It seems like an eternity since we last
talked about Super Sentai. I had hopped to fit a recap right in the
center of Halloween season but obviously that didn’t happen. For
those of you who’ve been waiting so patiently, you’ll be happy to
know catching up a priority one for the month.
When we left off, the show had been in
something of a holding pattern of stand-alone adventures with further
hints towards the larger narrative. In a fair shift from that
previous batch these next adventures involve a lot of Patranger
antics, some nice developments, though a few issues still plague the
overall narrative. One element that has undergone profound
improvement is the character of Noel. He's officially ditched a large
portion of his more annoying antics and become a more shrewd and
interesting fellow with the actor giving a better performance
all-around.
Episode 30 returns us to the rivalry
between our pair of red rangers when Keichiro goes on vacation. If
that last part sounds completely out of character, you're right. The
police have a special mission in mind and don't trust Noel with the
truth leading him to send Kairi on pretend vacation to keep an eye on
the situation.
Upon reaching their destination, Kairi
“bumps into” his target and weasels his way into a day of
activities. Intitally the boys actually have some fun with fair games
and lunch. That is until they come across a lost little girl who is
also missing her favorite charm. After taking her to the nearest
police station each goes in search of the lost charm. Kairi happens
upon a stall selling the exact same item which he buys as a
replacement. Before he can deliver this gift, Keichiro runs past with
the real deal in hand. This brings up memories of Kairi’s brother
along with a lot of emotional hang-ups and self-loathing.
Kei does his best to cheer up his
vacation buddy before having to leave on business matters. The reason
he came out here was to work out a deal with the same shady antique
sellers from episode 26. When they try to hustle him he turns into a
total boss and kicks their asses in order to get the newest treasure,
which Kairi then sweeps in to steal.
Back in Tokyo, the remaining rangers
are dealing with a monster that sprays clouds of stink gas which is
mostly played for laughs until the gas is revealed to be flammable.
This emergency cause Kei to give the red thief this new fire-truck
robot and commands him to run off and stop the Gangler. When all is
said and done another crisis has been averted while Kairi deals with
the complicated relationship with his rival.
This was a decent episode that
suffered from a tone that was all over the map. One minute it’s
maudlin, while the next is packed with what are essentially fart
jokes. Refining the script to stick more with the two red rangers
would have helped drastically.
Next we switch focus to Tsukasa in
what is easily her highlight for the series thus far. It's a pretty
classic trope for the franchise, a monster turns himself in for
protective custody claiming knowledge of Gauche's experiments. Many
stories of potentially good monsters have been told over the years
usually with one of two outcomes. One is they truly are good and
prove themselves by fighting their own kind, or they're manipulating
the heroes trusting nature.
As this Gangler stays in protective
custody, Tsukasa continues to bond with him. Noel clearly has
suspicions about the critter yet he refuses to share his theories
with his pink-clad partner. Given her lack of trust towards the
fair-weather cop, the pair continue to clash on the issue as she
grows closer to the monster despite Noel’s warnings not to.
Noel makes it so the Gangler will be
transported to France, which bothers Tsukasa greatly. During the
transport the group are attacked by Gauche’s minions and split in
multiple directions. Yoshi, the good Gangler decides to give his
treasure to Tsukasa only to immedietely suffer from a total change in
personality. Part of the experiment being proformed on Yoshi involved
this treasure’s ability to reverse good and bad nature. The only
reason he was so nice is because he’s actually a total bastard.
After Tsukasa unleashes her fury and
destroys Yoshi, a new threat emerges. Gauche has created a Gangler
with multiple safes, one of which contains a collection piece that
weakens all others, even canceling Good Striker’s abilities. Within
minutes the cops are on the ropes and the audience is left hanging.
My only rreal issue with this one is
that since the next storyline kicks in immediately following Yoshi’s
death there is no emotional fallout from these events. We hardly see
the pink ranger this emotional and open. Finding out the truth about
her new friend and how Noel only wanted to protect her should have
made for a great ending. Shame it all went straight into the next
action scequence.
picking up exactly where we left off,
episode 32 returns with both teams getting creamed. Not only is Goody
unable to keep their robots together, the thieves have to find a way
to open all five safes at once.
Noel proposes that both sides work
together as they did when facing Lymon back in Ep 25. Kei is totally
against the idea, and here is where the show makes great strides in
covering an often forgotten topic. The cops are constantly talking
about how the Lupinranger are criminals without any details as to
how. The argument here is that by prolonging the lifespan of
Gangler’s in order to steal their treasure the Lupinranger are
aiding and abetting. While not wrong in his belief one could just as
well point out that the thieves wouldn’t have such a difficult time
taking these treasures if not for police interference.
Finding no way to agree on the matter,
Noel challenges kei to a duel. If Noel wins, both teams must work
together to handle this threat. If the red ranger wins then he gets
to learn the identity of the three Lupinranger.
As those two battle, everyone else is
busy trying to keep this new baddy in check. They nearly fail before
their friends return with the decision to work together. This results
in one crazy flashy fight scene with Keichiro handling himself
perfectly in the company of thieves. It all comes to a close with a
massive display of multiple finishing moves at once.
We flash back to the duel in the cave
to find out how things really went down. During the battle, Noel
let’s it slip that his team is fighting to restore lost loved ones.
This throws Kei off-balance as he thinks back to Lupin Red claiming
to have no choice towards his criminal behavior. Patren Red throws
the fight, and Neol knows it, creating a deeper understanding between
the two men. Very solid episode, with only a lack of good content
for the other characters holding it back.
Finally we have a little levity to
help recover from all the recent drama. Right at the start of episode
33 we find the Lupinrangers dealing with the monster of the week only
to find that his regular power is turning people into children, which
he quickly uses against them. Mercifully for we the viewers our trio
maintains their level of mental maturity while stuck in younger
bodies. Their wits must be put to full use to recover a
transformation device from the Patranger.
Honestly don’t have much to say
about this one. It’s got some decent humor and comes up with an
interesting way for both teams to interact. The child performers
aren’t all that bad either. At the same time there’s nothing to
push the plot or characters further, which wouldn’t seem as awful
if not for the poor timing of this outing.
Consider that at this point in the
show there is, at max, 20 episodes left. We still don’t know any of
the villains master plans, both Noel and Kogure have maintained their
dark secrets, and the Lupinranger are still hiding their identities
from the other team. Let’s not forget that Zamigo hasn’t been
seen in months. There’s an absurd amount of ground to cover, and
stories like this one don’t help matters.
That’s been the growing issue with
this series. For all the talent visible in-front and behind the
camera the show has been stuck doing largely one-off adventures for
close to ten episodes in a row. Without any major changes before the
thirties are over, this show could be left struggling to wrap up the
core plot.
All of that is a topic for another day
however. Currently I’m just glad to start catching up with this fun
show. It’s been tough to sneak in blog time lately, though it looks
like the next week and a half or so should allow me to sneak in a few
updates. Keep an eye out for further Sentai recaps and some seasonal
items coming soon.
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