Uchu Sentai KyuRanger Episode 8- "The Commander's Secret!" Discussion
 

While searching for the KyuTama to liberate the Earth, Spada is distracted by the starving populace & uses his skills to feed the hungry citizens.

And just what special power does Xiao Lonpo have up his sleeves?!

V Okyu.

Shou Ronbou, Xiao Lonpo, Xiao Longbao...

Let’s just call him Joe Longbow from now on. That one’s at least easy to spell.

You know, with how often Toei tends to spoil stuff in the montly scans, I'm surprised this didn't get spoiled.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8XNHS4XYAADsNV.jpg

You talking bout spoiling when I ain't even seen the episode yet...literally clicked on this forum on accident...

Sorry about that. Probably should of change the image to a url.

I call him Commander Dumplings.

So uh, what happened with the "budget"? 3 Daikan of this episode are all modified Tsuyoindavers.

Ikagen and Madako are amazing this episode though, throwing the kyurangers around like toys. And bonus point for Ikagen managed to outdo Lucky's luck and defeat him.

This was an obvious setup episode so yeah... not a whole lot to talk about here. Sparda getting some spotlight is nice I guess but I didn’t feel like it had enough time.

Ikagen and Madako delivered though, I love these two. I hope they stick around until the show is almost over.

To be honest the best part of the whole episode, for me at least, was when they used some painted up versions of the Ookami Voyager and Washi Voyager toys and had them placed directly in front of the camera with Ookami Blue and Washi Pink standing in the background to simulate that their Voyagers were shot down. It's simple but it works! :lol

Ikagen and Madako were the best part about this episode. I do hope that they stick around until the end. Ikagen cancelling Lucky's luck and Madako growing her arm back were specially awesome moments, in my opinion. So much so that I'm kinda hoping Commander Xiao Longbao loses to them. I man, that dumpling-headed dragon is an idiot and clearly cannot be trusted. He left a child on the Orion!

Yeah, I was actually fooled by that shot. Amazing what a little perspective can do.

Ikagen and Madako are great. I love villains that can defeat the heroes.
My only fear is that they'll be destroyed by a last second Kyutama, rather than the Kyurangers own abilities and skills.
And considering there's dozens of Kyutama, I'm pretty sure that's how they'll lose...

Episode was alright. Spada getting growth was nice. I enjoyed seeing all 9 Kyurangers active. Even though 3 weren't on the battlefield, they were deployed, so it was fair. I liked Stinger bringing Kotaro onto the ship without question.
Lucky: "I want to be a Kyuranger!"
Everyone: "No. Go home, guy."
Kotaro: "I want to be a Kyuranger!"
Stinger: "...K."
I guess it helps that Kotaro wanted to be a Kyuranger because he wants to help save his world. Lucky wanted to be one because it was exciting and fun.
...I wish Kotaro was our red...

I wish I could've been impressed with Xiao's transformation, but even Toei knew that everyone was aware he was a ranger.
The preview hints that he has a time limit on his transformation, too. I like and dislike this.
I dislike it because it doesn't put us in a similar situation to Doggie/Dekamaster, where he doesn't transform so that his team has to learn to fight and not be their crutch. It loses a lot of the complexity. However, considering they're on a universe wide liberation campaign, it does make some sense that if he could transform without impunity, he would be a more active member.

Aside: I thought the close up was on the toys, but I didn't want to say anything since I couldn't be 100% sure :lol

Ok, I need someone to explain to me the motif behind the vilain designs. Sentai Wiki says it's based on constalations and cryptids but not really. Also, why the hell Mardakko wears a thong? Is she supposed to be a bond girl crossed with an octopus? I really dig Ikargen's design and the Moraimarz design but it's sort of inconsostant.
I think it really anoyed me this episode mostly because we saw 4 villain suits and they clearly don't have a shared design asthetic.

Not much to talk about with this one but it was enjoyable. Kyuranger really feels like it's picking up steam lately, which is nice.

I was not expecting Ryu Commander to debut as a "normal" Kyuranger first. That's kind of a neat concept. Not sure why his belt is just a recycled ToQ Buckle though. I guess Captain Dumplings frequents the Rainbow Line?

This was a good set up for the next episode. Nice Spada centered episode with some Kotaro and Xiao thrown in.

Next episode is gonna be heavy with Xiao and I'm okay with that.

So what's with Ryu Violet. What happened to Ryu Commander? Is his some sort of incomplete form? Also who's the blue bear in the commander's clothes? My guess is he'll give Kotaro his kyutama.

Yeah, it's an incomplete form. He doesnt have his coat and his chest piece (the orb-thingy) is gray instead of purple. As was his Kyutama if you didn't notice.

The blue bear was the commander before the dragon
, he got killed and Sho Ronpo took over the Rebellion.

So now we have ten Kyurangers? Then the title was a lie. It's not Kyurangers, it's Juurangers! Oh wait, we already have Zyurangers so we can't have a similar sounding team... even though we had Kyurugers but that's not confusing enough either.

Actually, one of the translation for "ball" in Japanese, beside tama, is Kyu (球). So technically, they are space squadron ballranger, not space squadron nineranger.

I know it means "ball" as well, but the pun is lost now.

The scenery of the fight does seem very similar to the first one shown in episode 1 of ToQger so that's maybe a coincidence xD

Wasn't the conductor the purple Toqger? If so its a weird coincidence that the heads of the series' transports turn out to be purple.

I think for now we can safely say male violet rangers = the oldest or of authorative status in their respective teams.

I'm starting to understand how team structure is becoming. Filler-ish episodes will feature the Kyulette and a 5 person away team while more plot-centric will feature all 9 members doing something.

That was something that was showcase quite well here, with all the Kyurangers doing something that was of some importance. The clear focus was definitely on Spada's group, finally shedding some details on his motives and backstory. It does however suffer from a bit of "show, don't tell" kinda problem where it's just sort of explained out of the blue. It's a problem the last two episode had regarding Balance and Hammy backstory details which is kind of a shame since both Champ and Stinger didn't have it when it came to their backstories.

Ikargen and Mardakko threat was definitely showcased here, with them exploiting weakness within the Kyurangers and proving to be very dangerous foes. Shou's tranformation into Ryu Violet was cool but its clear that the real debut is next epsiode.

Then that really would make this ToQger.

Aaaand considering everyone has now pointed out that the commander in charge is unofficially/officially always purple (because crap, didn't we also technically do that in KyoRyuger), so much of it all makes sense.

What I truly want to do....
http://www.tokunation.com/attachment...1&d=1491413027

Give me more Spada. And Naga/Balance.

Finally villains that don't suck.

Liked it a lot.

Despite the fact there were too many things going on, it was done well. I didn't care the Violet spandex was a reuse of ToQ. At least it's not a Zyuoh Bird scenario.