[Fish Sandwich]

Kakuranger 16-17:

Episode 16, man. I love this stuff. Love it, love it, love it. There's nothing quite like a good superhero story where the protagonist has to succeed against impossible odds by relying on cunning and skill rather than raw power, and this is a 10/10, perfectly executed version of that. It's also the perfect use of a two-part format, since the last episode ended at the exact lowest point for the Kakurangers, making the inevitable comeback revenge here that much more satisfying. I could gush about this one for days. Seeing Sasuke fighting back huge gashes while evading his pursuers, him sneaking around in air vents, cleverly slipping his tied up teammates a file, and then deliberately attracting the bad guys' attention to give them time to escape, it's all so dang engaging. If I wanted to criticize something, it'd be the continued questionable purpose of the Jusho Fighters, but I don't want to criticize that. Like I said, the show is pushing them so hard it becomes more adorable than anything, and here, it not only leads to a good fight scene, but it's the best of both worlds, since the monsters still learn the hard way what the "Muteki" in Muteki Shogun means in the end. This is some grade-A Super Sentai right here, make no mistake. It's easily my favorite single episode of Kakuranger so far, and, while time will tell how much it sticks with me, it may very well go down as one of my favorite Sentai episodes in general. It's almost definitive in how awesome it is, if that makes any sense. Like it just perfectly encapsulates the genuine, uncomplicated glee of seeing people in colorful spandex beat up evil monsters that makes this franchise so compelling.

I don't know if it's just because I'm in such a good mood from the previous episode, but 17 was a very enjoyable, standard sort of episode. A simple premise with a Youkai going after Saizou because she lost a fight to his ancestor way back, the usual little kid who learns a life lesson, nothing too crazy. Ordinarily, that'd be bad news for Kakuranger, which works wonders with crazy, but the execution of this episode is so solid I can't find much to pick apart. Saizou gets to be both fun and cool, so as a spotlight it does its job of making him seem more appealing as a character, and there's some really strong action, including some great use of the classic artificial sunset backdrop for dramatic effect. The episode keeps things so focused and trim, the Jusho Fighters don't even show up, which means the mecha action part of the episode lasts under a minute total, because once again, this is Mu~te~ki Shogun we're dealing with.

There's also been some minor stylistic changes to the show in the past few episodes I might as well mention. The addition of a tease of that episode's Youkai in the opening is pretty neat (and took the spot of one of the Jusho Fighters' somewhat excessive three shots), but the quizzes at the end? Not feeling those so much. First of all, it took a few episodes for them to realize the answer should probably be displayed more prominently on-screen than the text for the credits it's surrounded by, at which point they changed it to a nice big, centered box. But the whole concept itself is a bit strange. The questions themselves so far are pretty weaksauce (guess what color Ninja Blue's underwear are!), and I'm not entirely sure why the show suddenly decided they needed a hook to entice people to stick around during the commercial break to make it to the credits. Was nobody watching that ad break and the sponsors got angry? Did Toei just want to make sure as many people as possible were grooving to Ninja Matenrou Kids? Because I can totally get behind that cause, it's just, a quarter of the show went by without this being an issue, you know?