[Kamen Rider Lucha]

I just finished up Ohranger as well.

First things first: My, oh my! What a gloriously absurd finale. I think the last four episodes of this show stand up to any Super Sentai ending arc I've watched. The reveal of the Cho-Riki homeworld is... well... I don't want to ruin it for the uninitiated, but it is INSANITY, and I loved every second of it. The Machine Empire’s full takeover of Earth is terrifyingly well-realized. Kaiser Buldont and Maltihua prove to be exactly the cruel, intimidating villains the show lacked for so long. One of the show’s most annoying villains pulls an about-face and reveals hidden depths. The action remains brutal and sophisticated, and the cinematography is on-point. There are even some shocking deaths! (Err… okay… near deaths.) These episodes pack in pretty much everything I want from a Sentai finale and distinctly raise the overall quality of the show a few notches.

But look, in spite of all the ending awesomeness, Ohranger is not the greatest show. As Kain said, it has its share of fantastic episodes -- I'd put the first 8 and last 4 up against the best of the franchise, and I'd even go as far as to say that almost every episode written by Sugimura is on-par with Zyu, Dai, and Kaku, in terms of plotting and suspense (though admittedly, not always in terms of character and theme). But not all of the show's writers were able to acquit themselves to the post-terrorist attack retool quite as gracefully as Sugimura did. Soda turns in some painfully bland and derivative stories here, and Inoue churns out what are easily the laziest scripts I've seen from him. In a surprising turn of events, Uehara occasionally escapes this trend and returns to the franchise he helped build with some legitimately charming comedy, but those episodes are few and far between.

Where this show really falls apart is in its approach to character. Namely, that none of the characters have any. I could sit here for days trying to distinguish Oh Green and Oh Blue and come up with no satisfactory results other than, “that one has longer hair than the other one.” Momo is cute, but that’s about it. And Goro – while starting in such a promising place, as a hyper-competent, highly decorated military leader – is extremely flat. I think Juri is the most interesting (I'm actually finding that female yellows are often my favorite characters in any given season), but that is just by virtue of the writers having so many conflicting approaches to her. Whatever the cause, the result is a surprisingly multifaceted -- if utterly unlikable – character created, it seems, completely by accident and with none of the writers themselves realizing it. Riki and Dorin are mostly just there (until the end, where they are the center of some truly startling events).

But through it all, in spite of the crap characters and the attempts at humor that fall completely flat, Ohranger is still a totally worthwhile series. It consistently has the best action cinematography of any Sentai series I’ve seen, and when the show is firing on all cylinders, it’s a thrilling ride.

As far as ranking within the franchise goes, I’d place it solidly in the middle of my list, which currently goes…

JETMAN > KAKURANGER > GOKAIGER > DAIRANGER > SHINKENGER > OHRANGER > KYORYUGER > TOqGER > GO-BUSTER = GOSEIGER > MASKMAN > MAGIRANGER