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The Future of Sentai US DVDs (Speculation)

Another of my Reddit posts brought to here.

I posted a post several days ago talking about my speculation on why the Sentai DVDs stopped for over 3 years. If you wanna have that discussion, go to that post.

Now that we're into the full swing of things again with all of the legal BS & whatnot sorted between Shout Factory, Hasbro, eOne, & Toei, time to talk about the future of the Sentai DVDs here in the US.

So, to recap, they started with Zyuranger in 2015, released Dairanger 10 months later. Then in 2016 and '17, we had the next 4 series, 2 a year. Then in 2018, we had 5 series, with the next 4, but also Jetman. Come 2019, we had Hurricaneger, with Bruno from MMPRToys teasing Fiveman in a video soon after, but we heard nothing about the release until Summer 2022, then after it was released, we had the announcement that Abaranger is going to come out in November, which is great news.

What of next year, though? That's my question, as well as I assume a lot of other people's question. Assuming they're licensing these things in batches, as per 1 of my assumptions of what could be happening, or they're continually licensing new series well in advance of when the next ones come out, my assumption is that they may be working on Dekaranger right now, or will be soon, & will announce it soon after Abaranger comes out. Probably for a January or February release is my estimate, but we'll see. Now, will they do Turboranger after that? I've seen someone in the comments of DosmRider's video talking about the Abaranger release announcement point out that so far, the releases for series before Zyuranger going backwards in descending order has been happening every 2 seasons that move after it in ascending order. Assuming this is a pattern they'll repeat in the future, after Dekaranger is probably when we can expect Turboranger, then after Boukenger is when we can expect Liveman. Assuming as well that they do at least 5 series a year like in 2018, we shouldn't have to wait too long in between releases. I kinda hope that they bump that up to 6, though. Imagine if they do. 4 seasons post-Zyuranger a year with 2 pre. A good even number for each and combined.

Now, Blu-Rays. I'm not entirely sure when Sentai went HD. It went widescreen with Boukenger for its 30th anniversary season (remember, you can have widescreen without HD & HD without widescreen). I've read conflicting information. Some people say that the shows from Boukenger on were rereleased on Blu-Ray while it appears that only Shinkenger onwards were, with a remastered collection for the theatrical films from Gorenger to Go-Onger or so being released in the 2010s as well. And, while Toei filmed all of the pre-HD seasons on film (though apparently they switched to something else at some point & I guess transferred those to film?), unless the shows are properly remastered by Toei, we aren't likely to see them released on the format. The only pre-HD & widescreen show, I believe, to receive a BR release is Dekaranger & that was for its 10th anniversary & to promote its 10 years after movie from 2014, I believe. Pretty sure it's also 1 of the more popular seasons in Japan, so that made sense. And, even then, it was an upscale of the previous DVD masters rather than a new transfer from film. Toei's pretty cheap like that. And, I know some people would want Shout to do SD on BR like some other companies are doing, but Shout aren't one of those companies. We're more likely to see DVDs still. However, once they get to seasons shot & aired in HD that have suitable masters, I imagine they'll get those out on Blu-Ray, since by then, Shinkenger will be 15 years old, I imagine they shouldn't have any problems getting permission from Toei for that. Especially since they're releasing Kamen Rider & have released the Digimon Tri films on BR. I think Toei will be ok with it. At worst, they get some people in Japan importing the US release years after they've already have the JP ones out. I also hope Toei doesn't give them somewhat gimped masters like they did Kamen Rider: Zero-One where apparently they had to de-interlace the masters they were given because Toei gave them ones with that issue.

So, going up to the current season (Donbrothers as of this writing), this is what I see as the release schedule going forward, assuming this is the pattern & they do 5-6 sets a year. Also depends on if they don't alter their schedule in any way. If they do 5, just move the last ones in the lists to the next ones, then adjust each year accordingly & add a few more years.

2023: Dekaranger, Turboranger, Magiranger, Gekiranger, Liveman, Go-Onger

2024: Shinkenger (possible start of BR releases for post-Zyuranger), Maskman, Goseiger, Gokaiger, Flashman, Go-Busters (possibly Akibaranger)

2025: Kyoryuger, Changeman, ToQger, Ninninger, Bioman, Zyuohger (Possibly Kyoryuger/Dino Force Brave)

2026: Kyuranger, Dynaman, Lupinranger VS Patoranger, Ryusoulger, Goggle-V, Kiramager

2027: Zenkaiger, Sun Vulcan, Donbrothers, (2023 Sentai Series), Denjiman, (2024 Sentai Series)

2028: (2025 Sentai Series), Battle Fever J, (2026 Sentai Series), (2027 Sentai Series), J.A.K.Q, Gorenger

2029: (possibly the 2028 Sentai Series), start of Sentai movies & specials

2030: (possibly the 2029 Sentai Series), more specials & movies

Yeah, I speculate that after they get done with all the shows, they'll start licensing all of the various movies & specials they can, including theatrical & straight-to-video ones. I have no idea what order, or if they'll group them in sets of the seasons, or if they'll do sets of certain numbers. I also assume they'll be able to give them BR releases like the shows. Though, I'm not sure if Toei will let them do the newer shows or movies until a suitable amount of time has passed since they were released in Japan. My assumption is bundled releases like Toei did, as well as individual releases. It sucks that we most likely won't start getting the movies & specials for at least 6+ years. If they shock us & start licensing them sooner, it'll be great, but I don't see it with how Toei currently licenses their shit (poorly). It'll also be a bit painful waiting until 2024 to get Gokaiger for me, but this is the price we have to pay sometimes to get what we want. I can also see them licensing Akibaranger & releasing it over here, since it's technically a part of the franchise.

If anyone has any info on some of these things, or an alternate theory, please let me know.

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Why Fiveman got delayed ~3.5 Years for Shout Factory's DVD Set (My Theory)

This is a post I’m bringing over from my Reddit account because I thought it was good.

So, we all know that Fiveman got delayed over 3 years from its original teasing by Bruno from MMPRToys back in 2019. Why is that? Well, I have a theory. We all probably know who's to blame (Hasbro), but I think the reasons  haven't been discussed. I also don't know if it's been talked about by anyone at Shout, but if so, feel free to correct me.

Now, Super Sentai was on a roll with the DVD sets. 2015-2017, we had 2 sets a year. 2018, though, had 5 & we had 1 in 2019, then had another one coming, but it got canned out of nowhere. Why is that? Well, what happened at the time? Hasbro bought Power Rangers from Saban, or were going to do so, & were producing Beast Morphers season 1. So, they had the franchise & were trying to figure out what they wanted to do to shake it up. Over the last 3 years, we've seen what Hasbro have done in regards to distribution of the franchise. First, they took most of the seasons off Netflix before Beast Morphers & started uploading all of the episodes to the PR YouTube channel for streaming, probably because it's cheap, easy, & convenient to do so rather than Netflix's licensing agreements, especially since they can monetize them through that. And there are no DVDs for Beast Morphers or Dino Fury right now for some reason, despite, in theory, Lionsgate should probably still own the home video rights to those seasons. All of this came after eOne became a Hasbro entity & was put in charge of distribution of their shows. Dino Fury also stopped airing on Nickelodeon halfway through season 1 & season 2 is Netflix exclusive, with Hasbro partnering with Netflix to make & distribute stuff for their planned Power Rangers cinematic universe they wanna do.

Why does this matter?

It stands to reason that Hasbro took a look at all current licensing agreements, as well as how the show was airing, & looked at what fans were saying about how the show was airing & decided a shake-up was in order. There's also those rumors & speculation about them stopping adapting Sentai & going all original with future seasons after Dino Fury, though I could imagine adapting Sentai still would save a ton of time & money filming stuff if they wanna make PR shows that appeal to both kids & older fans. Until we get info, we don't know what they're doing.

Anyways, while they figured out what they wanted to do with the future shows, as well as the toys, I imagine Shout Factory got lost in the shuffle. My theory is that in early 2019 when they had already licensed Fiveman & were having whatever company they contract to produce translated subs & had a mock-up of the DVD set cover ready to go, Hasbro told them to halt releasing Fiveman until further notice while they figured shit out. So, before they could officially announce the set, but after Bruno teased it, that happened. They then couldn't answer anyone's questions or address Fiveman. Bruno also was probably told to do that as well, or maybe had already signed an NDA. It reminds me of when the controversy around Team Four Star being in DBZ Kai: The Final Chapters happened & they couldn't discuss being in the dub for a while after their audio was mostly removed from it when Toei found out what Chris Sabat tried to pull.

And after 2021, they contacted Hasbro, who finally figured out most of their shit if they could finally release Fiveman & they gave them the go-ahead. It would also explain how they could license & announce they had Abaranger so quickly after it came out, literally the day after. When Hasbro gave them the go-ahead, they would've had some money saved up from the other sets still selling over the last 3 years. And since they already had Fiveman ready to go, they could just do Abaranger to get it ready to go. Hasbro always had to go through Saban to license & release the various Sentai seasons, as they owned the Power Rangers franchise at the time, so it stands to reason that they now have to go through Hasbro. And Hasbro would have first right to refuse them to do so. I could also imagine that Hasbro might've been looking towards Sentai for ideas what they wanted to do & didn't want competition with the Sentai DVDs of unadapted seasons, but ultimately then decided that they didn't care. Some of the PR comics have featured unadapted Sentai teams featured in the stock footage (& stupid new pick-up shots) featured in Super Megaforce, so maybe they were thinking they could do something similar with the shows or movies they're planning to do.

Bonus discussion/slight rant:

Now, I wanna address something that some of you may be thinking of; Soundout12's videos on why the Sentai DVDs stopped 3 years ago & the segment of a video he did where he talked about Fiveman's DVD announcement.

Now, for the first video, he does give a disclaimer that it's all speculation on his part, but (maybe accidentally) tries to pass some of his speculation off as fact, especially when he tries to justify his opinions with stuff he's heard from people in the industry, but he misunderstood or didn't think through some of the things he said as he said them. Now, he tried to pass off his more negative opinions of the sets as reasons why they'd stop more from coming out & tried to dispel that Hasbro would have anything to do with it. Or at least, that's how it felt to me.

He started talking about how he didn't feel the DVD covers were that great, the episode masters looked bad, & the cases were really bad. Now, a bad cover isn't gonna stop people from buying a product they want, just look at a lot of MCU Blu-Ray covers or theatrical posters. And, the masters for the episodes are better than he describes. They're not perfect, as Toei could easily stand to give them a remaster (though Timeranger for some reason just has genuinely shitty masters that look like aged or warped VHS rips from when someone recorded the episodes airing on TV, that I'll give him). The cases also aren't bad for what they are, but I'll give it to him that they are very flimsy & can break easily in transit. I legit had to return a Sentai DVD set I ordered from Amazon because it broke really badly in transit once. My Jetman set's case is also broken for 1 of the things that snap it closed. Shout uses these cases regularly for shows like this (I have their complete Danny Phantom set & it's exactly the same case) & have for years, so I don't think they're gonna change it any time soon.

He brings up the problems with the subtitles as well, like typos, mis-timings, romanji rather than actually translated lines, & that some people have accused them of just reusing fansub tracks at points. I'm surprised that he didn't bring up how the Zyuranger & Dairanger sets' subs were also an awful piss yellow while the later sets had white subs, but I guess there were bigger things to cover. I think for the most part some of these things, people could get over & he did admit that most of the sets after the first several were fine in regards to the subs, so clearly Shout got better at QC when it came to those. I do wish they'd fix the problems on the discs where they show up & do a disc replacement program, but whatever.He brings up some problems with how Shout's distributing the seasons, bringing up the prices ($50-$60 each for DVD sets) & where they're available. Now, for me, I think the price is extremely subjective as to if it's too much or not. For me & I assume a lot of Sentai fans, because Sentai seasons usually have ~45-50 episodes on average, we can be ok with paying that much or a little more for a set when it's new. It's not like it's volumes of anime shows we get from FUNimation (now Crunchyroll LLC) or Viz Media where they overcharge the fuck out of them in the upwards of $30 for 12-13 episodes (or in the case of Yashahime, $60-$70 for the same number of episodes). You're basically paying $1 or a little more per episode & for a full show as opposed to parts of it. I think that's fine as long as you're ok with it. Them being on DVD or the episodes being stuck at 480i/p is gonna bother some people, I get it, but it's not like they're promising something you're not getting (think how FUNimation has continually lied over the years when it comes to most of their releases of DBZ to sell you a shit-looking "remastered" product). The clips & stills they use online for marketing the sets let you know how the video quality is off the bat & it's up to you to decided if you wanna buy them new, or wait for a sale or discount of some kind. Which Soundout12 did. Yeah...

And where they're available, he brings up that they're mainly available online & brings up personal anecdotes that they're not available in regular stores like Wal-Mart. I don't understand how this is a legit argument. We're talking about a niche product that could be mixed up with Power Rangers that isn't anime & only Toku fans would be interested in. Why would they be available in places like Wal-Mart? Only the more well-known Toku brands are available in those kinds of places, if at all. Online distribution is the main track for distribution for these shows. He mainly brings this up to emphasize how little he thinks the sets would've been making, but still, I think this is a weird argument. It's like if I were to wonder why most Japanese companies don't bring more JRPGs to the Xbox platform.And finally, he brings up Toei's licensing bullshit. Now, I think this is the most substantive part of his argument, but it's by no means without flaws. Now, he brings up how Toei usually licenses their properties & how they usually license things separately depending on how they are, like licensing movies or specials separately from a TV show that they're connected to. This is something that's trackable with other companies that Toei licenses their stuff to. FUNimation/Crunchyroll LLC continually has to license new episodes, specials, & movies of One Piece, for instance. And apparently they charge a lot for them. However, he clearly misunderstood the person who told him this stuff, as he said that the license for 1 season of Sentai is exactly the same as the whole of One Piece. And he showed a screenshot of how many episodes One Piece had, which was over 1000. And this is where I have problems.

How can you try to make this argument, or say this without realizing it makes no sense from an economical or business standpoint? If Toei's charging the same price for the whole of One Piece as a season of Super Sentai, or they other way around, they're either charging way more for a season of Sentai than they should be, or severely undercutting themselves when licensing One Piece. Not to mention if you've been paying attention to how FUNimation has been slowly licensing One Piece over the years. If you have, it's very clear that Toei has been licensing One Piece episodes in batches to them. This coincides with how quickly they've been catching up to the Japanese broadcast, i.e. not at all. Now, FUNi's had the One Piece license ever since 2007 when 4Kids dropped the show from their line-up & they had the first 206 episodes to dub. Initially, they dubbed the episodes with their cast from where 4Kids left off with having their scripts & editing of the visuals to be more consistent with how they did them. However, when it was taken off TV, they went back to the beginning & dubbed the episodes uncut & with better scripts, fast-tracking the process so they could get them out on DVD as fast as possible. Then they took a few years off & then licensed more episodes & a few of the movies. It's clear that Toei licenses in batches & I suspect said "batches" are the story arcs. And FUNimation tended to license about 3-4 arcs (150-200 or so episodes on average) every 2-3 years after they get done dubbing & releasing their last batch. It's the same deal with Sentai, though I wish that they'd license the movies & specials of a particular series in a package with their seasons.

And, I have to wonder how much the licensing agreements are exactly. I personally don't think it's an impossible amount of money. They licensed 5 seasons in 1 year & paid for them to be subtitled, so they can't have been that much. Saban, Disney, & Hasbro also would've had to pay similar amounts of money to license the same shows over the years to adapt into Power Rangers.

Anyways, I don't think that it's really that bad. And, while the licensing costs are always a part, Brian Ward said years ago that the sets pay for themselves & as long as the sets continue to sell well, they'll license more, which they are. Soundout did acknowledge that in his video partly on Fiveman's announcement, but I don't think he knew that was always a part of the deal. This was said years ago. Clearly, the sets sell well & have picked up steam if they're continuing to release more. I also wish they'd put some of that money into licensing the various movies & specials, but if they do that in the near future, all will be good there. I also have a feeling that they're licensing Sentai in batches as well, as I don't think they'd be able to get these sets out this quickly unless they were. We'll also see how many they release next year. If they release the sets in 2-month increments like what's happening with Fiveman to Abaranger, we could potentially have 6 sets released next year. That'll be cool if so.

But yeah, sorry if it seemed like I was picking on Soundout a bit. I was just trying to provide good counterarguments to the points he made in his videos. I hope my theory on why the releases got delayed also makes sense.