Strictly Formula / Super Sentai

Following

Not just individual episodes, but the series themselves.

• Around episode 10, there will be an unbeatable Monster of the Week necessitating a new Humongous Mecha combination.
• The Sixth Ranger appears around Episode 17^note Changed around in Dekaranger, as Doggie first transforms into Dekamaster in Episode 12 (thus giving the team their first Sixth Ranger), but the official Sixth Ranger of the team is Tetsu, who joins in the arc between episodes 21 and 23. Also changed around in Kyoryuger, with the Sixth Ranger, Kyoryu Gold appearing in Episode 10, while in Episode Six, they get a Guest-Star Party Member in the form of Kyoryu Cyan. Ninninger and Zenkaiger both beat most series at their time of intoduction, as their respective Sixth Rangers debut in their 8th episodes..
• Roughly Episode 20 will involve the villains having another extra strong Monster of the Week, which will require the heroes to get another Humongous Mecha in order to defeat it.
• The vicinity of Episode 30 will get the villains the ability to create stronger Monsters of the Week. Some seasons simply have them get stronger, while others will introduce a brand new type of monster that either replaces the previous kind or only shows up for specific episodes.
• Anywhere from Episode 42-47, the villains get their own Humongous Mecha that's every bit as strong as the heroes'. In some cases, this is the last battle. The series from Zenkaiger onwards subvert this, as all of them introduce recurring evil Mecha that are Palette Swaps of the heroes' main Robo, and debut much earlier in the series.
• In the final 3 episodes the team's base (if they have one) will be destroyed (though their tech crew and mentor will be able to escape in time) and they will lose the ability to transform until the very final battle.
• Also the team almost always use the same equipment year after year with different names and slightly different looks and design. (All members carry a sidearm that can transform into a melee weapon. All members have personal weapons, Red almost always has a sword, and the others vary but usually at least one member has a stronger ranged weapon and another has a spear and one member will have a very weird weapons like a flute or fan or something. The team always has a big cannon to finish off the monster off on the ground. The trademark Humongous Mecha always has a sword to finish off monsters, but Mid Season upgrades and combinations of the two will focus on firepower instead.
  • A few series have deviated from this:
    • Magiranger had staffs that transformed for the male members into personal weapons,
    • Gekiranger had two personal weapons for each of the core 3 members.
    • Gokaiger had the rangers have identical swords and guns.
    • Go-Busters did the same as Gokaiger for the core 3.
    • Lupinranger VS Patranger has both teams with the same gun, the VS Changer, which is also their transformation device (Though how they use it varies). Each team then has their own sidearms: The Lupinrangers have a sword that has a grabber claw on the reverse end, while the Patarangers have a combination megaphone and police baton. X, being a Sixth Ranger to both teams, has totally unique equipment.
• Also, fights follow similar formulae year after year. Monster attacks civilians. Team has initial face-off against the monster, in which it uses its gimmick against the team, which disables all members except the character getting focus that week, and they need to retreat. Focus character researches weakness/gets confidence back/does some other Character Development thing. Round two, focus character beats up the monster and frees the other members. The use the team attack to knock the monster out. Make My Monster Grow. Mecha battle. Scene with group at the end.
• Certain plots will happen nearly once per series
  • A character dresses as a bride, almost gets married, or two characters go undercover as a couple getting married. Commonly due to a Monster of the Week attacking brides.
  • Two of the members will be forced into one body and unable to transform.
  • The villains will create duplicates of the heroes and fool civilians.
  • The heroes will be Brought Down to Normal and have to fight without transforming until they can regain their transformation ability somehow (tends to happen near the end). A related plot from Showa-era series sees the Red Ranger forced to make a solo run while hunted by the villains, often without transforming, to deliver some crucially needed MacGuffin (usually blood for a surgery).
  • One of the heroes will become a Fake Defector, usually to save one of the others.
  • The two female heroes will get into a Cat Fight with each other, about factors unrelated to saving the world.
  • The Lancer will try saving the day on his own and have to learn the meaning of teamwork.
  • A Monster of the Week will pose as a human and fool one of the heroes into falling in love with them. The monster may or may not become the mask.
  • One hero (usually but not always male, but almost never the Red) will encounter and fall in love with a mysterious person, who by the end of the episode turns out not to be human and either leaves the show or dies. If it's the latter, cue a cry of This Is Unforgivable! at whatever bad guy killed her (or him, if the episode's hero is female) followed by a cathartic Curb-Stomp Battle. Sometimes overlaps with the above plot, sometimes not. Usually written by Naruhisa Arakawa, who has written episodes of nearly every Super Sentai since 1991 and likes to write this plot into nearly every series he writes for, though as a Sentai stock plot it predates him.
  • The heroes may find and befriend a Monster of the Week who doesn't want to harm anybody. They are usually forced to destroy the monster at the end of the episode. It also usually ends up being a Tear Jerker for the heroes and the viewers. However, it may also be a Crowning Episode of Funny and, in this case, the monster will end the episode alive.
  • The heroes fight off Mooks unmorphed while dressed up as medieval samurai. Or cowboys. For the latter's case, this always happen: Most rangers are owning the mooks, but the token cool guy will nearly blast themselves by accident for comic relief. The women of the group will knock down the Mooks using a cute wink (This trend started in Denshi Sentai Denziman, especially the 'wink knockdown'. The comic relief by the cool guy started out by Dai Sentai Goggle Five, and it keeps getting better and better, especially in Dengeki Sentai Changeman. You'll more often see this in earlier Sentai, though, the last time used being in Timeranger vs GoGoV). Sometimes but not always part of an episode where the Monster of the Week can trap the heroes in movies or books.
  • One Monster of the Week will have an ability to brainwash one of the heroes and make them attack the team. The usual victim is those saddled with the color Blue.
  • A Beach Episode (not counting episodes where the battle just happens to take place on a shoreline).
  • The characters prepare for some sort of festival or event (usually New Year, Tanabata or a summer festival), requiring them to dress in gorgeous traditional clothing
  • The characters are forced to go to Kyoto^note Earlier in the franchise the vacation arcs tended to visit more diverse locales around Japan. and/or go back in time to Edo-era Kyoto, complete with gratuitous Scenery Porn. This one has a funny subversion in Dekaranger, where the characters voluntarily pretend they are in Edo-era Kyoto to calm an alien (not an Alienizer) who had a brief freak-out with modern-day Kyoto.
  • The Christmas episodes mentioned in An Ass-Kicking Christmas don't need to happen (Shinkenger didn't necessarily have one - the plot is occupied by the final battle against Akumaro instead - but it was shown that they celebrate Christmas there), but the New Year episodes do (New Year's Day in Japan has a higher cultural significance than Christmas).
  • One of the rangers meets up with an old scientist friend who has made a deal with the villains or has otherwise lost their way while trying to advance their research. Through The Power of Friendship, the focus ranger helps their friend see the error of their ways (often by reminding them of why they pursued a career in science in the first place) and inspires them to redeem themselves. A variant of this episode sees the friend (usually not a scientist and almost always a friend of the Red Ranger) seeming to be working with the villains but actually feeding them false information or trying to get close to the Big Bad to take them out.
  • A monster who turns people into inanimate objects, usually dolls.
  • A body swap episode, often complete with a Man, I Feel Like a Woman moment.
  • An Amusement Park episode.
  • An episode in which a parent or grandparent visits and tries to set up an arranged marriage with one of the rangers. Usually, but not always, it will be one of the girls, and in that case the male rangers inevitably pose as suitors to sabotage the interview.
  • An episode with a Monster of the Week who challenges a Ranger to honorable combat, and always ends up cheating.
  • An episode where a Ranger must help a wimpy/bratty/spoiled/bullied child to become strong. Endemic in the older shows, and still shows up at least twice a season in the newer.
  • A monster who traps people in a dimensional labyrinth.
  • The Sixth Ranger is introduced, only to either leave the team at the end of the episode or have his powers confiscated by the Red or the mentor. In the next episode, the Sixth resolves his differences with the rest of the team and joins permanently.
  • Following the introduction of the Sixth Ranger will be a series of episodes focusing on them along with the various members of the core team in turn.
  • One of the villains will take a special interest in the powers of a certain monster. They'll often save the monster from being destroyed by the rangers, and then use its abilities in a much deadlier way than before.
  • An episode where one of the female rangers (almost always Pink) foils the monster by donning a succession of different disguises, many of which conveniently include short skirts..
  • An episode in which a ranger has to get a job, and then uses the skills and strengths the job teaches them to defeat the monster.
  • There will be a Recap Episode explaining everything that has happened so far. This will be late in the series, and often a New Year's Day themed episode at the same time.
  • An episode where the monster incapacitates the male rangers, leaving it up to Pink and Yellow to save the day.
  • A shapeshifting monster that leads to a game of Spot the Imposter.
  • A monster with the ability to revive previously defeated monsters.
  • A gluttonous monster with a bottomless stomach out to consume the world's food supplies. It will usually swallow up a weapon, morpher, or even one or more of the heroes themselves, leaving the team at a disadvantage until they can get it back. A variation on this plot is for the monster to simply eat everything in sight and convert it into power.
  • An episode in which two rangers having a quarrel must put it aside and save the rest of the team.
  • The villains use a Monster of the Week that can easily analyze, copy, and neutralize all of the Rangers powers, weapons, and/or mecha. Conveniently, this is usually when a new ranger appears or they get a new weapon or mecha. If not, then the Rangers resort to tricking the monster by using each others' weapons.
  • One of the mecha (often one of the most powerful ones) being considered somehow wild, and needing to be tamed by the Red or the team as a whole before it can be used. The villains will attempt to either destroy it or attempt to take control of it, often using an animal tamer themed Monster of the Week.
  • A movie or special in which the members of the team are thrown into various alternate-universe scenarios, usually based on movie genres.
  • If the team doesn't have an explicitly-defined leader among the core members, there will be an episode in which they wonder if they need one and who it should be. Usually, after giving some amount of consideration to giving the role to Red as is typical, they end up deciding they don't need a leader after all.
  • One last wacky, light-hearted episode before the final arc. It will often be a Christmas Episode.
  • One of the rangers has a date or some other important social event just as a monster attacks. Often, the other rangers will try to defeat the monster themselves, but it will be one that they can't beat without the missing ranger's skill/power/weapon.
  • A situation forces some main characters to be Disguised in Drag (usually at least one male character), sometimes leading to Attractive Bent-Gender/Wholesome Crossdresser moments.
  • A monster with an impenetrable shield, forcing the rangers to get a new finishing attack and/or mecha configuration.
• As for the series themselves, starting with Hurricaneger a 5 year pattern seems to have developed:
  • Year 1: Experimentation (Hurricaneger, Gekiranger, Go-Busters, Kyuranger, Donbrothers). Attempts to play with and deconstruct the Super Sentai formulae are tried and tested, like rival teams or Darker and Edgier takes. Also, it follows the Three Plus Two team scheme (though Kyuranger has broken this) and always introduces new colors to the core team.
  • Year 2: Wacky Stuff (Abaranger, Go-Onger, Kyoryuger, Lupinranger VS Patranger, King-Ohger). A still-moderate "return to form" that plays up all of Sentai's classic corniness by adding even more corniness on top of it, such as a Big "WHAT?!" scene. Included are cartoony elements like the Roger Rabbit Effect or CGI used for Toon Physics. Lupinranger VS Patranger, while still retaining some of these tropes, subverted this trend over time with its dark tone and environment while King-Ohger tended to retain a more serious tone even as it returned to more conventional series dynamics.
  • Year 3: Action (Dekaranger, Shinkenger, ToQger, Ryusoulger, Boonboomger). Now fully back in track with the Strictly Formula for the next three years, it instead puts focus on a "cool" motif that's associated with battle by default, which reflects in the improved combat choreography that gives this series an intense action feel. ToQger seems to have broken this however. Though, if one were to count ToQger's Powers as Programs as being associated with action, it could be counted under this.
  • Year 4: Fantasy (Magiranger, Goseiger, Ninninger, Kiramager). Where the previous series put focus in action, this one puts focus in mystical powers and abilities. Expect Elemental Powers and less Testosterone Poisoning than usual. Seasons in this pattern usually tend to be Lighter and Softer, involve demons at some point in their story, have one villain that was previously on the heroic side before their betrayal, and have some form of magic utilized.
  • Year 5: Anniversary (Boukenger, Gokaiger, Zyuohger, Zenkaiger). The apparently mandatory Homage series that Toei seems to have decided to hold on every fifth year, it features collection elements and Mythology Gags by the bushel, subtlety may vary. The pattern was broken when Gozyuger, the 50th anniversary series, started airing four years after Zenkaiger.
• Although not an anniversary series in the traditional sense, Kyoryuger contains a lot of Mythology Gags in the show that it teeters on borderline. Similarly, Kyuranger has so far been heavier in the number of Mythology Gags than it's predecessor, Zyuohger.
• Gaoranger was a precursor to this type of series; however, its more blatant Mythology Gags were cut during production and ended up as All There in the Manual elements.
• Of course, with a Long Runner such as this series, expect Subversions to occur from time to time.