Cultural Curiosities #1: Super Sentai

I am a total eccentric and find myself drawn to very random cultural artifacts.  One of the weird ones in the Japanese children's show phenomenon known as Super Sentai.  In America Super Sentai was adapted into Power Rangers and while that franchise continues in The States it always will be most strongly associated with the original 90s "Mighty Morphin'' incarnation and has become a bit of an icon of the decade.  In Japan the franchise dates to 1975 and has become much more of a staple of children's television than a nostalgic icon.  This is also due to the fact that since 1977 every year has had a different team and story so each generation of children has a different set of helmet wearing super heroes they identify with.  Of course, Sentai is just a small part of the large tradition of "Tokusatsu" television in Japan.  "Tokusatsu" refers to any show or movie with heavy use of special effects, the most famous being the Godzilla franchise.  There are countless shows in Japan which fall into this category and some, besides Sentai, such as Ultraman, Metal Hero, and Kamen Rider, have also had highly successful long running franchises the history of which I will explore in a later post. So why have these successful franchises only had limited success in stateside adaptations? Here are some reasons I think this is the case.

1. A Different Style of Super Hero: The American Super Hero tradition hasn't typically involved giant robots or completely face-concealing helmet-like masks.  Face concealment is de rigueur of Japanese super heroes while masked American heroes typically have a least part of their face exposed. or at least are form fitting to show some features.  Often American heroes have no mask at all.  One notable exception to this rule is Spiderman who actually played a role in the development of Super Sentai.  His extremely loose, but Marvel licensed, 1978 tokusatsu television adaptation involved a giant robot which would fight enlarged monsters, a formula which would be adopted by the Super Sentai franchise. Americans just don't expect their heroes to wear motorcycle helmets and that itself creates a cultural gap in tokusatsu's acceptance in American culture. However, it is the giant robot and monsters which have always been,and continue to be, associated with the Japanese.  It is a modern film making technique that originated in Japan so it is hard for western audiences to separate it from that.The entire formula, while influenced by American comic books, still looks and feels foreign. 
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2. Different standards of what is appropriate for children:  Tokusatsu shows can be extremely dark and do not shy away from death, violence, revenge, and flawed heroes.  1986's "Flashman" centered on five children abducted from earth in their youth and returning 10 years later to protect it from the aliens who held them captive.  An earlier season called "Battle Fever J"(1979) has an episode where the  evil organization can make its followers wishes come true with mind control.  This leads to a little girl committing suicide because one of her classmates is jealous of her class ranking and wishes to be the top student in the class.  Even one of the most recent seasons of Super Sentai,"ToQger"(2014), involves a complicated world within a group of children's imagination that reflects on reality.  All of these complex stories and consistently violent fight scenes, needless to say the Japanese are a little more comfortable with children processing some tough issues.
3. Comfort with campiness: Some American children's programming has also had dark themes as well.  What really separates Sentai is despite this darkness, you're still dealing with grown-ups running around in spandex suits fighting obviously fake monsters.  In America we have a very hard time mixing camp with drama, look at how confusing "Once Upon a Time" can be.  Super Sentai teams typically have a stylized transformation scene followed by an elaborate roll call which is often accented by pyrotechnics, posing, and plenty of sound effects.  Its dramatic to the point of humorous, but that's a line which the Japanese seem to be far more comfortable flirting with, a line which changes from season to season and adapts to changing Japanese tastes and trends. This duality is what makes tokusatsu so fun to watch, its so different from super heroes we have in American.
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There are exceptions to every argument I have posited here which I would like to explore further. However I hope this introduces you to the fun and often bizarre world of Super Sentai.