[Kamen Rider Lucha]

After about *checks watch* two years, I’ve finally finished Timeranger.

And hoo boy do I have mixed feelings. I guess that should go without saying, considering how long it took me to finish it. When it’s good, it’s top-tier Sentai excellence. Like, seriously, the last (roughly)15 episodes are just so goddamn good. When it’s bad... well, it’s about as boring as Sentai has ever been. Just one interminable filler episode after another. It makes it real hard to watch.

The show starts strong before quickly losing all steam. It takes about 20 more episodes to get remotely interesting again. From there, it pretty much alternates between good and bad until the endgame, which consists of roughly 15 consecutive episodes of nonstop excellence.

That makes it, hands down, the most Yasuko Kobayashi-run show of all Yasuko Kobayashi-run shows. That woman is the queen of the strong start, boring AF middle, and stunning final stretch.

Stray thoughts:

- So much of this show feels like a practice run for Kamen Rider Ryuki, Kobayashi’s first KR series. She’ll go on to refine all of Timeranger’s best elements in that show, right down to literally having the exact same final sequence.

- Time Fire is the best 6th Ranger, and I will fight anyone who disagrees.

- This show would have been so much better had Toei bothered to dust off the film prints and remaster it.

- Domon’s sideburns grossed me the fuck out every single time I saw them.

- I did not expect to become so invested in Yuuri and Tatsuya’s romance, but their final goodbyes left me in a puddle of tears.

- Sentai series, IMO, are only as good or bad as their main villains. I definitely thought that Don Dornero and his crew was Timeranger’s primary weakness for about 42 episodes, but then... well... I was proven oh so very wrong. I was not prepared for them to become one of the best parts of the show.


Overall, I’d say I thoroughly enjoyed Timeranger. Its mind-numbing start and middle made for an occasionally difficult watch, but the endgame was rewarding enough to be worth the effort.