[Fish Sandwich]

Jetman 17-18:

17 lets you know Inoue is writing again with all the subtlety of Gai's attempts to win over Kaori... namely because it's an episode that opens up with Gai's latest attempt to win over Kaori. Or heck, never mind that, the dude is so desperate at this point, he's explicitly saying he'd rather have her say she hates his guts, as long as it means he gets a clear answer one way or the other. Gai could really stand to dial it back a few notches! But you know, then we wouldn't have a show, and this was another one that impressed me with just how unusual a scenario it creates. It's not often (ever? probably ever) that you get a Sentai team where two of them are stuck in an elevator together, and the other three are stuck in a different elevator, debating the likelihood that something unsavory is happening in the other elevator. (Raita's deeply concerned about Kaori being alone with Gai, Ryuu has an almost undue level of faith in Gai's manners, and Ako would probably just be eating popcorn the whole time, if she had some handy.) It's all probably a bit much for some viewers, I'm sure, but I'm still way too busy being impressed by Jetman's commitment to be too bothered myself. Like, this is pretty much the entire first act! You've got the exciting debut for a huge new villain in Empress Juuza, and her arrival is mostly used as an excuse to have the power go out to justify the whole elevator scenario. You can tell Inoue is writing the fantasy to service the soap opera, and not the other way around. Still, it's hardly lacking in interesting fantasy stuff. Juuza causes some waves among the Vyram, threatening Radiguet's leadership and ultimately banishing him to live as a lowly human after a botched betrayal attempt, and she also leaves quite the impression by going around making people writhe in horrible pain as huge crystals start jutting out of their skin, which is pretty serious body horror! It's not like the effects are super detailed and believable or anything, but it was enough to make me yearn for the days of wacky noodle monsters. Naturally, these two plotlines collide by the end, with Gai taking a hit from Juuza in order to protect Kaori.

And since this is yet another more longform story from Inoue, 18 is free to take all that ramped up tension and run with it as far as it can possibly go. I had heard there was an episode with Radiguet becoming an amnesic human and falling in love with some woman, but man, did I have no way of imagining how much else would also going on here. The continued drama with Gai is pretty solid, once again showing him in an extremely vulnerable state. Not only is he in deep physical suffering for most of the episode's length, but his attempts to play it off with the usual cool guy loner attitude eventually come crumbling down around him, as he admits to Kaori how much the thought of dying terrifies him. I couldn't help but think back to how much this lines up with episode 11's take on everyone's hidden personalities, even though that wasn't an Inoue episode. It implied there that Gai spends so much time pushing people away because he's really so desperate to keep them close, it makes him extremely anxious, and you can honestly get that vibe from him in episodes like this. As though he's a jerk more because he's awkward than anything, pretending to be strong because he resents his own weakness. Or you know, he might just also be a huge jerk! It's easy to feel for him when he's got it rough (and Kaori sure does), but that's only some of the time. At any rate, he ends up feeling a lot better after an epic enemy-of-my-enemy team-up against Juuza between the Jetmen and the restored Radiguet, fresh off of his own melodramatic romantic arc. It's a plotline I can imagine people finding overly "cheap" or whatever, in how hard it's trying to get an emotional response from the viewer, but come on, you know this plot rules. I keep talking about how fresh and weird and different Inoue's plots for Jetman are, and this is such an oddball way to develop the main antagonist of a Sentai show. I loved every second of it. Really gripping stuff, and it gets back to status quo in a way that somehow doesn't feel to me like it was all without purpose. I'd heard the ending of this plot described in very literal terms, but the way it's directed, there's an implication the final scene between this doomed couple is actually happening in Radiguet's mind, which I thought was way more interesting. It's like he's trying to personally strike down the last traces of his *disgusting humanity* to reassert his Vyram superiority, but the idea that he has to give it any thought at all makes room for the viewer to believe it might not be that simple. It's an episode with loads of drama that also leaves you with stuff to think about afterwards. Hard to go wrong with that.