YMMV / Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger

• Angst? What Angst?: None of the Zyurangers seem to care at all that the dinosaurs have been wiped out and their friends and family are all dead. Justified, since they had to have known going into suspended animation that they would never see their loved ones again.
• Ass Pull:
  • Bandora's backstory, tragic as it is, comes so late in the narrative (during the final episodes) that it comes across too late to have any proper impact and would make her less sympathetic than was probably intended.
  • Bandora losing her powers when she cries as the result of Kai's death is also this. This is mentioned in the final episode only, but is not mentioned anywhere prior to this.^note Granted, this might simply be a trope exclusive to Japanese pop-culture; Magic Kaito, about five years earlier, also mentioned witches had this exact weakness without further elaboration.
  • In the final episode near the beginning. The rope that Boi and Mei are holding, to keep the rest of the team in the Magic Realm from being lost forever, was on the verge of giving in on them with both of their hands bleeding from pulling so tightly. Barza appears out of nowhere to help them out by using his staff to act as an anchor for the rope. When the staff starts breaking from the pressure, Barza "remembers" a spell that has the incantation of "Tyrannosaurus Triceratops!" to turn the staff into a log of world to make it stronger. No where in the series has it been shown that Barza relearnt his magic over the course of the series after it's been been told to us all the way back in episode 1 that Barza lost all of his magic by Bandora. He also used magic again when the Zyurangers leave Earth for the Heavens.
• Bishōnen Jump Syndrome: Before Kamen Rider Kuuga coined the "Odagiri Effect", it was observed during the run of Zyuranger that Burai had become popular with mothers.
• Broken Base: Between those who thinks the series on its own is awesome, links with Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers notwithstanding, and those who think that the series qualities decrease because they are going to see a lot of helpless little kids considered The Scrappy series-wide because Bandora specifically targets them. There's also a group who considers them on the same level of quality, both good and bad in different ways.
• Bizarro Episode:
  • In one episode, Bandora's evil plan is to make people sneeze. Not sneeze to death, just sneeze. She says this will destroy humanity, somehow. She also starts a random rapping session about how much she hates kids.
  • At one point Dan and Mei turned into punks, and they suddenly attended gambling joints and assaulted mafias, actually killing them. When they returned to normal Dan and Mei felt more embarassed about it than anything else. Then they get chased by some punks they had harassed earlier, who want to work for them. Then the episode ends, and it's never brought up again.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In one episode, Barza allows the Zyurangers to have jobs, this is quickly forgotten and never mentioned again.
• Crosses the Line Twice: In Episode 17, Gnome must stop his bratty grandson from reawakening Burai. Gnome's solution to the problem is to try to murder his own grandson. At first, Gnome tries to run him over with a forklift. When that doesn't work, both Gnome and Barza decide to murder him using assault rifles and grenades.
• Designated Hero: Daizyujin/the Guardian Beasts often come across as Jerkass Gods for how often they tend to dick around the Zyurangers for the most arbitrary of reasons being portrayed as a test for them. It's most obviously seen when it involves Burai, whether it's him blasting Geki for questioning his order to kill Burai and then taking away their powers when they later wish to try help him stay alive, and then outright lying to them about the way that they were told could save his life, which led to more damage than could have been avoided.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Several of the Dora Monsters became extremely popular through Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Probably the biggest of these is Dora Circe (Who become a quintessential MMPR monster as Pudgy Pig), followed by Dora Argus and Dora Sphinx. Dora Knight, Dora Lygar, Dora Ladon, and Dora Tortoise also have a fair amount of fans via their Power Rangers counterparts.
• Evil Is Cool: Bandora and her gang of minions are better developed than the heroes, have an extremely catchy Villain Song and are an absolute delight to watch.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: It has a cult following in America, due to being the series that helped spawned Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, giving Zyuranger pseudo First Installment Wins status. It's no accident that the American DVD releases by Shout Factory started with Zyuranger.
• Growing the Beard:
  • While not bad, most fans find the usual plot at the beginning of saving kids from Bandora to be formulaic at best. But fans agree that once Burai shows up, the show gets better as it gives some Character Development between him and Geki as well as show some drama over whether or not Burai survives.
  • Zyuranger represents a Growing the Beard for all of Super Sentai when it comes to Mecha battles, with much longer and more complex Mecha fights than had been in previous Sentai series.
• Harsher in Hindsight: At the beginning of episode 6, Geki gets transported to a strange land by Guardian Beast Tyrannosaurus, and sees the toppled Tokyo Tower. Tokyo was badly rocked by an earthquake/tsunami many years later.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The first closing theme was deliberately Latino-styled, almost like a foreshadowing of the also dinosaur-themed Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger which had a heavy Latino-style to it.
  • Eleven years later, in another dinosaur-themed Sentai, a scenario where a fan-favorite evil Sixth Ranger who wields a dagger as his weapon and pilots a dragon mech who later turns good (but didn't live long enough) repeats again.
    • It's even funnier for Abaranger's counterpart, Power Rangers: Dino Thunder because thanks to Composite Character, Tommy Oliver, Burai's occidental counterpart is on the same team as Trent, Abarekiller's counterpart. Some of the plotpoint about Trent are the same as Tommy (new kid in town, adopted child, became evil because he was brainwashed instead of being in full control of their action like Burai and Abarekiller...). Tommy was also a white ranger. And just like Tommy, Trent was Spared By Adaptation.
  • Some fans have remarked that Mei's schoolgirl disguise made her resemble Usagi from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, a later Toei production.
    • Speaking of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, the Golem costumes here were later reused for that show.
  • The character Boi would be replaced by a girl in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
  • Hisashi Sakai, who plays a child Burai in flashback, would play Kou in Gosei Sentai Dairanger the following year. Both characters were adapted into Tommy Oliver in Power Rangers.
  • As mentioned below, fans attempted a letter writing campaign to bring Burai back, which didn't work. The same would happen to his Power Rangers counterpart Tommy with more successful results.
  • The first closing theme contains the line "Earth is round and blue. That's something everyone knows" long before the recent reemergence of the flat Earth believers into popular consciousness.
  • Unlike most other Sentai, Zyuranger did not get The Movie. However, as a result of being adapted, Zyuranger-derived suits and characters took the lead both in the first Power Rangers movie and The Remake Power Rangers film, both of which were imported to Japan. The latter's Japanese premiere was even attended by Yuta Mochizuki (Geki) along with Takumi Kizu (Lucky), the Red actor of the contemporary Uchu Sentai Kyuranger.
  • Burai's awakening happened on June 19th, and needless to say their first encounter with him does not go well for the Zyurangers, with things only getting worse as the story arc goes on. Nearly 20 years later, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared uses that exact same date as their Arc Number, with progressively more messed up things happening to the protagonists as things go on. What's more, in the very first episode the villain decries green as uncreative. What color does Burai, the first sixth ranger in all of Sentai, wear?
  • In Zyuranger Red Ranger Geki finds out that he was adopted and had a long-lost older brother, Burai, who turns out to be a Sixth Ranger. In Power Rangers Zeo, Red Ranger Tommy (who was previously Burai's counterpart) might've already known he was adopted, but he does find out that he had a long-lost older brother, David, who might've not been a Sixth Ranger, but was used as a red herring for one.
  • During the second episode, a TV newscaster claims Bandora and her minions to be space aliens, and is quickly shot down by his co-anchors. Gotta give him credit, though: He was very, very close.
• It Was His Sled: The final fate of the Dragon Ranger is probably the most commonly pointed out difference between Zyuranger and its American counterpart.
• Jerkass Woobie: It's hard not to feel bad for Bandora when her backstory is revealed near the end of the series. Kai brought his death upon himself but Bandora is still a grieving mother lashing out at the world in anger. Then Great Satan revives Kai and Bandora is so overjoyed she tries repeatedly to hold him in her arms, only for Kai to slip away, taunt her for thinking they can still be happy together, and even declare that he's no longer her son. Bandora only gets to hold him again when he's dying a second time.
• Moe: Mei. Super cute face provided by (then 16-year-old) Reiko Chiba? Check. High pitched voice? Check. Innocence? Aplenty, so check. Bonus points for being Badass Adorable.
• Narm: Bandora's name is hard to take seriously when her name is the same word in Arabic for ‘tomato’. Not helping matters is how her Villain Song is clearly influenced by Arabic music, with her even doing a little shoulder shake.
• Narm Charm: Considering how big a cult classic it is in America (enough to the point where it got an American DVD release), the series' low budget scale and all other Narm-ish qualities are more than likely seen past due to its more epic storyline than its American counterpart.
• Newer Than They Think: The tradition of having all the Sentai titles end with the suffix "-ranger" actually began here. The only shows prior to Zyuranger to have the word "-ranger" were Goranger and Turboranger (and even then, the former actually used "Gorenger" on the show). In fact, 9 of the 15 shows prior to Zyuranger actually ended with suffix "-man" (starting from Denziman and all the way to Jetman).
• The Problem with Licensed Games: The Zyuranger game for the Famicom had some weird ideas on how to adapt its source material. For example, one segment involves Daizyuzin facing off against Dragon Caesar in a deadly match of table ping pong.
• So Okay, It's Average: The show isn't bad, but there are much better Sentai series. The general consensus is that Burai, Bandora and her minions, and the mecha designs are great, but the story and other characters are underdeveloped. It does have a strong cult following in America, for obvious reasons. Grown-Ups In Spandex's fansub release also helped in this regard.
• Special Effect Failure: Happens from time to time, due to having a lower budget than the previous series.
  • One notable instance is that even without pausing at the closeups of the stored Dino Bucklers, it's clear that the elaborate backsides are merely stickers, hence the toys. It's why, in their later appearance in the crossover movie with Kyoryuger and Abaranger, the Dino Bucklers' props were actually the Legacy Power Morpher toys, albeit relabeled with the appropriate show label on the front, where the backs' designs were molded in and painted.
  • One of the more notable instances is in episode 48, at the climactic moment when King Brachionis seemingly destroyed by Bandora. There is a brief distance shot of King Brachion falling into the bottomless pit that Bandora has created, but it is very clear even without pausing that the shot is crude stop motion in which a photo cutout of King Brachion wiggles along the background, a photo of an obviously not-bottomless crater composited onto a city shot.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The first segment of the full opening theme (which isn't played on the TV version, curiously enough) rips off various notes from the original Total Recall theme. This was one of the arrangements done by Kenji Yamamoto, whose serial plagiarism got him fired from his role as composer for Dragon Ball Z Kai and got his soundtrack for it and the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai games replaced in the HD rerelease.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The Zyurangers themselves, thanks to the show's decision to focus more on Bandora's child-hating antics shifting the focus to the kids of the days mostly, they generally stayed as they are from the start: Noble fighters that protect people, especially kids. The world-building, however, fared a little better, but even there are a lot more that could be explored from the tribes the Zyuranger originated from. The Yamato Tribe enjoyed most of the backstory thanks to the Geki-Burai conflict, followed by the Lithia tribe's mysticism affecting several of Mei's episodes. The Sharma tribe didn't have much, but Goushi makes it up with strong character devotion for Geki. The Etoffe and Dime tribes, however, didn't get mentions in the world building, leaving Dan and Boi feeling like they're just 'kinda there'.
• Too Cool to Live: Burai. He was the first Sixth Ranger to stay among the team for more than one episode and had a cool design and backstory. So it became heartbreaking when he was Killed Off for Real. It got to the point where fans tried to start a letter writing campaign to bring him back, but ultimately the decision stuck.
• Unfortunate Character Design: While her human adult and knight designs may not look so bad, in the west, Clotho's child form got the nickname of The littlest Klansman.
• Vindicated by History: The series didn't exactly set the world alight when it was originally released, to the point that the Sixth Ranger tropes was implemented specifically to bring the viewers back in. After a couple of decades (and an American adaptation that took the world by storm), the series is looked on much more fondly for its incredible mecha designs and action.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The series is often considered Lighter and Softer than Jetman's drama-ladden story. Of course that's without taking into consideration of some REALLY creepy stuff Bandora does in order to terrorize the children that she hates. Which includes snatching them outta nowhere as long as there's a reflection, putting them in a suspended state inside a pillar with their faces visible, conscious all the time, as they're to be sacrificed to the giant laughing head of a demon known as Dai Satan. Uh... yikes?
• The Woobie:
  • Burai. Even long after his Heel–Face Turn, it is revealed that he was killed by a natural disaster while suspended in animation and given only a temporary extra life by Clotho under Daizyujin's orders. And if that isn't depressing enough, we soon learn that, for unknown reasons, he could not be revived after dying a second time. Despite his efforts to stay alive while using up the remainder of his life outside the Lapseless Room where he could remain alive, the Room is destroyed by Bandora. However, even if Burai is pretty justified for angsting about his circumstance, he instead takes the path of Iron Woobie, and uses his short time to help Geki and the Zyurangers when he can, and when he's nearly dying for real, he uses his time to befriend and protect a similarly dying boy even at cost of his limited time.
  • Geki. Once he found out he had a brother, he sympathizes with Burai and does his best to have him join, despite the latter trying to kill him and his team. Even after Burai repents and officially joins, Geki still ultimately loses him once the candle is extinguished and mourns him the episode after.

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