Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger (2016)

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the show did well:
-Really likeable cast from both the hero and villain side.
-The red ranger Yamato is among the best protagonists in the Sentai franchise.
-The red ranger Yamato and the extra hero Misao are better actors and voice actors than your usual Sentai. Naoki Kunishima and especially Masaki Nakao did a fantastic job. Heck, Yamato is easily a top 3 red ranger in terms of acting ability.
-Kubar had a great character arc.
-Yamato's character arc is really well done and makes one feel emotional.
-The show does a proper job at making the main antagonist Genis feel menacing and allmighty.
-The extra hero Misao is among the most unique rangers this franchise's ever had. He manages to be hilarious, menacing, cool and pathetic really well somehow. The actor does great job at making you buy that he's a schizophreniac with PTSD. (Personally he also has some of the best catchphrases in the franchise)
-Most of the monsters of the weeks are entertaining.
-Yamato, Misao and Bard have cool fighting styles.
-Really great final arc and finale for the most part.
-Really great soundtrack.

Everything the show did bad:
-Yamato and Misao definetly get more focus than the rest. It also feels like the team dotes a bit too much on Yamato which at times makes their dynamic feel more like Yamato and his pets rather than a proper team. But at least the don't get super sidelined like the other Junko Komura shows and manage to be properly developed for the most part.
-The villains in the show feel too disconnected from the show's world and the team's goal despite it attempts to reconcile both in the final arc, which makes the world-building feel cheap for most of the show.
-The villain Banglay especially feels too disconnected despite being really entertaining overall. He's also doesn't get any backstory which make his powers being so overpowered feel like cheap writing.
-Kubar is the only villain to get a really great character arc, the rest while great overall feel kinda sidelined. Naria not getting any backstory feels disappointing.
-Bard's actions don't feel justified enough.
-The action from the zyuman members of the teams is usually lacking due to them having a pretty boring utilization of their animal powers. Their instincts awakening powers are especially disappointing since they basically devolve to CGI blast effects rather than using their powers in an interesting way.
-The mechs Doubutsu Gattai ZyuohKing and Doubutsu Dai Gattai Wild ZyuohKing have pretty boring fighting styles.
-Mario feels kind of underutilized.
-The Gokaiger crossover mini-arc is just kind of allright.
-Zyuland feels largely unexplored, which wouldn't be much of an issue if Bard's backstory didn't make you question so much about them.
-It kind of feels like they Zyuman members of the team could have gotten a few more flashbacks.
-The green ranger Tusk has a considerably worse actor than everybody else, however this is really only an issue for the first arc, after that he improves enough to not be distracting. That said, as likeable the character is, he's still the worst member of the team due to the main writer being kinda bad at writing straight-man characters.
-After Misao joins it feels like team uncharacteristically forget their goal. Granted Sentai shows becoming more fillery/comedic during summer break which usually coincides with the extra hero introduction is a somewhat common trope in the franchise but since saving the world from evil monsters is secondary to them finding a way home, this issue is especially noticeable.
-The red ranger knowing how to fight despite being a zoologist. Granted a lot of tokusatsu shows have the characters suddenly knowing how to fight when they transform and it's mostly a nitpick in those shows. However when the other zyumans are trained guards yet they treat Yamato as their strongest member even before he gets his upgrade or even his form changes and have him fight alone a lot of times in the show, this kind of becomes an issue.
-The show overplays Misao's depression/insecurity jokes and since the middle mostly focuses on him and its the portion of the show with the most filler, it could make the show's middle feel really draggy for some people. I personally didn't mind this because I found Misao's jokes hilarious like 95% of the time but I know that not everybody will feel that way.
-While aesthetics are a really subjective thing, I feel there's really no excuse for the rangers suits being this simple in this season since only the red and the extra hero get form changes and instinct awakening doesn't change the suits much. ToQger at least had the excuse that all members had 5 suits.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Main writer Junko Komura is really great at handpicking great actors. She exceeds at absurdist comedy which is why a character like Misao worked so well.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Junko Komura is kind of bad at handling multiple characters at once (which makes it ironic that she was chosen as main writer for Super Sentai 3 times) so she gave more focus to Yamato and Misao than the rest of the cast. Having said that, out of the show's I've seen written by her, this is the best she has handled characters, as the rest did get development and focus, it's just that the 2 before mentioned characters got more. She's laso kinda bad at connecting the main villains to the heroes which resulted in them feeling really disconnected from the plot.
Producer Utsunomiya requested for the plot to move slower in the show's middle which could have affected some plot points like Zyuland. There's also a rumor(?) that he requested the villains and monsters to be done safe to attract viewers since the previous Sentai season, Ninninger was received so poorly.

Overall:
A big chunk of your enjoyment will depend on how much you like this show's extra ranger which is why I feel most people would rank this show with a 7. But it's still a great time overall still and would recommend if you're a Sentai fan, just be prepared for the plot to kind of go in a standstill during the middle.

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