[Fish Sandwich]

~Fish's Zenkai Tour!~

Lesson 31 – Juuken Sentai Gekiranger



GAAAHHHH GEKIRANGER IS SO GOOD YOU GUYS I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO START THIS POST!!!

...But I guess I'll go with that, because abruptly screaming in all-caps about this show's immense quality was how I started talking about Gekiranger on this forum way back in 2017, when I originally watched it. As always, this was a decision made on a fickle whim.

I don't think I've explicitly mentioned this backstory at all since the very start of the tour, so I think I'll lay out the details here, for the sake of it. Around that time, I had recently finished rewatching all of Ninninger, regularly posting about it in this thread as I went along. A story for another week, obviously, but once that was done, I decided to get around to a whole bunch of Sentai shows I was particularly curious about in that moment, and for once, I ended up with a rather defined road map. I was going to watch Carranger, Megaranger, Gingaman, and Shinkenger, and, I did, in *pretty much* that order... just not without taking a little detour right after Carranger.

I was just feeling Gekiranger, you know? And I mean, feeling it so much, I plowed through the entire show in a single week. The whole thing that prompted that original all-caps outburst was that I had sat down to watch the first couple episodes, and only managed to stop myself after episode eight. I simply could not get enough of Gekiranger. Honestly, I still can't? This is one of those shows where the mere thought of it alone is enough to get me excited.

"But Fish, couldn't you say that about a ton of other—"

YEAH BUT THIS ONE IS GEKIRANGER!!! I'm going to attempt to explain the difference, but man, you'll have to forgive me if I'm so netsunetsu about this show that it's difficult to even tell what I'm talking about at points. (Like right there, for example!)

On the broadest possible level, Gekiranger is a super cool martial arts Sentai show with extremely tight character writing and an unusual amount of focus on developing the main antagonists as much as it does the heroes. That's what I had always heard about it going in, and it's part of what attracted me to the show in the first place. (That and the killer theme song, but I'll spare you a whole paragraph about it to save what time I can here.) Gekiranger was one of those Sentai I always vaguely knew I wanted to get around to, but I don't think I was prepared for how immensely every single facet of it ended up resonating with me.

In large part thanks to those martial arts influences, Gekiranger's storytelling is done on a really intimate level. It's not so much about the bigger picture of threats to the world or anything like that. What it's truly centered around is self-improvement, and the way it lets that hang over the series as a whole gives it a degree of focus that all the individual pieces benefit from. That's part of what's making it tricky for me to figure out some sort of order to tackle this overview in – everything connects back to everything else, so I can more or less talk about anything, no matter how abrupt, and manage to connect it to whatever other point I feel like. So... mind if I talk about the team's roll call for a bit?

I adore the Gekiranger roll call. Easily one of the best out there, in my opinion. It's also one of the most elaborate. The poses each of the characters do are both lengthy and mesmerizingly graceful, which means they're great to watch on screen, and a lot of extra work to replicate, which means anyone who wants to look as cool as a Gekiranger has to put forth the genuine effort to practice, so even there, the themes of the show are represented. Even more than that, though, it's the catchphrases I'm in love with. Again, they're longer than plenty of other teams, and that length is put to good use, as rather than a simple epithet describing each member's powerset or animal motif, each character essentially gives a summation of the unique philosophy they apply to their discipline in Japanese, punctuated by a two word English phrase that conveys the same idea.

This is especially significant for the main trio of Geki Red, Blue, and Yellow, who each represent a different aspect of shingitai (心技体), a martial arts concept that, as best as I can put it, basically defines three principles a martial artist should strive to perfect: heart (心), technique (技), and body. (体) So you've got Geki Red, Jan, whose Unbreakable Body lets him endure hardship with sheer power and brute force. There's Geki Blue, Retsu, who values his Fantastic Technique above all else, with a thirst to learn and master his style down to the finest details. And Geki Yellow, Ran, functions as the team's Honest Heart, exemplifying the earnest dedication and diligence required to devote yourself fully to whatever you set out to accomplish. The whole trick here is that this Triangle is all about being balanced, and individually, each one of these three is weak in whatever two areas they don't specialize in.

I feel like I'm doing a poor job describing this, but what I'm trying to get at here is that Gekiranger had this exceptionally clever way to define and contextualize the personalities of the main characters, while simultaneously making a point of why they need to lean on each other to succeed. There is a clarity of purpose to the characterization here that still blows my mind, years later, and again, all of this is so deeply ingrained into so many other aspects of the series. Going back to those cool roll call poses, the final stance the three of them adopt together is literally in the shape of a triangle, just to rub this in even more.

As I said, this is a show about self-improvement, so most (all?) of the plotting comes back to that idea, with individual episodes and larger arcs alike centered around how the characters work to grow beyond their shortcomings, and this is applied not only to the main protagonists, but to the bad guys as well. The show's primary antagonist, Rio, is every bit as much a student as the Gekirangers themselves, and alongside Mele, who is unflinchingly loyal in supporting him, the contrast in why and how these two groups of individuals pursue the goals they do forms the backbone of the series. (With Rio and Mele even having "strength" and "love", respectively, as their own defining traits.) It's the parallels in how their respective stories intertwine that make them all pop so much more. It's very easy to understand the warmth between the Gekirangers and the masters they train under when it's put right next to how cold and unforgiving Rio's training is, and vice versa.

It's only now occurring to me that I've been banging on about nothing besides character for most of these paragraphs, but that really is the crux of why this show stuck with me. Character, character, character. It's where Gekiranger excels most, and it's why I'll always remember it so fondly; because I'm fond of the characters I got to meet watching it. Seriously, I could go on a huge spiel about any one of them right now, and I kind of want to! I'd really love to tell you all about how wakiwaki it is finding excuses to work Jan quotes into your vocabulary, or how genuinely I find Ran's whole heart shtick inspiring (I'm pretty sure I learned the word 根性 from her, and I really like that word), or this, or that, or— you get the idea, I think. I sacrificed talking about basically anything else in the show (which is all also really good!) just to talk as much as I could about these guys, and I'm still cutting myself off entirely because I'll never start talking about the first episode if I don't. Ironically, that fact probably says more than the words themselves do.

Oh, right, the premiere! I think that's what these posts are supposed to be about? I'm really just winging it at this point, aren't I? Anyway, Gekiranger's first episode is as nikiniki as ever, even on a second viewing. I think the best way to put it is to say that if you watch the episode and look at how Jan is reacting to everything... that's basically me? Wrestling with pandas in the forest? That's fun as heck! There's a plane that just crashed nearby? Aw man, let's see what that's all about! Some lady in a suit is beating up bad guys with kung fu? She's cool and I wanna know who she is! Geki Blue and Geki Yellow are sparring in a gym? I love watching Super Sentai!

...Yeah, in case you can't tell, Jan is very much another Red meant to represent the viewpoint of the kids at home, and Gekiranger finds yet another extreme to take that to, as Jan's whole shtick is that he literally has the mentality of a very young child, due to growing up in the wild without any other people around. (He also has a limited vocabulary as a result of this, often expressing thoughts using loads of mimetic words that are sometimes common, sometimes corruptions of other common words, and sometimes just... distinctly Jan.) Reds are also generally meant to represent the overall theme of a show, too, so naturally, the point of Jan starting out like this is for him to learn and change, maybe more than anyone else in the series, until he finally starts acting his age by the end. As per usual with this mold of Red, your mileage may vary on whether or not this is endearing, but, man, I don't know how anyone could be cruel enough to call someone as adorable as Jan annoying. His enthusiasm has always been downright infectious for me, and that makes this a very easy premiere for me to get into, then and now.

It's also one that benefits a ton from hindsight in subtle ways. Gekiranger had a pretty thoroughly planned backstory that the series only reveals gradually, but you can catch quite a few bits of foreshadowing right here at the start, as long as you know what you're looking for. The attention to detail is nice, and it's not even the only smart thing going on in this one. Right away, Gekiranger demonstrates how the villains and heroes act as foils to one another, as Rio being told he needs to make others suffer to achieve true strength is contrasted with Jan finding out he can only gain power when he wants it for the sake of helping people. It's the most basic possible thing to start with, but that's exactly why it works. This is an episode that needs to make plenty of time for exposition, but it finds room to have a nice straightforward arc that sets up Jan's heroic potential. Him not being able to work his Geki Changer until he sees a monster threatening a little girl has always been one of the moments I remember most vividly from the show. Again, he is the kids at home, watching Geki Blue and Yellow in action, thinking they're awesome, and trying to imitate them, so I can't stress enough how much I like the show stressing that being a cool hero is not actually about hitting people. That is always a lesson worth teaching!

I don't know if I'd say Gekiranger's first episode is necessarily the absolute most solid ever, or the most exciting, but it certainly is solid and exciting, and accomplishes everything it sets out to do. You get a taste of the characters, a feel for the setting and mythos, plenty of extremely stylish martial arts action, and even a pretty cute cliffhanger as a bonus.

The series as a whole, though, I mean, that's wonderful. I could talk about Gekiranger for so long, the only word to describe it would be zunzun. Or at least, that's the word I'd use!

So much more I could still be touching on! I love those slick suit designs, that forgo having belts entirely. I love the robot action, especially early on. I love how those "robots" are actually physical manifestations of the team's spiritual energy, further underlining the themes, as always. I love how those themes are specifically geared to try and impart to kids the value of actively working to make yourself a better person. I love that this show is this smart and dramatic and yet is also hilarious and fun enough to have a character literally named Sharkie Chan. Heck, one of the only things I could say I dislike about Gekiranger is how it got buried in the shadow of Kamen Rider Den-O and ended up underperforming in both viewership and sales.

Aw man, this really is going to go on forever if I don't force myself to stop. There are simply too many reasons I adore Gekiranger, and it's so tempting to try listing every single one. I'm just not sure that list ever ends.