Why Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger Still Works

Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger is an interesting Super Sentai season for me because it is technically a big milestone, but it does not always feel like one.

It is the 40th Super Sentai series, which sounds like it should be a massive celebration. You would expect huge callbacks, constant anniversary energy, and maybe something closer to what fans usually imagine when they hear “anniversary season.”

But from what I watched at the time, Zyuohger did not really feel like that kind of season.

And honestly, I do not think that is automatically a bad thing.

When I first wrote about this, I was about halfway into the show. I had also cheated a little by watching the team-up movies and the last two episodes, so I already knew how it ended. I was missing the middle, but I had seen enough to know one thing:

I liked Zyuohger.

It was silly in places, and it may not have screamed “40th anniversary” every episode, but it still had a lot of charm.

Zyuohger Did Not Need to Feel Huge

To be honest, Super Sentai seems to hit some kind of anniversary marker pretty often.

When a franchise has been around that long, every five years starts to feel like another reason to celebrate something. That can make the big milestone seasons feel less special if every few years has some anniversary flavor attached to it.

That is why I did not really need Zyuohger to be a giant anniversary event.

Yes, it is the 40th Super Sentai series. That matters. But the show did not need to stop every few minutes and remind me of that. Sometimes it is enough for a season to be fun, colorful, and confident in its own theme.

That is where Zyuohger worked for me.

It had its own identity. It was not trying to be every past Sentai season at once. It had animals, cubes, bright characters, and a theme song that really grew on me over time.

That theme song ended up becoming one of my favorite Super Sentai themes. It hit me more than I expected.

The Cube Mecha Caught My Attention

One of the things that stood out to me right away was the mecha.

The Zyuohger mecha are basically cubes.

On paper, that sounds almost too simple. But visually, they worked for me. They had this blocky, toy-like charm that made them easy to understand and fun to look at.

I liked them enough that I went ahead and ordered the Zord set from Amazon with plans to do an unboxing review when I got them.

They may just be cubes, but they looked cool to me.

That is something I think collectors understand. A toy does not always need to be the most complicated thing in the world to be appealing. Sometimes the gimmick is simple, but the design has enough personality to make you want it on the shelf.

Zyuohger Had Some Interesting Firsts

Even if Zyuohger did not always feel like a massive anniversary event, it still had some interesting things going for it.

Those details may not automatically make the season amazing, but they do give it a place in Super Sentai history.

That is why I think Zyuohger is more interesting than people sometimes give it credit for.

I Liked Zyuohger More Than Expected

From what I saw, I really liked Zyuohger.

I know it may not have been the most talked-about or most watched Sentai season, and from what I understood at the time, Super Sentai had been slowly losing some steam in Japan.

But I also think that is part of the challenge with a franchise that has been running for decades.

What do you do after 40 years?

At some point, it probably feels like they have done almost everything. Animals, cars, magic, dinosaurs, ninjas, space, samurai, trains, pirates, and everything in between. Unless they do a full reboot or take a break like Kamen Rider once did, I do not know what would make Super Sentai feel completely new again.

That does not mean Zyuohger is bad.

If anything, I think its strength is that it did not try too hard to reinvent everything. It had a clear theme and stuck with it.

I Wanted It to Become Power Rangers

One thing I remember thinking at the time was that I really wanted Zyuohger to become a Power Rangers season.

I know not every Sentai season gets adapted, and some skipped seasons feel like missed chances. But with Zyuohger, I thought there was enough there to make something fun for Power Rangers.

My biggest fear was that if it did get used, they would do something strange with it. I did not want them to pull a Super Megaforce situation and just force the suits into a different show in a way that did not really respect the source material.

At the time, all we could really do was wait and see how Saban would handle things.

That is always the strange part of being both a Super Sentai fan and a Power Rangers fan. You watch the Japanese season, then you start wondering if the American side will adapt it, skip it, or use pieces of it in a completely different way.

Why Zyuohger Still Works

The thing I appreciate about Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger is that it does not need to be the biggest or flashiest Super Sentai season to be enjoyable.

It has a simple animal theme. It has a unique mecha gimmick. It has a strong theme song. It has enough franchise history attached to it to matter, even if it does not constantly feel like an anniversary celebration.

Sometimes that is enough.

Not every Sentai season needs to be a giant event. Sometimes a season can just be colorful, fun, and memorable in its own way.

That is how Zyuohger felt to me.

Final Thoughts

Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger may not be the first season people bring up when talking about the best Super Sentai shows, but I think it still deserves respect.

It had a strong identity, a fun animal motif, cube mecha that stood out, and enough charm to keep me interested.

Maybe it did not feel like the huge 40th anniversary celebration some fans expected.

But maybe it did not need to.

For me, Zyuohger works because it keeps things simple and lets its own theme carry the season.