After almost a whole year of putting it off, I’m finally back to re-watching Megaranger through my copy of the DVD set as released by Shout Factory that I bought myself along with Jetman from Amazon. Just started on the second disc.

Will eventually re-watch Carranger, GoGoFive, and Timeranger somewhere down the line due to being given two of the DVD sets for Christmas from my sister and brother-in-law and the other I bought with an Amazon gift card a friend of mine got for me during the same holiday. Looking forward to seeing them again.

Dang, so much discussion happened since yesterday.

On that note, I think my disdain for toku fans (and anime fans, while we're at it) comes from how so many people seem to judge shows based on things that don't actually matter. I've seen people write off anime because it doesn't have "sakuga" moments. For those who don't know, those are moments when the animation suddenly gets way more impressive. Sure, those are cool, but they're not essential to telling an engaging story. For a more toku-related example, the dragon thing is a perfect example. Or the lizard-motorcycle thing that only showed up for an episode or two. Were those handled perfectly? No. But in all honesty...how much does their mishandling really affect the series?

I'm not who you were asking, but I also don't care much for romance stories. I think the reason is because I hate how much emphasis society puts on relationships. I know so many people who base their entire self-worth on whether they're in a relationship or not, or think entering into a relationship will solve all of their problems. There's also a ton of people who pursue somebody simply because being around them leads to a serotonin release. But that shouldn't be what a relationship is built upon.

It's been a while since I watched it, so I don't remember it perfectly...but I found it hard to believe that their romantic interests in Jetman were based in anything other than lust and impulsive decision-making. Sure, it's realistic, and was well-written. But man, I find it so annoying. I wanted to slap Gai and tell him to stfu for most of it.

Despite that, it was still an enjoyable and engaging story.

Here's the other reason. Romance often feels forced into stories where it doesn't need to exist, simply because of what I said earlier - so many people are obsessed with romance culture.

Well, I'm glad we're on the same page about it being unhealthy behavior. I guess you make a good point - while I do find it annoying that the characters act like that, at the very least, they faced repercussions for their awful behavior. Normally, toxic romantic behavior seems to be applauded (or, at least, it did)

I'm so entirely afraid to watch Faiz because I think I'll be annoyed to no end :lol If one thing bothers me more than toxic relationship behavior, it's toxic lack of communication. I've worked in customer service, currently work in marketing, and all of the people I interact with on a daily basis are non-native English speakers. I have to be careful and clear with my choice of words, and even then, I sometimes falter. But at least I admit that. It's infuriating to me when people don't even try, yet they think they're completely in the right.

Don't feel bad, I started watching Kiramager when it first aired and am only like halfway through :lol

Honestly, I think it's probably not even one of them. The last of the Five Venoms will be defeated, and they won't have the ring. Leo and Mele are going to be like "wtf, I thought one of them had it. Where is it?" and keep searching. That's my prediction.

I'm glad you gave it another shot and found more to appreciate!


Whew. Okay, I'm done.

I haven't seen all of Faiz (just barely started, actually), so it's interesting to hear that people's main complaint with the show (lack of communication) is kinda the whole point of the show... which is something I've long suspected, given Inoue's other work, so I'm excited to see that play out as I continue Faiz.

I wouldn't say that Jetman is satirical, more that it's just pointing out that love is messy, it doesn't heal all wounds, life continues to be fucked up with or without love, and toxic relationships can sometimes be impossible to escape, short of death. Given that Jetman is Inoue's first show as head writer, it's not surprising to me that the point (or, at least, what I see as the point) isn't as clear as it could be. And hey, who knows, I could be bringing more complexity to the show than was intended... but I think I'm following the crumbs Inoue laid out.

A lot of television drama is centered around misunderstanding and miscommunication. But yeah Faiz is particularly heinous.

All this Sentai talk made me want to watch a new one, so I figured it would be fine to watch Gaoranger alongside Skyrider, since it gives me a nice break from the Showa-ness when it gets to be too much. I've always been interested in Gaoranger for some reason, I considered it strongly when picking my first Sentai to watch back in the day, but I wasn't actually sure what to expect. After watching the first 2 episodes I'm actually really struck by how much of a throwback the show feels like? The narration style, the way characters don't use names (I assume this will be a bit of a plot point, but still), the weirdly savage fights that strongly remind me of Amazon, the way the show just thows the main character into the plot with no explanations. It all feels very deliberately retro, so it might be less of a contrast to Skyrider than I initially expected. That said, I'm... intrigued? Like, the start is definitely a lot to take in, what with our animal-empath veterinarian protagonist (who, as far as I can tell, has no relatives and probably lived on the streets given how quickly and willingly he abandoned his old life) getting kidnapped to a floating turtle island so the sentai team can have a new member. It all feels very bizarre, but the show also has a very distinct style to it, and the second episode with Red trying to reason with the monsters was unusual. I'm hoping some of the more novel aspects of this show pay off nicely as it goes along!

Kiramager Episodes 21-22

The 'resolution' of the Mabusheena curse arc, in so much as I'm sure those two Gatherstones will show up later, and it's pretty good. Takamichi finally opening himself up to things other than 'saving Mabushena' has come at a good time, and while Part 1 feels a little half-hearted about being in the plot (it's also a Shiguru episode I'm not sure says much about him), I still enjoyed Fisherman Mask. Part 2 is very good, Jurru's fight with the witch looks sick, and the resolution at the end is great. Good 2-parter.

Jetman 36-37:

Inoue has the team in such an unexpectedly stable place by 36 that he decides to take them all on vacation. And they actually manage to mostly just have a good time! Nobody is throwing punches at each other or running off in emotional fits or anything. It's all really mundane antics, complete with a mandatory gag where role-model of role-models Gai tries to catch a glimpse of the women of the team while they're bathing. Remember kids, if Gai says something is a really good idea, nine times out of ten, it's a really bad idea! For as much as this episode emphasizes how the team is currently *drama*-free, at long last, scenes like that sure highlight how childish these characters can still be. They should maybe take a page from Tran, who... well, I mean, he thinks he's plenty mature, anyway. I don't think I've talked about Tran at all yet? He's just a little kid with a ridiculous techno-wizard looking costume, but like the other three Vyram generals, he's got a lot of presence, and is fun to watch in action. The issue with him is just that, compared to the other three, he tends not to be driving much action at all, and that comes to a head here, with Radiguet, Maria, and Grey all deciding it's the perfect day to make fun of Tran for being a dumb ineffectual kid. I mean, he's not even important to the plot, right? Like any prideful Sentai boss character, he doesn't take insults well, and sets off to ruin the team's vacation with a somewhat gruesome plan involving mind-controlling ants, and lots of things people aren't supposed to be eating whole getting eaten whole. The episode is essentially one last big hurrah for Tran's actor, because when his plan inevitably fails like always, and the other villains ridicule him some more, Tran runs off to sulk in a cave, and gets so angry, he turns into an adult. Which is a completely logical turn of events. I mean, I'm sure that exact situation has happened to all of us.

So yeah, the premise for 37 should be pretty obvious. I think the really amusing thing about the newly matured Tranza is that his game plan for proving how much better he is now still reeks of a child's line of thinking? I'm not sure how deliberate that is, but like, the early stretch of the episode is literally him going up to the men of the Jetmen one by one to show them up at their own games. He's WAY better at fighting than Ryuu! He gets WAY more chicks than Gai! And he can even eat WAY more food than Raita! See how COOL he is now? (He presumably doesn't bother proving his superiority to Ako and Kaori because girls are icky and have cooties.) Honestly, I think the new actor's more subdued performance, at least so far, is a lot less compelling than he used to be, but everything about the way Tranza is written, I thought was great. He's absurdly cocky, physically strong enough to boss everybody around without feeling like he's actually matured enough mentally to have earned that in any way. Despite the setup of him being treated at the runt of the litter prior to his transformation, Tranza doesn't inspire a lot of sympathy. He's just the newest jerk in line acting out, and him arrogantly declaring himself the leader of the Vyram flips the script right back around to make the other three feel like the ones more worth rooting for. After all, Radiguet's the real underdog here. People keep trying to undermine him, and he always winds up back on top through his own hard work, rather than miracle cave transformations, or whatever nonsense got Tranza where he is now.

Real fun set of episodes, all around. There are a lot of nice little moments throughout Inoue uses to keep the momentum going that are hard to touch on in a broad summary, as well. You get a great feel for where the overall story is at right now, and also several small hints of where it's going, like the first clear signs of how much trouble Gai and Kaori are going to have maintaining an actual romantic relationship beyond the initial impassioned declarations of love. Like I said, the team is *drama*-free, currently. But there's all sorts of drama just waiting over the horizon, and this two-parter makes for a smooth transition into a new chapter for the series.

Well, I suppose you could say an obsessive love of tokusatsu is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. :p

(Before you give me too much credit here, I'll remind you of two things though. Jetman is from the era of Sentai where the episodes are 4 minutes shorter, which adds up quick, and while I may be alright at finishing shows, I can be awful about starting them. I've been meaning to watch more than one episode of Ultraman Tiga for like 9 whole years now, just as an example.)

I'm glad someone actually brought up this kind of thing on the internet. There's a time I possibly wouldn't have said this but there is a difference between tolerating nerds as in what you used to imagine which would be a bit like people from an 80s/90s Hollywood family film that would still be at least somewhat pleasant and having too much tolerance for the more common type of nerd these days which, sorry to bring up political discussion but, seem to me to be more right-leaning and not such nice people in my view!

More Fun Fact: Tranza isn't Hirose Yutaka's first time as a Sentai villain, nor his last. He was also Ley Wanda of Flashman and Doctor Kemp of Liveman and he later portrayed Ryo's rival Jin in an extra violent Inoue-written arc of Dairanger.

I've seen 6 episodes of Gaoranger now. I'm really not sure what to make of this show yet, but I thought I'd go over some of my thoughts. The show continues to feel very strange! I'm enjoying it, so many small aspects of it feel unusual, and I'm not sure if it is in a good way or not yet. The show seems fairly lighthearted, if I were to pick the Sentai I find it closest to, I'd say Zyuranger since both have a fairytale-like quality to their stories. I do think I maybe know a spoiler though, either that or I got really mislead somewhere. I think GaoBlue dies? So it might get more serious later on and advance a lot from the fairly basic drama it currently has. I am finding the cast pretty appealing so far, so that's a positive! Yellow in particular surprised me, since he is actually kind of an ass! He isn't a bad guy, but he certainly feels like an unusual kind of character for a Sentai. The dynamic between Blue and Black is cute and White seems intriguing. Red, meanwhile, is the weak link, very much a generic fiery leader type without too much going for him so far.


But yeah, this is a hard one to get a grasp on. I might try and post here a little more often than normal so I can hash my feelings out better, as opposed to my normal modus operandi of only posting at the beginning and end of a show, plus any time something overwhelming good/bad happens. I dunno if I can be like Fish and write a small essay about every episode, but I want to at least write more!