The next Super Sentai season was Dynaman in 1983, which introduced the concept of the anti-villain. The internal conflicts of the bad guys escalated to the point of someone slowly betraying them from within, while keeping his face and true motives a secret from everyone. Although backstabbing began with Denziman, you know the one with Queen Hedrian, it became far more elaborate here by having a dark knight, as they call him, with a hidden agenda. This made things less straightforward for the bad guys and more intriguing for the audience to follow a mostly plotless show consisting of about 50 episodes each.
In 1984 we got Bioman, which is legendary in most countries it aired in. I myself am biased towards it, since it was the first tokusatsu airing in my country. Nostalgia aside, it easily has the best soundtrack in the whole goddamn franchise, as well as the largest variety of ways for destroying the robotic grunts. It’s also the first season that gives some drama to its villains, so you will feel a bit sorry for them instead of seeing them as nothing more than 1 dimensional bad guys. This is easily one of the best seasons, and I recommend checking it out.
In 1985 we got Changeman, which was basically a tribute to science fiction movies and anime. Every villain was based on some famous alien race, and the scope of the story was bloody epic. It felt like the entire galaxy was at stake, regardless of all battles taking place on Earth. Furthermore, every single recurring character had a backdrop, which was making almost every episode to be relevant to someone’s side story. It’s another great season and I also recommend checking it out.
It was a bit hard for anything to top Changeman, so Flashman feels very simple in comparison. The villains didn’t have any charm, and each good guy coming from a different planet was an undeveloped theme that didn’t really mean anything. It even introduced a bad element to the franchise in the form of mcguffins. Although the villains still want to rule everything, from here on the way they want to achieve it has to do with finding, building, releasing, or achieving something. I get what the creators were going for; it’s a way to show the villains do not begin with full power and need to get even stronger only for defeating the good guys. They are trying to get omnipotent and the good guys are standing in the way, slowing them down. I don’t like it; it introduced plot devices and power creep, which is not what was making the franchise fun to watch.
The only addition Maskman did was introducing romantic interests. They were platonic of course, it’s still a show for kids, but at least it added a touch of pathos. The bad guys didn’t only care about ruling the world, and the good guys didn’t only try to protect it. Love was complicating a bit the roles they were fulfilling. Other than that, it’s not much of a season to care about.
The next one though, is. Liveman is the pinnacle of the franchise for all I care. It perfected the formula by giving everyone motivations and a sad backdrop, while keeping magic and alien technology nonsense out of the picture. You see, traditionally, it’s always about some sort of mystical force or technology from another planet that gives everyone their powers. Over here both good guys and bad guys are using Earth technology against each other, which makes it feel very down to, well, earth. And yes, the technology they use is basically magic but they are at least not trying to present it as some sort of mysterious force that can’t be explained. Easily the best addition to the franchise; if you want to watch at least one season, let it be this one.
1988 was in general a fantastic year for Japanese fiction; most of the best retro came out at that time. Along with Liveman, the best Showa Kamen Rider was airing. Black and its sequel Black RX have the same premise as the rest of them, but at least they have refined it to the point it’s actually pretty engaging. It’s also the last of its era, since the Japanese emperor died around that time and everything changed completely; one effect being the discontinuation of the franchise.
The change from Showa to Heisei was catastrophic on anime and tokusatsu, as there was a tremendous drop in quality. They moved from Liveman, something so close to perfection, to Turboranger, a silly premise where cars move with fairy magic and the villains are one-dimensional monsters who want to pollute the planet. Everything became childish all of a sudden.
The evolution of the franchise died along with the emperor, literally nothing new is added to the formula hereon. Fiveman was a rehash of earlier seasons with absolutely nothing memorable about it because of it. It was even less than before by taking out most of the violence that was making them fun.
Showa tokusatsu were filled with creepy violence and disturbing deaths. Heisei removed most of them, made everything safer, and kept rehashing the same formulas, while dropping the budgets because of the economic crisis. Jetman felt like a sitcom half the time. The characters were livelier, but there was more slice of life, and the action bits were simpler so they can save money. This took away most of the excitement; I didn’t care about what was going on anymore.
The sentiment was similar for most, since the ratings were much smaller and eventually forced the creators to make a deal with America for extra cash. The result of which was the creation of the Power Rangers, reusing the footage of battles and filming anew only the scenes with unmasked heroes. The first season they readapted was Zyuranger from 1992. The only thing that was standing out in the original version was, of course, the main villain. The actress who plays Witch Bantorra, renamed Rita Repulsa in the west, gets to steal the show for the third time thanks to her distinctive sadistic behavior.
This does not count as much in the Power Rangers version, since one of the various changes they made was replacing the cardboard Japanese heroes, who were literal plot devices, waking up from their slumber only when the world needed them, with civilian teenagers living in the present and taking part in everyday activities that resembled a school comedy. Bundled with Bulk and Skull as comic reliefs, and Tommy coming in later on as a stronger ranger, they were far more likable and relatable to their Japanese counterparts.
Another change was removing Bantorra’s tragic backdrop story, which took away a lot of her appeal, leaving her as nothing more than a generic villain that does evil things without much justification. So basically the American version did the unthinkable and made you care more about the good guys than the bad guys. Liking the heroes was so weird; I was totally not used to it. Of course this did happen with a deliberate simplification of the villains, which was a low blow on its own.
Another change they made for Power Rangers was treating every following season as a sequel instead of a standalone series. The heroes would remain the same and villains would be crossing over from other seasons, all of which happen in the same continuity. It’s even funnier to see Rita being next to Dairanger footage when that was not the case with the Japanese version, yet the same thing had happened with the actresses’ former role as Queen Hedrian in the one and only case when Denziman and Sun Vulcan were considered to be part of the same continuity. I actually liked how they reused that idea.