YMMV / Gosei Sentai Dairanger

• Ass Pull:
  • Colonel Shadam being revealed to be a clay doll replica upon his death, despite being responsible for all the Gorma clay dolls (which also qualifies as an Ass Pull on its own). There is absolutely no build up, creates even more plotholes by itself than the clay doll twist itself already did and generally comes across as a twist done for the sake of having one which never gets elaborated on how exactly it worked.
  • The entire clay doll twist is contradicted both in the episodes before the finale and in the final scenes of the season; Two Gorma monsters, Mirror Make-Up Artist and Birdcage Vagrant respectively, cannot be clay dolls because both of them have backgrounds that make it impossible for them to be so. The final scenes meanwhile have new Gorma appear out of nowhere with no explanation as to who they are and where'd they came from.
• Awesome Music: When they pull their roll call, one of the most awesome songs played in Sentai history is played. It really fits the scene.
  • The ending theme, "Oretachi Muteki sa!! Dairanger". A bopping track loaded with swagger, with lyrics that extol the badassery of the Dairangers. "We are invincible," indeed.
  • The opening theme itself is nothing to sneeze at either, with an oddly techno-styled starting note that soon translates into chinese-styled instrumentation.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Some of Key Jester's creepy dolls using firearms to cause a panic.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Rin and Ryou are the only Dai Tribe descendants. Outcome is obvious.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: When members of Deepground sleep, they see Shadam's five belts and Zydos' corset in their nightmares.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: An odd form of this in that it's pretty much just the suits and mechs, which were used in one of the more iconic parts of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Consequently, the White Ranger suit design is very well-remembered in the West due to being associated with Breakout Character Tommy Oliver, but is comparatively disliked in Japan due to being associated with the rather unpopular Kou. The SH Figuarts version of that suit design was widely agreed to have only happened because of the above phenomenon (hence why it was a web exclusive with a rather small parts count).
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • After the suicide of his actor Tatsuya Nomi in May 18 2017, Daigo's status as an Iron Woobie character and being an old man 50 years later has become much sadder in retrospect. ^note Old Man!Daigo is probably Daigo's around twenties age plus 50 years old. Tatsuya Nomi never reached that age. It also makes his video-cameo at Power Morphicon 2016 a lot sadder in retrospect; in a span of a year, his excited self would be gone forever and he committed suicide.
  • Kaku explained to Daigo that repeated misuse of the Holy Peacock Teardrop's healing abilities, even if it means saving Kujaku, could render humanity defenseless against a pandemic in the future. Twenty-seven years after Kujaku tossed the relic away after using it once, the coronavirus occurs.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In episode 2, Shōji crosses a bridge leading to a ship full of Gohma by gripping along its lower rails a la Solid Snake.
  • Kō's actor also played Burai as a boy in the flashbacks in the previous series...and in the second season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, the Kiba Ranger suit is used by the equivalent of Burai.
  • It turns out that Dairanger preceeded the whole "X years after" trend in Super Sentai that started with Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger.
  • The Movie was made too early to include Kiba Ranger. However, the Kiba Ranger suit (or rather a remade version) would get its chance to appear on the big screen alongside the five Zyurangers in the form of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, which was imported back to Japan.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • The Gorma Emperor mostly appeared to be a fairly harmless Cloud Cuckoolander, until he sees Daijinryu's rampage and makes it clear he doesn't care if the dragon kills all humans on Earth as long as he can rule afterwards.
  • If Shadam's treatment of Akomaru wasn't enough for this, he definitely crosses with his Evil Plan to become the Gorma Emperor as he doesn't care if his actions bring about Daijinryu's return.
• Never Live It Down: Kou stopped fondling Rin's breasts and flipping up her skirt within five episodes of his introduction. But because those five episodes were chock full of instances of him doing it, and because what he did was completely inexcusable, he's become mostly known for this in retrospect.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Surprisingly NOT the monsters, especially the ones that are legitimately insane, but Ryou's Training from Hell. Imagine you are attached with A LOT of steels that makes your whole body bleed, and you're supposed to go through an extensive training while doing that, and all the while, your body just go through pains and through. Ryou's screams of pain just sounded off... creepy...
  • There are Key Jester's creepy dolls, animated by children's souls, who are armed with firearms and concealed knives. They try to tried run over the people in cars, all while seeing their carnage as fun.
  • Daijinryu's rampages sometimes turn out this way. When he's rampaging across the globe we see an unlucky news caster reporting on it, and when we cut away we hear him screaming implying Daijinryu killed him. Later when he returns he mind controls dozens of people to climb to the tops of buildings. When he looks like he's about to attack them, instead he makes them jump to their deaths.
  • The Gorma members revealed to be mud dolls dying, their bodies crumbling. It's more horrific with Gara (who declares her undying hate), Gorma XV (disillusioned that he was a fake), and Shadam (begging for help after the horrible things he did).
• Retroactive Recognition: Kabuki Boy’s voice actor is more well-known by sentai fans as a certain purple ranger from Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Daigo's romantic interest in Kujaku ended up taking up the bulk of his focus episodes, with them going back and forth on whether they could be with each other or not to the point of melodrama. The fact that Daigo Did Not Get the Girl in the end also makes all the episodes between him and Kujaku feel kind of pointless.
• Signature Scene: The roll call, particularly the unmorphed roll call near the end of the series and the subsequent unmorphed fight scene. It's so popular that Gokaiger's Dairanger tribute has Ryou teach Gai that a hero does not need to henshin in order to be a hero, tributing that episode.
• Squick: Akomaru asking if Kou got excited by holding his hand. Not only he's far too young to say things like this, he's also related to Kou.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: One background music is the Imperial March theme from Star Wars with a few notes sharped.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Iron Face Choryu's death, set to a heartbreaking rendition of the show's ending theme. That is all.
  • Having been swayed by Rin's kindness, Media Magician chooses to renounce the Gorma ways, only to be killed by Gara for his decision (to Rin's heartbreak). And as if that wasn't bad enough, Gara uses an enlargement grenade on his corpse, turning it into a mindless attacker that the Dairangers have no choice but to finish off.
  • Kaku's death, and the heartwrenching reactions of the Dairangers, especially Shouji's. Those screams of the latter's are just brutal.
  • Meta-wise, on May 18th 2017, Daigo/Shishiranger's actor Tatsuya Nomi was found dead and the reason was suicide, much like the original Kiranger (Baku Hatakeyama).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Daigo. In the sense that despite being in every episode and having plenty of focus episodes, he remains woefully underdeveloped in the character growth section outside of a romantic subplot. Despite being second-in-command and arguably the best fighter on the team after Ryou, Daigo pretty much wound up as a Satellite Character to Kujaku for all intents and purposes and got little development or characterization beyond being the ranger who loved Kujaku but couldn't be with her.
  • Master Kaku. He's the group's mentor who's badass enough to fight Iron Face Choryu, a Gorma who wrecked the Dairangers in their first encounter. In spite of this, he spends most of the series as Mr. Exposition with no really meaningful interactions with the Dairangers (which is especially odd as Ryo comes to regard him as a surrogate father), and doesn't get any more fight scenes or spotlight episodes until the finale.
  • Iron Face Chouryou who is Ryo's father and The Rival to Master Kaku, could have been an interesting recurring character alongside his master Archbishop Saw. They're both killed off at the end of a two-parter early in the show and Chouryou is never mentioned again.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Jin comes off as this in his last episode, as it tries to paint him as a tragic villain who only wanted a good challenge and grew to respect Ryo as a fighter. It falls flat since the episodes prior showed him as a smug Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy who murdered strong martial arts masters, due to his father intentionally dropping him off a cliff during training, and couldn’t stand the idea that Ryo was a stronger fighter. He hated Ryo so much that he literally sold his soul to Major Zydos just to beat him, which included him murdering Aki, a kindly nurse who tried to talk him out of his hatred and was in the middle of comforting him after his first loss against the ranger, just so he can get the power to beat Ryo as Jin had to rid himself of any emotions. Not helping his case is that he never shows remorse for any of his prior actions and any sadness he felt was toward himself.
• Vindicated by History: It was, due to a Tough Act to Follow by Choujin Sentai Jetman (in spite of Zyuranger being chronologically sandwiched between them). This generation seems to be more forgiving, since Kung Fu and Martial Arts are awesome, mix that with Sentai and whoooah.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The Ryuseioh puppet remains one of the most impressive mecha models in Sentai history. There's a reason why it gets shown off so much in the opening credits.
  • The Dairen-oh outfit also looks very easy to move in. The movements are surprisingly fast, smooth, and impressive.
  • The Monster of the Week costumes are a lot more mobile than usual, since the legs (and usually arms) of the stunt performers are just covered in spandex rather than being People in Rubber Suits.
• The Woobie: Love him or hate him, Kou has been through a lot of bad situations whether it be his father Shadam, his twin brother Akomaru, being branded as a kindergartener by his own mother, or that awful prank Rin and Shouji use when we first met him.

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