Tokumei Sentai Gobusters

[Shonokin]

[king_ghidorah]

[Mac]

[Dr Kain]

[kiryugoji04]

I think most of you know pretty well I'm not huge on Sentai (sans Gekiranger and what I've seen of Bioman) so I'm pretty amazed by how much I dig this show and I'm particularly ga-ga over the quality of the miniatures here. My toku background comes primarily from the Toho/Tsuburaya giant monster/hero stuff yet the mecha battles in Sentai have rarely impressed me aside from the occasional sunset battle (which we seem to be getting next episode! 8D). After I finished watching Go-Busters episode 2 I went back and checked out some of the mecha battles from - let's see - Dekaranger, Magiranger, Gekiranger, Shinkenger... I can't remember all of them but the point is I did indeed confirm that they do very little for me. They always feel like a bunch of buildings randomly grouped around a sound stage without a ton of effort to make it really FEEL like a city. If that makes sense. That's what really makes Go-Busters work so much better for me - an increased level of detail and low-angle shots that REALLY sell the miniature work as a living, breathing city. Oh man, that gives me such a raging nerd-boner.

I'm terrified the quality will drop back to the Sentai norm once they start shooting on sound stages more. I mean, it doesn't HAVE to - the natural sunlight helps a lot but attention to detail and framing is what really sells the illusion. Not to make light of the rest of the show - which is also very good - but if the miniature work takes a major hit as we move forward, I could see myself caring a lot less very quickly.

Tl;dr: I like the miniatures a lot.

[kiryugoji04]

Another most excellent example of the miniaturework in this series:



(Again, click for the larger version.)

Note: I'm pretty sure that's an honest-to-God flamethrower in this scene! D8

[kiryugoji04]

HNNNNGGG----

[monster of dark]

[king_ghidorah]

[ultrazilla2000]

I too am enjoying this show...the special effects are really top notch for a current day Sentai! Really enjoying all the giant robot villains too.

[kiryugoji04]

[Mac]

[king_ghidorah]

[kiryugoji04]

[king_ghidorah]

[kiryugoji04]

[king_ghidorah]

[kiryugoji04]

[Thomas]

Saw these on reddit, supposedly from Gobusters and so now I share it here with you.

[kiryugoji04]

So we've gone from GORGEOUS work like this:




Back to typical sentai crap miniatures from episode 12 onwards:




SIGH.

Everything else is still great, IMO, especially Beet and Stag Busters, introduced last episode. However, the miniatures have taken a huge hit in quality and I am thus a sad pony.

[Dr Kain]

[kiryugoji04]

[monster of dark]

[Thomas]

If my memory serves me a lot of special fx shows in Japan lose a significant amount of funding about halfway through a series run. This is according to what I'd read about shows like Iron King and Red Barron. I think with one of those two shows the air purifier company that sponsored one of em backed out of its sponsorship midway through the series.

[kiryugoji04]

I fully expect budget cuts midway through a series run. That's fine. Whatever.

Modern Sentai sets, however, are literally the bottom of the friggin' barrel though. Iron King may have been pretty rough around the edges but at least those sets don't have a COMPLETE lack of detail and they played around with some neat camera angles. What we see in sentai typically consists of bland miniature setups, bland camerawork, and virtually no detailing of the cityscape. I don't ask for perfection but to switch to something that awful after such a GORGEOUS ten or so opening episodes (give or take) comes as a huge punch to the gut.