Sunday, June 12, 2011

Sentai Female Characters Who I Think are Their Series' Best Characters

Because Sentai has a male-majority audience, and far more male characters than female characters, I think sometimes the girls get overlooked. This is especially true unless the female character is hot. In fact, I think often the "girly-girl" or ditzy characters get bashed too often, like Umeko, Natsuki, and Ahim. So I decided to talk about some female characters that I feel are the best characters in their respective series. These are my biased opinions so I don't expect everyone to think the same way as I do.


Yuuri, Time Pink
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I think Yuuri is the best character on Timeranger. Not just because she's the leader, or tsudere, but also her toughness and strategy intelligence. I also like her backstory with her family being killed and how it relates to her trying to capture Don Dorunero to bring justice to him.


Sae, GaoWhite
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Sae is my favorite Gaoranger character. She's not really that good looking (but not ugly), but she has a delightful personality and excellent fighting skills. She's level headed and like the glue that keeps the Gaoranger team together, imo. I also loved the episode with her and her father. Interestingly, tvtropes.org describes her as a "bratty teenage daughter" but I just don't see it. It seems more like someone who didn't like her just added that to her character profile.


Jasmine, Deka Yellow
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This one won't come as much of a surprise to anyone. For me, however, it's more than Jasmine's looks that I think makes her great. Her toughness, and mysterious charm. BTW, Ayumi Kinoshita is really good at playing mysterious characters, I'd recommend watching her on Uramiya Honpo to see this as well. Anyways, I also like Jasmine's funny sarcasm and her antics like nick-naming the MOTW or half-way singing the abaranger theme song on Dekaranger vs Abaranger, and of course because she's an ESPER. Not to mention she has a really touching backstory, where she was made fun of so much at one point she considered suicide before Doggie saved her.


Sakura/Bouken Pink and Natsuki/Bouken Yellow
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In Boukenger I think both Sakura and Natsuki are the best characters. Sakura won't surprise anyone but Natsuki will. IMO Natsuki is highly underrated and gets bashed too much (at least on rangerboard) for being the girly girl and the ditz. However, I think her ditzy and energetic personality makes her cute and funny, especially episode 24 when she goes overkill with Ultimate DaiBouken. Besides her personality, Natsuki has one of the most interesting backstories with her being an ancient member of the extinct Lemuria civilization. Episodes 33 and 34, which covers Natsuki's background, are two of my favorite Sentai episodes ever.

However, I do like Sakura a tad bit more and think that Sakura is the better character. Like Yuuri, she's tough, intelligent, a genius with battle strategy, and a much different pink. But unlike Yuuri, Sakura can be both really badass (like episode 12) or really cute and adorable (like episode 37).

Eri/Gosei Pink, and Moune/Gosei Yellow
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Like Boukenger, I think both of the Gosei girls are the best characters in their series. However, the difference is that in Boukenger, Sakura and Natsuki stick out in an already good cast. Here, Eri and Moune stick out in anotherwise bland and boring cast. For me, Eri and Moune aren't great characters but they're descent. They're the only Goseiger characters that really have any kind of personality. Eri, like Natsuki is bubbly and ditzy, but somewhat funny. Moune is also a bit on the bubbly and cheerful side as well. I will say that I hated the running gag of Hyde treating Moune like a child. It was alright the first time but afterwards it just got tiring.

20 comments:

  1. Eri kind of annoyed me. Miki is one of the best characters in Goggle Five, and Rei makes Dynaman awesome for me (of course Junichi Haruta makes those two series awesome too)

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  2. You can start also with the Power Rangers side too.

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  3. Inspirational. I need to put up my own version of this... hopefully on the grounds that you don't cover (pre-Timeranger maybe). I know a few...

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  4. I agree on the post, but with the Gosei girls, yes they had somewhat personality, but one problem I had was that they had THE SAME DAMN PERSONALITY; I know Moune was introduced as the tomboy of the two, but after Epic 10, she was somewhat ruined.

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  5. Actually I think Moune was better with the girly-girl personality. When she was a tomboy she was just as bland and boring as everyone else on Goseiger.

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  6. @Mr. Smith

    Okay, I can see how that would work, but if they made Moune the girly-girl, what would the writers do with Eri as far as personality?

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  7. Well there's nothing in the rule books that says you have to have one girly-girl and one tomboy. I will say that it was kinda bad writing how Moune suddenly became the girly-girl overnight without any development, but in this case I think it slightly worked out.

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    1. the way how I see it is a representation of angels who are born angels. moune started off as the tomboy but she probably started to think that this personality didnt really fit on earth, so she saw many people who acted like eri and thought: thats how I should act. at least thats how I see it.

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  8. No, but giving her a girly-girl personality while another one is in the season just seems lazy; i mean, it's not impossible to give two sentai girls different personalities with neither of them being a tomboy (i.e. Mako and Kotoha from Shinkenger), but Eri and Moune, while likable, seemed way too similar to each other as far as personality goes, maybe Moune was less ditzy than Eri, but their personalities were easily interchangeable.

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  9. Eri has a "personality" but Alata doesn't? Wow. Considering that she's basically a female version of Alata ... that's some strange logic there

    I personally dislike Natsuki and Umeko, and it's not because they are "too girly" (there are other characters I love, such as Ahim and Sae who were "girly") it's because they are adult women who deliberately act like little girls because they think it's cute or sexy - but it's not, it's grotesque. Houka in Magiranger is much the same

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  10. @ Charley

    I completely disagree that Natsuki and Umeko act that way on purpose. Natsuki was asleep for 100,000 years and wasn't exposed to society. On top of that she has amnesia. In essence, she was a ditzy child in a grown up's body. You can expect her to be that way. As for Umeko, if I'm not mistaken she was the youngest of the Deka's, and I think her personality is a delight to the team. It balances Hoji's often over the top arrogance IMO. Houka I agree somewhat.

    As far as Alata, the only personality I ever saw from him was when he met Takeru in Goseiger vs Shinkenger or later in the season when he was sent back in time. That still doesn't make up for the 40+ episodes of blandness that he had in Goseiger. Yes, he's somewhat like Eri but much more boring IMO.

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  11. @Shurakido

    Thanks for the correction, I was wrong. But I do agree that Umeko helps lighten up the series, and I also like Jasmine better.

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  12. @ Mr Smith: I always got the impression from Dekaranger that Tetsu was the youngest of the team - and according to supersentai.com, Umeko is 20 while Jasmine and Sen are 18-19 (though I don't know where that information came from.) At the very least, it doesn't look good when you have an adult behaving like a silly child. I can't understand why people dislike characters like Jan or Sousuke for this reason, but think it's cute when it's a female character

    For that matter, Moune is basically the female version of Agri. They aren't really that much different except that Moune is a little "girlier." Alata is basically the only one on the team who got any development, like Jan in Gekiranger

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  13. Sousuke (and Kai for that matter) I agree gets bashed a little too much for his behavior, but Jan IMO goes a bit too far. Particularly the temper tamptrums he would throw in the early part of the season. He gets a little better towards the end but still a bit over the top for me.

    I already corrected the mistake about the age when I looked at supersentai.com, but as far as having an adult act like a child, I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing for either sex. As long as it's done right or not overdone. There's some other silly male characters I like quite a bit, such as Ban and Genta.

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  14. u have to remember Jan was raised in the jungle by tigers so he had no access to civilized society. he was kinda like george of the jungle but not stupid. i for one like jan. hes living in a new world, plus his passion and innocence drives his team forward. this is the reason why he was the first one to access super geki ranger mode and he inspired the others to get that power.

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  15. For female characters. i agree yuuris a great character. she doesnt really stand out as every character in timeranger is an amazing character. u said jasmine was ur fav dekaranger. i respect ur opinion and as much as i think jasmines the hottest female super sentai, hoji was mine. hes a complex character with a great drive.

    i have been following your blog recently and im truly impressed. i'd def b here more often

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  16. @ njomorodion

    Good point. I do agree that Jan living as a jungle boy away from society did help contribute to his behavior, and I actually do like his back story. So I do respect him. But I don't like some of his antics. I also understand that not everyone is or will agree with me, so I do invite civil conversation on my blog. Thanks for the complements, I look forward to hearing some more from you. :)

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  17. Yuuri is awesome. For me, she loses out to Ayase though. hehe.

    Sae is also a good character. But loses to Gaku to me. xD

    I like Jasmine too. But honestly, I just can't seem to pick a favorite Dekaranger myself, since I love them all.

    I don't really have a favorite in Boukenger either, since I like them all. But I do like Sakura and Natsuki. :)

    I think Alata, Moune, and Eri were the only decent characters in Goseiger. Moune being the best of the three. Though Eri loses to Alata for me.


    Oh, and my comment towards childish adults.... almost all adults in the real world are childish (possibly more than actual children). So I think childish adult sentai characters are perfectly fine. I love Umeko, Natsuki, Ban, and Jan.

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  18. You could say that Rangerboard is not my favourite forum. The only tokusatsu only forum I'm on now is the TV-Nihon forum, which is average, but even that I wonder if I should be on there.

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