[Fish Sandwich]

Jetman 12-14:

12 marks Inoue's return to the show, and just as you can tell when he left, you can tell just as much here that he's back. This is an episode that's barely concerned with the formula. Ryuu, Gai, and Ako don't even show up until way late in the episode, and they only transform to fly their jets for the robot fight at the end. Honestly, I'm surprised the episode even cared enough to make room for that. Instead of the same old same old, this is very firmly a closed room murder mystery story on a bus, and while Raita and Kaori act as the anchors for the viewers, Inoue is far more interested in developing humans here than he is in proper superheroics. Sure, the whole thing is a Vyram plot, but that's mostly a pretense for Inoue to introduce us to all kinds of colorful guest characters, such as a bus driver with a secret past, an aging cop just about to retire, and even a suicidal woman who eventually learns from this whole ordeal to try and appreciate her life more, especially after White Swan saves her. On that note, in addition to being a nice showcase for how bold Inoue's priorities could be with this show, it's also just a pretty cool episode for Kaori? I haven't explicitly said this yet, but she's more or less my favorite right now, and I dig how this one makes a point that she handles this stressful scenario way more gracefully than Raita does. There's also a moment where she gets grabbed by the giant monster and dropped from a great height, as though that's dangerous to a Jetman, and right as I was being like "you're literally a bird person; just fly" she does exactly that, and I was honestly a little impressed. Go Kaori!

Oh, and speaking of showcases for what Inoue was bringing to Jetman, Gai gets in a line early on in 13 that basically sums up the whole show. "We're humans before we're warriors." This is, naturally, said in response to Ryuu's attempts to brush off difficult questions about his feelings towards the insane love... love... uh, whatever shape the complicated network of unrequited passions he's caught up in is. I still can't be bothered to crack the math on that, especially when Raita is now throwing his hat into the ring when it comes to pining after Kaori. This episode is wall-to-wall romantic drama, and as such, it's a rather definitive episode for the series. There's plenty of great development going on here for everyone, and I especially appreciated the show using flashbacks to retroactively add some weight to Ryuu's relationship with Rie. Since, you know, we only got to see that for like half an episode before, well... At any rate, it's neat to now know stuff like that Rie was really good at playing the piano... just like Maria is shown to be while running the latest Vyram scheme in this one. A complete coincidence, I'm sure. Putting that to one side for now, I did enjoy this one a fair bit. The soap opera antics of Jetman aren't ~exactly~ my style, but I find myself, at least at the moment, really respecting just how committed the show is to taking such an unorthodox approach.

A cliffhanger ending leads directly into 14, as the team grapples with the dilemma of Kaori becoming the latest addition to Maria's photo album, courtest of Camera Dimension. Gai takes this particularly poorly, of course. It's the most vulnerable Gai has been in the whole series up to this point, and it works to make his romantic pursuit of Kaori feel a bit more earnest than just a chronic flirt's latest fling. It's not just like, macho anger towards the Vyram for taking his woman. He's blaming himself hard, and is so desperate to see her safe again that he'll get and down on his knees and outright beg Maria to give Kaori back. It's a softer side to Gai that he'd probably be embarrassed to openly show, and he's certainly not feeling great about his image when the anxious rush he's in turns out to be zero help in saving the day, which ultimately ends up happening mostly as a result of Ryuu's hard work. Kaori even properly confesses her feelings towards him when all is said and done, as if Gai wasn't having a terrible enough day. (In other romantic news, robot bad guy Grey is now attracted to Maria after hearing her play the piano, because this show man I swear.) Definitely no less heavy on the romance than last time, but I think this conclusion outdoes the first part in how it blends all this with normal heroic Sentai action. You can totally watch this one as just a really cool episode that does a fantastic job ramping up the tension as the team gradually dwindles in size until only Red Hawk is left to launch an all-or-nothing plan to save his friends with a sweet new weapon. It completely works on that level alone, and it even works great. It's a pretty uplifting ending in that sense, even, with the evil plan being foiled and all, but when Gai is walking off all grumpy because his primary motivation for being a Jetman (chasing after Kaori) isn't working out, it's also hard to ignore all the complex *drama* surrounding that... wait, hang on, this isn't the first time I've said this. Boy, Jetman sure does love its melodrama! But hey, when it results in episodes this solid, I don't see a reason to complain.