What if more Ninja Turtles existed among the four (now five)?

[ninja-zero]

If only there were more ninja turtles out there. How do you envision them? What renaissance & baroque artist names would you give them? Weapon & bandana signatures? What traits?

Even turtle types if ever.

• Leonardo (blue - katana (turtle type: Russian tortoise)
• Raphael (red - sai (turtle type: wood turtle)
• Donatello (purple/violet - bo staff (turtle type: Red Eared Slider)
• Michelangelo (orange - dual nunchaku (turtle type: sea turtle)
• Jennika (yellow - tekko-kagi (turtle type: Golden Thread Turtle)

Hope anything to make up for Venus de Milo.

How about...

• Filippo Brunelleschi
• Giorgio Vasari
• Sofonisba Anguissola
• Catharina van Hemessen
• Paolo Veronese

[Coprophagous Beauty]

Originally Posted by ninja-zero

• Leonardo (blue - katana (turtle type: Russian tortoise)
• Raphael (red - sai (turtle type: wood turtle)
• Donatello (purple/violet - bo staff (turtle type: Red Eared Slider)
• Michelangelo (orange - dual nunchaku (turtle type: sea turtle)
• Jennika (yellow - tekko-kagi (turtle type: Golden Thread Turtle)

What's the source for these types? Isn't everyone of the four turtles a red eared slider turtle? Wasn't Rise Of The TMNT the first, which changed that to Raph a snapping turtle, Mikey an ornate box turtle and Donnie a spiny softshell turtle?

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Coprophagous Beauty

What's the source for these types? Isn't everyone of the four turtles a red eared slider turtle? Wasn't Rise Of The TMNT the first, which changed that to Raph a snapping turtle, Mikey an ornate box turtle and Donnie a spiny softshell turtle?

IDK... Raph's been referred to a snapping turtle way before Rise.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by ninja-zero

If only there were more ninja turtles out there. How do you envision them? What renaissance & baroque artist names would you give them? Weapon & bandana signatures? What traits?

Even turtle types if ever.

• Leonardo (blue - katana (turtle type: Russian tortoise)
• Raphael (red - sai (turtle type: wood turtle)
• Donatello (purple/violet - bo staff (turtle type: Red Eared Slider)
• Michelangelo (orange - dual nunchaku (turtle type: sea turtle)
• Jennika (yellow - tekko-kagi (turtle type: Golden Thread Turtle)

Hope anything to make up for Venus de Milo.

How about...

• Filippo Brunelleschi
• Giorgio Vasari
• Sofonisba Anguissola
• Catharina van Hemessen
• Paolo Veronese

Of those names, I only like Catharina, since I guess they can call her Cat or Katie. IDK, maybe I'm just so used to the names by now but the 4 Turtle names just don't sound so Italian to me, especially since they have more 'American' nicknames like Leo, Mike, etc. Like Filippo and Giogio sound too 'on the nose'.

I guess it shows Eastman and Laird were very careful on what 4 names they wanted to use, even if it at the time it was meant to be a one shot comic 'for ***** and giggles'.

it woulda been kinda interesting if one of the turtles was originally named Filipo or someone and once it became a legit comic series his named was changed to Raphael for example cause it sounded better going forward. Just shows you those two got it right the first time.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

it woulda been kinda interesting if one of the turtles was originally named Filipo or someone and once it became a legit comic series his named was changed to Raphael for example cause it sounded better going forward. Just shows you those two got it right the first time.

Or the one that might have really happened with Donnie almost being a Bernie (Bernini) instead. (There's some political jokes we missed out on right now because they went with the name Donatello. lol)


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Anyway... I dunno, if you go too far with turtles and Italian names it would just get tiresome pretty quickly.

When you consider all the other mutant or humanoid turtles (and turtle-like aliens) who have shown up over the years both as supporting characters and those on the sidelines (such as all those from Kerma's world), there's already a decent amount.

Though I'm in support of keeping our TMNT as red eared sliders, or at the very least still all one of another species of turtle (not tortoises) that make sense to have been had as pets in the U.S. and ended up together. Adding snappers and sea turtles to the mix of a bit much of a stretch to me.

Raph's just a snapper on the inside. lol

[Coola Yagami]

I forgot who it was, but someone mentioned here that it woulda been impossibly for some pet store to have a snapping turtles among the other turtles or whatever cause he woulda killed the others way before they would have ever gotten mutated.


Also idk... I know Jennika has been around for a bit, but I really wouldn't call her the 5th Turtles unless she actually starts appearing in other forms of media, the next cartoon show, the sequel to a new movie series (part 1 would be too soon IMO) or something like that. If it becomes a thing where new versions add a female turtle and they continue to choose Jennika over Venus, we might have a thing there.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

I'm okay with a fifth Turtle, Venus or Jennika, just because there aren't a lot of female in TMNT and I do think inclusion is important. But that doesn't mean I think it's a concept that has been done well yet.

But keep it at that. Six if we count Slash, but he's not really a ninja turtle... just a rival mutant turtle.

No planet of the turtleoids or whatever.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

I'm okay with a fifth Turtle, Venus or Jennika, just because there aren't a lot of female in TMNT and I do think inclusion is important. But that doesn't mean I think it's a concept that has been done well yet.

But keep it at that. Six if we count Slash, but he's not really a ninja turtle... just a rival mutant turtle.

No planet of the turtleoids or whatever.

The legit Slash is supposed to be an evil Ninja Turtle, at least based on the action figure. They always end up screwing it up and turning him into an anti-hero and self-sacrifices in the end.

[IndigoErth]

Venus and Jennika are cool and all, but little Lita may end up with my vote for fave 5th (and girl) Turtle, being a more natural fit as a new generation to carry the torch if most likely adopted and raised by the TMNT.

[victory_angel]

In Asian cultures such as Japan and China the word for four is similar to the word for Death. So places don't include the number four because it's seen as bad luck.

That's also why in anime groups the main casts that only include four people the characters are often assassins, mercenaries, or deal with death in some fashion.

The Turtles in the Mirage comic were originally trained to be Splinter's army of death. In other incarnations, they save killing as a last resort preferring to let Karma too run its course instead.

[neatoman]

Making more than the core four is a stupid idea. Whole damn point is that they're unique freaks who need to hide or else they'll end up in a labratory, the more you have the harder it is to drive home that point. Having Bebop, Rocksteady and whatever other mutants Playmates have crapped out over the years diminishes the turtles as well, but god damn, at least a Warthog and a Rhino aren't more turtles. If you're gonna make a bunch of mutants like they're soda bottles in a coke brewery, can you please do more than just lazily copy the design of the main characters?

If you honestly think it's a good idea to make more turtles when you could literally make anything from sharktopus demon, to a cyborg slug-wolf, to an alien owl-squirrel, then what the hell is wrong with your imagination? Don't you have a single creative bone in your body or are you still on the "Sonichu" level?

[Leo656]

Four main characters is already kind of a lot to juggle. And they're already so very often watered down to their basic archetypes to the point of being practically one-dimensional, anyways. One of the main complaints of any TMNT adaptation is how hard it is to give everyone equal focus and how each of them ends up being there only to work their One Gimmick.

Why muddy the water any further? Why make the stories more cluttered, and give the writer(s) more work to do, when it's not at all necessary? There really is no upside to it.

The only people who would think it IS necessary, are people who think a story about four guys is by default an assault on females. "None of the Turtles has a vagina, this story is flawed until you fix this grievance." That's entirely it, that's the one and only reason a fifth turtle even comes up as a topic of conversation and that's very, very, very stupid.

And I understand that there HAVE been a lot of female TMNT fans over the years who felt like they couldn't fully get into the property because they felt like they weren't properly represented. And that's a total "Them" problem.

To be blunt, I've always agreed with Laird on this. "But WHAT IF........ there were FIVE of them...? EH? Ehhhhhh?" is just a really vapid and bankrupt idea with practically no upside whatsoever. If you can only enjoy a brand so long as at least one of the main cast has a uterus, maybe that brand isn't for you and maybe your priorities are shot. Something to think about.

But yeah, it's generally a dumb idea. I doubt anyone could ever sell me on it, to be quite honest. If there were supposed to be five, there would've been from the start. Same with three.

To be blunt, there probably only should've been two in the first place, and the whole entire thing would have much better flow. But I didn't book the thing. Four's plenty, and already pushing it. Five is a mess.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Four main characters is already kind of a lot to juggle. And they're already so very often watered down to their basic archetypes to the point of being practically one-dimensional, anyways. One of the main complaints of any TMNT adaptation is how hard it is to give everyone equal focus and how each of them ends up being there only to work their One Gimmick.

Four main characters is a lot, but only for people who don't story very well. Yes, I'm making it a verb. I write, so I can do that.

The point you make about the Turtles boiling down to their one-dimensional caricature is legitimate, but hardly the fault of the characters themselves.

Originally Posted by Leo656

The only people who would think it IS necessary, are people who think a story about four guys is by default an assault on females. "None of the Turtles has a vagina, this story is flawed until you fix this grievance." That's entirely it, that's the one and only reason a fifth turtle even comes up as a topic of conversation and that's very, very, very stupid.

And I understand that there HAVE been a lot of female TMNT fans over the years who felt like they couldn't fully get into the property because they felt like they weren't properly represented. And that's a total "Them" problem.

I don't have a problem with female (or other minority) characters being created long after a series or concept is first birthed, because far too many of these amazing IPs came about in a time of lesser diversity or lesser awareness.

That doesn't mean those IPs have to be shunned or burned. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they have be transformed for new audiences. But I'm okay with people trying to add new characters to those legacies.

I don't NEED a fifth Turtle. But I'm okay with it if done right, and I understand plenty of ladies being disgruntled about it. I remember a good friend of mine in childhood playing Leonardo, even though she was a girl. And when she got called out on it, she complained "April is boring, I don't want to play her."

It's understandable if girls like her want somebody they can identify with. But like my friend, plenty of girls will still like the property even without a female figure to identify with.

It's not a "we need this" or "we don't need this" scenario; it's a "can we do this, and can we do this WELL?" scenario.

Originally Posted by Leo656

To be blunt, there probably only should've been two in the first place, and the whole entire thing would have much better flow. But I didn't book the thing. Four's plenty, and already pushing it. Five is a mess.

I strongly, STRONGLY disagree.

There are five Power Rangers. I don't know a single fvcking one of them, because I was never a Power Rangers fan, but I'm sure Zarius and MikeandRaph and others can lecture us for hours on end about them.

And the First Class X-Men are Cyclops, Iceman, Jean Grey, Beast, and Angel. All well-defined characters. Or, to mix up the roster, Cyclops, Wolverine, Rogue, Jean Grey, and Storm. Or Nightcrawler, Rogue, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Kitty Pryde.

Five main characters CAN be done. The onus is on the creators to do it well.

[Leo656]

Well yeah but that's an awful lot of "Ifs" in that.

As if anyone is ever, has ever, or will ever put the work in to justify all of that with a TMNT story when they can't even be bothered to tell good stories with the characters and situations as they already exist.

When most TMNT stories already only center around Raph and Mikey because "The other two are boring", it's pretty clear that the writers aren't gonna put the work in. If they can't juggle four of them well, there's no reason to add a chainsaw and expect them to suddenly figure it out mid-catch.

You said it yourself; "GOOD writers" can make just about any idea work. But TMNT isn't high art and the brand hasn't exactly been known to have an all-star cast of scriptwriters throughout its history.

The only two guys who likely would have been able to justify a fifth Turtle were the same two guys who came up with the other four. THEY felt like it was more trouble than it's worth, and I defer to their wisdom on the subject.

Any story you could conceivably tell with the characters, outside of buying maxi pads, can just as well be told with the existing Core Four. No need to add anything to the mix when nothing of substance will be gained. And again, you can in theory merge Donnie and Leo into one character, and Mikey and Raph into another character, and guess what? It would all still work exactly the same, and maybe even better if we're being totally honest.

The blunt fact is, they're not well-written or well-defined characters NOW. And they very rarely even have been. Why pile on more one-dimensional archetypes just to check boxes? It's silly. You could have 80 Turtles if you wanted to and check every "inclusion" box under the sun in doing so; it wouldn't make things any BETTER. Just "busier".

I agree that in theory, a "good writer" can make almost any idea work, and also that ensemble casts are not impossible to manage. However - BIG however - one could debate at length as to whether a "good writer" has ever handled the brand's official works in the first place. And further, they've all historically struggled to make good use of the resources and characters they already have. When the best they can ever come up with to "add depth" to a character is to make one of the good guys join the Foot Clan, it tells me not to expect very much from their creativity, just as a general rule.

Your point is valid in theory. I just know what to expect from THIS franchise and I kinda can sense when something is gonna do more harm than good.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Well yeah but that's an awful lot of "Ifs" in that.

As if anyone is ever, has ever, or will ever put the work in to justify all of that with a TMNT story when they can't even be bothered to tell good stories with the characters and situations as they already exist.

When most TMNT stories already only center around Raph and Mikey because "The other two are boring", it's pretty clear that the writers aren't gonna put the work in. If they can't juggle four of them well, there's no reason to add a chainsaw and expect them to suddenly figure it out mid-catch.

You said it yourself; "GOOD writers" can make just about any idea work. But TMNT isn't high art and the brand hasn't exactly been known to have an all-star cast of scriptwriters throughout its history.

The only two guys who likely would have been able to justify a fifth Turtle were the same two guys who came up with the other four. THEY felt like it was more trouble than it's worth, and I defer to their wisdom on the subject.

Very fair points. I'm speaking to potential, and you're speaking to practicality. And unfortunately, you're right. We got Michael Bay, not Christopher Nolan.

Originally Posted by Leo656

Any story you could conceivably tell with the characters, outside of buying maxi pads, can just as well be told with the existing Core Four. No need to add anything to the mix when nothing of substance will be gained. And again, you can in theory merge Donnie and Leo into one character, and Mikey and Raph into another character, and guess what? It would all still work exactly the same, and maybe even better if we're being totally honest.

I disagree here. Two points.

One, at bare minimum, you have to have THREE Turtles. Leo, Raph, and one other caught in between, hating the fact that the other two are always arguing. That's a vital dynamic that's always been in TMNT.

And I hate you for making me even conceive of a universe with only three Ninja Turtles.

Two, a fifth female turtle shouldn't be there to only serve as the token female, so no tampon-related story lines.

It would hinge on what role in the family she serves, and what her personality and skillset are.

I think an older sister, kinda resentful of the younger boys, would be the way to go. Or maybe middle sister. But youngest baby sister would be too stereotypical, I think.

As for as personality, I like the punk rock idea for Jennika. It's probably the one thing about her as a Turtle I've enjoyed. (Typically, in my mind, that'd be Raph, but that's a different argument and mainly just my personal preference.)

Tech/introvert, honor/leader, angry/brawler, jokester/family peacemaker... those are the roles we've usually seen the four Turtles fall into.

Next Mutation did really well, I think, in the concept of Venus being magic/spiritual focused, not another warrior. Or a healer, a band of warriors needs that. Or a sniper/archer. Or we could follow Star Trek divisions and split Donatello's focus into separate roles for science and engineer.

There are possibilities.

[neatoman]

Power Rangers (or let's just be honest here, Super Sentai and it's alternate edition Power Rangers) is a weird comparison to make. Yeah, there's five... Usually... At the start. They make a new show every single year with a new set of characters and any continuity is virtually nothing more than lipservice. All those really have in common are:

1. Color Coded spandex suits with motorcycle helmets.
2. Giant combining robots that fight a monster when it turns into a giant.
3. Red Guy is always leader.

Beyond that anything else is fair game. The number of team members varies from three to something closer to ten, bad guys are anything from robots to demons to aliens, the team's gimmick can be virtually anything from pirates to wizards, etc, etc, etc. Lupinranger vs Patranger is literally about two different teams with opposing gimmicks being rivals.

Try to imagine this, you know how Sony will do just about anything to keep the Spider-Man license? Well imagine if they decided to make a Spider-Man TV-show last as long as possible by making each season it's own thing with the Spider-Man name attached, then you get seasons labelled something like this:

1. Spider-Man. Peter Parker gets radioactive spider bite and fights Oscorp.
2. Spider-Man Cyber. Ben Johnson gets spider-like powers through cybernetic implants and fights the evils of Spencer Smythe.
3. Spider-Man Spectre. James Lee is possessed by a Spider-God and fights Morlun.
4. Spider-Man Far-out. Edward Kasidy gets spider-like powers and fights Knull.
5. Spider-Man Smokemirror. Mike Hartman gets tech that mimics spider-like powers and he fights Mysterio.

And so on and so forth until the gimmicks get silly and it'll still go on. The point is that nobody really cares about the actual characters in the long term when it comes to the Sentai/Kamen Rider/Ultraman formula, because they're not designed to last more than a year. What matters is coming up with new creative takes on the formula.

Of course, that's not what Spider-Man or TMNT really is (in general at least). Introducing another Spider-Man to run around that isn't Peter Parker while Peter Parker is still around (ahem) is weird, and it's kind of worse with TMNT because you already have four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's creatively bankrupt.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Spoiler:

Power Rangers (or let's just be honest here, Super Sentai and it's alternate edition Power Rangers) is a weird comparison to make. Yeah, there's five... Usually... At the start. They make a new show every single year with a new set of characters and any continuity is virtually nothing more than lipservice. All those really have in common are:

1. Color Coded spandex suits with motorcycle helmets.
2. Giant combining robots that fight a monster when it turns into a giant.
3. Red Guy is always leader.

Beyond that anything else is fair game. The number of team members varies from three to something closer to ten, bad guys are anything from robots to demons to aliens, the team's gimmick can be virtually anything from pirates to wizards, etc, etc, etc. Lupinranger vs Patranger is literally about two different teams with opposing gimmicks being rivals.

Try to imagine this, you know how Sony will do just about anything to keep the Spider-Man license? Well imagine if they decided to make a Spider-Man TV-show last as long as possible by making each season it's own thing with the Spider-Man name attached, then you get seasons labelled something like this:

1. Spider-Man. Peter Parker gets radioactive spider bite and fights Oscorp.
2. Spider-Man Cyber. Ben Johnson gets spider-like powers through cybernetic implants and fights the evils of Spencer Smythe.
3. Spider-Man Spectre. James Lee is possessed by a Spider-God and fights Morlun.
4. Spider-Man Far-out. Edward Kasidy gets spider-like powers and fights Knull.
5. Spider-Man Smokemirror. Mike Hartman gets tech that mimics spider-like powers and he fights Mysterio.

And so on and so forth until the gimmicks get silly and it'll still go on. The point is that nobody really cares about the actual characters in the long term when it comes to the Sentai/Kamen Rider/Ultraman formula, because they're not designed to last more than a year. What matters is coming up with new creative takes on the formula.

Of course, that's not what Spider-Man or TMNT really is (in general at least). Introducing another Spider-Man to run around that isn't Peter Parker while Peter Parker is still around (ahem) is weird, and it's kind of worse with TMNT because you already have four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's creatively bankrupt.

Until this moment, my sum knowledge of Power Rangers was thusly:

Red, Black, Blue, Yellow, Pink. Also sometimes White and Green, for whatever reason. Three dudes, two chicks.

THAT WAS IT.

And now I know way more than I ever wanted to know.

But do the actual characters behind the rainbow motorcycle helmets not stay consistent between seasons? Or their backstory / personality?

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

Until this moment, my sum knowledge of Power Rangers was thusly:

Red, Black, Blue, Yellow, Pink. Also sometimes White and Green, for whatever reason. Three dudes, two chicks.

THAT WAS IT.

And now I know way more than I ever wanted to know.

But do the actual characters behind the rainbow motorcycle helmets not stay consistent between seasons? Or their backstory / personality?

Power Rangers, like I mentioned, is little more than Super Sentai disguised as American show through reshoots (mostly made in New Zealand with a New Zealand crew). While it is true that the first three seasons of Power Rangers went out of their way to make it seem like as little as possible changed, even down to the suits, this quickly became impractical as it cost too much to edit it this way. The fourth through sixth season tries to keep the character consistant while changing the costumes every year to fit the fight scenes, which also proved impractical because it became increasingly more obvious that the scenes were taken from different shows, actors kept leaving and certain plot points just ended up being dropped as a result of these factors. After that... Well, after that they just did what Sentai did, which is what Power Rangers is so dependant on mind you, and just made a bunch of mostly unrelated shows with new gimmicks.

As for Sentai, the first one lasted almost two years but since then it's just been different yearly shows that are just tied to the same formula. And keep in mind, it's been going for almost 50 years now. Characters do come back for crossovers but it's less like a shared universe thing like with Marvel, it's more of a special celebration thing, like "Let's have the last year's team fight the current year's team" or "It's been 10 years since this show, let's do a reunion special" or "To celebrate the third time we reused the Ninja gimmick, let's make special where all three Ninja teams meet". Any continuity isn't really meant to be taken seriously.

See also Kamen Rider and Ultraman. When the show is over, it's more or less over so the new story and characters can take over until they're replaced as well. It's a very different concept than TMNT or almost any American longrunner.

PS: Just to clarify, new set of characters every single year, there is nothing that carries over like that. Not always in Power Rangers but mostly and in Sentai that always the case.

[Leo656]

By default, any fifth Turtle would come in standing on a platform of "Token Female" because any potential "fifth turtle" would "have to be" female on account of the invisible and arbitrary "rules system" which governs these things nowadays. The conversation maybe doesn't END with, "We need a Ninja Turtle with a vagina", but you better believe that's what STARTS the conversation. And deciding that you have to make up a new character to check off a box is always getting off to a bad start. Because now you're not making story decisions, you're making political ones. You're not writing to the service of the story, you're writing to appease the gods of Wokeness and Inclusion.

Otherwise, "Should there be a Fifth Turtle" need not even be a conversation. No, there doesn't need to be one. It's that simple. "BUT they're all dude's though! That ain't right!" And NOW we're forced to have a conversation that isn't gonna end well and shouldn't even be a thing, because someone feels "left out".

You can maybe create a fifth Turtle who's also MORE than "just the token female". But "The Token Female" is still what she'd always be by default, because "She DOES Have To Be Female, though". She just MIGHT also be other things, too.

It's just not a very creative idea and it doesn't do much to justify itself. "Some little girls like TMNT, but are sad that they're all boys." I care SO MUCH what little girls think, man. In a vacuum, those aren't great reasons to enact sweeping changes to a longstanding and established mythos. In fact, when you start writing to entice more female fans, and in turn you end up with stuff like "Mutant Town"... well, I start to forget why "gatekeeping" is such a bad thing.

It really just doesn't even need to come up. Like, to what point and what purpose? In-Story, I mean. I know the "Real Life" reasons and I completely don't care. IN-STORY, why should things be any more of a cluttered mess than they have to be? WHY even entertain the notion of five or more when writers can barely make four of them compelling? It just seems like a complete waste of time, done only to check a box.
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Why couldn't Splinter hypothetically be the "one in the middle" between Leo and Raph, if Leo and Raph were the only two who existed? "You both better learn to co-exist and figure sh*t out because I'm gonna be dead one day." Simple. He'd serve the same basic function as, say, Mikey or Don in trying to be the intermediary, except that in this case Leo or Raph would have a reason to listen, whereas with Mikey or Don saying it, they don't.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that there's four Turtles, but if we're being totally honest you can easily cut the roster in half by grafting a few traits onto This One and That One, and you can still do every story almost the exact same way. I say this because again, MOST of the time each of the four Turtles only exists in the story to play into their One Defined Trait; given that sad but inarguable fact, you technically DON'T even need four of them. You can make the Leader Guy ALSO be a Tech Wizard, and have the Angry One ALSO be juvenile and quippy, and guess what? You haven't actually changed a thing. In fact, I've always joked that if you combine all four Turtles singular traits into one character, you're left with One Whole Well-Rounded Character rather than four one-note cartoons.

Man, given how quickly each of the Core Four already fall into being written as archetypes, I wouldn't even wanna think about what personality trait would become #5's entire gimmick. Being unbearably Emo, maybe? I mean c'mon, we've already got "Hyper-Serious", "Hyper-Angry", "Hyper-Goofy" and "Hyper-Brainy". What's LEFT for ol' #5? "Hi, I'm ____, I'm the Ninja Turtle who shops at Hot Topic and cuts myself." I mean, you HAVE to give them One Singular Defining Trait before you can even get 'em off the ground, and all the GOOD ones are taken already!

I don't know. I feel like the more hoops one has to jump through in order to justify an idea.... maybe the idea simply isn't very strong. "Turtle #5" requires an entire circus tent full of hoops.

[Coola Yagami]

In other words, the Super Sentai kids barely had any personalities (I assume other than being do-gooders with a strong sense of justice) because they were just gonna change em the following year anyway? Wow.