Showing posts with label Tokusatsu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tokusatsu. Show all posts

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Toku Injustices: The Death of Birugenia in Kamen Rider Black


Hello everyone and welcome to the beginning of a series of opinion pieces called “Toku Injustices.” The main topic of these opinion pieces is that I look at something that happened in a Toku show (whether good or bad it doesn’t matter) and basically talk about why I found it either unfair, confusing, or just something that shouldn't of happened at all. 

(What's the deal...)
In this post I will talk about something that happened in one of my favorite kamen rider series of all time, Kamen Rider Black.  Now this post will contain some spoilers so for those who haven’t seen and Kamen Rider Black yet and don’t want to know some things I suggest that you stop now, unless you are interested.  In that case read at your own risk.

Now let me start by saying I really love Kamen Rider Black I find it to be one of the best examples of what Kamen Rider should be about.  It has a very appealing protagonist in Kotaro Minami who we instantly feel sorry for and root for as he not only battles the Gorgom but also has to fight his brainwashed stepbrother Nobuhiko Akizuki aka Shadow Moon.  I enjoyed the Gorgom a lot as not only do they have a lot of history but also it’s the cult like structure of them, the mixture of magic and technology, that not only makes them frightening to look at but interesting as well.  

(All of this I love so much)

As the series progressed the Three Priests weren’t getting the job done, so the Century King being impatient and running out of options decided to release a threat to not only Kotaro but to the Gorgom themselves.  That threat being Birugenia the warrior of 30,000 years ago who like Nobuhiko and Kotaro was born on a solar eclipse but unlike them was not given a Kingstone.  That rejection made him angry and want to revolt against the Century King and the Gorgom, this action was the reason for him being sealed.
(Holy crap who are you?)
Birugenia was always an interesting and dangerous villain because he had his own motives and agenda.  He wasn’t really a team player with the Gorgom High Priests and would even interfere with their plans just for his own benefit.  His own benefit being wanting to kill Kotaro and take his Kingstone for himself.  Birugenia would also attack Kotaro where it hurt the most, the people close to him.  That made Birugenia a terrifying presence in Kamen Rider Black and character the show needed in my opinion to provided a surge of energy and potential.  However it is with this character that an injustice occurred.

The injustice is that he died in Episode 35 at the hands of the resurrected Shadow Moon anti-climatically.  
(Just Like that he is gone...wait what?)

What?  Why do this?  Birugenia was doing awesome as a villain.  Birugenia did so much in the show in the 18 episodes he was in that to simply kill him off so easily was disappointing.  Some of the things Birugenia did were as I said before  personal attacks against Kotaro, kidnapping the creator of Kotaro’s Road Sector to make his own version of the bike, the Hellshooter (yes he gets his own rider bike!), to stealing the Satan Saber.  
(Birugenia with Hellshooter)
I understood the purpose of Birugenia’s death was to show how strong Shadow Moon was and how the threat level has increased.  Which  is fine, however to simply kill off the only main villain who was active enough to actually confront Kotaro head on and how easily he was killed is unsatisfying  and took away some interesting story lines that could of been pursued.  The way I would of done showing how powerful Shadow Moon’s presence is and also keeping Birugenia around they could have had Shadow Moon beat the crap out of Birugenia having the prideful warrior on his knees.  Sort of like what Tranza did in Jetman to Radiguet.  

(Something like this could've happened.)
Why couldn’t they have kept Birugenia on the show and have him interact with Shadow Moon another person with a Kingstone.  Wouldn’t of that been interesting to watch, every moment Birugenia would be on screen would be tense because at any moment something could happen.  Birugenia always wanted a Kingstone, it doesn’t necessarily have to be Kotaro’s Kingstone, it could have been Nobuhiko’s Kingstone as well.  With Birugenia still on the show with Shadow Moon, you would have a lot of story possibilities, like Birugenia sabotaging plans Shadow Moon would have, working in the background plotting a Coup d'état, maybe even have an episode where after confronting Shadow Moon Kotaro is beaten badly and in his moment of weakness is being hunted down by Birugenia after his Kingstone, have Birugenia’s Coup d’état fail and in his last moment of desperation fight Kotaro for his Kingstone, or even when Black does beat Shadow Moon and in Shadow Moon’s moment of weakness Birugenia kills him and steals his Kingstone.  Those are just some ideas that Kamen Rider Black could've done with Birugenia. 
(Hope nothing bad happens to you Shadow Moon like...)
(Kingstone Birugenia?)


            For me personally I loved Birugenia, loved what he brought to the table, loved what he did, loved how well his actor, Jun Yoshida portrayed him (for more info on how awesome Jun Yoshida is check out
this blog post by Shougo B’Stard), and I wish he had stayed around to be the final villain or even just one of the final big bads Kotaro had to face before fighting Shadow Moon.  Something along those lines I think would have brought Kamen Rider Black to its full potential.  Now despite what I wanted Birugenia dying isn't the worst thing to happen in Tokusatsu.  Despite me sounding harsh and bitter towards the death I was okay with Birugenia dying, it didn't ruin the series it was just not the approach that I would of taken. I still love Kamen Rider Black from beginning to end but the death of Birugenia is one of the missteps the show took and turned the show from amazing to great.  Had Birugenia still been alive I feel the show and the conflicts would of been a lot more interesting to watch because now we have the two Century Kings and the wild card the rejected Century King all having their battles.  On the injustice scale, Birugenia's death is just a meh, it wasn't what I think Kamen Rider Black should've done but I am overall okay with it.


What does everyone else think of Birugenia, do you agree with my “injustice” towards the character, okay with what happened, or disagree overall with my thoughts?  Leave a comment below with your thoughts.  Also comment if you would like this to be a reoccurring series of opinion pieces that you would be interested in seeing. 

Friday, February 14, 2014

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

    
     Since today is all about love, I thought why not take a look at some couples in Tokusatsu.  What’s that you are wondering why my title seems to indicate something negative?  Well the explanation is simple…I am full of negativity.  There are just some couples out there in the Toku universe that make you scratch your head, scream “What the hell!”, and just pull out your hair.  With that let’s take a look at 3 couples I didn't really like in a segment I like to call “Looking for love in all the wrong places.” (P.S. Spoilers will be involved)

1.) Daigo “King” and Amy- Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger

     
     Granted this is a more recent couple and there are worse couples out there but I just wanted it know that I think this couple is bad.  One problem with this couple is how last minute it felt.  Sure there was that one episode where Amy was jealous with Yayoi and unsure if she liked Daigo, but that was about it from what I remember.  Not only that she resolved the issue herself saying “Whatever, I just won’t think about at the moment” which is perfectly fine, until we get to the later episodes where that mindset of her and Daigo returns.  The D returns episode was just more about Mikoto (Meeko) and Daigo and Yayou talking love and the relationship with Daigo.  Amy is more shocked than anything else. Then we have the last three episodes where all the sudden Amy is like “Daigo-kun, let’s eat dessert together!”  

     As for Daigo’s perspective, he is treated like a generic shounen protagonist where he loves all his friends and is oblivious to people romantically interested in him.  And then we get the finale where he makes the statement that Amy and him are two of a kind.  Where did that come from, when did Daigo suddenly realize he liked Amy?  He never gave any rhyme or reason for it so why the sudden, “I will protect Amy because you are the most important person to me.” Come from?  And that is what a lot of fandom was saying, it just came out of nowhere and the writing never indicated that such an event would occur.  Not to say Yayoi or Meeko would have been any better because either woman would have resulted in the same complaint from me as bad couples but at least there was some kind of history and attraction from Meeko and Yayoi at least we knew she liked Daigo.  Also Daigo said "We're two of a kind" to Amy, where did he get that idea, throughout most of the series Amy is written as the token and generic girl of the group and didn't really do anything to have Daigo say this.  Again just bad writing and bad execution.

     If you want a comparison of Daigo, Amy, Yayoi, and Meeko love thing, it’s basically like Naruto.  Daigo is Naruto, Amy is Sakura, Yayoi is Hinata, and Meeko is Shion from the 1st Shippuden movie.  

So I guess that makes Riku Sanjo a Naruto and Sakura shipper?

(Would of been a better result lol)
     Another issue the lack of chemistry performers Ryo Ryusei and Ayuri Konno had.  Whenever they are interacting with each other it lacks very little dynamics and the image of them being together is hard to believe.  It also didn’t help that I thought the performers were bad to begin with but the lack of chesmistry hurt any kind of legitimacy that the two could have been together.  Want a good example of good chemistry and a relationship written by Riku Sanjo, watch Kamen Rider W, Ryu (Kamen Rider Accel) and Akiko.  
With the story not really handling the relationship well, the performers not doing a good job, and the fact that I don’t like either character as well, Daigo and Amy’s relationship is one of the worse I have seen in Sentai.

2.) Keisuke Nago and Megumi- Kamen Rider Kiva

     Yeah this one, I don’t even think Kiva fans understand.  I know Nate Strazor a huge Kiva fan didn’t understand it.  Kiva had a lot of problems and was a mess; one of those problems is its handling of love stories and romance.  In fact I could make an entire post about Kiva’s romance and how terrible they were but I want to focus on this in particular because it is just unexplainable.  Like Daigo and Amy the two performers Keisuke Kato and Nana Yanagisawa weren’t exactly good and also they lacked chemistry, but one of the main problems with these two is that they quite literally hated each throughout most of the series and then in the finale they get married.  What…why? It makes no sense, how can these two characters that are constantly at each other’s throats get married in the end?  Are they both into this kind of thing, is just out of desperation, or is because no one else will take, because those reason I can think to get these two married.
(Can't you see since we argue so much that means we are in Love!)
      I mean I like love-hate relationships but for that to work there has to be a give and take.  You have to show that they do care for one another even though they argue marry like a married couple.  Kiva did not do that, there was a lot more hate and anger both characters had towards one another but rarely any kind of care.  More often they were trying to one up each other than actually forming a bond.  The relationship would have been at least better had it only gone the friendship route and more about the two characters hating each to mutually respecting one another.

     It is just so forced and out of left field more so than Daigo and Amy and the show doesn’t even explain why this happen they just want you to accept and move on.  Well maybe if the writing built the relationship bette than maybe I can move on, but to go from “Idiot I hate” “Megumi you are not worthy of Ixa” to “I do!” Well you got a problem here.  
(More legit of a relationship. Thanks Takebe!)

     Kiva was a mess of a series and the marriage and forced romance of Nago and Megumi is just one of those issues.  

3.) Ryu and Kaori- Chojin Sentai Jetman

     Now this one may surprise some people but I personally didn’t exactly like that in the end of Jetman that the two characters that got married were Ryu (Red Hawk) and Kaori (White Swan).  This one like the two couples I mentioned before just comes nowhere and feels very forced.  Granted three years past and so something could of happened that brought these two together but really even if that was the case it just feels unnecessary.  But then again the epilogue portion of Jetman’s finale is another topic for another day.

     Again like many problems of couples I mentioned before is that while Rika Kishida was decent, Kotaro Tanaka on the other hand I don’t think did a good job as Ryu.  I am not saying he’s the worst red actor in Sentai he just wasn’t one of the best I’ve seen.  With that I felt the two lacked the sort dynamic to make them look like a couple.  So when you see the two together it isn’t like you instantly think “Yeah these two together.”  
(Sorry I just can't buy it.)
     The real connecting moment the two had was when Kaori was helping Ryu over his grief of the death of Rie at the hands of Radiguet.  Now I personally did not see as some sort of romantic gesture but more in the line of a friend helping another who was feeling down.  Which would make sense in Jetman since that was one of its themes (Listen to the ending theme- Kokoro Wa Tamago).  But for that moment to spark a romance is quite insulting to the audience since that means that if a woman helps you through your grief she must love you romantically, not love and car for you as friend.  

     Plus I always felt Kaori should have been with Gai because she was kind of the balancing force that changed him for the better but I would been okay if that didn’t happen either.

 I think them being close friends with strong bonds is how Jetman should of approached it, and in the end it only gave us a forced marriage from forced romance.

     Jetman was a great series and I love it to death but Ryu with Kaori in the end was something I was not a big fan of.

     So that was the first year of my segment called “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places” I hoped you’ve enjoyed my little rants on love in Tokusatsu and if you liked I may do another one next year because there are a lot times when love in Tokusatsu isn’t handled very well, so watch out bad couples because just because I didn’t talk about you this year doesn’t mean I won’t next year.  So again thank you for reading and please comment with your thoughts on the article and some of the Tokusatsu couples that you didn’t like.  Thank you all and take care and remember I love you all.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Kyoryuger : a review part 5 : final thoughts


Globally, I pretty enjoyed Kyoryuger, which was a pretty entertaining Sentai series, and I feel it really brought back the true spirit of Super Sentai after the awkward Go-Busters. However, Kyoryuger has important flaws, and because of them, it's not one of the best Sentai series made during the franchise.

The Good

- Kyoryuger is exactly what it is supposed to be : a show made to entertain kids, and it's very successful in being a fun show, with its fun spirit, with catching music, dances, and very enthusiastic heroes : Kyoryu Red is a charismatic leader, and his friends have really a great time fighting with him.

- Kyoryuger also has a nice world building with the concept of the fight between the Kyoryuger and Deboth army going on since a very long time, and it has a very diverse cast of heroes of different eras, different generations, and different backgrounds, even different countries and species : there are ancient warriors from Europe and China, scientists, adventurers, college and high school students, a family man  : there are even warriors belonging to the same family ( Daigo and his father Dantetsu, Dr. Ulshade and his granddaughter Yayoi, and Nossan has his sister (who's also the mother of a small kid) who joins the fight towards the end) ;  and the mentor is none other than a former member of the enemy group, who rebelled because he would rather protect life to destroy it, and who would become himself a ranger.

- The enemy group, the Deboth is not badly done either: its concept is classic, but it has a very diverse cast as well; while some villains are merely comic relief (Candelira, Luckyuro), other are very dangerous (Chaos, Dogold, Endolf) and bring a feeling of danger.

- Kyoryuger has a reasonably well done storytelling with plenty of narrative arcs, some of them being well written, like the Kyoryu Gold intro arc (despite being very similar to the Gao Silver arc) or the Endolf arc in the middle of the show; as such, the show mostly avoids plot stalling, with even fillers having elements which would become important in more plot-heavy episodes.

- There are some well-done rivalries between heroes and villains, like Kyoryu Gold vs Dogold; Torin vs Chaos (made even stronger by the fact both are siblings, and Chaos being basically the evil counterpart of Torin); a strong rivalry between villains is the Dogold-Endolf rivalry

- Kyoryuger has some nice original ideas, like having recurring Kyoryuger who appears sporadically to help the main heroes when it's needed, with the use of seldom used colors, like cyan, grey or violet; the concept of having some heroes passing their powers to successor was fine too, and allowed some interesting surprised

- An interesting concept is that being part of the Deboth army doesn't make you necessary evil : if a Deboth general begins to have feelings for the universe he's destined to destroy, he is able to rebel, and forsake his evil plans : it's the basis of the character of Torin, and it would be the key element of Candelira and Luckyuro's redemption arcs (Candy liking Kyoryu Blue, and Luckyuro enjoying mangas) : as such, Kyoryuger felt less like a basic "Good vs Evil" show.

- While Kyoryuger is a light hearted show, it still has some serious arcs which manage to bring a good balance.

The Bad

- While the cast of heroes is very diverse, it is unfortunately very uneven, with some characters being especially annoying, because either they are too much stereotypes, even by Sentai standards (the Ulshades, Amy), or because they don't have enough focus to become interesting (Souji, Nossan, the Spirit rangers, and even Ian): some of them are really wasted, with Nossan's family man theme being not enough used (compare with Abared)

- A big problem of Kyoryuger is that Daigo/Kyoryu Red has so much focus it completely steals the spotlight from the others, with most of the main story arcs being focused on Daigo: even when another hero has some spotlight, it has to share it with him (the Kyoryu Gold, Kyoryu Violet, and of course, the final arc are good examples). That excessive focus on Red is one of the main reasons why most of the ranger cast is underdeveloped: the only ones who manage to get some focus are those who have a rivalry with the villains, like Torin and Utchy, and in a lesser way, Ian: it allows them to defeat important generals, with Torin defeating Chaos with the help of the Spirit rangers and Candelira, Utchy involved alone in Dogold and Endolf’s defeats, and Ian being the one finishing the two Knights of Sorrow. The Kyoryuger Di Carnival made it even worse, by making Red so powerful it didn't even need his partners.

- Another problem with Daigo is that the other rangers are pretty much a Daigo fan club: Daigo seems to only receive praise from his partners, including Torin, the mentor: the girl rangers (Amy and Yayoi) are the guiltiest in that regard. It doesn't make the dynamics between rangers feel very interesting, since Daigo's leadership is never challenged.

- Some villains are inconsistent in their writing, like Aigalon, which is either a vicious villain or a comic relief, and Candelira, who had the problem of being an evil being involved in bringing joy to humans, and being voiced and even played live by the cute Haruka Tomatsu. While, the final arcs of those villains were reasonably well done, the writing was often pretty awkward. As such, the rivalry between Ian and Aigalon suffered because of that, notably because it was pretty much forgotten during most of the second half of the show.

- The Zyudenryu are supposed to be the heroes’ partners, but it's very seldom seen in the show: the only exception being the partnership between Daigo and Gabutyra (notably thanks to the Carnival arc). While the Zyudenryu are clearly shown to be sentient being, the interactions and the bond between ranger and Zyudenryu partner is almost never shown, which isn't really a good point.

- The storytelling also had some flaws, notably the late introduction of plenty of new generals which never had enough time to shine, or, some plot stalling, like between episodes 13 and 20. Most of the filler episodes weren't very interesting, and the final romance plot between Daigo and Amy was a pain to watch.

Globally, Kyoryuger is a good show, but not one of the best; my final mark is 7/10

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Kyoryuger : a review part 3 : the storyline

(Head Writer Riku Sanjo: He wrote all 48 episodes of Kyoryuger)
This part is gonna be much shorter than the previous ones, since a lot of the story arcs have been explored in the characters parts. This part is more about showing how the Kyoryuger storyline is told through the show

Episodes 1-6: the intro arc of the show, with the heroes getting to know each other, and focus about their background. The villains have some focus as well/ Episode 5-6 introduces the first additional ranger, Kyoryu Cyan.
Episodes 7-12: the big Kyoryu Gold arc: it starts as soon as episode 7, with the return of Pteragodon. Episode 9-10 are the climactic episode, with the arrival of Kyoryu Gold who freed himself from Dogold; episode 11-12 are about his integration in the team.
Episodes 13-20: not much happens here: those episodes are more focusing on the different rangers: an important arc, the Kyoryu Grey arc in episode 17-18 and in episode 16, Ian learns the truth about Aigalon
Episode 21-24: the Kyoryu Violet arc, with the appearance of the Ulshade family and Plesion, and then, the first big attack of Deboth in its incomplete form, its defeat and the aftermath of that defeat: the arc ends with Yayoi becoming Kyoryu Violet
Episodes 25-29: the Endolf arc: after a transitional episode focusing on Souji, a big plot starts afterwards, with the new big enemy, Endolf. At the same time, Daigo receives his power up as Kyoryu Red di Carnival, and the Kyoryuger learn the truth about Torin: that arc ends with Endolf's defeat and Dogold taking his body
Episodes 30-36: The Bragigas arc: while episodes 30-33 are mostly fillers, they still are linked to the main plot because in each episode, the rangers are finding new amber gems, which are the remains of the Guardians. Bragigas appears in episode 34, resurrected thanks to the Guardians gems, and at the same time, the Gadoma arc starts: that arc ends up with Torin being able at last to become Kyoryu Silver
Episode 37-42: prelude before the finals: episodes 37-40 are mostly fillers, with the Deboth army being weakened.  While not much happens there, some elements are developed here that would be important in the final arc, like the beginning of Candelira and Luckyuro's redemption arcs, and the Spirits rangers meeting their future successors. Episode 41-42 conclude that arc, with Daigo learning at last the truth about his dad, and Endolf freeing himself from Dogold's possession.
Episodes 43-48: final arc, new Knights of Sadness and Joy appear, Deboth is at last fully resurrected, and the final showdown happens. Betrayal, tragic deaths but also hope, are the many things that occur during that climatic arc, which ends with the victory of the Kyoryugers.

A few comments:  Kyoryuger has a nice storytelling, with a lot of filler still having some relevant moments for the main plot. However, there are some moments where the plot stalls, notably between episodes 13 and 20 and between episodes 37 and 40. Besides, most of the filler plots aren't very interesting. Conversely, there are parts of Kyoryuger packed with plot, like the first 12 episodes, episodes 21-29 and of course the big final arc.
The plot is simple: Kyoryuger vs Deboth army, but it has plenty of world building. However, the introduction of plenty of new generals during the final arc felt weird, since they would have been more explored if they had appeared sooner.

As such, while not perfect, the storytelling is okay.

Kyoryuger, a review part 2: the villains (Deboth army)



The Kyoryuger's enemies are the Deboth army, entities born from a creature from outer space, Deboth. Deboth's aim is to go to different planets to destroy every life living in it. After several attempts to destroy Earth, and with Deboth's heart being frozen, the Deboth army started a new big attack, only to have a full team of Kyoryuger opposing them.
Deboth's most faithful servant is Hundred-faced priest Chaos, who is one of his earliest creations and is the leader of the army. Chaos in turn created the different Deboth Knights, who are the main commanders. Each of those general’s aim is to gather emotions from humans, in order to make Deboth come back to life and evolve.
Amusing trivia: the four main generals, Aigalon, Dogold, Candelira and Luckyuro have both a trump card theme (Aigalon = spades, Candelira= heart, Luckyuro = diamonds, and Dogold = club) and, more important, a Wizard of Oz theme (Candelira = Dorothy, Luckyuro= scarecrow Aigalon = Tin Man, Dogold = Cowardly Lion)

1) Deboth

The true leader of the Deboth army, he's a big entity which goes from planet to planet to destroy all life living there. However, when he first came to Earth, during the dinosaur era, he was opposed by his own offspring Torin, who fought back with the dinosaurs. While Deboth, Chaos and the Deboth army were successful in making the dinosaur disappear, the spirits of some of the dinosaurs stayed alive, and in a big battle involving Torin and the Zyudenryu, which were big replicas of the dinosaurs which contained the spirits of the dinosaurs, Deboth's heart was frozen, with a lot of Zyudenryu dying in battle, notably the Guardians and Bragigas. Since then, the Deboth army was weakened by the absence of its leader. After gathering human emotions, Chaos tried to bring back an incomplete Deboth, which appeared as a big monster with some dinosaur and bug design. However, because Deboth was incomplete, it was defeated by Bakuretsu Kyoryujin, with Deboth escaping death by having his heart entering Chaos's body. Deboth continued his evolution inside Chaos's body, gathering human emotions. While a new plot involved Deboth clones, none of them had a real impact in Deboth evolution. At the end, Deboth ended up gathering enough human emotions to take over Chaos's body, and then at last, get a body on his own using the frozen palace. Thanks to all those human emotions, Deboth could evolve into a green humanoid creature with great intelligence. Immediately after resurrecting, Deboth started a countdown for Earth's destruction, and his power was so great that it could stop the Kyoryuger's melody, preventing them to transform. Deboth even deceived Dantetsu by making him believe that he would spare non-human life forms if he killed Torin, and he had no problem with killing useless servants, like Candelira, Luckyuro and Aigalon. At the end, Deboth was defeated in a one-on-one showdown with Daigo/ Kyoryu Red di Carnival, the latter being powered up by Earth's melody which was sung by his teammates. Daigo seemingly died during the explosion of the frozen palace, but was saved by the Zyudenryu.

My opinion of Deboth: while at first he seemed to be nothing more than a mindless beast, his final evolution allowed him to show much more intelligence and danger than expected before. As such, he's a well done final Big Bad for the show.

2) Hundred-Faced High priest Chaos

The acting leader of the Deboth army, and the one who leads the plans to resurrect Deboth. He's been one of the earliest creations of Deboth, as well as Torin. However, unlike Torin, he stayed faithful to the Deboth mission, annihilating all life in a planet populated by bug-like creatures, and leading the battles to destroy Earth. However, he was opposed by his younger brother Torin, who even severed one of his wings. Because of this betrayal, and this wound, Chaos deeply hated Torin, and never missed an opportunity to hurt him, by reminding him of his failures, how he is weak without having Kyoryuger as allies, and even having Dogold possess the body of Utsusemimaru, Torin's ally during the Sengoku era. One of his most cruel tricks involved using an evil song to force Torin onto fighting the other Kyoryuger, and revealing to them Torin's identity as a Deboth and as his younger brother. However, Torin managed to survive, kept the friendship of his team, and even was able to become Kyoryu Silver.
Chaos is a good strategist, using diversion tactics for further aims, like when he brings back Pteragodon, which was at the time controlled by Dogold and a strong weapon against the Kyoryuger. When he realized how powerful bravery was in opposing their goals, he created a new general who was powered by hate, since hate seemed to be the best way to oppose bravery. He also wisely managed to bring back to life the powerful demon Gadoma, who would have done intense destruction, if it hadn't been stopped by Bragioh. Chaos knows how to act in secret : while he knew Endolf wasn't dead, but possessed by Dogold, he never let Dogold know that he knew, and only punished him after Endolf's comeback, by allowing Endolf to keep Dogold obedient thanks to a device. Likewise, he created in secret new Knights of Joy and Sadness, after noticing that Aigalon and Candelira were failing in their mission. While he dislikes killing his generals, even when they are useless, because he sees them as family, he's pragmatic enough to admit that they are too dangerous to be kept alive since they might rebel like Torin. He's been however taken aback once, because he didn't realize that Dantetsu Kiryuu killed Torin at the latter's request in order to destroy the Deboth hell. However, he learns quickly, and even used his own death as a strategy, but letting Dantetsu kill him and send him to the Deboth hell, in order to protect it from Torin and the Spirit Rangers. However, he was defeated there by them, with the help of Candelira and Luckyuro, who decided to help the Kyoryuger to, thanks them for protecting them.

My opinion of Chaos: Despite his bizarre design, a mix of the Statue of the Liberty and a robotic skull, Chaos is a very good villain and a very well done acting leader of the Deboth army. He's the perfect evil counterpart of Torin, as a wise leader, and being his brother makes it even more true. While he doesn't go into battle often, he's pretty good in battle. He's also a good strategist, able to make very quick decisions in order to avoid complete defeat, and start the fight once more. Chaos is pretty sadistic, especially towards his brother Torin, and their rivalry is a highlight of Kyoryuger. All in all, a very well done villain.


3) Knight of Anger, Dogold

The Knight of Anger, his mission is to gather anger from humans using monsters who forced humans to feel angry. He's a violent warrior, who often goes into battle to oppose the Kyoryuger. He's always angry, which probably is due to his very nature. Dogold is a living armor which needs an external body to be really alive; otherwise, he's only alive as a pretty powerless flying lion mask: Dogold hates being a parasite needing a body to survive. While he uses Cambrima bodies when he has no other choices, he deeply dislikes using them since they melt after only one moth of use, and he's forced to possess another. He was able to have a much stronger body during the Sengoku era, when he slaughtered, with an army of Debo Monsters and Zorima, a big clan who was opposing them. One of the fighters, Utsusemimaru, was so angered after seeing his friends being killed and Torin about to be killed that he attacked Dogold blind with fury, which allowed Dogold to possess him and take his body. After a few centuries, Dogold had even forgotten that he was using Utchy's body, until the samurai was able to take advantage of the fact that Dogold was weakened after a big fight against the Kyoryuger. After a big struggle, Utchy was able to separate completely from Dogold, and became a dangerous rival for him. Since then, Dogold was forced to use Cambrima bodies, and an attempt to use a powerful robot ended up in failure. He still was a tough opponent, and the general who is the most involved in the biggest Deboth plans.
However, when Chaos created Endolf, Dogold realized he has a big rival, since as the Knight of Hate; Endolf has a position pretty similar to his. Because of that, Dogold started a bitter rivalry with Endolf, who made it even worse by calling him "armor", reminding him in a painful way of his parasitic nature. Dogold hated Endolf so much, that he even gave info to the Kyoryuger to have them go in his way. At the end, he took advantage of a weakened Endolf to take over his body, which allowed him to become even stronger, using Endolf's weapons. Dogold hid the fact he took Endolf's body from the other Deboth generals, hoping one day to take over the Deboth army and become the leader, while faithfully serving Chaos, as usual, until an opportunity came. However, while possessed by Dogold, Endolf was growing stronger, and little by little, he began to take over Dogold's mind, even suggesting him the Yanasanta plan. At the end, Endolf was able to free himself from Dogold's possession, and Dogold only escaped death thanks to Candelira. While Chaos spared Dogold, he allowed Endolf to force him into submission by using a device sending painful waves to Dogold's body. At first Dogold, while furious about it, remained obedient, realizing how the changes in the Deboth army were threatening all the generals, and he was the only one of the four early generals that were still fighting with Chaos during the final battle. However, during a final battle with Utsusemimaru, he realized it was the opportunity to get back at Endolf for humiliating them, and he decided to briefly ally with Utchy, taking Endolf by surprise, and managed to defeat him with Utchy. Mortally wounded, he died as a proud warrior after a last showdown with Utchy.

My opinion of Dogold: Dogold is also a great villain, since he's a very active general and a dangerous fighter. despite being very hot blooded (his catchphrase is "Haradatashi " (this is irritating)), he's very smart, a good strategist who knows when to wait and only striking when a good opportunity comes, like using Utchy's rage or Endolf's weakened state to take over their body, and acting obedient to Endolf in order to make him trust him. He has a deep rivalry with the Kyoryuger, but more especially his former body host, Utchy, whom he loves taunting, calling him "Utsusemimaru chan". However, there is someone he hates even more than the Kyoryuger, and it is Endolf, who pretty much never stops humiliating him. This rivalry with Endolf is very well done, and it allowed for a very good final arc for Dogold, when he allies himself with Utchy to defeat Endolf, and dies at Utchy's hands as a true warrior. With two well-done rivalries and great fighting skills, Dogold is a well done villain

4) Knight of sorrow Aigalon

A warrior in a blue armor, Aigalon, despite a crybaby personality is a dangerous warrior who uses an axe as a weapon. He's using monsters in order to gather sadness emotions from humans. He's also a cold blooded killer, killing Ian's friend Mifune to steal him his amber gem, and seeing it as a completely normal thing. As a result, he becomes Ian's rival, who wants revenge against him for killing his friend. Ian manages to take back his friend's jewel from Aigalon, which enraged him, since he hates having stuff stolen from him. After Deboth's apparent defeat by Bakuretsu Kyoryujin, he was full of rage and attacked he Kyoryuger and tried to kill them by self-exploding. However, the Kyoryuger survived thanks to the Tuperanda Zyudenchi's power, and Aigalon survived as well, at least in appearance. However, since that event, Aigalon regularly started fits of rage, which he didn't even understand himself.
Aigalon was also very fond of Candelira, even sometimes working together, and one of the reasons he was able to control that new darker side was because he didn't want to scare her. When Aigalon realized that Chaos planned to kill Candelira, after having her replaced by Kilborero, he fled the frozen palace in order to warn his friend. However, Chaos sent the new knight of sorrow, Icerondo, who revealed him that he in fact died in his self-explosion, only coming back to life thanks to Chaos's dark powers, explaining why he had those dark episodes where he lost control. He was forced to beg the Kyoryuger to protect Candelira and Luckyuro, and ended up taking a deadly attack from Icerondo to protect Candelira. While at first Ian was furious against Aigalon, who had the nerve to ask him a favor despite having killed his best friend, he couldn't stop but be moved by Aigalon selfless final act, and decided to break his armor to allow his soul to be free. Just before dying, Aigalon showed remorse for all the killing he did. Ian ended up avenging Aigalon by killing Icerondo using Aigalon's axe.

My opinion of Aigalon: a big issue with Aigalon is the inconsistent way he's written. Because he was Ian's friend's killer, he was shown at first as a crying, but very dangerous and ruthless villain. However, as the series went on, he slowly was more written as a comic relief villain, in the same level as Candelira. As a result, his rivalry with Ian suffered from it, since after Ian learnt that Aigalon was his friend's killer, the topic was only addressed about twice through the series, notably at the beginning of the Endolf arc, when Aigalon told Endolf about him killing Ian's friend to help him gather hate from Ian, doing everything to make Ian feel hateful and angry, and of course his final episode. Otherwise, the issue was pretty forgotten, and Aigalon was more used with Candelira as an odd couple. However, he had a powerful final arc, where he showed some noble feelings. To sum up, a villain that had plenty of potential, but suffered from not enough focus and inconsistent writing.

5) Knight of Joy Candelira

The girl of the team, Candelira is a pretty fun filled villainess who only wants to have happiness around her. Whenever she sees her teammates feeling bad, she cheers him by telling them to keep smiling. She's always happy and usually very pleasant to be with, talking nicely even to her enemies. She's able to have a human form, using the appearance of a cute young idol. She loves singing and dancing, even imitating the Kyoryuger during their dancing transformations.   Her missions involve gathering happy feelings from people. As a result, her plans were often weird, since making people happy doesn't feel really evil. Indeed, some of her plans weren't evil at first, like when she wanted to have a monster to make cakes, or even her plans to make people believe it's was still summer. However, she often worked with dangerous monsters who often evilly manipulated people to give them false happiness, like Debovirusu, who made people sleep, or Debotanabata, a monster who made people wishes come true, but at the cost of their lives after one day (by far her evilest plan). Moreover, because of her deep wish to make her teammates happy, she was the one who sang the evil melody who forced Torin into being evil again.
Her turning point however was a plan where she was seducing people and trapping them in a movie making monster. During that plan, she interacted for a longer time Nossan/ Kyoryu Blue and started to get fond of him, since she liked his jokes. When Kyoryu Blue protected her against collateral ammunition, she was deeply moved by the hero's kindness, and even more when he protected her from his sister's wrath, despite knowing very well who she was. Instead of attacking her, Nossan begged her to release the people she trapped, and moved despite herself by the kindness and trust of her enemy; she ended up sabotaging her own plans. Since then, she lost motivation in fighting the Kyoryuger, despite staying with the Deboth out of loyalty, even stopping Endolf from killing Dogold. However, after Luckyuro was fired by Chaos and ran away, she followed him, and ended up being targeted by Chaos who had already replaced her by a new Knight of Joy and feared that she would rebel against the Deboth.  While at first, all she wanted was to survive, she witnessed with a lot of sadness the death of her dear friend Aigalon, who had just told her of his love for her, and only managed to find comfort thanks to Kyoryu Blue, and witnessed the magnanimity of her former enemies, who saved her life from Icerondo and were willing to give her a second chance. Deeply moved by that generosity, she ended up helping Torin and the spirit rangers to defeat Chaos once and for all. Torin even named her and Luckyuro as his successors.  While at first, she didn't know what to do after the battle; she then remembered that Nossan told her that, as the knight of Joy, she could find her way by genuinely making people happy. As a result, she started following that new mission by helping a little girl find her parents, with the help of Luckyuro.

My opinion of Candelira: Candelira is a very problematic villainess, because she has two main issues:
- How to be evil when your mission is to make people feel happy
- how to be hated when you're voiced by such an adorable looking seiyuu as Haruka Tomatsu, which was made even worse when Tomatsu played Candelira when she took an human form.
As first, the show had her manipulating people into happiness by giving them fake joys, like brainwashing her into being her fans, or looking for treasure in a place where there were none, and, worse of all, making people' wish come true but killing them the day after. Her status as evil was even taken further in her active role in brainwashing Torin.
But, starting with episode 40, Sanjo seemed to change his mind and started a redemption plot for Candelira, by making her being fond of Nossan. Starting with that episode, Candelira stopped doing anything evil and pretty much became a neutral character, until she definitely changed sides in the final fight. While Candelira's redemption arc was not done that badly, her change of heart in episode 40 was done pretty quickly, and Candelira suffered from inconsistent writing, which is a shame since her redemption arc makes sense.

6) Spy of Joy Luckyuro

A childlike villain, he's the one who makes the Debo Monster grow big thanks to the nutritious Jory potion. He's mostly Candelira's helper, being actively involved in her plans, since they're both involved in fun stuff. However, as a loyal servant of the Deboth army, he's able to work with any general. He manages to hold his own in a fight, and was even able to have a very devious plans when all alone, by using a monster giving nightmares to the Kyoryuger and not allowing them to sleep. However, because of his childish nature, he's often distracted during mission, loving playing games and being a huge fan of the shoujo manga "Love touch", even sending plenty of fan mail to the mangaka (who was, ironically, Kyoryu Grey's descendant). As a result, he ended up realizing that if Earth was destroyed, he wouldn’t be able to read fun manga, after a talk with Amy. Like Candelira, he ended up losing motivation in fighting the Kyoryuger, and when Chaos didn't need him anymore to make the monsters grow, he fired him. Luckyuro ended up running away from the Deboth, and at the end, followed Candelira's path in joining the Kyoryuger against the Deboth and start a new life by making people feel happy.

My opinion of Luckyuro: because of his childish nature, Luckyuro was basically following the path that his elders showed him, so he was evil because being evil was the model to follow. However, deep inside him, Luckyuro only wants to have fun, and he quickly realized that the "Love touch" shoujo manga was what gave him the most fun. When Amy realized it, she made him realize how the Deboth plans were in the way of his fun, and he quickly lost motivation to fight, staying only out of loyalty. Once he's been fired, he had no reason to be the Kyoryuger's enemy any more, and could easily follow Candelira in her redemption path. Luckyuro's character is written more consistently than Candelira's since he's more of a comic relief character than a true villain. As such, his redemption was less abrupt than her fellow Deboth knight, since he quickly showed that all he wanted was to have fun.

7) Knight of resentment, Endolf

After the defeat of the incomplete Deboth, Chaos made a new knight, who was powered by hate, the Knight of Resentment, Endolf. He quickly showed himself to be a very powerful opponent in his first fight against the Kyoryuger. He also quickly showed his contempt for Dogold, which made the latter furious, calling him "armor", even "castle decoration".  He's a sadist that loves more than ever tormenting his enemies in order to have them hate him, since his function is to gather hate. Even Luckyuro didn’t like him. While he's very soft spoken (his catchphrase is "my head hurts"), his feelings are strong and his hate is deep. He started working with Aigalon, who tried to use Ian's rivalry against him to bring out hate from the young man, but Ian managed to control his hateful feelings. Endolf was still a dangerous opponent, making himself grow up using Luckyuro's Nutritious Jory. His next target was the Gabutyra-minded King, whom he hunted with two Debomonsters, always reminding the other heroes of how he's gonna kill their friend, and tried to make their hate increase by  preventing them to transform and make them powerless. But, as the incarnation of Chaos and Deboth's hate, his biggest plan targeted Torin. With the help of Candelira, he created a song that would be able to wake up all the darkness in Torin's heart and make him fight the Kyoryuger against his will. More hateful, Endolf and Chaos used that opportunity to tell the Kyoryuger the truth about Torin, and his origin as a Deboth general, hoping the Kyoryuger would hate Torin for hiding that secret. However, that plan failed, with Torin keeping the affections of his teammates, and even choosing to kill himself rather than hurt his friends. While the loss of Torin deeply affected the heroes, Daigo didn't want them to feel hate, out of respect for Torin's memory. Moreover, Daigo found a way to bring back Torin to life, using the amber gems and a good nice melody. At last, Daigo fought Endolf using the full power of his Carnival power up, using attacks mimicking the different modes of Kyoryujin, with the matching Zyudenchi. While Endolf survived Daigo's attack, Dogold used that opportunity to take over Endolf's body, taking revenge of all the humiliations he underwent because of him, getting rid of a potential rival as main general, and getting at last a new powerful body. However, Endolf waited patiently in Dogold's body to gather strength, and he was powerful enough in the Yanasanta's arc to suggest his own ideas in Dogold's mind, and at last managed to break free from the armor, more dangerous than ever. He took back his rank as second in command of Chaos, forcing Dogold to obey him thanks to a device which send pain waves to Dogold's body whenever he rebelled. Endolf fought several times the Kyoryuger after coming back, using Dogold as a servant. However, at the end, Dogold had enough of Endolf's humiliations, and allied himself with Utchy to kill Endolf and get revenge. Endolf himself was surprised of how much Dogold hated him.

My opinion of Endolf: probably the best villain in Kyoryuger, even rivalling Chaos. As the embodiment of hate, Endolf is a very dangerous enemy, who takes pleasure and power by making humans hate him, and as such is very sadistic. His plans not only involve directly harming people, but do it in the presence of people who care for his victims, to make them suffer and hate him. He's a completely hateful villain, and as such, a very well done villain. Besides, his deep contempt towards Dogold created a deep rivalry between the two, which made them even more fun to watch, but ended up being his downfall. Despite not having a lot of screen time, Endolf is one of the best villains of Kyoryuger.

8) Others

Minor generals 
At the end, two new generals appeared, the new Knight of Sorrow Icerondo and the new Knight of Joy, Killborero. At first they appeared as cloaked figures in black (icerondo) and white (Killborero). They are the one gathering the last feelings of joy and sadness needed to bring back Deboth. Icerondo was then sent to dispose of Aigalon, Candelira and Luckyuro, but he ended up being killed by Ian with Aigalon's axe. Killborero fought at first Plesioh and Kyoryuviolet, and then attacked the Spirit base before being defeated by Black, Blue and Green.
While both were very dangerous villains, they didn't have enough screen time to be developed.
Another villain, D, who in the movie used Tobaspino's Zyudenchi to become the evil Deathryuger and kidnapped the young singer Mikoto Amano to use her to destroy Earth with Tobaspinoh, came back, but this time, instead of kidnapping her, brainwashed her into being evil. However, at the end, D was again defeated thanks to Mikoto's sacred song.

Monsters and mooks
The Deboth used Debo Monster for their evil plans to gather anger, sadness or joy. Some Debomonsters deserve notice: the trio of monsters which were responsible for the dinosaur's extinction Debo iceage, Debo Virusun, and Debo nagareboshi (Debo shooting star). Another one is Mad Torin, who's basically what Torin would have been if he had been evil. Another notable element is that most monsters were used more than once in the show; often coming back (I guess that given the very high number of heroes, the budget for monsters was not very high). The Debomonsters are helped by foot soldiers, the protozoa design Zorima, who can gather together to make big monsters, the Kyodai Zorima, and elite mooks, the trilobite designed Cambrima, who also are able to grow big. The cambrima are also used by Dogold as default bodies. It’s interesting to see the Deboth mooks based after primitive creatures.


Kyoryuger : a review part 1 : Heroes and allies







Now that Kyoryuger has fully aired, as I planned before, I'm going to do a big review of the show, and my review is going to start by an analysis of the heroes and my personal feelings about them.

1) The main six Kyoryuger

1) Daigo "King" Kiryuu/ Kyoryu Red

He's the main hero of the show, and he has by far the most focus in the show. He's the leader of the team, completely trusting his friends, and a typical brave, reckless, optimistic, even sometimes stupid red ranger.  He likes other people to call him "King". He's pretty much the one who holds the team together. Indeed, at the beginning of the show, he's the one who made the other heroes show their identity to each other and, instead of only meeting when fighting, made them become a true team of friends. Whenever he feels a teammate is in trouble, either during a fight or because of personal issues, he's ready to help him (or her), even if it means putting his life in danger, like when he helped Ian when he was fighting who he thought has killed his friend, or making Yayoi have faith in herself during the Plesioh arc. His trust of his partners is very strong, and even when he learned that Torin was a former member of the Deboth army, he's the first one to accept it, and of course, the others followed. As such, everyone in the team likes him, especially the girls (Yayoi and Amy who both have a crush on him), Torin, and Ian.
Daigo has also a very strong bond with his Zyudenryu partner, Gabutyra, a bond that has built itself in the first episode, when Daigo, by his actions, earned the trust of the big tyrannosaurus who never had a partner before. That partnership went even further when Daigo was able to use the Carnival Battery which made Gabutyra shrink as Minityra. After becoming Minityra, Daigo could use him as a Gaburevolver and transform into Kyoryu Red Di Carnival, which is basically Daigo fused with Gabutyra. Once becoming Kyoryu Red Di Carnival, Daigo could fight in a similar way as Kyoryujin, using the other Zyudenchi to become basically a "Mini -Kyoryujin" (with all the different combinations (Western, Macho, Kung Fu)), with each Zyudenchi becoming like small copies of the Zyudenryu.
Daigo has also a very strong bond with his father Dantetsu. When he was a kid, he was first wandering through the world with his father, but, once he became a young boy, his father left him to continue his search, because it was too dangerous to have him stay with him, but gave him an amber gem with a dinosaur teeth inside (it's later revealed that it was Allomeras's remains), and told him to follow the path of the strong dragons if he felt it was his fate. Since then, Daigo wandered the world by himself, wanting to be stronger and to follow his father's path.  During his travels, he met a young singer, Mikoto Amano, who became his friend, and would later protect her from Deathryuger, who wanted to use her as the key to control Zyudenryu Tobaspino. Daigo always saw his father as an example to follow. It's especially shown during the various appearances of Dantetsu throughout the show, when he gives good advice to his son, or even rescues him from his enemies. While Daigo was shocked to see his father seemingly working for the Deboth in the final arc, even killing Torin, he quickly realized that there was more than meets the eye, and that his father had a good reason to do so (he knew that his father was still his ally, because he could become Kyoryu Silver). At the end, he's the one who defeats Deboth in an one on one fight in the Frozen palace, helped by the Melody sent to him by his teammates, and managed to come back alive thanks to the Zyudenryu's help.
My opinion of Daigo: Daigo is really a stereotypical Red ranger, and it's both his strength and his weakness: he's a very charismatic main character, and really carries the show as a central character, but at the same time, he's often annoying, because he's written as a "too perfect character". Besides, even more annoying is the behavior of the other heroes, who can be basically called "the Daigo fan club", because of how much they admire him (even Ian, who calls him an idiot : the only exception is Tessai). Another problem is that, even by Sentai standards, he completely steals the focus from the other heroes : Kyoryuger is incredibly Red centric, even by Sentai standards, as Daigo has his personal Power up, he's the one to defeat Deboth, he's the central focus on most of the main arcs (only Torin and Utsusemimaru, and in a lesser way, Ian,  sometimes have some focus, notably because of their strong rivalries with some main villains), with Daigo's dad being by far the most important supporting character of the show : Kyoryuger feels sometimes like Kiryuger.

2) Ian Yorkland/ Kyoryu Black

Ian Yorkland is an adventurer archeologist, who was wandering the world with his friend Shiro Mifune to look for archeological artifacts. He's also a ladies’ man, who loves charming young women, using his charm, and most importantly, his ability to make them feel happy (but he's completely unsuccessful with Amy and Yayoi, though).  One day, he was attacked by the Deboth Legion, and he ended up being unable to save his friend Shiro, who was killed by a mysterious Deboth warrior hidden in a black cloak. He almost died himself, and was saved thanks to Zyudenryu Parasagan and Torin and soon became Kyoryu Black, with Parasagan as his partner. Ian's a marksman, and he uses guns as his main weapons, even if he at first doubted himself, because he couldn't save his friend with his marksman skills. While at first he was a solitary and cynical guy, soon after meeting Daigo, he started to act in a more relaxed way, after being able to save Daigo from the cloaked enemy using the Gaburevolver, and as such, overcome the trauma of his past. Ian soon became very fond of Daigo, and while he felt Daigo was an idiot, he still admired him.  He's also fond of Souji whom he calls "Boy". Ian often behaves in a rather frivolous way, especially when girls are involved, which pretty annoys Utchy and Souji.
Ian was the second in command when Daigo ended up possessed by the spirit of the Tyrannosaurus after using the Carnival Zyudenchi to transform, and showed good leadership skills until Daigo turned back into normal.
Ian also realized that the one who killed his friend was none other than Aigalon ( the cloaked enemy Ian defeated to save Daigo was just a monster Aigalon lent the cloak), and had a strong rivalry with him, even if Aigalon didn't understand why the killing of that human was such a big deal at first. However, when Aigalon worked with Endolf for the first time, he mercilessly taunted Ian about how he killed his friend in order to gather hate from Ian. However, Ian managed to keep his cool, in order to avenge Shiro with a cool head, confirming his potential as a supporting leader.
However, after Aigalon ended up being betrayed by his own allies and was doing all he could to protect Candelira, he was forced to beg his former enemies from help and as such, realized how the lives of others are important. While at first Ian couldn't stand Aigalon's requests, because of his past, he realized how his rival had changed by witnessing him sacrificing himself to save Candelira, taking a mortal blow from his Sadness Knight successor Aiserondo, and at the end, showed mercy to his rival, releasing his soul from the armor and avenging him by killing Aiserondo using Aigalon's own axe.
My opinion of Ian: Ian as a character had potential, as the second in command, an adventurer, a ladies’ man, and of course his rivalry with Aigalon. However, Ian never had enough focus to have those elements more explored.  Besides, his rivalry with Aigalon suffered from the inconsistencies in the way Aigalon was written, and during the second half of the show, especially after the Endolf arc, Ian's rivalry was Aigalon was pretty much forgotten until the final arc, and even then, Ian was only meeting Aigalon by accident, instead of looking for him to settle their rivalry. Likewise, his skills as second in command, his playboy personality were only explored in a couple of episodes. Ian was a good character, but he never had enough focus to show it enough.

3) Nobuharu Udo "Nossan"/Kyoryu Blue

Nobuharu Udo is a 32 year old man who is doing various little jobs in a company called "Jack-of-All-Trades Marufuku.  He lives with his widowed sister Yuko and his niece Rika and became the father figure in the house. At first, he was more ambitious, wanting to become a highly paid white collar, but when his brother in law died, he decided to give up his initial ambitions to help his widow sister keep alive his brother-in-law company. He didn't mind giving up his dreams to become merely a "little jobs" man, because what he really wanted was to make people feel happy, especially his sister and his niece.  One of his major motivations to become Kyoryu Blue was to be able to protect his family from the Deboth, even if he had to hide it from his family, especially his sister, and endure the fact that his sister disliked Kyoryu Blue. Rika soon found out about his uncle being Kyoryu Blue, and later, Yuko realized it as well, and of course ended up liking the fact his brother was Kyoryu Blue, even hiding the fact she knew about him to make him less worry. Because he's the oldest of the main team, he's been nicknamed "Nossan" by his teammates (a play with "Nobuharu" and "Ossan' (old man) much to his chagrin. Nossan also loves doing puns, even if they are pretty bad. Nossan is a very kind man, but whenever his family is threatened, he's able to be a pretty tough opponent. Unlike Ian, Nossan isn't successful with ladies. However, he managed to earn a pretty unlikely fan, who pretty liked his jokes and who was able to look like a beautiful woman: that fan was none other than the Deboth Knight of Joy, Candelira. As such, he played a key role in Candelira's redemption showing her she could be able to live peacefully with humans, and comforting her after Aigalon's death.
My opinion of Nossan: another character that had plenty of potential, as a family man, who became a Kyoryuger to protect his family. Unfortunately, like Ian, he didn't have enough focus to be explored, and most of the time, was only the guy who was making lame jokes; besides, since Yuko was the one who mostly was looking after Rika, he never really had the opportunity to be shown as a father figure (unlike Ryouga/Abared in Abaranger whose father role for Mai was explored in depth). Moreover, his rivalry (more like friendship) with Candelira wasn't explored enough either, even if it had its moments. Once again, he was a potentially good character that was only explored superficially because of a lack of focus.

4) Souji Rippukan/ Kyoryu Green

A young high school student and a very skilled swordsman, he belongs to a family of famous swordsmen, and underwent harsh training with his father Genryu. His father's harshness was very difficult for Souji to endure, as it was the reason his parents separated, and it made Souji a young boy who had trouble relaxing, and connecting with others. However, he knew that beneath his father's cold exterior, there was a very sensitive man, and it's the main reason why he chose to stay with his father after his mother left, even if sometimes, conflicts were unavoidable. Besides, like his father, Souji had the true spirit of a swordsman, and wanted to improve his skills as much as he could, by training on his own, and learning new techniques, like Torin's Trinity Strizer. Thus, he became a great swordsman by combining his own style and the teachings of his teachers (his father, Torin). When Torin had to sacrifice himself to fight in hell, the one he gave his sword was Souji, as the youngest of the team and his worthy successor as a swordsman. Moreover, thanks to his friendship with his teammates, he was able to show his feelings and feel happiness. However, his passion for swordsmanship made him pretty inept socially and he was completely unaware of the crush one of his female classmates had on him, and ended up hurting her feelings without realizing it.  He's also a very serious character, who is easily annoyed by people behaving in an immature way (notably Ian)
My opinion of Souji: As seen in that description, most of all the focus on Souji is about his swordsmanship. He's a high school student, but except interacting with a few schoolmates (and in a Kendo club (once again, swords are there), that aspect of him is hardly shown. His family history and his awkward relationship with the female schoolmate who had a crush on him are explored in two episodes each (and he has the honor of having two veterans Sentai actors playing his parents (interestingly, both played in the Sentai series airing thirty years before: Dynaman): Junichi Haruta (Goggle Black, Dynablack, Madgallant) and Sayoko Hagiwara (Dynapink, Ley Nefel)). Other than that, he's pretty much sidelined during the show; he doesn't even have a Deboth rival. Once again, a character only explored in a superficial way

5) Amy Yuuzuki/ Kyoryu Pink

She's a young college student from a wealthy family. Because her parents are in America for their work, she mostly lives with her butler Gentle, who wants her to be a good student and to behave like the upper class lady she should be. He had even her working in a part time job as a waitress in a restaurant, to learn about society. However, Amy is lazy; more interested in DVD and shoujo mangas (notably the "Love Touch" series) than in studying and behaving like a lady. She's a skilled fighter, especially with her kicks, and, like Daigo, she plays an important role in supporting her teammates, notably Utsusemimaru, Ramirez, Souji, or even Yayoi. While Amy credits Daigo in making the team hold together, Daigo credits Amy as well, who was there when her teammates needed emotional support. Amy has two unlikely fellow "Love touch" fans, both coming from the Deboth Legion: Torin and, more importantly, Luckyuro. As such, she managed to connect with the Fun Spy, as fellow fans, and it certainly helped in making Luckyuro turn good. While it took time to really realize it, she realized she had a big crush on King as shown in the final arc of the show.
My opinion of Amy : While her background " rich lady, college student, who still has a part time job"  was interesting, Amy ended up as a completely stereotypical "girl pink ranger", mostly there to emotionally support her teammates and her arc involving her having a crush on Daigo was really forced and should have been avoided. Once again, a wasted character which didn't have enough focus, and when she had, she was a stereotype, even by Sentai standards.

6) Utsusemimaru "Utchy"/ Kyoryu Gold

He's from the Sengoku era. 400 years, ago, soon after becoming Kyoryu Gold, he became a samurai under the orders of a young lord named Iwaizumi (who looked like Daigo), in order to help him against the attack of the Deboth which at the time were led by Dogold. However, during an attack, he ended up deceived by a Debo Monster and a Zorima disguised as a kid, and his lord scarified himself to save him. He felt horribly guilty because of this, and believed his compassion and kindness were his weakness. Later, Dogold and Chaos started to kill all the people he cared for. Utsusemimaru was so enraged by those killing that his anger against the Deboth legion reached an incredible level, even more when they were about to kill Torin. But that anger was exactly what the Deboth Legion was after, and because of that anger, Dogold, who is actually armor, was able to take over Utsusemimaru's body. Some years later, Dogold was frozen and when he came back in the modern era, he forgot that his body host was Utsusemimaru's. However, he was able to use the Pteragodon Zyudenchi and manipulate the Pteragodon Zyudenryu for the Deboth clan. A few weeks after being reawakened, Utsusemimaru's mind managed to awaken, but it's only after a very powerful attack from Daigo that Dogold's mask was separated from his body, and that Utsusemimaru's mind managed to be freed from Dogold's power. Utsusemimaru was furious when he realized Dogold used his body for evil purposes, and this rage allowed Dogold to take control again. Since then, Dogold and Utsusemimaru struggled for the control of the body, until Torin and Ramirez managed, thanks to their soul full of justice, to allow the samurai warrior to get rid of Dogold. As soon as he was free, Utsusemimaru was able to become again Kyoryu Gold and to be Pteragodon's partner. As Kyoryu Gold, he's a very skilled swordsman, with his signature move, Zander Thunder, and he's a very tough opponent for the Deboth legion. At first he was behaving very coldly with the other Kyoryuger, telling them bluntly of their weaknesses. However Amy quickly realized that it was a facade, and that in fact Utsusemimaru was a very nice and kind young man, who is shy when with young women, and she gave her the nickname Utchy and agreed to help him deal with the rest of the team. Of course, Utchy's kind character couldn't be hidden very long from the rest of the team, and Daigo realized it as well in a fight involving the Debo Monster responsible of his previous lord's death, and at last, he could become a full member of the team. Because he's from the Sengoku era and because he spent most of his life as a samurai, he has sometimes trouble dealing with the mentality of the people in the modern era and is very shy when with young women. Besides, he pretty much uses old fashioned language, using “sessha" to say 'I' and his constant use of the "de Gozaru". However, he's a very skilled fighter, especially with swords. Moreover, he has a very strong rivalry with Dogold, because of all the evil he’s undergone because of him, having his friends killed, being himself possessed by the armor. Dogold also enjoyed tormenting Utchy, calling him derisively "Utsusemimaru-chan", using his signature attack as well, and trying to get him angry. But thanks to his friends, he managed to be much more serene than before, and once, while he tried to save Daigo from the Deboth, he even managed to deceive Dogold by faking being angry to catch him off-guard. His rivalry with Dogold went even further when Dogold was fighting obediently under the orders of Endolf, because Utchy lost the last bit of respect for his hated enemy, who at least was a strong warrior with pride before. But in fact, Dogold was merely waiting for an opportunity to strike Endolf, whom he hated more than anything else, and during a last showdown,  Utchy and Dogold worked together to defeat Endolf, with Dogold borrowing Utchy's body without possessing him. Mortally wounded, Dogold had a last duel with Utchy, who at least acknowledged the evil armor as a worthy opponent. Seriously wounded as well, he managed to be revived thanks to the melody of his partners.
My opinion of Utchy: Probably the best of the main six rangers, notably because of the contrast of his very competent skills as a warrior and his awkwardness in civilian life. As such, he's able to show both a serious side and a funny side.  His rivalry with Dogold is well explored, and, unlike Aigalon, Dogold is shown as a very dangerous and serious enemy, hurting his opponent mentally as much as physically. As such, the rivalry between the gold hero and the lion armor is very intense and their final climax is powerful. A little issue is that, after his intro arc, he ends up more often than not becoming a background character, like his non-Red teammates. even if thanks to his rivalry with Dogold, he still have some nice moments.

2) Auxiliary Kyoryugers

1) Torin/ Kyoryu Silver

Torin is a bird looking humanoid creature who is the mentor of the team. He's the one who created the Kyoryuger, by having humans becoming the partners of the Zyudenryu, and he's been the mentor of the Kyoryuger in the past and in the present, as well as their partners while fighting the Deboth legion. In fact, he's himself a former member of the Deboth legion and the brother of Chaos, created by Deboth millions of years ago, and sent to Earth in order to destroy the living creatures in it. At that time, the dinosaurs were the dominant creatures on Earth. When Torin came, he was impressed by the beauty of the Earth and the dinosaurs and because his heart was deeply moved, he wasn't able anymore to be a destroyer, and rebelled against the Deboth to protect Earth.  When Deboth and Chaos attacked, notably with the Gadoma monster, Torin wasn't able to stop the extinction of the dinosaurs, only saving some of them as Zyudenryu. He even was able to become the partner of one of the Zyudenryu, Bragigas, but wasn't able to stop the killing of the Guardian Beasts, and Bragigas scarified himself to destroy Gadoma and seal Deboth's heart. However, thanks to those sacrifices the Deboth clan was stopped and Torin created the Spirit Base to keep alive the spirits of the dinosaurs.
At different times, the Deboth Legion tried to attack again in order to destroy Earth and revive Deboth, and Torin always fought to stop them, with the help of some humans who became partners with Zyudenryu, like the Chinese martial artist Tessai who became Bunpachy's partner during the 6th century, the European warrior Ramirez 500 years before modern era, and of course Utchy, 400 years before modern era. However, while he was able to stop the Deboth's ambitions, he had to see his partners die prematurely (even if they were able to come back as spirits), or in the case of Utchy, be possessed by the enemy. Torin felt deeply guilty of the loss of his friends, because he was the one who recruited them, even if of course all joined him willingly.  More recently, he found two powerful allies: Dr. Ulshade, who became Plesion's partner and fought as Kyoryu Violet and Dantetsu Kiryuu, who he acknowledged as the King chosen by Earth, and who became a very good friend. But it was only years later that he at last found what he was looking for millions of years: a full team of five brave young warriors who would be ready to fight with him as Kyoryuger. The fact that one of them was none other than the son of his friend Dantetsu made him even happier. During that time, Torin became a very good mentor for the team, both wise, but also very humble, who was admiring the courage of his young team members rather than scolding them, because he was well aware of his own mistakes and flaws and how he was putting them in danger. He's also able to show a funny side, reading mangas, watching Amy's DVD, calling Nobuharu "Nossan". He's a very skilled fighter, but because of his numerous fights, has been pretty weakened and was able to turn into stone if he fought for too long. Torin has also a very strong rivalry with his brother Chaos, who hates him because of his betrayal and because he wounded him during a fight. Chaos would do anything to hurt Torin, leading the cruelest attacks against him, like having Dogold possessing Utchy, reminding him how weak he is without his Kyoryuger and reminding him of his past failure, notably being unable to become Bragigas's full partner. It was Chaos who revealed to the Kyoryuger that Torin was a former member of the Deboth, and used an evil melody to force him to fight as a Deboth once again, and made him grow up to fight Kyoryujin. However, rather than hurt his teammates, Torin chose to kill himself using Kyoryujin's sword and told the Kyoryuger the truth about him. Fortunately, the Kyoryuger were able to revive him using their melody and the Guardian gems they had, and Torin was able to come back to life, deeply moved by the friendship his teammates showed him despite knowing of his Deboth past. Likewise, it's also thanks to his friends that he was able to find the courage to become at last a full partner to Bragigas (during the era of the dinosaurs, while he was Bragigas's partner, he wasn’t a full partner because of his Deboth nature, and as such, it played a big part of his failure in saving the dinosaurs) and become the flashing hero Kyoryu Silver, much to Chaos's dismay. As Kyoryu Silver, Torin was at last able to fight at his full potential, and became a strong ally, with his signature technique, the Trinity Strizer. However, Torin was aware that his final fate was coming. Indeed, in order to completely defeat the Deboth army and save Earth, he had to fight inside the Deboth hell itself to destroy it and the souls of the fallen Debo Monsters. As such, he asked Dantetsu to kill him, but allowing his soul full of justice to reach the Deboth hell, and Dantetsu did it, even pretending to join the Deboth army. Once sent into Hell, Torin started an intense fight against the Debo monsters souls, preventing them to come back to Earth, and soon, he was helped by the spirits of Ramirez and Tessai. At last, he managed to destroy the Deboth hell with the help of Ramirez, Tessai, and the newly reformed Candelira and Luckyuro, defeating Chaos as well who allowed himself to be killed to stop Torin and his allies. At the end, Torin's spirit, left with Ramirez's and Tessai’s at last, his mission fulfilled and with no regrets and a proud heart.
My opinion of Torin: as seen in this very detailed chapter, Torin is probably the most interesting character of Kyoryuger, as a mentor who showed wisdom, but also weaknesses. Because he's well aware of his failings, he's a very kind mentor. He has a detailed backstory, and is probably the only character that has at least as much focused as Daigo: he can even be seen as the deuteragonist of the show. While his design looks silly at first glance, his voice actor is very convincing, and it's obvious that Torin is a very serious character. His rivalry with Chaos is very well shown, and is probably the best rivalry of the whole show, because both have a leadership role in their teams, both know each other very well, which Chaos takes advantage to hurt his rebellious brother the most cruelly he can. He also shows plenty of development, because he feels he's learning at least as much from his young partners as they learn from him. He manages to overcome his doubts thanks to his team, and succeeded at last to become himself a Kyoryuger, which he was unable to be for millions of years.  His sense of humor helps balance his serious side, and makes him feel less of a distant mentor figure, and more of a teammate. As such, he's very liked by his young companions. Torin is really a good mentor, a good character, and probably, the biggest reason Kyoryuger is a good show.

2) Ramirez/ Kyoryu Cyan

He's Ankydon's partner. 500 years before the beginning of the show, he joined Torin in his fights against the Deboth army, and became Kyoryu Cyan and Ankydon's partner. Sadly, he died in battle, but managed to come back as a spirit ranger. He first appeared to the team when he needed their help to save his partner Ankydon from the evil influence of Debo Virusun, who had taken control of him. Because of that, he was in danger of disappearing, because Ankydon's spirit wasn't strong enough to keep his spirit ranger power alive very long. However, Amy managed to trick Debo Virusun out of Ankydon's body, and as such, allowing Ramirez to change into Kyoryu Cyan using Ankydon's Zyudenchi. Afterwards, Ramirez regularly came back as Kyoryu Cyan to help his friends, like when he helped Torin free Utchy from Dogold, or finding Tessai and Bunpachy, looking for the Guardian amber gems, and of course, fighting as Kyoryu Cyan against the Deboth army in several battles. During the final battle, he had to go to the Deboth hell to fight with Torin, and chose as his successor Yuko, Nossan's sister, because he witnessed her strength, determination and kindness. Ramirez is a very kind man, always thinking of others before himself, completely trusting his partners, and with a very good natured personality. He's also a skilled fighter, using his massive body as a weapon. At the end, his spirit leaves with Torin's and Tessai's.
My opinion of Ramirez: a pretty okay character, who has the honor of being the first Caucasian Sentai ranger, as well as an overweight and elder one. He's not a very memorable character, but he has his functions in the show and fulfills it pretty well

3) Tessai/ Kyoryu Grey

A martial artist from China, who fought the Deboth army during the 6th century, as and Bunpachy's partner He's very skilled, but he's also aware of how cruel the fight is, and can't stand any naivety. Indeed, when he fought, his greatest fear was not being strong enough to protect his home and the ones he cared for. As such, when he met the Kyoryuger, he made them undergo a very harsh training to make them realize their weaknesses, and, as a result, overcome them and become stronger. Unlike the other Kyoryuger, he's very harsh against Daigo because he feels that his strength comes from recklessness instead of true bravery. As a result, he forced him to search what he feared. Daigo realized that his fear was to lose his friends, and by realizing it and fighting that fear, he managed to get the approval of Grey. Grey came back several times to help the Kyoryuger, like Ramirez, looking for the Guardian gems, fighting the Deboth army. One day, he discovered his descendant, Shinya, who was a mangaka, and the author of the "love touch" manga. He was furious to see his descendant doing such useless stuff instead of doing a more manly sport like rugby, but even more when he realized his descendant was afraid to see a big fan because he didn't want to show he was a man. He even tried to force him to see the fan himself. However, he soon realized that Shinya became a mangaka to make young woman feel happy, and when he saw people in danger, he would protect them despite of the danger. Realizing he had a worthy descendant, he acknowledged him as his successor, and when he followed Ramirez and Tessai in the Deboth hell, he allowed Shinya to become his successor as. At the end, his spirit left with Torin's and Ramirez's.
My opinion of Tessai: his biggest quality: he's not a Daigo worshipper and is harsh with him, unlike almost every other character of the show. He's also a very serious guy, blunt and obstinate, and a nice contrast with the very kind nature of the other Kyoryuger. Unlike Utchy, he's not faking when being harsh, since it's his true personality. While he can be prejudiced, he's able to admit his mistakes, like he did when judging his descendant.  Overall, he was a good character.


4) Yayoi Ulshade/ Kyoryu Violet II

She's the granddaughter of Dr. Ulshade, the first Kyoryu Violet, and her assistant. She's at least as smart, skilled in technology as her grandfather, and uses special glasses as a computer like device. She immediately rebukes Ian's attempt at seducing her. However, she has a very big crush on Daigo, having plenty of photos of him in her computer glasses. She's very affectionate with her grandfather, even if she has to endure his very over the top personality. When her grandfather went into the hospital because of a bad back, she replaced her as the technological expect for the team. Her first task was trying to have Plesion wake up and use his full power. However, she was unable to stop a revived Debovirusun to destroy the lab with Plesion, and she felt horribly guilty about it, and believed she was a failure. However, Daigo managed to give her a very needed comfort, show her she was much worthier than she believed herself she was, and as such, she was able to gather all her bravery to awaken Plesion, and become her partner. As a result, Daigo was able to use Plesion with Gabutyra and Bunpachy to fight an incompletely revived Deboth as Bakuretsu Kyoryujin and defeat the revived monster. Since Plesion acknowledged Yayoi, Dr. Ulshade was ready to make Yayoi his successor as Kyoryu Violet, and Yayoi was very excited to become so, because she always admired her grandfather when he was fighting as Kyoryu Violet and she wanted to follow her path. However, her first attempts were unsuccessful, and she again had low self-esteem. Attacked by a revived Debo Ice Age, she was filled with fear, as she wasn't strong enough to fight. But when Daigo and Amy made her realize that the reason she wanted to become Kyoryu Violet was her deep own desire to be Kyoryu Violet, and not show her worth to Daigo or her granddad, she managed at last to brave in and become Kyoryu Violet and showed good fighting skills. She soon left to train with her granddad in the lab, but often came back with new items, notably additional Zyudenchi, including the Carnival, Victory and Maximum Zyudenchi, which allowed the team to be even more powerful. She also was the one who showed Torin that he could overcome his fears and his feelings of worthlessness, and become a Kyoryuger, since she experienced the same. Other than her role as technological support, she also regularly fought as Kyoryu Silver, and at the end, fought with her grandfather in Plesioh. She has a big crush on Daigo, and showed jealousy towards other girls who were attracted to Daigo, notably the singer Mikoto.
My opinion of Yayoi: I like the fact she's the first Violet ranger, and the fact she was at last the second girl ranger in the huge Kyoryuger team. However, her obsession with Daigo made her more often than not an annoying character, which is a shame.

3) Allies

1) Dantetsu Kiryuu/ Kyoryu Silver II

He's Daigo's father and a very good friend of Torin. He learnt by Torin that he was chosen by Earth to be its ruler, as Torin and as a responsible ruler, did everything to save it from the danger of the Deboth army. He searched through the world the Guardian Amber gems, and indeed succeeded to find some, which he gave to Torin. At first, he was travelling with his young son, but once his son was old enough, he separated from him to continue his quest alone. He allowed Daigo to choose his path, and of course, he was very happy to see his son follow his footsteps in the way of the big dragons. He's a role model for Daigo, and not only his image was important as a role model, he also occasionally came back to help him, like during the fight against Debo Tanabata, or when trying to find the last amber gem to bring back to life Plesioh, or, more importantly, when he saved them from Dogold during the Debo Yanasanta plot. It's during that arc that Daigo learnt the truth about his father. After that fight, Dantetsu left for his final task, which involved fighting Earth's true melody. However, when he came back, he seemed to have become an ally of the Deboth army, going as far as killing in cold blood Torin. After killing Torin, he became Kyoryu Silver, and defeated the other Kyoryuger, without killing them though. He justified his killing of Torin as the wish of Earth, and asking Deboth to spare non-human living being of Earth in exchange for Torin's life. However, the true reason Dantetsu killed Torin was because Torin had to be killed to go to the Deboth hell, and destroy it from the inside, and Torin's death was in fact planned between Dantetsu and him. Daigo soon was aware that Dantetsu couldn't have joined the Deboth's ranks otherwise he would never have been able to become Kyoryu Silver and after a last showdown with his father, he managed to overcome his dad's big attack, and learn more about Earth melody. During the final fight, Dantetsu fought Chaos and Deboth mooks with Yuko and Shinya, and managed to kill Chaos, even if in the latter case, Chaos allowed to kill him to join Torin and the others in the Deboth hell and protect it.
At the end, Dantetsu leaves, asking Dr. Ulshade to call his son "King".
My opinion of Dantetsu: While he's pretty much as over the top as his son, he's still a nice character, because he's a mysterious figure, but still a good help for his son and Torin and his relationship with Torin is very nicely done. Indeed, it's thanks to that friendship that they were able to outsmart Chaos, who's a very smart enemy. Dantetsu is also a strong warrior, despite his age. All those elements make him a worthy character.

2) Yuko Fukui/ Kyoryu Cyan II

Nossan's sister and the mother of a little girl, Rika. Yuko is the widow, and it's obvious the death of her husband was very harsh for her, as seen in the episode with the Debo Monster Kokodoko, who made her see hallucinations showing her husband. However, she's also a strong willed woman, keeping alive her late husband's service company with her brother, raising her daughter Rika the best she can and tolerating her brother's lame jokes. At first she's very annoyed with the Kyoryuger, especially Kyoryu Blue, whom she sees as dangerous; despite the fact he saved Rika from Zorimas. Of course, she doesn't know that Kyoryu Blue is none other than her own brother, and Nossan who does everything he can to hide it from her. However, during the Debo Vacance era, she was able to witness how Kyoryu Blue did his best to protect others, especially her and her brother, and she discovered her brother was Kyoryu Blue (her niece learnt the true identity of Blue very early in the show). Besides, she was very annoyed when she saw that the Kyoryuger weren't helping Blue, dancing a silly dance instead, and she pretty much brought King to his senses by throwing a barrel to him. Later, she also played a key role in helping the Kyoryuger against a revived Gadoma, by leading the cheers of the crowd and giving them bravery. Yuko cares a lot for her brother and wanted him to have a girlfriend, and she unknowingly made him meet a disguised Candelira. At the time, she was hiding her brother she knew about him being Kyoryu Blue. She also had the opportunity to meet Ramirez, and she had the opportunity to show her strength when she attacked Candelira because she was deceiving her brother, and she even fought Zorima by using the voluminous Ramirez as a weapon. But she's also the one who chose to believe in Candelira following her brother's wishes, and the Deboth general was obviously moved by that. All those qualities impressed Ramirez, who chose her as her successor to become Kyoryu Cyan, and she was ready to fight the Deboth during the final arc, protecting her daughter against Zorima, and becoming Kyoryu Cyan to fight the Deboth army. Even when losing her transformation, she continued the fight with her Gaburevolver. After the fight, she resumed her quiet life with her brother and daughter.
A few words about Rika: She's a very cute little girl, very mature for her age, as seen with her quick acceptance of Kyoryu Blue and delighted her blue hero is none other than her uncle, and also how she wasn't deceived by Debo Kokodoko's illusions. Her first arc shows her obvious bond with her uncle. Unfortunately, in later episode, that link was only showed in once scene or two, and she never had much screen time.
My opinion of Yuko: She’s the character who had obviously the most character development despite having pretty little screen time (she appears in 9 episodes). While she's always shown as a loving mother and sister, she was also annoying because of her dislike for the Kyoryuger. As a smart woman, she soon suspected that her brother's friends might be the Kyoryuger. However, it's the Debo Vacance arc which showed the most significant development, by showing her acknowledging the value of the Kyoryuger, notably Kyoryu Blue, and even acting as the one who made the heroes stop their silliness, and help their teammates. Following that, she did everything she could to help the heroes, cheering her, and even, during the Debo Kantoku arc, helping Ramirez and fighting Zorimas. Of course, the climax of her development would be her becoming herself a Kyoryuger as Kyoryu Cyan, and being fully involved in the final fight. All in all, a good character, and a worthy role for the Sentai veteran Ayumi Kinoshita. Her daughter Rika is a cute girl, but she's completely underused, especially after episode 8, which is a shame since it didn't allow Nossan to have his role as a "father figure" explored.

3) Dr. Ulshade/ Kyoryu Violet I

Yayoi's grandfather and the first Kyoryu Violet. He fought the Deboth with Torin as Kyoryu Violet, protecting his granddaughter while doing it. He’s also the one who created all the modern arsenal of the Kyoryuger, the Gaburevolver, and the Zyudenchi, and it's thanks to him that the Kyoryuger have a strong technology to support their bravery. When he first appeared, he was coming back from a planet the Deboth destroyed and was gathering data from it. In his first appearance, he's shown to be a capable fighter, and rescued Daigo from Deboth mooks. However, he has a very over the top personality, loving to scream and doing big movements. Because of that, he ended up having his back blocked when starting a fight, and had to be hospitalized. Admitting he was too old to fight as good as before, he made Yayoi his successor, and became his trainer, but still came back as Kyoryu Violet for the final fight, using Plesioh, despite his bad back. At the end, he reunites with Yayoi.
My opinion of Dr. Ulshade: he's interesting since he's the one who introduced technology in the history of the Kyoryuger fight against the Deboth, as the creator of the Kyoryuger arsenal. However, his completely over the top personality, with his actor Shigeru Chiba completely overacting him, makes him a very annoying character, which is a shame.

4) Shinya Tsukouchi/ Kyoryu Grey II

Tessai's descendant and the author of the manga "Love Touch" under the pseudo Yuu Aoyagi. He was playing in a rugby team, but one day draw a very nice drawing to make the managers of the team feel better. Because they liked it, he decided to write a manga with a story inspired of his experience in a rugby team, and that manga became very popular, with Amy being a huge fan of it. Shinya asked Amy to visit a sick fan instead of him, because he was afraid that if the fan realized the author was a man, she would be disappointed. Of course, Tessai was furious of that behavior, since he believed his descendant was a coward and forced him to see the fan himself (who, unbeknown to him, was the Deboth spy Luckyuro). However, Shinya proved that he was not the coward his ancestor believed when he protected a young woman from a Zorima, and Tessai eventually acknowledged his descendant, even choosing him as his successor as. At the end, Shinya fought in the final battle with Yuko, Dantetsu and Yayoi.
My opinion of Shinya: since he only appears in three episodes, there is not much to say about him, but he's pretty much the living proof of “more than meets the eyes”: he a man who writes shoujo manga, but he's also strong and brave. As such, a nice touch that I love (pun very intended)

5) Others

Gentle : the butler of Amy : he's the one taking care of her, trying to educate her like a true lady (without much success), and being strict with her, especially when her college work isn't very well done. However, when he met a teacher Debo Monster who was at least as strict as him, he was horrified to realize he has a lot in common with such a monster. Gentle doesn't have much screen time afterwards, but it’s likely he became less strict with Amy, and the few episodes he appears in later show him helping civilians during Deboth attacks, cheering the Kyoryuger, and even fight himself the Zorima. As such, he ends up being a decent character.

Souji's father, Genryuu is also shown, a very skilled swords master who was the strict teacher of his son. While behaving very harshly, Souji knows that beneath there is a sensitive man, who blamed himself for the failure of his couple. Souji's mom, a fashion designer is also shown. While she wanted her son to stop risking his life in fights, she also realized, after meeting Torin (who at that time, used a human guise) that she had to respect her son's choices.


Final comment about the heroes and allies: while the characters are pretty uneven, some well-done (Torin), some pretty good (Utchy, Tessai, Yuko, Dantetsu), some being okay (Daigo, Ian), and other which are annoying (Amy, the Ulshades), and a lot of them are wasted (all the main Kyoryuger not named Daigo or Utsusemimaru), the cast is pretty diverse, and it allowed a lot of world building. Besides, the way the additional rangers are used, with their number of appearance being chosen skillfully, and the nice idea to make the rangers legacy characters, with a hero being able to choose a successor.