[MarsHottentot]

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger
EP 1.
This is, uh.. wow. What a great, monumentally silly, action packed debut. Opening with a Super Sentai Showdown featuring all previous spandexers kicking ass and taking names in that quarry they love to fight in. In the end, they all sacrifice themselves to crush an invasion by Space Empire Zangyack, scattering their Ranger essence to the stars...

From there "time passes" and we meet our protags - a crew of cute, young, stylish Japanese kids who just happen to also be bad-ass Space Pirates cruising the spaceways in their galactic pirate ship (I've always loved this concept). They're about to land on Earth ("the galaxy's greatest treasure!") when they are besieged by that damn Zangyack gang of aristocratic ding-dongs!

After handing them their bourgeois bo-ttocks with an assist by their mech GoZyu GokaiOh, the gang land on Earth where Zangyack redouble their efforts and we see the changer / morpher gimmick: Ranger Keys - little statuettes that house a key component giving the Gokaiger's the powers (and costumes) of Legendary Sentai.

I really enjoyed it. The action set at the episode's climax is fantastic - a lot of jaw dropping stunts and the gimmick is so crassly commercial (and apparently derived both from Kamen Rider Decade and in answer to the Tohoku Quake!), it's hard to hate. I mean - could they get any more subliminal?:

Gotta Catch 'Em All!
The only downside was the wonky CGI during GokaiOh's space battle - it was terrible - they'd have been better served with more battleship action - which rocked.
The character's were cartoony as all get out but, at least in this debut, they weren't obnoxious (Onarxious?). Love the Pirate Sentai design, very cool.