Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Ryusoulger Episodes 10-13



While giving the old brain a Captain Crunch branded sugar boost before sitting down to tackle this recap I had an odd realization about Ryusoulger when contrasted with what I would consider better Sentai series. For this comparison let's use Kakuranger which was one of my first experiences with the franchise and still a favorite to this day. That group of heroes lived out of a food truck as they traveled around Japan which meant most of their nights were spent sleeping in tents with the four guys sharing one or perhaps crashing outdoors while the only lady, Tsuruhime, had her own tent. Given how they lived a bohemian lifestyle notions like hygiene were sometimes and issue. Now consider this current team of heroes. We know the original trio live with the Tatsui family yet we only ever see the main work area of the home. There's no kitchen, no bathroom, and especially no bedrooms or even bunks for that matter. Furthermore we have zero clue where Bomba and Towa live as the pair either stop by to visit the others or are found wandering the streets. I'd say they must live on the streets like vagrants except they are exceptionally clean all the time. What's throwing me off here is that Ryusoulger, despite being a kids show, has no problems tackling emotional issues like suicide and depression yet can't be bothered with convincing me these characters are actually alive and not some sort of reverse Toy Story beings that only come to life when we're viewing them. That's part of why I find my mind wandering during the show sometimes and why, even with it's deeper qualities, I'm still not completely sold on it. At the moment let's catch up with what's been going on.

Story:

The story of late has been making a transition from the batch of straight-up character pieces to larger plot points. In fact our last traditional hero focused tale was all about Asuna who really needed the boost. Question is whether episode nine was enough to help her out, and the answer was... yes... mostly. She's still suffers from having a pretty flat personality in the following outings but we did get a nice self-contained adventure that showcased deeper levels of caring, emotional stability, and courage.

The following two episodes concerned themselves with the introduction of another dinoknight, one with a hobby for riddles. Initially both the heroes and villains fail to sway this giant beast to their side until it is discovered that the dinoknight has formed a friendship with a young boy awaiting eye surgery. The baddies kidnap him while our team earns the dino's trust by properly answering a riddle with a simple honest response. This becomes sort of a loose two-parter because the main conflict is resolved but the minosaur carries on and offers some challenges by projecting illusions onto smoke/steam. Neither of these installments are bad so much as basic. There's a few decent lines, the occasional spiffy action beat, and a few odd plot-threads. Besides the new dino we discover that Mr. Tatsui may be receiving psychic projections or is maybe just far more eccentric than previously thought. Also the Druidions are being aided by Gaisorg who we'll talk about later.

Episodes fourteen was really quite nice and a far better example of what I'd like to see from this series. There's a monster who can make people tell the uncensored truth, revealing strained relationships among the heroes while the beast can also flawlessly predict attacks. The host for this particular Minosaur is the Prime Minister, a Ryusoul tribe woman who left the confines of their hidden life long-ago and has lived among regular humans for centuries while slowly being tormented by watching loved ones age and day as she continues to live long afterward. She encourages Bomba and Towa to let the Minosaur live long enough so that she might finally die in exchange for information regarding their missing master. Towa is deeply tempted by this offer but it holds no sway over Bomba who belives the PM to be a fool who refuses to deal with the hand she's been dealt. It's also revealed that she also has contact with Gaisorg before she takes off and leaves her responsibilities behind. Perhaps we will see her again.

Heroes:

The major benefactors from this set of episodes are Asuna and Bamba. She gets to showcase the more caring side of her personality and also develop her connection to Melto by both chewing him out and offering encouragement in apology. Bamba on the other hand still walks the weird path of being possibly the least-developed character who still feels the most three-dimensional. The guy has such a cool manner and strong sense of honor that makes him very easy to cheer on. What he needs now is to be paired off with someone who challenges him more than his brother or Kou.

On the matter of the new dinoknight something stands out as odd. Of the six of these robots only two are shown to have personalities while the other four are often ignored. I can barely recall the last time Towa's robot even appeared. I wouldn't even complain about it normally if it didn't seem so odd. Each of these is a toy to sell to the kiddies and collectors so how is it decided which ones actually get to have dialogue and storylines?

Villains:

Let's start with the bad news; Gaisorg is back. Yes that motivationless hunk of living armor from the Strongest Battle mini-series has made his return. Right now he's taking up the role of freelance villain so lord knows what the plan is for him. Seeing as he's been with us longer than this show it better be for one damn good pay off. Other than him things are continuing as they were before with Wyzul being a far more entertaining foil than his predecessor.

Action:

While many of the fight scenes aren't quite up to the level of recent series there are some definite improvements made during this batch of episodes. I was especially pleased to see the return of tracking drone photography since it's such a unique way to film fight scenes and helps to set the franchise apart.

The robot fights are still some of the best in Sentai history though, as noted previously, a good number of bots are being kept on the sidelines for some reason. This effects the otherwise interesting approach to the cockpit as well. I'd been pleased to see a set-up that allows the characters to move around or get tossed about instead of just sitting in chairs but with less robots comes less people. Instead several heroes will wait on the ground and watch the fight which may be different but lacks a certain urgency as they feel removed from danger.

Overall:

As I noted at the start of this article, Ryusoulger still hasn't quite won me over yet I feel sort of cruel to say such things. There's still a great deal of items this show is getting right but at the same time it lapses on world-building details and the threat level of the villains is all over the map. At one point we had a poisonous wolf-monster that nearly killed the entire team. On another occasion the monster unleashed devastating counter-attacks against any strike. Another week the team will get through a fight without a scratch, practically sitting down with a bag of popcorn once the robots are called out.

Things are about to change however as the sixth member is about to arrive. I will admit to finding it irritating to have yet another guy in what is already a sausage-fest of a show though I am pleasantly surprised that Gaisorg doesn't seem to be playing into his original, at least for now anyway. Hopefully the newbie can usher in a little urgency to the show and renew my quickly fading interest.

That's all for today though I'd like to give a shutout to you faithful Sentai recap readers. I've been going through the site history for an anniversary feature and it showcased just how much traffic I get thanks to these posts. So while I may not always be the most timely and can sometimes get bored with individual series I am more than glad to keep bring you all this content, be it for modern shows or classic ones which I'd like to work in somewhere.

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