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Manually published on the date of the Type Jack leak for Smash Bros. Because reasons. |
Kyoryuger came remarkably close to delivering the first female Sixth. But, they didn't. Yayoi (Kyoryu Violet) is alone in the cockpit of Plezuon, as a robo, in battle, in the show itself, for exactly 0 seconds. The nanoseconds long fight at the beginning of Brave 48 has her grandfather, Doctor Ulshade, simply stepping out of frame. He does not leave. As such, she is completely invalidated as a Sixth. She never pilots what is supposed to be her mecha, as a robo, by herself. Would you care to argue that an equal number of people saw the Come Back special, as did the show? That a scant second of footage, seen by a small few, is something worth celebrating? Toei doesn't.
She exists as a weird half-Senshi, similar to ZyuOh Bird, having only used Plezuon as a dinosaur, for a few seconds. Most of which see her being knocked out of the sky. Which, matches her being knocked out in Brave 23, instead of debuting as a Senshi, at that point, as she should have. And, in Brave 35. Brilliant job shuffling her off the board. It's not subtle, in the slightest, and you even left the curtain completely open, by having Torin pantomiming/piloting with the main team in Gigant Bragi-Oh, before he became a Senshi!
It's wild that Yuuko, Shinya, and Dantetsu fared equally, or perhaps even worse, in terms of mecha-usage, having never piloted theirs, at all. Ramirez and Tessai did so once. Doctor Ulshade and Torin were treated the best, of this group of second-class Senshi. The first two were only Senshi in the final two episodes. Dantetsu had a couple more to his name, similarly to Doctor Ulshade.
It's what happened to Yayoi and Torin (specifically in Brave 35) that bothers me the most. Typically, when a Sixth joins their team, in a few episodes time their Sixth Combination will debut. This sees them all formally uniting, to take down a threat that neither the Sixth, nor the team could defeat, on their own. Except that, in Kyoryuger, Yayoi and Torin became Senshi only AFTER their Sixth Combinations were debuted. They're used by the main team (which, because of how the mecha system is designed, does also include one of the Sixths, Kyoryu Gold).
Reds and main teams using the mecha of Sixths is actually, strangely, a consistent practice in Dino-series. In Zyuranger, Geki inherits Burai's. Fair enough, I suppose, even though it could have stood to have been written differently. In Abaranger, AbareKiller decides that one attack is reason enough for him to retire, the day of the team's dedicated movie, when any other day, we all know that would undoubtedly spur him on. But, for some reason, he lets TopGaler and Stegoslidon decide if the current threat is relevant enough to all of their interests to justify them helping out the main trio, without him. To my knowledge, this type of thing did not occur in RyuSoulger. Good for them.
The only rationalization I could scrape up is that they want to give agency to the mecha themselves, in dino-series. That's commendable, but it can be done without shortchanging the human/humanoid Sixths. Agency is not a limited commodity, Toei.
There is merit to the six characters comprising Kyoryuger's main team. A damn decent amount, but I'm not sure there is enough in the world to justify the stark division that is placed between those six and the other eight. Daigo using Plezuon and Bunpachy in Yayoi's debut fight is INCOMPREHENSIBLE. It goes against something so fundamental about the franchise that it should have never had to have been said aloud: A Senshi pilots their mecha.
Do you see how alien and ridiculous it sounds to have to actually state that? They would never have a male Senshi train to pilot their Dedicated Mecha. Daigo is a newbie Red; did you see him training at the beginning of the series? Even if he had, and even when other Senshi have trained to pilot Auxiliary or Super Mecha, it's been shown ON-SCREEN. Training is a plot point to be shown, not an excuse for
someone not being present in every episode, after their debut. Or, especially, an excuse for other people piloting their mecha, in their absence.
It's just inexcusable and mind-breaking to come THAT FUCKING CLOSE to actually having a female Sixth, only to have that gift horse's neck broken mere moments after its birth. Then, to have the corpse shuffled out onto the stage intermittently, in a farcical way.
I have been in denial , off and on, for a decade.
I have been insanely angry, and probably always will be; it's part of who I am.
I have bargained with myself, that it's okay because it's the closest I am ever
going to get.
I have been depressed.
But, I'm going to have to accept it. There has been no sign, whatsoever, in the past
decade, that Toei is going to actually deliver one.
It's ridiculous. There was no justifiable reason for Daigo to use Plezuon, past Yayoi becoming a Senshi. Marketing and sales revenue are NOT justifiable reasons for destroying a character, or piece of fiction. If you aren't going to do something properly, don't do it at all.
I'd rather every Sentai series be Sun Vulcan, than for Toei to continue presenting
ladies as equals to their male counterparts, only to fail so badly in delivering on
that.
The same is true for non-humans, non-binary characters, and foreigners. Why you
gotta do Shou Ronpo, J., and Robert Baldwin like that?
There is no genuine storytelling to Yayoi, or motivation. She wants to be a Kyoryuger…because she wants to be a Kyoryuger... She exists for the sake of Daigo, ultimately in regards to the symbolism of SpinoDai-Oh. In respecting that he wants to be with Amy, she precludes the rest of the team from being present with him, for the final battle. Yes, they do send the Zyudenryu up to destroy the Frozen Palace, and (unbeknownst to them) save him, thus keeping their part of Daigo’s promise. However, this is Kyoryuger’s manifestation of Riku Sanjo’s problem of placing individual love above THE MISSION, and it requiring him to resurrect, or miraculously save, a character to make it all work out.
The above paragraph rightfully makes me ask, ‘What is this? Rider?’
The way that Yayoi was invalidated was a laser-precise process. It’s infinitely clear that Toei didn’t REALLY want to change the show, in a significant way, based on the fact that many of the videos they solicited of fans dancing to the ED included girls. Toei already knew full-well that the girls who watch toku, watch Sentai. Go find another franchise that consistently includes multiple female heroes. In the wake of that notorious producer's comments, they likely wanted to simply include another lady, in spite of previously having only one lady on each dino-team. Why they decided to make a tradition of that, and go right back to it with RyuSoulger, is beyond egalitarian thought-processes.
The weird thing is that they could have added another lady in a simple, non-financially-risky way. In fact, they likely could have made a bit MORE money, given that Plezu-Ohs were ridiculously cheap, for a window of time. How? Have Yuuko take over for Ramirez, in Brave 24, instead of Brave 47. People LOVE Ayumi Kinoshita. Ankydon would likely have seen a bump in sales, and all they would have been on the hook to do was deliver an episode where Amy and her use Kyoryuzin Macho.
I am fully aware of the individual who pushed to have Yayoi become a Senshi; please forgive me for not committing his, or the producer's names, to memory. Though, I genuinely feel like while the germ of this idea was probably well-intentioned, it ended up being a decision with incredibly unintended consequences, once it had to be pushed through the Corporate Machine. I buy that everyone involved wanted to make a concession in the wake of the controversy, but ultimately, what Toei absolutely didn’t want to do was actually deliver a female Sixth.
Consequently, what they delivered was the most passive-aggressive and insincere piece of fiction that I have ever come across.
‘You want this? Sure, we’ll pretend to give you this.’
Again, for such a long time, I’ve felt like I was looking a gift horse in the mouth, even though I’ve known for ages that she wasn’t ever really real, to begin with.
You just made her up to hurt me. And, it worked.
Yes it did~