Fight Like A Girl

So I've been making my through Yasuko Kobayashi's toku catalog for a while now and, eight seasons in, I've noticed a weird pattern that I don't think I've really seen picked up on by other people. She always has a non-human sidekick character! Sometimes it's a coincidence like Shinkenger, where it would mostly be because of Bandai, or Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, where she was just adapting someone else's story, but then please explain the other six toku from her that I've seen!

First you have Gingaman, which has a giant talking tree and his acorn helper buddy. Very much not human. Then Timeranger has a sentient robot owl. Again, not human. Her most recent sentai, ToQGer had a sexy robot lady and a not-puppet. And, as mentioned above, you've also got the talking lantern from Shinkenger and Luna and Artemis from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. But these are just minor blips on the scale because then you have the Buddyroids from Go-busters, Ankh from Kamen Rider OOO, and the Imagin from Kamen Rider Den-O.

Now I still have yet to see Kamen Rider Ryuki and the Amazons reboot, but how is this so prominent that it's in literally every season of hers that I've watched, yet not super common in the grand scheme of these shows. I mean yeah, they're not uncommon either, but you can't look at the bigger examples and say that it's not a quirk of hers. Heck, the Imagin, Ankh and Ticket all deal with some sort of human possession angle!

Yeah, she has other quirks like "everyman protagonist", an age gap for the sixth Ranger/secondary Rider, and so forth, but neither of those are really prominent in every season. This non-human sidekick thing is in all of the 8/10 Yasuko Kobayashi toku that I've seen! Not that it's a bad thing, because it's not, but it's just weird that it's popped up in literally every season of hers that I've watched.

But lets go back to that age gap thing. I find that super fascinating as well. In Gingaman yes, the main team already had significant ages gaps with each other, but then we've got Hyuuga who comes in as Red's big brother who trumps all of them in age. Go-busters has Jin, who is technically the same age as the commander, despite appearing much younger. Akira is old enough to be the other ToQGer's dad! Then we've got Akira Date (heh, another Akira) from Kamen Rider OOO, who is older than Eiji, and Yuuto from Den-O who, despite appearing the same age as Ryoutarou, was much older when they first knew each other. And finally we get to Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, which goes the complete opposite direction, by having Sailor Luna be younger than Usagi and the other senshi!
The only time I've seen her write them as the same age is in Timeranger and Shinkenger when they were childhood friends with Red.

However, I can't mention Yasuko Kobayashi quirks without mentioning a thing I joked about on Tumblr. Small girls people hitting people with paper fans. In one of her first episodes, Kohana from Kamen Rider Den-O pulls one out of nowhere to smack Momotaros. Kaoru from Shinkenger has one to smack her retainer with. Sailor Luna has one as an actual weapon! And then there is that infamous love spell episode of Kamen Rider OOO where Gotou gets fed up and just pulls a giant paper fan out of nowhere to smack Eiji over the head with. But all of that is nothing compared to Kohana with the rocket launcher in the Climax Deka movie.