You and me both. Sentai Mecha took a turn after Gekiranger IMO. There had been questionable mecha deisgns before (Dekaranger) but we've never gotten anything like Gaoking, Abarenoh, or Magiking ever since, and probably never will. It's all been hyper simplistic, unappealingly basic blockformations that lack any form or style and just look kind dumpy. And the Zyuohoger mecha only got worse as time went on, abandonning any sense of a proper humanoid form and just looked rushed together and awful.

Unfortunately, your opinion is wrong. Power Rangers is adapted from Super Sentai, which predates both Daiclone/Microman and Golion. So, unless Saban built a time machine and went back in time and gave Toei the information specifically so he could one day adapt Zyuranger, the sequence of events precludes that possibility.

 

As I mentioned before, it's hard to say any of them inspired each other when giant robots are such a staple of Japanses culture even back then.

 

wasn't it Mazinger-Z that started it all, then came Voltes V, Macross/Robotech, then later on Voltron, Daimos, Gundam Wing, etc.

Transformers was in a class of its own since they're living beings. Only Gobots was in the same league.

If any, i think Power Rangers belongs in the class that Bio-Man and Shaider were in although Power Rangers used the combiner trope where vehicles or mechanical beasts combined into a piloted super robot.

 

Technically speaking Mazinger Z was a half-alive machine aswell.

He wasn't the first of his kind either though. Getter Robo and a few others came before him. He's one of the genre's pioneers, that's for certain.

 

man they could've made this into a live-action movie first and used this kick ass theme

 

just as an aside: Hasbro should buy the Voltes V property, revive it make its 21st century incarnation, then make a live-action movie out of it. Voltes V has a large cult following, the original combining super robot.

 

Well, the original Gundam would have to have come long before Wing, which was over fifteen years later.

 

As far as toys are concerned look no further than Shogun Warriors/Jumbo Machinder. Big hollow plastic. firing fists.. rolling feets. They have it all.

 

And a a truly irresponsible number of firing missiles.

 

Gobots has more in common with zords since they are both designed by Bandai. You can see similarities in the engineering.

Not sure where zord designs come from, if the toys are developed first and then adapted to the show if if it is made on it's own and Bandai just adapts the designs. Also it could be both ways, hard to look at current zords and imagined they were designed as a suit before the toy gimmicks came in, could've been different years ago than it is now.

 

AFAIK, it's always been toys first, show second, not counting the new film.

 

Close. Mazinger Z largely began the Piloted Giant Super Robot craze. The first "Transformer" was Reideen and the first "Combiner" was Getter Robo. The beginning of what we think of as the Sentai type mechs really largely starts with the "Robot Romance Trillogy" Combatler V, Voltes V and Daimos. Yeah there are a few other combiners in there, not as well known, but those were the big genre establishing ones. Voltron and the later Super Sentai Combiners all sort of spawned from them.

Transformers was something completely different. Remember Transformers as a concept was largely cooked up by Marvel. It was never something that Japan would have aired on its own first. Transformers were "Sentient Robots" something that was rarely seen in anime. Outside of some very early ones such as Astro Boy and Astroganger. Japanese tended to find the idea of sentient robots kind of creepy back then. (oh how times have changed, in large part thanks to Optimus Prime and friends) The actual Transformers toys followed a very different and very unusual path, not really influenced by either anime or the Super Sentai shows. They began life as G I Joe. The old school G I Joe. Takara had the license for G I Joe and the molds. But it wasn't a good market for war toys. So they cast them in clear and chrome and called them Henshin Cyborg. They did ok but production costs were high. So years before Hasbro, they shrank their G I Joe based stuff down to 3 1/2" action figures. Microman or as we knew them in the US Mego's The Micronauts! They had lots of modular vehicles that could be combined in hundreds of ways. Almost but not quite had a lego like feel to them. The line went on and evolved for years. Finally becoming Diaclone and Micro change. At which point Hasbro imported them for Transformers. Really even the only point that Transformers touched on or might have evolved from even the classic Super Robot stuff was at Marvel. Marvel was creating the Transformers lore and comic books, and had just come off licenses for the Shogun Warriors and Micronauts.

The only actual ties or inspiration from Super Sentai to Transformers is actually in GoBots, as Bandai re-appropriated a few DX molds for Machine Robo. The most obvious being the Machine Robo hero character (not Gobots) Baikanfu, who started out as the older Super Robot Gordian. also included in the list were a few Sentai vehicles.

But yeah Transformers is the End Point of all the Transforming and Combining Robot stuff. Not the beginning. The other shows don't pull from Transformers. Rather it went the other way. If at all.

Here's the 2012 test opening for Combatler V (for a Pachinko Machine no less! Why oh why not make this show!!!!)

 

How can you read this thread, with all the facts provided, and then still post something like this? Is this some Andy Kaufmanesque joke you're trying to pull off?

 

I'll be honest Split, you're speaking Japanese to me with all these show titles.  

As for the new movies being inspired by/ripping off the Bayformer style, you already know I'm 100% down for that. Going to see it Sunday at noon. My only issue is that Beauty and the Beast bought out all the IMAX showings so PR is just standard.  

 

On Voltron and Power Rangers... both GoLion and Super Sentai were developed by Toei, with the robot toys being manufactured by Popy (later absorbed into Bandai). So while neither exactly copied the other, they are not unrelated either.

Most of the time, anyway. Once in awhile they'll experiment with crossing over to older audiences and mature themes as with Choujin Sentai Jetman, or blatant fanservice for older fans as with Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. But I guess these are the exceptions that highlight the rule.

 

This!

just to correct one common misconception "Popy was later absorbed into Bandai" is commonly thrown around and not exactly accurate. Popy always was a subsidiary of Bandai. They were created by Bandai's owners to specifically be a Die Cast Toy brand. As the main Bandai branding grew, particularly in the global marketplace, they eventually rolled the Popy lines back under the more widely known Bandai brand. They didn't buy out Popy or close Popy. They simply put everybody under the same branding and brought the highly successful die cast lines to the forefront of their core branding.

 

Probably should've prefaced Sentai with "modern" because you're right, their have been Sentai that were less child-oriented, but that's almost completely fallen by the wayside these days unfortunately.

 

Like adult Power Rangers but -not- Power Rangers?

I'm having trouble keeping up. >..>

 

Not really adult either. More just trying to appeal to multiple age groups with the same show. Other than that, yeah.

 

I think the idea was less "baby blocks" and more of "Minecraft/8-bit pixel" as you get the effect from the way the mecha are designed.

If you were to imagine Super Sentai as a Mario-esque platform game where the blocks were collectable power-ups, it all kind of comes together as far as the mecha theme...