Re Digimon: Ooh, yeah, that's another one where you could feel the passage of time in those first two seasons and their accompanying films. Even in Tamers, the use of adult characters gives the series this feeling of not really speaking down to the child audience but rather inviting them into the world of adults, which makes said child audience feel like they themselves are growing up.
Kid Buu wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 10:21 am
JulieYBM wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 10:12 am
EDIT: Fuck, beaten to the PR annecdote lol
Sorry.
Interestingly we had similar experiences. I'm definitely to use the term "Baby's First On-going Serial" in the future.
Season 3 was my favourite too. It constantly felt like the villains were 1-upping the Rangers. Lord Zedd appearing in the command centre blew my mind back then.
Ooh, yeah, I'm not that much older than you, although I'm in the States, so I don't know how that factors into things. I remember the Power Rangers mania and even seeing the first film when it came out in the summer of 1995.
But yeah! That third season was mind-blowing at the time. Things were changing within the status quo in a way that felt more significant than in the previous two seasons, despite the addition of a Sixth Ranger or the loss of replacement of three Rangers. I think the sort of arc-based, character-based phasing in-and-out of Kimberly probably played a role in that, but also seeing the original Zords destroyed at the beginning of the season and then the original Command Center at the end of the season really added to the "growing up means things change and go away and you need to deal with that" of it all.
The one-upping of it all also really hit. I think the arc-based nature of the season—especially Master Vile's victories over the Rangers—kind of puts the young viewer through 'limitations', which teaches them to appreciate pay-off. Executives just want to give kids what kids want immediately for the sake of their profits, but storytellers know that you need to pull back on that and make the kids 'work' for it by putting them through trials with the protagonists. As a writer myself, I've actually found that this same idea applies to adults, too lol. That 'challenge' of conflict is what makes the experience worth it.
I've been dicking around a bit and rewatching older episodes on YouTube—since they're officially available for free there in the US—and it's been fascinating going through them and telling which scenes were shot under Koichi Sakamoto as the 2nd Unit Director. Sakamoto didn't start directing episodes himself until around Zeo but he was still shooting the 2nd unit stuff and you can absolutely see his mature repertoire of directing techniques because of how much those scenes stick out from the rest of the episode's American footage. Once he took over shooting and choreographing the fights in Season 2 you can really see a major improvement in their speed and the density of the movement. The fight in Return of the Green Ranger Part 1—an episode partially shot in Australia!—has really nice choreography, especially from Frank and Bosch's shots—but what really stuck out to me was the confidence in how the camera moved to capture those shots. You can really see how even in the 1995 Sakamoto was shaping up into the powerhouse director he is today.
Kenji wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 10:30 am
In my case, we already had serial shows before.
Soap operas and Tokusatsu were a thing before Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon and Saint Seiya aired here before Dragon Ball, the classic version of Dragon Ball aired for its first 60 episodes, so I didn't feel a strong connection to DBZ, at least not the "Baby's first serialized" way. I only got to watch the thing on my late 20's in which my impressions about the writing were not all that positive.
Maybe this sounds like I'm dismissive, but yeah. Dragon Ball isn't made for us adults, of course we can see the flaws in its writing, especially if we're only really getting around to reading and watching it in our late twenties lol.
She/Her 
