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02-04-2020, 07:13 PM | #8281 |
The Immortal King Tasty
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Kakuranger 42-43:
42 does a whole lot improve my opinion on Daimaou, which I haven't mentioned yet, since I figured an episode like this would come along. For all the build up he got, he hasn't been the most imposing villain so far. With how little work he was putting in, it almost came off at points like all he wants to do is sit in his chair all day, and world domination is just an occasional hobby. So when, instead of planning for his latest tea party or whatever, the episode opens with him vomiting up an egg containing the spawn of pure evil, you know, I'm hooked. How could I not be excited to see what kind of devious s*** he's gonna do with his newly hatched disgusting slime monster? Amazingly, the rest of the episode lives up to the hype that introduction creates. The plot essentially starts and ends with Ninjaman getting kidnapped in an effort to lure out the Three God Generals, and yet it does such a good job at building tension that it doesn't feel thin. There's a great escalation as the situation keeps getting worse and worse for the heroes, with occasional spots of hope that only serve to make it that much more shocking when you get hit with a cliffhanger ending and realize this was only part one of two. The focus on the God Generals also means this episode is really heavy on the mecha action, which is an easy way to win my affection. It gets so epic I even saw Muteki Shogun walk for a few steps. That's how you know they aren't messing around. Of course, he only shows up after Kakure Dai-Shogun has already been doing its thing in a much more dynamic fight with the monster, and putting them onscreen together just makes it all the more glaring that, even with a giant bird strapped to its back, Kakure Dai-Shogun's suit was designed to accommodate a human being's actual range of motion way better. I also find it kind of hilarious that the show gift-wraps itself an opportunity to bring back the Jusho Fighters by having the Kakurangers, already aware of Daimaou's plan, worrying that they can't risk summoning any of the Generals, before immediately going for it anyway. That's probably just Sugimura's way of keeping things trim though. If this episode were written in the age of 24-ish minute Sentai episodes, we probably would've gotten a brief scene of them trying that first, but it doesn't actually affect the plot either way, so who's got time? The ante is further upped by 43, which spends the vast majority of its runtime further rubbing in how screwed the Kakurangers are. With a power-absorbing monster on the loose that seemingly can't be destroyed without killing Ninjaman, it's looking an awful lot like their only option is just to sacrifice his life for the greater good. The Three God Generals even say as much. Of course, the Kakurangers aren't having it. It's cool seeing them stick up for Ninjaman, even if their attempt to do something about it ends up resulting in everyone except Sasuke getting captured and put in the same situtation as Ninjaman. My summary here probably isn't doing justice to how tense this one is. Toward the end, it starts hitting all the best notes of Kakuranger's more dramatic episodes, including some great use of sunset lighting, and my personal favorite trope, a wounded, solitary Sasuke having a "What should I DO?!" internal monologue. Things continue to look bad for our heroes by the end, when... wait what?! There's a part THREE?! And the "To Be Continued" is even written in a more dramatic font?! Or is it just black instead of white for better contrast against the all the fire engulfing the screen?! So many questions! So much hype!
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02-05-2020, 09:41 PM | #8282 |
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Kakuranger 44-45:
Going into 44, we've got four out of the five Kakurangers, plus Ninjaman, all captured, and the Three God Generals ready to square off against a monster they can't hope to defeat without paying a steep price. Amidst all of this, Sasuke is stranded in the woods, being hunted down by the Kunoichi. With a setup like that, it probably won't surprise anyone paying attention to hear that this episode is another grand slam masterpiece from this show. In fact, this whole trilogy was a roaring success that serves as a sort of sequel to the similarly amazing 15-16 two-parter. It's unrelentingly intense the whole way through, establishes the stakes masterfully, and brings things to as low a point as they can get away with before turning it all back around in the most exciting way possible. This is the definition of a thrilling conclusion. The plot breaks down into two equally exciting halves, with an extremely well directed mecha fight that runs so long the sun has time to rise, with Daimaou gloating over his inevitable victory as the heroes writhe in agony, and then you've got Sasuke running around behind the scenes, working himself to the bone the way only he can to turn things around, in the process learning some more revelations about larger ongoing story threads. By the time all is said and done, there's still a bittersweet element to the victory, and Daimaou's fancy new skeleton fortress definitely doesn't bode well for the future, but in the moment, the Kakurangers are back together, and boy did they ever earn it. 45 continues a hot streak for Hirohisa Soda, who continues to make me look like a huge jerk by delivering a crazy fun Christmas-themed episode that takes the show back to its roots. Epic drama is great and all, but a huge part of Kakuranger's identity was built on somewhat surreal plots with a comedic slant, and this one is a doozy. It turns out there's actually an entire... tribe? Society? Race? ...of Santas, who all live in a castle, and, much like the Youkai, they're a lot less behind the times than you might think. They've got escalators, and computers, and make their yearly deliveries with vans instead of sleighs, because of course they do. The levels of absurdity the episode squeezes out of this concept are something to behold. I'm not even going to spoil what's probably the best little gag, which involves what's playing at the local Santa theater. It's a real romp of a story. "x saves Christmas" is my favorite stock plot out there, and this is one of the more creative takes on it I've seen.
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02-06-2020, 03:47 PM | #8283 |
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I think it’s worth mentioning, for any KR Drive fans out there, that one of the Santas in Kakuranger’s Christmas episode is the same guy who played Harley Hendrickson. He’s the only one there with a real beard.
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02-06-2020, 08:44 PM | #8284 |
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Kakuranger 46-47:
46 is another one that gets by on having a creative and fun premise. It's sort of a "greatest hits" collection of elements I loved about some of Hirohisa Soda's other episodes. The plot centers on the Kakurangers getting trapped in a comic book by the Youkai, giving the episode a setting where any bizarre thing can happen like with the Christmas episode. You've got a guest star little kid character who's actually quite likable as in 34. And you've a collection of weird human antagonists in addition to the monster just like 41. No individual element is as good as it was in those episodes I just mentioned, but putting them all together still resulted in a very enjoyable episode. It's nominally another Saizou spotlight, too, and while he's a fun character to watch get physically abused and psychologically tortured in increasingly absurd ways, Sasuke kind of steals the show. He does his trademark dramatic finger pointing like twice as much as usual, which is some real bang for your buck, and he finds an awesome solution to get everyone back to reality at the climax. 47 is Susumu Takaku's last episode of the series, and, as per usual, it's entirely adequate. It does do a fair bit to stand out though. In particular, it's got a great villain. Kasha has a pretty intimidating design that still works in the campy modern touches. A pyromaniac dressed up like a firefighter is just plain good irony. What's even better is that he is one sick f***. His whole plan here is to stuff children into fireworks simply because he thinks it'll be pretty, and because Daimaou said it might mildly amuse him. The story as a whole has a fairly grim tone, which contrasts nicely with how silly the last two were. Still far from the show's best, but hey, it's got a bad guy that's fun to root against, and Sasuke makes a killer dramatic entrance in the climax, as though he wasn't getting enough awesome moments lately to begin with.
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02-07-2020, 08:26 PM | #8285 |
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Kakuranger 48-49:
Hirohisa Soda guilt-trips me hard by making 48 another Jiraiya spotlight episode. And I mean, he's really in the spotlight this time. It's a level of focus not many Kakuranger episodes do, so I can only assume that Jiraiya had proven to be a popular character back in the day to justify this. An entire quarter of the episode goes by before the rest of the team even show up, and once they do, Jiraiya is still consistently taking charge throughout the action, to the point he pretty much defeats the Youkai here solo. All of which means I'm pretty head over heels for this one, even if it isn't anything too special. Any episode where Jiraiya looks like he's about to cry after hearing someone else's problem is a good episode. It's that simple. Okay, well, it definitely helped that there's some great action, too. It feels like the kind of episode Sakamoto would do these days. There's a lot of the Kakurangers getting in on the fights before transforming, which leads to some awesome moments. Early on, you've got a fantastic sequence where Seikai, Saizou, and Jiraiya each transform while fending off mooks, and the cuts are hidden in a way to make each transformation look like a seamless shot. It's beautiful stuff. Later on, you've got an extended sequence of Jiraiya driving a truck around, the highlight of which is probably him getting kicked out and hanging off the back, getting dragged over the ground. All this, plus Muteki Shogun popping in to turn up the heat. There's a whole lot to love. Getting back to the story for a second, the climax also uses a pattern that this show has been getting a ton of mileage out of, where right at the darkest hour, the Kakurangers reveal to the bad guys (and the audience) they actually solved the problem a couple minutes ago offscreen, and have just been punking everyone since then. I can't say I mind how often plots bust this move out, because it's always satisfying to see the heroes using their brains to work out clever solutions. The fact they do this at least once every fifth episode only serves to make the Kakurangers look that much more competent in dealing with evil. You can try and take them by surprise, but they'll just flip the script before you realize it. 49 is the very last guest-written episode of the series, and it's, fittingly enough, good but not great. Which, again, is a relative thing. Really, in this case, I might just be saying that because almost anything would seem lamer after a Jiraiya episode. This one was loads of fun in its own right. Binbougami is a Youkai bursting with comedic potential, and that's what you get here. Seeing what the Kakurangers look like with no budget is hilarious, and it just keeps escalating as the plot moves along. It's so funny even Daimaou is laughing! No, really! He makes his entrance in the episode flying in on his skull fortress to laugh at some people Binbougami just made poor. It abruptly cuts to a close-up of him letting off a singular, hearty "HWEH!". It's pretty much the most amazing thing ever. So while the episode is no masterpiece, it's not a bad one for Soda to go out on. He redeems his earlier mistreatment of Muteki Shogun, too, by giving him an appearance two weeks in a row, despite there being no particular occasion for it, which I'm sure whoever had to wear that suit was real happy about.
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02-08-2020, 01:23 PM | #8286 |
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Since there’s been such a big deal made of the latest Vs Movie’s debut, I decided to spend the day watching (almost) nothing but Sentai movies. Here’s some thoughts.
Gekiranger’s movie: Nothing too spectacular, just our heroes (and the Gekirangers) getting teleported to China for a martial arts tournament, which turns out to be a front for a Showa-era villain actor to come out of retirement and threaten the world with robots. I have no idea if any of the Chinese in this movie is accurate either. Boukenger’s movie: This one is definitely a new favourite and is going some way to actually convince me to watch Boukenger. The opening battle is just so beautifully set up and the conflict with Akashi and his dad never particularly feels out of place. Plus I just can’t hate the concept behind DaiTanken (a mecha made from the auxiliary machines), because it makes the thing’s potential inclusion in episodes of the show seem less contrived. Shinkenger’s movie: The last one that I haven’t seen that I watched for the first time today. Other than the big “gets a new power” by stabbing the bad guy, I don’t really have a lot of good things to say for this one. The villain isn’t particularly original and the fight choreography is very bland compared to my other brushes (no pun intended) with Shinkenger. GoGoV: Now we move on to the rewatches. I like the character of Sieg and I especially adore the fact that Kyoko gets powers, even if they’re only temporary. Plus I think the villain looks REALLY good (think of the love child between Grandiene/Bansheera and Salamandes/Olympius). Ohranger: This is a really weird one. We get a plot with Buldont wanting to make a movie, but it all seems slightly removed from itself until the big climax, which at least has the unique concept of the monster being a train. Bioman: This is a nice simple tale to follow. Two kids have stumbled upon a map to Bio Base and the bad guys want to steal it so they can unleash their strongest Mecha-Gigan. It definitely makes a good use of the character’s strengths and gives us a pretty epic final fight (for which they give minor henchwoman FarrahCat her own army of clones). Boukenger vs Super Sentai: In spite of focusing mostly on the last 5 years prior to Boukenger, with Magiranger getting the most of the focus (probably due to the film originally being a vs Magiranger movie), it’s still a pretty good flick. The bad guy’s plan is particularly creative and AkaRed actually makes up for the lack of any returning Reds by being made entirely of former Red’s powers (though due to budget, they’re limited to the last 6, as mentioned before.). Gaoranger vs Super Sentai: The last one of the day. I’ve always had a soft spot for this movie, due to the clipshow aspect being fairly well realised and a good way to get around the fact we could only get 5 actors back. Plus it has Yusuke/Red Falcon (still one of my favourite Reds), so it can do no wrong in my book. |
02-08-2020, 05:49 PM | #8287 |
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Zyu (Beast) Ranger ( Episode 27) Dai (Great) Ranger (Complete + Movie) Kaku (Hidden) Ranger (Episode 25) Oh (King) Ranger ( Episode 20) Car Ranger (Episode 38) Mega Ranger (Episode 20) Ginga (Galaxy) Man (Episode 17) These are due to the fact I own the Shout Factory releases. Delayed Time Ranger to Bouken (Adventure) Ranger Pirate series - Present Completed Jungle Fury - Mega Force Part 1 source shows Power Rangers Completed Mighty Morphin - Super Ninja Steel Delayed Power Rangers Beast Morphers Part 1 (01 - 20) |
02-08-2020, 09:21 PM | #8288 |
The Immortal King Tasty
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Kakuranger 50-51:
50 is kind of halfway between being the the last hurrah for standard monster-of-the-week episodes, and being the start of the show's final arc. It's probably that lack of commitment that made feel strangely unimpactful. It's not wild and fun enough to be a great standalone Kakuranger story, and the plot still having relatively low stakes makes it hard to feel the sense of impending doom until the very end. It's doing important setup. I mean, we get to meet Daimaou's family, of all things, so it's not like this is some pointless filler to be skipped over. It's just that at this point, with all the crap they've endured, the Kakurangers are too awesome for a mysterious inn to be that imposing. Sasuke has gotten separated from his team in the woods so many times by now, he barely flinches when it happens here. Ninjaman will turn into a samurai and roast a giant monster without even needing to be called a novice first. Heck, Muteki Shogun's even back to being a regular member of the cast. These guys are bascially unstoppable. So what if the episode ends with spooky storm clouds literally on the horizon? What could possibly give the Kakurangers trouble anymore? Well, an angry mob, a whole lot of destruction of property, and a plan to completely break Tsuruhime mentally, leaving the team without their leader. Yeah, I'd say 51 definitely provides some good answers to that question. This show has pushed its heroes to the brink plenty of times before, and it's no less effective here. The big difference this time is that the focus is squarely on Tsuruhime, for whom the stakes are much more immediate and personal. It's not an episode about how the Kakurangers are gonna stop the bad guys. It's an episode about how Tsuruhime has to make a horrible decision, and how the others are trying to stop her from going through with it. Actually defeating evil is a secondary concern at best right now. In the moment, simply not actively playing into their hands is about all the team can hope for.
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02-09-2020, 07:40 PM | #8289 |
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Kakuranger 52-53:
52 had basically its entire plot spoiled by the preview. Which is weird, because there's plenty going on beyond that to make for exciting footage they could've focused on instead. In a lot of ways, this one feels like it already is the finale. The plot has that level of weight. There's a big robot fight that throws out all the stops. There's a big dramatic speech about humanity's inherent potential to do good or evil. It's suitably epic for an episode that resolves one of the show's biggest running plot threads. It's a great episode, but of course, the series can't end with the Kakurangers all getting killed in an explosion, so we aren't done just yet. I say this pretty much every time I talk about one, but I'm very particular about finales. It's the most important thing for any series to get right in my mind, and it's not even simply that I can't stand them being bad. When I'm into a show enough, a final episode that's merely average, or just good can be a huge letdown. It should feel like the event it is. I want it to be the very best the show has to offer, and to really tie the whole thing together. It's the note you're leaving on, and regardless of the overall quality up to that point, whether it was constant perfection, a rough start, a bumpy ride, or whatever else, a good ending is your chance to forever cement that journey as one worth taking, because the destination is worth getting to. What that means to me for a show like Kakuranger, one that I fell in love with very quickly because it was consistently so good, is that approaching the ending comes with some trepidation. I get a little nervous that this might be the moment it finally trips up. There's that nagging thought in the back of my head that the show is going pick the worst possible time to do something wrong, and it'll hurt my overall opinion in the long-term. So, no pressure, right? With standards that demanding, I hope it's clear how serious I am in saying that Kakuranger episode 53 is an excellent ending. It's tightly focused, has something to say, and picks a good place to leave everyone in. It's everything I always hope for, and I'd have to really struggle, having just watched it, to find something I would've liked to see done differently. Like I said, 52 feels really grand in scale, so right out of the gate, one thing that I thought was brilliant was how small this one feels, not just for a Kakuranger episode, but compared to every other Sentai finale I've seen. It's almost like an epilogue in that, while the threat hasn't ended, the episode starts with the writing kinda on the wall for the Youkai. Everyone but Daimaou has already bit the dust. And he's not even at full strength anymore, because he's not getting enough of the negative emotions that sustain him. The trick is, the whole situation is pretty much a stalemate, because he can't really be defeated either. Not when Daimaou actually is a literal embodiment of the darkness in the human heart. It leads to a very surreal final confrontation, where the Kakurangers are running around the city, trying to stop Daimaou from trolling the populace by doing things like shoving baby strollers into traffic. He blows up a building in there too, but by and large Daimaou comes off almost hilariously petty, moving about, invisible to the average person's eye, floating from place to place with the distinctive fashion of a suit that I'm pretty sure doesn't even have legs? I think the suit actor is just getting dragged around on a plank of wood with some wheels or something any time Daimaou moves, and he's always so low off the ground, it seems less like he's hovering, and more like he has evil roller skates, which, given this show's design sense, might actually be totally plausible. The point is, it's a unique choice for the last boss not to just turn huge and have some ultimate showdown of fate with the heroes where he shoots like a million laser beams. It's unexpected, it's weird, it's daring, and it's Kakuranger. Handling the conflict this way could've gone horribly wrong in less talented hands. The whole thing could've seemed like a joke. But Sugimura was smart enough to give it an angle that actually makes it more satisfying than just a big fight would be. The showdown here is as much metaphorical as anything, and, playing off of the theming about human nature in the last few episodes, the Kakurangers' final challenge is not figuring out how to beat Daimaou, but how to defeat what he represents. Which is all somewhat cliche fare in of itself, but the way it's delivered is so inspired. It adds meaning to the resolution. The Kakurangers are sealing away Daimaou to bring the world peace the same way anyone puts away their darker thoughts to let the good ones shine through. The Kakurangers and you may not be able to be rid of evil forever, but evil can only ever win out if you choose to let it. It's simple, but that's exactly why I think that's a great message to leave the children watching the show to chew on. It's put in such a literal context that even younger kids probably wouldn't have a hard time processing the point being made, and you never know. It just might get them thinking. It's a surprisingly satisfying resolution, and the actual ending, with the Kakurangers just taking it all in that their hard work is finally done, and deciding to all just keep going on a road trip in Nekomaru anyway is a wonderful capstone. One thing I've noticed about Sugimura's writing is that he tends to have a very strong grasp on how much story he can fit into the 17-18 minutes an episode gets minus the theme songs. He obviously can't do some elaborate "where are they now" deal, but ending on the visual of everyone just hitting the road for old times' sake is just as powerful. It's a perfect bookend to demonstrate how the main characters' bond has evolved over the series. They started off almost at each other's throats, and now they're so attached to each other's company, and the routine their lives have settled into, they actively choose to keep it up even with their original reason for doing so gone. It's a genuinely sweet, heartwarming note to leave on. ...And that's Kakuranger! This has been a fun one. Not that I'm surprised by that or anything. Kakuranger is right smack in the middle of what seems to universally be considered something of a golden age for Sentai, and uh, yeah. I'm kind of inclined to agree, and I still haven't watched Dairanger! It's not Kakuranger is even the ultimate show or anything. There are some not particularly great episodes, and it takes a second to adjust to, but it's just... who cares? Even when I had no idea what was going on way back at the start, I was still enjoying myself. There's something fundamentally charming about Kakuranger, and that's even before it starts coming at you with some absolute, all-time top-tier Sentai episodes. It helps that it feels crazy inspired. Like, to the point I'm not even aware of how deep some of those inspirations go to even talk about them. There are a lot of meta layers to Kakuranger to peel back that I'd love to see someone more culturally knowledgeable than me explain. This was the first ever explicitly Japanese-themed Sentai, and it's utterly packed with allusions to the culture, not simply as it existed when ninjas were actually relevant, but as it was right then, in the moment, back in the 90's. Occasionally it feels like it's making social commentary of some kind (one more reason the finale feels so fitting), but most of it is over my head. At the very least, I'm pretty sure the strong western influences also present in the show are not simply a random choice to make things wackier or more unique, but to accurately reflect, in a very Sentai over-the-top way, the actual strong western influence on Japan by that point. It's probably really fascinating stuff, but man, until Wikipedia told me, I didn't even notice the background music specifically didn't use traditional Japanese instruments in spite of the OP and ED doing so. Not that either of those were exactly traditional in their own right. I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that Kakuranger had a lot of thought put into it. That much I'm sure about. Because even not knowing those deeper layers, there's still so much to enjoy about it. And that's just about the best summation I can think of for its quality. It takes all these elements and puts them together into something that stands on its own. It's a great show with a very balanced tone. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and if you're anything like me, you'll be very glad you finally got around to watching it. Way back when I did my rewatch of Ninninger I started a habit of leaving off with a one sentence review when I finish a Sentai show, and this seems like a good time to bring the tradition back. This one's a little abstract, but it genuinely does sum up my feelings toward Kakuranger quite well. So on behalf of an awesome show, allow me to say: See you again, my Kakuranger.
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02-09-2020, 09:00 PM | #8290 |
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I tried to get into kakuranger; it just.....did not hold me; I don't know why but kakuranger and dairanger did not have the ability to keep me focused to the end. I am a fan of the early 2000s senti more than the golden age stuff anyways. Secret kakuranger is still one of the better songs though. Nowhere near gogoV but pretty good
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