Picspam. Women of sentai.
Feb. 2nd, 2010 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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halfamoonOr at least, some of my favourites from the past ten years or so. I have no idea if anyone here will be familiar with them, though. ^.^ Some spoilers for the respective seasons but nothing earth-shattering, I don't think. :)
Kakuranger (1994): Tsuruhime
The first woman to lead a team and she kicked ass doing it. It's sad to me that they only followed Tsuruhime's example once since 1994. Like many of the women on this list, Tsuruhime is the character you do not want to cross for any reason because she is more kickass than you. <3
Timeranger (2000): Yuuri
Yuuri is the only other woman to lead a team. A detective from the year 3000, she's part of the anti-Mafia division and the leader of the team sent back to the year 2000 after one of the Mafia dons in jail escapes through time. She's a very reserved woman, but the writers did a good job of not making her cold. And while she warms up over the season it's very gradual and she's still very much herself by the time the final episode rolls around.
Gaoranger (2001): Sae
It actually took a while for Sae to grow on me, because at first she can come across as the stereotypical Good Girl, but she's more than just that and now she's one of my favourite characters of the show. Sae has been training in the martial arts since she was a child so she's arguably the most disciplined/best fighter of the group if not physically the strongest and she gets to be that while still having romantic fantasies and generally being a regular teenage girl (she's seventeen during the season, I believe). I love that she gets to be that: strong and yet still very much a girly girl, unlike many of her predecessors, not to mention her successors.
Abaranger (2003): Ranru
When we first meet Ranru she's stopping a mugger from making his escape by literally stopping her bike right in front him and sending him tripping over his own feet. She loves mechanical things and comes up with many an invention over the season that gets them out of trouble, mostly from improvising on the spot. She goes from having been a pop idol in her past to a mechanic for a racing car company. Also, she wears bullet proof vests as a hobby. You know, as you do. ;)
Dekaranger (2004): Jasmine
Jasmine is an ESPer, or psychic, and she uses those abilities as part of her job as a detective in the Special Police department. What we see of her past in flashbacks is that her powers caused her to be ostracised and even abandoned by her family. And yet she overcomes all of that to become a confident woman very much in charge of herself and her abilities.
Dekaranger (2004): Umeko
Umeko is Jasmine's opposite. Where Jasmine is cool and composed, Umeko is impulsive and wears her heart on her sleeve. She's terrible on the shooting range but doesn't let that stop her from doing her job and arresting criminals.
Jasmine and Umeko are a fairly popular femmeslash pairing, or were while the Dekaranger fandom was active, and they even comment in-show that the pair act like lovers. :)
Boukenger (2006): Sakura
Formerly a member of the Japanese Self Defence Force, Sakura is the 2IC of this team and, in much the same vein as Yuuri above, is shown to be very calm and composed and scarily competent. <3 She doesn't trust easily but once you have her trust it's unwavering and she will go to hell for you.
Boukenger (2006): Natsuki
Hm, personally I think that Natsuki, for all that I like her, was written in a very problematic way, but that doesn't stop her having her moments of awesome. Unlike Sakura, Natsuki is very trusting - the dichotomy tends to be very apparent in teams that have a pink-yellow combi - and while she's naive in a lot of ways her faith in people is also one of her strengths.
One of my favourite moments of Bouken is when, their ability to transform denied them, Sakura and Natsuki have to fight their way through the bad guys save the kidnapped guys of their team. The way they do this? Is by using guns Sakura still has stashed away from her time in the JSDF. Pure badass. <3
Kakuranger (1994): Tsuruhime
The first woman to lead a team and she kicked ass doing it. It's sad to me that they only followed Tsuruhime's example once since 1994. Like many of the women on this list, Tsuruhime is the character you do not want to cross for any reason because she is more kickass than you. <3
Timeranger (2000): Yuuri
Yuuri is the only other woman to lead a team. A detective from the year 3000, she's part of the anti-Mafia division and the leader of the team sent back to the year 2000 after one of the Mafia dons in jail escapes through time. She's a very reserved woman, but the writers did a good job of not making her cold. And while she warms up over the season it's very gradual and she's still very much herself by the time the final episode rolls around.
Gaoranger (2001): Sae
It actually took a while for Sae to grow on me, because at first she can come across as the stereotypical Good Girl, but she's more than just that and now she's one of my favourite characters of the show. Sae has been training in the martial arts since she was a child so she's arguably the most disciplined/best fighter of the group if not physically the strongest and she gets to be that while still having romantic fantasies and generally being a regular teenage girl (she's seventeen during the season, I believe). I love that she gets to be that: strong and yet still very much a girly girl, unlike many of her predecessors, not to mention her successors.
Abaranger (2003): Ranru
When we first meet Ranru she's stopping a mugger from making his escape by literally stopping her bike right in front him and sending him tripping over his own feet. She loves mechanical things and comes up with many an invention over the season that gets them out of trouble, mostly from improvising on the spot. She goes from having been a pop idol in her past to a mechanic for a racing car company. Also, she wears bullet proof vests as a hobby. You know, as you do. ;)
Dekaranger (2004): Jasmine
Jasmine is an ESPer, or psychic, and she uses those abilities as part of her job as a detective in the Special Police department. What we see of her past in flashbacks is that her powers caused her to be ostracised and even abandoned by her family. And yet she overcomes all of that to become a confident woman very much in charge of herself and her abilities.
Dekaranger (2004): Umeko
Umeko is Jasmine's opposite. Where Jasmine is cool and composed, Umeko is impulsive and wears her heart on her sleeve. She's terrible on the shooting range but doesn't let that stop her from doing her job and arresting criminals.
Jasmine and Umeko are a fairly popular femmeslash pairing, or were while the Dekaranger fandom was active, and they even comment in-show that the pair act like lovers. :)
Boukenger (2006): Sakura
Formerly a member of the Japanese Self Defence Force, Sakura is the 2IC of this team and, in much the same vein as Yuuri above, is shown to be very calm and composed and scarily competent. <3 She doesn't trust easily but once you have her trust it's unwavering and she will go to hell for you.
Boukenger (2006): Natsuki
Hm, personally I think that Natsuki, for all that I like her, was written in a very problematic way, but that doesn't stop her having her moments of awesome. Unlike Sakura, Natsuki is very trusting - the dichotomy tends to be very apparent in teams that have a pink-yellow combi - and while she's naive in a lot of ways her faith in people is also one of her strengths.
One of my favourite moments of Bouken is when, their ability to transform denied them, Sakura and Natsuki have to fight their way through the bad guys save the kidnapped guys of their team. The way they do this? Is by using guns Sakura still has stashed away from her time in the JSDF. Pure badass. <3
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 01:08 am (UTC)I'm slowly working my way through Kamen Rider Den-O, but once I'm done with that, I'm definitely interested in checking out one of the Sentai series. Your post is an excellent starting point, thank you!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 06:31 pm (UTC)*grins* Glad I could help. I very much enjoy my sentai, although Kamen Rider is fun as well. TV-Nihon has subs for everything post-Deka, if you need them, but subs for the rest can be a bit hard to find sometimes unless you poke the forums long enough. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 06:40 pm (UTC)There's someone on one of the comms I follow who is uploading a bunch of sentai and Kamen Rider series. I'll have to dig through the tags and see what shakes loose. I'd really like to see one of the female team leaders.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 06:44 pm (UTC)In that case Timeranger's your best bet as there are currently no subs for Kakuranger aside from the movie (and if I can tell those subs aren't great? They're really not great). You can probably find Time subs over on the Rangerboard or Henshin Justice forums, that's where I found mine. :)