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What are you watching (Sentai edition)
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11-11-2016, 11:33 AM
#
7336
MarsHottentot
Oldtaku
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Atlanta, Ga / Portland, Me
Posts: 855
TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS
EP01
The 36th entry into the Super Sentai series,
Tokumei Senti Go-Busters
goes old school while tossing a lot of other Sentai conventions out the window. The show is weird in that it seems so different from regular Sentai, compounded by using such American Power-isms as "It's Morphin' Time", "Morphers" and "Megazords", but is more of a throwback to Showa style - faux serious, team starts as a trio and a family dynamic.
The debut episode begins with an impressive disaster scene as a gaggle of "Varglass Megazords" appear and wreak havoc in Tokyo, converging on some strange super structure which then blows the whole place up via a spectacular, orange Ever-Expanding Akira Bubble™
*
. This then jump cuts to a motorcycle trying to rouse Go-Busters' Red Buster, Hiromu in NEO AD 2012 - I dunno what that means. You think that maybe he was having a bad dream but... he's just stunned into an impossible state by a the image of a chicken in the morning paper (morning paper... how old is this show, again)? Not really sure.
Anyway, he's gonna be late for work as a Go-Buster! The motorcycle morphs into a Winspector type robot and bitches and whines as Hiromu gets his shit together. After a few establishing shots of cranes on a skyscraper, we meet up with the other two Go-Busters, Yellow Buster (the "tall for her age" eight year old candy muncher, Yoko) and Blue Buster (Ryuuji), as they're on the job and we are introduced to G-Buster's central gimmick: espionage.
The duo spy away while perched on the crane's hook, as we're informed they're on a special mission to investigate an "Enetron" leak by the Energy Management Center, the Go-Buster's governing body. Some goons are in an office building accessing this stuff illegally! NO! Clearly, the Go-Busters need to go bust them - and quick because there's been almost an entire minute with no action. The pair literally swing into action (via that patently cheesy Toei CGI), smash through the window and, while the goons start shooting, the pair whip off their sunglasses (1) and slo-mo into action while their "Morphers" bust to life, announcing "It's Morphin' Time!" and "Let's Morphin'!" and outfitting our heroes into stylish leather get-ups - not very Sentai; these non-spandex costumes won't ever tear during strenuous stuntwork, really cutting down on any slash-fic that one may want to write.
After trading a few blows with the goons, there's crap-a-doo edit and our goons reveal themselves to actually be friggin'
MOOKS
! Meanwhile, Red accepts being a Go-Buster (???) and he and his robo-cycle
finally
leave his amazing house (Go-Busters pays pretty well, it seems) which prompts an informal opening credit sequence where we learn that Enetron is a source of cheap-o, presumably renewable, energy and the Varglass want it - simple! Yellow and Blue hop around beating the mooks using their lame-ass-therefore-cool camera guns (spy-stoof!), EMC prepare the team's mechs and Red rides his Buddyloid, popping a wheelie to let you know shit's urgent. Heeeey, maybe the slash-fic'ers
do
have something to work with here...
Say Cheese!
The Bustahs corner the lead baddie, "Enter" on the roof (he's got the cool anime hair and circuit sunglasses - clearly the lead badster), where he lays a lite whup-ass on our heroes while spittin' Française and makes his escape -
magnifiqué
!
The brass at EMC headquarters kvetch over Enter's threat of a big show while Himomu continues to ride his Buddyloid. Enter, meanwhile, reports back via VR with some digital Anti-Zordon who thinks he's the Messiah. This scene is total Cyberflop 90's
Hackers
/
Lawnmower Man
crap - love it. Given his orders, Enter goes to a scrapyard and gives a steamshovel a case of the rubber suits, setting up a fight between it and the Busterz! At some interdimensional robot factory, the mooks launch a Megazord - whose arrival time is kept via a suspenseful timer at the bottom right corner of the screen. Of course, this is a bit of irony as Sentai usually has some giant attack at the end of the show. It does add some urgency to the pre-hoedown, so that's cool.
It is now that we finally learn that these Busters have special powers and weaknesses and that's why they're fighting Vaglass. Each also has an animal themed Buddyloid robot - Ryuji has Gorisaki Banana, a whiny gorilla with a steering wheel for a face, Yoko has Usada Lettuce, a rabbit with a bad attitude and Hiromu has Cheeda Nick, a great cat (a cheetah, those it has no cheetah pattern) who basically keeps him on track.
Yellow and Blue engage the Shovelroid, whipping off their sunglasses (2) before morphin' into action. Red has finally reached his destination - a hospital - where he lets his injured sister know he's decided to join the Go-Busters. She's not so keen on this but, we know how it's gonna turn out so, moving on - TIME IS RUNNING OUT!
The Megazord land in the heart of the city and starts smashin' the joint up, bent on getting the Enetron and allowing Messiah into our dimension! Luckily, Red Buster is going to save the day - he shows up, blasting away at the Shovelroid as he flies by on Cheeda Nick, blowing half it's face off - and he hasn't even Morphin' Time'd yet! After this impressive display, he tells the weaker Busters that, obviously, he'll take on the Megazord - they can clean up the, now crippled and probably EZ-2-Kill, Shovelroid. Wotta guy!
And now my favorite element: the absurdly gigantic sports car / Cat Megazord, the CB-01 picks up Red Buster who then morphs the car into it's mech form and lays a beatdown on the Varglasshole Megazord! In the midst of the battle an occupied building is blown in half (I can only assume plenty of civvies met their crispy end here), necessitating Hiromu stop it from collapsing! Of course, after righting the building (watlolsrly), he charges the Varg Vikerzord, whose missles blow up countless
other
buildings, but they're small so... maybe they're not sponsors?
Anyway, inspired by Red Buster's Mega-Pluck™, Blue and Yellow finally simultaneously end the Shovelroid with the camera-blasters - YAY! Hiromu gets serious on the notion of fighting and winning and then everybody dances!
Pretty good, as much as it's different (no roll call for one, at least in this EP), it still retains Sentai's inherent silliness, though maybe not as "in your face" as other series. The effects are generally well executed, used to great effect where they count, while discounted elsewhere (like the window assault). I like the Buddyloid concept, though they didn't really do anything, apart from Cheeda Nick. The Busters themselves are fairly grounded compared to other series, while their human supporting cast just kinda... sat around. Too much of that.
As you can see, a lot happened though it didn't much feel like it. The slightly more grounded feel sacrifices much of Sentai's lunacy, which I'm not sure works.
Overall, a good, but not great, debut.
*(for the millionth time - what does watching {and occasionally living through} endless city flattening events do to Tokyo kiddies perceptions of mortality, I wonder?)
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