Lupinranger vs Patranger Episode 1

The past week has been absolutely nuts. In my own life I've been working on establishing a working relationship with another website, should be able to share that by our next post. Beyond that I'm looking into returning to school later this year. In entertainment we got a massive and damn fine film with Black Panther, plus all the happenings at the Olympics. In society we have yet another violent tragedy, Russian spies, and continuing political ineptitude. As a creature of comfort, such times of high activity give me a hankering for small comfort viewing. Last year a prime source of blissful entertainment failed to hold up its' end of the bargain as the lousy Kyuranger mucked up the Super Sentai franchise. Thankfully it's a new year, bringing us a new series to potentially serve as a blanket when the world shifts into overdrive. Question is, were we lucky enough to receive a good Sentai? Time to find out if Lupinranger vs Patranger will be our new Saturday night thing, or just another lackluster superhero show.

In a nice twist for the franchise this newest series follows two different teams in conflict with each other as well as evil monsters. Here's a rough gist. Ganglers are an interdimensional crime organization. Recently they stole a collection of mystical objects belonging to the legendary thief Arsene Lupin. The one-thousand year old boss of this criminal underworld is getting bored with the job which gives him an idea to spice things up. Any Gangler who can successfully take over over the human world will become the new head-honcho.

Directly opposing these dimension hopping ghouls are the Lupinrangers. The trio lead a dual life, operating a bakery in their civilian guise, and retaking the Lupin collection from the Ganglers in their ranger forms. They were entrusted this task by the Lupin family butler whose master has made a deal with our heroes.

Meanwhile a small squad of police officers seek to stop the Ganglers and prevent the Lupin collection from falling into the hands of criminals. Initially these three crime fighters lack for superpowers until some unknown element provides them with the same transformation tech used by the thieves. That is how Patranger comes forth to destroy the Ganglers and apprehend Lupinranger.

I have to give a ton of props to this first episode. First it had the sense to not waste time on the opening and ending credits. Secondly no effort was made to introduce the giant robots. These omissions gave ample time to really get the story moving, a massive difference from many premiers which devote themselves to gimmicks rather than story.

There is a lot more focus on the thieves in this episode but thanks again to proper time management, we get a fairly decent grasp of the personalities that make up these two teams. Lupinranger has the stylish and earnest red ranger, cold and calculating blue, and ditsy girly girl yellow. Patranger has a sort of big sister pink, goofy slacker green, and my favorite so far the over serious blowhard red. One team feels like they belong to a more serious show while the other is more comical. This could either either make the series feel very manic depressive or give it the perfect balance, only time will tell.

As if there wasn’t enough to compliment, this first outing managed to injected a few mysteries into the overall plot as well. Once again this is largely on the Lupinranger side of the equation where we have no idea who the last surviving Lupin family member is or what their plans may be for this collection of rare oddities. Then there's the deal our three thieves have made. According to early report on the series, each of these characters has lost someone they loved so it stands to reason that one of these objects may be able to resurrect the dead or even turn back time. There’s also the mystery of the transformation technology. Where does it come from? What powers it? Is someone using it to play multiple sides off each other?

A few thematic elements were brought up as well. One of major note is how each Gangler has a safe built into their body, which they use to keep each treasure secure. Not only does this cover for the heroes not instantly destroying every foe they come across, but I see it being used as a metaphor down the line. Also, I forgot to mention the Lupinranger mission statement of how they'll put their lives on the line, to the extent that they won't try to rescue each other from dangerous situations. They've made a pact to complete their deal with the Lupin family at any cost. Not only is this an interesting change of pace from most Sentai but it paves the way for a time when one of them will have to choose between the mission and comrades.

Pretty amazing to think I've gotten this far writing about an episode without mentioning the action, thankfully that portion of the show is up to snuff though I do have one concern. So far the choreography, production, and filming of the fight scenes is very nice but it gets a little over the top in regards to camera and editing tricks. It’s not a major issue, just something that could get a little annoying if not managed properly. On the plus side, the baddies prove themselves to be serious threats. Usually the first few episodes of a series offer little in the way of danger yet here we have a basic monster of the week poised to murder some heroes

As it stands this is might be the most solid opening to any Sentai I've seen. The show could go in a lot of directions from here and possibly waste such potential. Based on what we have so far though, it is a massive improvement over Kyuranger, maybe even better than Zyuohger. I'm telling you all we may be in for a real treat here.

That's all for tonight, yall. Like I said earlier, it's been a busy week which means it's time for a little relaxation before returning to studying college courses. Other than the usual updates around here, it looks like I'll have some other content out on Horror News Net within the week. Stay tuned.