For those of you who have been following my Twitter feed, you'll find I'm not dead (yet). Just... Otherwise engaged. I've found my life's gotten a lot more complicated recently, so the number of shows I'm watching has dropped. Well, number of anime, at least. I'll give myself another couple of months before I'm all over anime again. Anyway, the point of this post is: Why I Watch Kid Stuff like Super Sentai and Magical Girl Anime.
It's definitely not because stuff like this happens. Nope.
As someone who is decidedly older than the market for super sentai and magical girl anime, some people look at me weird when I tell them what I'm watching. I don't really care; I just kind of pity them for having their minds closed to some truly powerful, engaging storylines. Sure, the plots are all clichéd "someone/thing is invading, only you can save the world!!" type, but there's something to be said about clichés.
(The following list is in no particular order.)
One is that it provides a truly safe way to turn one's brain off (instead of something like drugs). I mean, really. Especially in something like Super Sentai, all 35 seasons are basically the same. It's just a matter of who's invading, who's defending, and who's got the awesomest weapon. So if you're just looking for background noise, here's a great way to do it. It has the added bonus of not having anything too gruesome or explicit, so you can watch it in public with only the label of 'He's/She's such a kid' being applied versus 'Dude, he/she watching porn in public!'
This totally isn't porn! Just because it looks like one girl is looking at the other's boobs...
Second, unless you're a true villain, everyone likes to see the good guys win in the end. And even if we sympathize with (one of) the bad guy(s), there's a pretty good chance that the TPTB are going to give them a totally rocking ending. (And sometimes the bad guys themselves are pretty awesome.) Example one: Precia's last scene at the end of MSLNanoha. Everyone hated her, but she totally gave Fate a cool scene (or five).
Come, Mother. Give me more and more backstory so people can use it in their fanfics about me wangsting.
Third is just the sheer awesomeness that comes from the fight scenes (and explosions). Sure, the rest of the story may or may not be crap, but the one thing that's almost guaranteed not to be crap is the fighting. The very fact that a series is part of a cliché means that it has to do something to keep things interesting. And if the plot is just dressed up, why not do something interesting within the show? (Also, let's face it, these shows are marketed towards kids. What other way is there to get a kid's interest but action?)
TOTALLY ROCKING FIGHT SCENE
Fourth is I can put yuri undertones in pretty much anything with at least two girls in it, which super sentai covers pretty well and magical girl has almost as a matter of course.
Imagine her looking like this towards Yellow, yesssssssssssssssssssss
There're probably other reasons, but these are the ones I thought of. d: Suraki, signing off to watch more Super Sentai!
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