[Kamen Rider Lucha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aoi Kurenai

I thought this episode was actually really good, probably one of the better Sentai episodes I've seen since ToQger

Agreed, 1000%. This episode was great. Easily one of the best Sentai episodes since Gokaiger, IMO.

This episode does a few things very well that are super encouraging...

1) Character conflict. Sentai often refuses to put any characters on the team in conflict with each other, especially in early episodes. This episode puts Naga and Balance in conflict with each other AND with Lucky. Great work.

2) Heroes with shades of gray. Sentai almost never gives us heroes that aren't squeaky clean good guys. Part of what was so refreshing about Gokaiger was how the heroes were pirates who often acted selfishly. Similarly, Naga and Balance (especially Balance) are not great guys. They're thieves. They're selfish. They betray each other for petty reasons. This was crazy refreshing.

3) An in-story explanation for why it's so easy for the heroes to find each other. Lucky's super-luck is an elegant plot device. It solves questions like "how, out of every planet in the universe, did they choose the one with two Kyurangers on it?" before they can even be asked. Without the need to contrive solutions to these logical problems, the show is free to spend its time developing characters and showing us cool action scenes. Which brings me to...

4) Holy shit the action was actually awesome! Fukuzawa is stepping his action game up big time. The action this episode had a wide variety of camera set-ups (including some classic Sentai extreme wide shots, which I've been missing in the last few seasons), it utilized a few new visual tricks they briefly experimented with in Zyuohger (the body-mounted POV cams and the fast-moving drone tracking shots), the locations were really good, and we got some interesting parallel action. Lackluster fight scenes has been one of my main criticisms of ToQger, Ninninger, and Zyuohger -- it's nice to see some clear improvement and increased creativity.

5) Interesting subversion of robot/human buddy tropes. When a human and a robot are partners, it's usually the robot who has no emotions and the human who acts as a catalyst for the robot to develop feelings. Here it's reversed! Balance is a flamboyant, OTT, hyper-emotional character, and Naga is the unfeeling logician. It's a small thing, but this is such a clever inversion of a classic trope, and it's played perfectly.

6) The super fast pacing. I'm hearing a lot of complaints that the first two episodes are overstuffed. Yes, there's a lot going on. But it's all well balanced and effective, IMO. And frankly, give me "too much stuff" any damn day, if the alternative is a slavish devotion to the same, standard, simple Sentai story tropes we see repeated year after year after year. Some say these episodes moved too fast, but I think the writers are just being very efficient in how they parcel out information.

Ultimately, though, the best thing about Kyuranger so far is how it manages to balance an irreverent tone (relative to other Sentai) with real drama (Balance's betrayal! Naga's angry outburst!) and comedy that's actually funny.

I honestly can't say enough good things about this episode. Sad to hear that so many of y'all don't feel the same way.