Saturday, May 18, 2013

History of Super Sentai: writers and producers

With 38 years and 37 series, Super Sentai has a very long history. I've already written posts about the sentai writers in different sentai series. Now, I'm gonna post about both sentai writers AND sentai producers, and put more details about how Super Sentai history was influenced by the writers/ producers changes. I'd like to thank Fantasy Leader which gave me the identity of each Super Sentai main writers and producers, which helped me a lot to write that post.

The first Super Sentai series was Gorenger, which was produced by  Tooru Hiyama, who was a veteran Showa Kamen Rider series producer ; as a result, in a lot of ways, Goranger has similar elements with Kamen Rider, notably when it's about the villains (the look of the mooks, the concept of villains with a mysterious leaders, with generals coming one after the other (the Black Cross Army of Gorenger  is very similar to the Shocker army of Kamen Rider, or the Destron army of V3). Gorenger's main writer was Shouzo Uehara, and among the secondary writers, two writers deserve to be mentioned: Susumu Takaku and Hirohisa Soda. With JAKQ, a new producer appeared, Susumu Yoshikawa. Yoshikawa is the major producer of the Uehara written series, starting with JAKQ. the following sentai series, Battle Fever, Denziman and Sun Vulcan were made by the Yoshikawa/ Uehara team. During that era, two writers would be involved in every sentai series, Susumu Takaku and Hirohisa Soda as secondary writers. The Battle fever-Sun Vulcan era was the key era of the Yoshikawa/Uehara team.
After Sun Vulcan, the Yoshikawa/ Uehara  team pretty much left  the sentai franchise to be involved in the Metal Hero franchise.

It's during that time that a new team appeared in Super Sentai: the producer Takeyuki Suzuki, and the writer Hirohisa Soda. Hirohisa Soda was the only major writer of the Uehara era that remained in the sentai franchise, and he became head writer during nine years. Suzuki reamined as a producer in Super Sentai from Goggle V until Ohranger, and the evolution of the sentai franchise during that era can mostly be told by analysing the writing teams.
The Soda era is divided in three eras: the Goggle V-Dynaman era: during that time, Soda was starting to introduce his personal touch in those series, but was still keeping some elements of previous series: it's interesting to notice that he wroked with a lot of different writers, including some writers that were involved in previous sentai.
Bioman is the first series which started the golden age of the Soda era, when Soda would write his best shows and display much more of his style, with notably importance of story arcs, and introduction of complex villains. Bioman is the first series with Soda working with what would become his favorite secondary writer, Kunio Fujii. With Changeman, most of the writers which were involved in early Soda series would not be involved again, and Soda and Fujii wrote every but three episodes. With Flashman, Soda has found another favorite secondary writer Toshiki Inoue, and Soda wrote his best sentai series with basically Fujii and Inoue.
Turboranger and Fiveman were the last sentai series, and at that time, Soda was pretty burn out, and starting to repeat himself. As a result, Soda left after Fiveman, and Suzuki allowed one of Soda's favorite secondary writers, Toshiki Inoue, become the next series's head writer, Jetman.
Jetman was a success, and was also notable to introduce a new writer that would play a major role  in the sentai franchise : Naruhisa Arakawa.

However, Super Sentai needed some fresh blood, and Suzuki brought a new head writer that had come from the Metal Hero franchise: Noboru Sugimura. Sugimura introduced major new elements in Super Sentai, notably the regular sixth hero, a bigger focus on bizarre comedy, and at that time, animal mechas began to be much more important in the franchise. Sugimura was a very good writer, but it's interesting to notice that during the Sugimura era, there has been no significant new writer that wasn't involved in sentai before Sugimura's coming : he kept Inoue and Arakawa, brought back Susumu Takaku from Metal Hero, and Kakuranger saw the return of Hirohisa Soda. Ohranger is even the "experienced sentai writer" festival, with Sugimura working with Uehara, Soda, Inoue and Fujii.

After Ohranger, there has been a big change of staff with a new main producer, Shinegori Takatera.
His first show, Carranger was a parody series, and pretty much a transitional show: he brough as main writer Yoshio Urasawa, the major writer of the Fushiji comedy franchise, and kept Arakawa and Soda.

However, with the next series, Megaranger, Takatera would involve three of the most important writers of all the following sentai series UNTIL GO-BUSTERS: he kept Naruhisa Arakawa, but would bring back fresh blood in the sentai writing team, with Junki Takegami and Yasuko Kobayashi.  Takegami became head writer of Megaranger, and Kobayashi became head writer of the following series, Gingaman, after being a major secondary writer of Megaranger. Except Arakawa, no writer involved previously in sentai came back.

After Gingaman Takatera left, and a new producer appeared, Jun Hikasa, who pretty much followed Takatera's legacy, as procuder of every sentai series from GogoV until Abaranger. GogoV, Timeranger and Gaoranger were written by Takegami or Kobayashi. GogoV also had as a major secondary writer Junichi Miyashita, coming from the Metal Hero franchise. Hurri/Aba had also Hideaki Tsukada as assistant producer, which became head producer of Dekaranger, Magiranger, and Gekiranger, with Hikasa coming back for Boukenger. Tsukada and Hikasa gave the opportunity to many writers who first started as secondary writers to write a sentai show as head writer : Miyashita became head writer of Hurricanger after being a major secondary writer of GogoV, Arakawa, after plenty of sentai series as secondary writer, became at last head writer with Abaranger and Dekaranger; Magiranger has as head writer Atsushi Maekawa, who has been secondary writer of Hurricanger and Abaranger, Boukenger had Sho Aikawa, previously involved in Abaranger, and Gekiranger had Michiko Yokote, who has been previously involved in Dekaranger and Magiranger.

However, after Gekiranger, things changed. Unlike before, when sentai producers would remain involved in the sentai franchise during many years, startin with Go-onger, every year there was a different producer. Hikasa was involved in Go-onger, then Takaaki Utsunomiya was involved in Shinkenger. The latter was probably the best producer of that era, when Hikasa was pretty burn out, and Takebe pretty much messed with Go-Busters. Moreover, during that era, no risk was taken for the writing, with all the head writers having already been head writers before (Takegami, Kobayashi, Yokote and Arakawa), and no new secondary writer really left a major impact. As a result, the writing wasn't very imaginative with those writers showing some burn out.  Shinkenger was the best of those shows, because Utsunomiya was pretty original when dealing with the Samurai/ Japanese theme in Shinkenger.
At last, with Go-Busters's disappointement, Kyoryuger saw a new team coming in sentai, with Riku Sanjo as head writer and Takahito Ohmori as chief producer. Is Kyoryuger gonna bring freshness in the sentai franchise? 
Your thoughts?

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