Episode 2
Before I get too the episode itself, can I just say that the voice who says the episode title is bloody annoying? Seriously, what's the point of it? Anyways onto the episode.

The fight between Wolzord and Oka-san was pretty nice, though the standout part about it to me at least was the fallout and seeing the rangers react to it. I thought it was nicely done. A few words on each of their parts. It was pretty predictable that Kai was going to charge on, but wouldn't anybody do that out of grief and anger if you saw a family member get killed? Regardless of him being the over zealous one or red ranger, I thought it was a pretty natural and realistic reaction on his part. It also kinda makes sense that Houka and Ura would be the ones in tears, Makito being the one playing the father/tough/stay calm role, and Tsubasa being a little prick about it (he's a prick anyways so yeah, no shock). I also find it realistic that some of them don't want to fight out of fear.

Mare and Nai are uh, pretty darn good looking. Plus, I like their characters. Good to know I have more female villains to toku crush on.

Holy shit! They have Big Boy in Japan!

The magical base/room is pretty nice looking. It makes sense that it would be like an actual room considering it's in a house and what not. Comparing it to the Magic Tree House from Mystic Force, I don't really have a preference over what base I like more. Something tells me though I'ma get tired at some point of hearing about how courage is their weapon. It makes more sense then MF's "Believe in magic" idea, but if I have to hear about courage being the best weapon every other episode, yeah, I'm going to be annoyed by it.

So courage gives them their new weapons? Magiranger, no, just no on that. I don't mind the idea of courage helping them be stronger and use the magic more powerfully, but courage giving them new magic spells is a load of crap. Mystic Force did this aspect better IMO with the whole "You learn them when it's time" idea.

But we finally get to my favorite thing about the show pre watching it, the mecha. The mecha are freaking bad ass looking. I liked the small fight with them as well. Little weird they won the day with soccer, but hey it let them work together which is good. Plus, it's not like it's the most ridiculous mecha attack ever, or attack in Sentai for that matter.

The piano version of the theme...the feels!

...I hate Mandrake Boy...I fucking love the ending theme though.

Well, that was a good episode. It had some nice scenes, mostly the ones with them grieving over Oka-san and the one at the end when they're all in the magic room. The fight scenes were okay, but the Magi Mother VS Wolzord one was the best. I think the episode helped move along character wise more then story, but not by much. It didn't give us huge amounts of character development, but it gave us at least a little bit.

So all in all, good episode.

Episode 1: IPretty good. I don't understand why she gives them no sort of training whatsoever, or how Red shows up just to save them all, but if this is anything like PRMF, Kai going to hog the limelight, isn't back.

So, I watched SAGA 3 and...

Mandrake Boy. Huh.

...

Oh, and he sings.

...

So that dragon mech was pretty cool, amiright?

I don't get the hate for Mandrakeboy. He is no different than Taku, Navi, Bokku, Dappu, and Debi Debi.

For me it's a combination of the creepy puppet, the annoying voice, and the annoying verbal tic, desu. I've hated that damn thing ever since he started doing episode recaps at the end of Hibiki. I didn't even know it sings.

Please tell me it only sings the one time.

Once, as far as I remember. It has been a few years since I finished the show, though.

I thought he sung once more around the time Smokey and Hikaru were around. Maybe I'm thinking of something else.

So, episodes 2 and 3. My main thought throughout these was that MandaraBoy could go away, preferably into one of Hibiki's fire attacks, but there were good moments. The mecha are badass, and I don't mind courage teaching them new magic spells. It seems like they're granted by those magical spirits that show up during the morphing call. But I don't like the music so much. The opening is OK, but I really don't like the ending,

It's not that I hate him, exactly...

I mean, I might hate him... or he might be my favorite thing ever. He's riding that thin line between terrible and so-weird-I-love-it.

Ok...I've actually seen Magiranger pretty recently. Christmas 2012. Well that's recent to me and now I'm watching again. And one thing that bothered me then and now, is that these kids spend their whole life thinking Magic isn't real and then one day a troll shows up and like 5 mins later Mom is shoving magic cell phones into their hands and tells them to go fight.

Now I'm use to Sentai knowing how to use stuff without even trying, but for some reason this one bothered me. I mean if they had just mentioned that they had been preparing for this their whole life then I'd be ok with it. But they got from 0-60 in like 2 seconds.

Also seeing Wolzard in Centaur mode just reminds me that Wolkaiser is one of the few MagiRanger DX bots I don't have. A little Jealous.

and finally I love how Mandrake Boy shows up at the end of the first episode to tell us the spell for the episode even though at this point we would have no idea who he is at this point.