For me, many times there’s just that special something that makes me love or even simply enjoy a television series or movie or song. Sometimes it’s just as simple as “I love this!” Other times, I simply find myself not liking it. Then there are times when I am so indifferent, I can’t find the words to even describe what I feel (or don’t) for something. On the flip side, there are times when I have such strong feelings (good or bad) about something, I find myself rambling on and on, unable to stop. Lol
Which brings me now to Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger. To put how I feel about the season in the simplest terms: I feel bad I don’t like it more than I do.
On paper and in its fully produced realization, there are a lot of things that King-Ohger did right. Many things the season did excellent. It’s good! It’s a really good season. It has some really high highs. And some so-so lows. And for me, that definitely equals out to a good year of toku.
But for me, King-Ohger just doesn’t have that extra something that helps it cross into my top tier favorites list. If anything, it’s another season that gets lumped into the middle of my personal rankings of good seasons I fully enjoyed.
King-Ohger really feels like it has so many things that should make me love it more. There’s really not a lot of negative things I would point out to make it particularly hard to like or enjoy. And even the few things I will nitpick about later, are really just small things that I do not believe affected how I ultimately feel about the season as a whole.
Actually, let’s start with those nitpicks first. The biggest one is the CGI environments, virtual sets and big LED screens. It was hit or miss all season. When it was good, it was really good. Just like how we saw in the last few episodes. When it was bad, it was TikTok filter bad.
Again, not so bad that it drags down the season. But it definitely took a while to get used to at the start of the season. The same with having to get used to the CGI Donbros last year.
The biggest positive is of course being able to have unique and fresh settings aside from the regular Toei locations. And for any longtime toku fan, I think we can all recognize the Toei backlot or the Tsukuba Center Building or the Yume no Onashi Bridge. The creative and new settings were a refreshing change of pace, even if it sometimes was very obvious they were standing in front of a green screen.
It’s certainly not something I’d want Toei to go to full time though. I only hope Toei was just saving some money from location shoots for other projects. Hehe.
Now the other criticism I have is the pacing. I’ve definitely talked about it all season as the brisk, nonstop pace, especially early in the season, worried me. I’ve experienced enough Toei Sunday morning toku to know that sometimes fast starts can lead to a slow crash and burn.
Slowburn stories, I like. Slow crash and burns? Not so much lol
But one thing that made King-Ohger stand out from other seasons was its pace. Fast paced is good. But I think the show really could’ve slowed things down a bit and let some legitimately good story beats breathe a little. Let those good ideas (of which the season had many) really play out.
The season’s serialized nature and its nonstop pace really pushed me to absorb everything as a whole rather than weekly pieces. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that kind of feeling for either Sentai or Kamen Rider. Needing to wait to even start thinking about whether or not I was enjoying the season was a strange feeling.
King-Ohger often relied on exposition to help push story forward. It definitely helped that our 6th Ohger was also the season’s narrator. Him often being our expository guide for everything from character backstories to world building details.
That exposition, however, was necessary considering how fast the season sped through all those good ideas. In turn, those stories didn’t get the time they deserved to fully maximize their full potential and impact.
That said, the season definitely felt like it had enough story to tell in more than 50 episodes. Maybe not two full seasons. But certainly more than the usual 50. And if there’s one thing the season has possibly shown is that maybe filler episodes really are valuable and important. We want to be able to connect with these characters by actually watching them, even in inconsequential episodes. I don’t prefer to be told how to connect with the characters, if that makes sense.
Anyway, it’s a good thing that most every other part of the season was much stronger.
First, King-Ohger had a wonderful cast. With the Ohgers being so different from each other, even the complete opposites of each other, the main cast definitely had a bit of extra work to do. And they delivered great performances that allowed each king be distinct and fully realized. The brisk pacing also presented an extra challenge. But they handled it very well and made the Ohgers characters that we could connect with in spite of whatever shortcomings there might have been with their overall presentation and development.
Then there’s the large ensemble bringing to life a big group of supporting characters to life. It is a huge accomplishment for King-Ohger to have been able to have such a large cast, yet never feel overwhelming. Especially considering other Toei toku series struggle keeping up with even smaller casts of characters.
The season offered up a refreshing approach to traditional and familiar Sentai stories. While also offering themes not often seen on Sentai as well. The unique twist on clashing personalities needing to come together to defeat evil drove the narrative all year. And that central plot thread opened up a lot of potential for many other stories to be told. Fresh themes like what it means to be a leader or find common ground between different cultures and philosophies. Or familiar themes like teamwork and personal growth. There was plenty of familial angst and past tragedies. Stories of redemption and forgiveness.
The strongest episodes this season were definitely the focus episodes for each of the Ohgers. Especially when involving flashbacks to their backstories.
And the way the season was able to match the gravity of the stakes of the endgame to the god-like nature of Dagded helped to make this climactic conclusion all the more satisfying.
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So overall, I really enjoyed this season. It is not going to top my personal Sentai rankings. And I wish I loved it more than I actually do. But even so, there’s no denying the many things the season did right. The fresh ideas and approaches the season was able to bring to the table
While I still loved this season overall and think it’s the best Sentai season since Kiramager, I respect and see where you’re coming from. I’m not blind to some of the flaws this season had. Ones that I can think of off the top of my head:
1. This one’s definitely biased from my account, but I felt that some of the Ohgers, namely my personal favorite Rita, didn’t get enough focus episodes to shine. I adored Rita for similar reasons as to why I love Lachesis in Gotchard 😏. But even when there were focus episodes for Rita, they seemed to either focus more on the latter’s endearing obsession with Moffun rather than character development and background or have Rita share the spotlight with another Ohger.
2. I felt that the reveal of the perpetrator behind the Fury of the Gods was a bit underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, I thought Grodie was entertaining and all, and I liked the unique solution the Ohgers came up with to take him down for good and even give him a punishment in the afterlife. But given that they avoided showing his face in the flashbacks until episode 30, I was under the impression the culprit would have been someone we’ve seen before and gotten to know. In hindsight, maybe they should’ve just had him in monster form in the flashbacks instead.
3. I felt they rushed a little in the first arc with giving the Bugnarok depth and complexity. It may have been a little better if they had shown earlier that Desnarok had a heart buried underneath and wasn’t just an evil monster wanting to kill all humans for no reason. Maybe through smaller things like having him show camaraderie with his personal general Daigorg he revived later into the arc and maybe being saddened at the latter’s eventual death. Just little things that would’ve filled those rooms for improvement.
Yes I agree, I think Rita’s focus episodes were the weakest of the 6.
The Gurodi reveal is probably related to my issues with the season’s pacing. They used the mystery to drive the Ohgers’ own stories. So more like a plot device before just revealing and telling us his identity. Rather than build up to something bigger and more impactful. Like another one of the events in the season that should be much bigger, but gets rushed through.
Same thing with the Bugnarak. They could’ve done a lot more with Desnarak. Especially since the whole thing eventually leads up to Jeramie’s story. But they sped through it and moved on to the next thing.