This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Page Maintenance Discussions
Shay Guy: Some people seem to think Power Rangers was announced to end because they just couldn't figure out a way to adapt this — am I the only one who finds that unlikely?
Arrow: It's pretty much flat out untrue. Disney has been trying to cancel PR for years; it was supposed to end at multiple times during franchise history, including after In Space, Wild Force, and recently after Jungle Fury. We wouldn't have even gotten RPM if Jetix UK and Bandai hadn't stepped up to help pay for another season. It has nothing to do with Shinkenger. However, I am fairly certain that Go-onger's wackiness and Shinkenger's inherent Japanese-ness did actually happen because Toei was fairly sure both times that they wouldn't have to hold back on their own ideas to allow for easy of adaptation.
So in other words, it's the other way around: Shinkenger was created with a level of foreign ideal that makes it hard to adapt because there wasn't going to be a PR season to try it with.
Eddie Current: Much as I'm loathe to quote Violent J, at this point, this is all just purely speculation, as Infinix rightly corrected me at this point.
Chris X: The Five-Man Band seems to be a BIT of a mess, especially about Ryuunosuke and Chiaki. I think Ryuunosuke fits more as The Lancer. He does seem like the Yes-Man for Takeru, but Act 26 shows him doing an act which Lancers usually do. Also, according to the description of The Lancer itself, a Lancer is the foil to the hero. Takeru is stoic, reserved, and at first slightly antisocial, but Ryuunosuke is his opposite: hammy, hyperactive and VERY social. It is true that Chiaki being the Sour Supporter makes him look like the obvious Lancer, but at those revelations, I think Ryuunosuke fits more as the Lancer, even when he's being a Large Ham Yes-Man. Besides, it would seem that Ryuunosuke is Takeru's second in command, a position usually given to The Lancer. Chiaki, on the other hand, is The Smart Guy. He's usually the one to come up with innovative, tricky strategies. He is also one of the youngest team members alongside Kotoha, and for most Five-Man Band, the male kid character usually becomes The Smart Guy, and Chiaki does have the 'smartass' feel on him.
So Yeah... discuss?
Infinix: I agree with Chris X's POV. From what I understand The Lancer is the second-in-command type with some contrasting personalities to The Hero. He isn't necessarily the rebel, right? Chiaki, on the other hand, relies more on thinking, even if that's to compensate for the skill gap. Most of the times he's up against a monster, especially episodes focusing on him, we never see him diving into the danger gung-ho. So, I propose Ryunosuke as The Lancer, and Chiaki as The Smart Guy. (Besides, that's how I wrote it when I first made the page.)
Ako Si Kuya: I think it was the initial episodes that made me think of Chiaki as The Lancer and Ryunosuke as The Smart Guy. In the first maybe 10 episodes, Chiaki was still a bit of a Sour Supporter and his wish to surpass Takeru in Act 3 made him seem more like Lancer material although his unorthodox thinking did come into play as early as Act 3. Yeah, the early profiles described him as being good at surprise tactics, but it was hard to see that from those early episodes. Ryunosuke as far as being a good vassal and samurai tended to be more knowledgeable. It may not be much, but as far as early episodes are concerned, it really seemed that way. Once Chiaki started getting more Character Development and his unorthodox thinking came into play, however, then it became easier to see him as The Smart Guy.
The "Oedipus Rex" part doesn't seem right. "Mom-complex" and "dad-complex" are a bit lost in translation, but in essence it meant Ryunosuke has an obsession with fulfilling duties that normally belong to a parent. Think how Renn was the Go-onger's "mother", this is kind of the same, except nobody sees Ryu-san as a parent.
Eddie Current: I saw it more as "Well Done, Son" Guy.
Infinix: I'm wondering about moving Super Sentai-specific tropes into a small section above other tropes. To elaborate; Tropes like By the Power of Grayskull!, In the Name of the Moon, Transformation Trinket and HumongousMecha/MechaExpansionPack come every year, just with some tweaks and subversions by the writers for different series. So, my idea for the page (and if the majority agrees, for the future SS pages) is;
- Series introduction
- Characters
- Recurring Super Sentai tropes (T.Trinket, H.Mecha, etc.) in their own small section, describing whatever subversions are made this year.
- Then, actual tropes specific to the show.
hello86: I'm anyone. And I say that's good. Also, if anyone has any character notes to add on the character (beyond their place in the Five-Man Band/ Five Bad Band), that'll be good to add too.
Infinix: Ok then. I'll split the tropes. If it's inconvenient, it's not hard to revert.
Eddie Current: I looked at the page immediately before and after your edit. I like it, Infinix. I also like KEEPING the "general Super S" tropes on each series page so we can, say, point out interesting subversions or executions. Like this season's Lancer. Oh, Ryunosuke, you so silly!
Infinix: Glad it worked out fine. Then I guess I can keep using this format for future SS pages. Who knows? Even for all previous SS pages, if they were to be revamped. By the way, just Ryunosuke? What about Genta, the Sixth Ranger which is usually a rank for far more stoic characters?
Eddie Current: To be honest— not that far yet, I'm playing catch up. But yeah, SixthRangers do tend to stoic loners, don't they.
Tokuiten: Wow—the new layout looks awesome. Great job!
Infinix: Anybody feel like adding some Crowning Moment Of Awesome? I, for one, would like to opt for the team's very first battle.
Eddie Current: Your wish is my command, Infinix-sama. :)
Infinix: For those who feel like the "yellow" color is too bright to read, here's an idea: Use "gold" for yellow, and use "goldenrod" for gold, because goldenrod is darker. Unless there's a way for us to edit colors accurately by the 6-digit hexadecimal values, this'll have to do.
Eddie Current: Takeru: More Kuudere or Tsundere? I think his stoic elements make Kuudere fit better, but...
Infinix: I know it's for the memorable moments and I have no objections, but the CMoA section is
Eddie Current: Aren't all the Sentai on one CMoA currently, or has that changed since I last checked? But we seem to have reached a Troper Critical Mass with this one; a series CMoA page may be justified.
Infinix: Yes, there's already a CMoA page for Super Sentai in general. I'll leave it for the majority to decide, I guess. But if there isn't enough to fill a whole page, I think the general page would suffice.
Eddie Current *: Prototype C Mo A page started, you'll note. Please, look it over to see if I mucked anything. Or confused Takeru's sword with a Canadian singer again. :P, Look it over, and if it sticks, we can link to it in the entry.
Infinix: Nice! I like it. I was worried the list would be too small to make a whole page, but considering we're getting this much out of just about 2/3 of the series, looks like I don't need to.
Eddie Current: Witness Troper Critical Mass at work. :)
Infinix: In many of the SS series, there's a way to inform the Rangers of the Monster activity, and specifically the rough whereabouts; be it a living being, or a system of sorts *. Is there a trope for this?
Tokuiten: Took me a while to find it, but it looks like Regular Caller.
Infinix: Wow, thanks! I looked and looked, and without results, I was about to give up.
Infinix: I saw the text you added, Eddie. Is there any wordings you want to suggest?
Eddie Current: No, but as I said in the edit— I caught myself about to replace the "Similarly" in the roll call with the "as well" favoured in the Fansub I'm viewing. Then I stopped myself; I'm a guy who deliberately makes multiply valid translations in constructed languages for my fiction, both work. So I thought the warning note was in order. The thing I caught and did edit was the Origami pun, which I caught first viewing and found quite clever. Mind, I'm only up to Act 12. Give me time. :) I do like your re-wording and reformatting it as a hottip.
Infinix: Yeah, that's pretty much the choice when it comes down to translations: direct transliteration *or technical translation *. The word "Onajiku" you mentioned, for example, is an adverb * and a noun *, so it's not wrong either way. I didn't use a dictionary back then though; I just opted a smoother word for the roll call.
P.S *
Eddie Current: Actually, now that I'm watching a new sub (they had the HD version!) I'd let to suggest how they translate the roll. which is one of the alternates you note above— The Same! Color! Name! It's not just the words, the exclamation points convey a very important tone. It's the Samurai-tachi declaring allegiance to their lord and his cause. Similarly implies the formality of that bound, yes, but not the commitment the team tends to show when running the roll.
Eddie Current: An important note on the above: I've just noticed lot of Infinix's edits are to fix spelling errors. This is especially galling when, as was the case with one of MY edits (during which I committed the grave sin of edit-without-preview), it causes a Red Link. Let's not put too much extra work on Infinix's, and each other's, plate. No shame in pasting a possible edit in notepad until, say, one has slept off one's night shift and can catch one's dyslexia a bit better, eh?
Infinix: Meh, don't worry too much about it. I do it because I'm used to proofreading and I can see them. Not everyone is uneasy about typos on the net, after all. In short, I don't mind correcting typos when I can, but it's not the contributors' fault for missing a letter or two. But do check and correct RedLinks before saving the changes. Or check the trope definition before adding a new trope. * Those are the visible errors.
Eddie Current # Darker and Edgier fit? It definitely slides a bit darker than other recent seasons (though not as far as Timeranger eventually did). But I don't know whether "darker" is quite the contrast I'm thinking here. It takes itself a bit more seriously than Go-onger did, for sure...
Infinix: I doubt it. I think Shinkenger's seriousness is between "a tad light" and "standard". For a comparison; Gekiranger would be Darker and Edgier, and Go-onger is definitely Lighter and Softer. And don't forget that the lead writer for Shinkenger is the same one from Den-O *, Yasuko Kobayashi *.
Eddie Current: Wait, KOBAYASHI? How'd I miss THAT one? (grumbles)
Eddie Current: I'm seeing both, so— Are we spelling it Ji or Jii?
Infinix: In terms of accuracy, "Ji" sounds like "G", while "Jii" sounds like "Jee" which is what the in-series pronounciation is closer to. So... just pick any. Doesn't really matter as long as the spelling is consistent throughout the page.
Eddie Current: On recent edits: I have the Nihon dub on right now. It is indeed "Tenka gomen no Samurai Sentai". You could maybe drop the "the" in our page translation, as Nihon does, but that's a style choice.
Infinix: Technically, it could go; the reason it's there is for fluency. "Providence" * means "God", "deity", "divine guidance" and such, so I put "the" before it for emphasis.
Eddie Current: Fair enough. I've been reading it, paired with "With these brush strokes, we report to the Emperor!" as a reference to the traditional divinity of said Emperor. So "under (the) Providence" in this case means the Shiba Clan is acting with the Emperor's (divine) sanction. Both flow well, mind, but I see the lack of "the" as hewing to this meaning. (And damn, you can have fun with translation!)
Eddie Current: Hey, folks— just a quick note. In spoiler:tags, there doesn't need to be a space after the colon if you've put a space before the tag. Putting one in results in the Wiki Engine rendering two spaces before the spoiler in question. The kind hearted have cleaned this up twice that I recall; save them the trouble so we can obsess over our actual errors.
AkoSiKuya: I think that rather than putting all CMO Fs and CMO Hs on the main, we should have a separate CMOF/CMOH page similar to the CMOA page. Or better yet, make a CMOF and CMOH page for Super Sentai in general and move everything there.
Infinix: Separate sections solely for each series would make it neater, I feel. It'd keep only the entries exclusive to its series' mood, and would also be a good layout reference in the future. Although, I'm not sure the shortcut icons will appear at the top, so the links can go to the bottom of the introduction section.
Eddie Current: I second this, with the rider that a sentai with its own particularly long list be spun off. Face it, if the Shinkenger C Mo A were with the other sentais, it'd be hard as heck to navigate.
Eddie Current: Just a note, I'm saving total Character Trope migration until after the finale. And I'd say the "keep common to all Sentai character tropes on main page as well" would be a good future guideline; the point of that section, after all, is to show the ties that bind the Super Sentai franchise, no?
Infinix: While we're at the subject of the Character Page, Eddie. The page is fine, but I think it's a bit too big. To be precise, some tropes relate to plotline or events rather than a character's personality/trait. Another is that the trope explanations are too expanded. Bottomlined, I wanna compact the page a bit. What do you think?
Eddie Current: Agreed. Between us, we can take a scalpel to it. Hit me on the discussion for the Sheet, or I'll be on skype.
Eddie Current, Later: Okay. We're going to start removing Character Tropes from the main page as per the guideline above. Further character trait tropes should go on our fabulous Character Sheet.
Infinix: Shinkenger is finally nearing the ending. The thing is, many of us who do not understand Japanese have to rely on fansubs, which come out about a week later than the air date. So, I would like to request the "Raw viewers" to hold in the spoiler-ific edits/entries until about a week later (when Goseiger starts airing).
Infinix: CMoF and CMoH pages done, although I don't see the shortcut icon for CMoH at the top. Is it normal? Oh, and please index the pages if you know how to; I don't. Lastly, someone please add something witty to where the entries previously were, and the intro paragraphs in the respective pages. I'm out of funny today...
Troper Discussions
Eddie Current: Please join me in presenting Infinix with this Made Of Win, for all the Awesome he's brought to the Sentai pages lately. Including making the rest of us look good. Bravo, good sir!
Infinix: Thanks. :D
Chris X: Well, I think the word Ittou Ryoudan is just a common phrase said by samurais of the past, but this troper always get reminded of Sanger Zonvolt when the Shinkengers utter it in Act 7... Any guesses if they're gonna yell CHESTOOOOO!!!! next time?
Infinix: This might fit more in the general Super Sentai Discussion, but I chose to put the link here because... well, this is the current series and that's where people generally swarm onto. I'll also post it there though.
This here
* is the current template we're using for Shinkenger, for anyone who wants to moderate the other SS pages. * I can only fill in so much even for the series I have access to, so having mutiple users focusing on a title will make it more rich and colorful.
Note: I updated the file, and put in Monster of the Week as a recurring trope. That one's for the general "Species Name" * of the MotWs.
Eddie Current: I just watched the Mr. Brown Ep. (Winces) Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Sorry. Had to share the pain. Brown... Otaku? Semi-Ascendant Fan Boy? Funny Foreigner? Painful to watch? *
Infinix: I can see Shinkenger is well-received by regular SS viewers, but has anyone heard of reactions from Power Rangers viewers? Particularly the western audience who might have shifted to SS after the PR cancellation.
Eddie: I have watched Power Rangers since its MMPR days. Only In Space and maybe Time Force come close to how awesome Skinkenger's been.
Infinix: Yes, those two series are plot-heavy. Also Wild Force. I heard Time Force and Wild Force, basically GaoRanger "painted 'Power Rangers'", are the two which follows closest to their SS counterparts, TimeRanger * and GaoRanger.
Eddie: More than that. Space ond TF are the ones where the writing staff (head writer Judd Lynn at the time, I believe) were allowed to "go there" to get the awesome bits out. Mind, haven't seen RPM yet, heard some good of it. Wild Force, on the other hand didn't strike me at all.
—-
Eddie: Say, are we sure mojikara's genetic? Between Genta's self training with them and the idea the Shinkenger's have "inherited" their mojikara without the power fading, I get more the impression that it's training in hidden knowledge passed from parent to child. Some people, certainly, have a great nature aptitude for it; Genta and Hiro certainly do, and Takeru's no slouch. Chiaki's lack in this to start can be seen as an outgrowth of him not taking his training that seriously early on. Unless I'm missing some background material here, it seems more like a Rule Magic passed on from parent to child (most of the Samurai)/ researched and explored (Genta, arguably Hiro— though their Mojikara knowledge may be part of his families spoiler related thing) by a few. Why'd we settle on genetic super power?
- The noteworthy thing about Genta isn't that he taught himself to use mojikara (after all whoever was the first mojikara user would have been self taught), but that he created a means to generate mojikara artifically. If he already had the means to produce mojkara naturally this would have been unnecessary. Thus, for some reason he is unable to naturally produce mojikara (the keroko are also said to lack mojikara) and genetics would appear to be the best explanation as to why he is unable to produce it..
- Eddie again, and I can appreciate your position. I read it much more simply: as Genta says when introducing the others to Ebi Origami, his brush work sucks. Remembering Jii saying that even stroke order is important, I simply reasoned that Genta's brush work was too imprecise to use for mojikara. Regardless of how the ability is gained, that would be a hurdle. To be fair, I think one could reason either way, and I don't think there's any question that the roles of the Shinkengers are passed through families. In fact, given what facts we do have, I'm at least convinced that any thoughts on how the power is gained is more suited to Wild Mass Guessing or a well written analysis; we can't really say "canon" says it's a genetic power anymore than we can say it's purely training.
Infinix: Among all the recent Nightmare Fuels, I'm starting to have a feeling that Japanese kids might be a little different from the average definition of "kids". Kobayashi's really going all out, huh... You can never tell in advance what kind of surprises she'll pull out of her head.
I sort of take issue with the whole What Do You Mean Its Not For Kids section. A lot of the stuff in Shinkenger is based on youkai, which Japanese kids grow up with. It's like how we have a popular children's story about a wolf that eats a girl and her grandmother. Just because it's strange to us doesn't mean it's not for kids, you know?
Eddie Current: You know what? Good point. We've got some cultural difference tropes that might better suit describing how the western perspective can clash with this. Maybe we should file them as that, since that seems to be what's happening.
Infinix: True. It's kinda like a dark Fairy Tale which Japanese children seem familiar with. On the other hand, there's a big difference between just describing a horrible event through text or speech and actually depicting it; the combination of vision and hearing can leave quite a long-lasting impact. And then there's the morals and the psychological damage; instead of killing people outright, the Ayakashi use many different methods to make them suffer, and the levels keep rising with each Ayakashi. The civilians' acting is one thing, but the most recent methods are, to me, cruel enough to warrant at least a "Whoa...".
But hey, in the end, it also depends on how you handle horror/suspense, so, as we always say, Your Mileage May Vary here. Although... removing the "for kids" parts might be a good idea.
