy »

All in all I liked it though it had many flaws. But what strikes me the most in the end is how bad Inoue is at pacing. He throws in a lot of ideas, some of which are very good, he doesn't care too much of their consequences, that is a given and I can do with. But the last episodes never really had that "everything's about to end soon" feel that's really important for upping the tension. Since nothing much was explained and what was resolved was always done in a rush (why introduce those terrible villains in the last episode? How can it feel like a payoff when there's absolutely no setup?), it feels like the series could have ended three episodes ago without much change. I mean, I at least need to feel like the very last episodes of a show are something important, and except for Jetman, I'm under the impression that Inoue doesn't really care about it (judging on Agito, 555 and Donbrothers). And it's even more disappointing because he knows how to make you want to watch the next episodes, he did it earlier in the series when playing with the Jûto/Inu-Kiji Love triangle/Inu's identity mystery story threads. I expected to be at least as much into the last three if not last ten episodes, and I didn't get that, whereas I could feel it for series that I enjoyed less overall. That's the main bummer in my opinion, as I was already to have a lot of questions unanswered.
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Re: DonBrothers Series Discussion and Poll

Post by resop2 »

As for being a Super Sentai series I would have to rate this as the worst one ever (and I have only seen maybe five or six super sentai). In fact, Jyuukaizer (Giga Tokusatsu) is probably a better Super Sentai than Don Brothers.

However, judged on being a live action shoujo manga magical girl show this rates five of five. In these sorts of shows, plot/continuity/character development are secondary to manipulating emotions with a sledge hammer and Don Brothers does this very well.

As for criticism, I agree with Luna that there was not enough emphasis on toys. It should have been a much bigger thing when Haruka (and the rest for that matter) got her power up and it should have been the result of some emotionally wrenching experience (where Kaito then appears out of nowhere and tells Haruka that there is a new power in her heart and she now has the power to do something about the problem). Then the transformation sequence should have gotten the royal sailor moon treatment. The Nouto should have gotten power ups when the joined Don Brothers as well and gotten cuter battle outfits.

They should have also had a scene where fugitive Sononi is ready to waste a cop with her arrow and Tsubasa tells her that this would be wrong and they are only doing their jobs.
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