[Fish Sandwich]

~Fish's Zenkai Tour!~

Episode 2 – JAKQ Dengekitai



I've always had a huge fondness for these dorks from a distance. There's like a whole underdog vibe to JAKQ that I find a little fascinating. Even the designs alone straddle this perfect line between genuinely cool and endearingly lame that I've only barely ever been able to put my finger on. There's just something about this team that's got a super unique appeal, and yet they're clearly not the instant-classics that the Gorangers were.

Which is maybe the story of the whole show, really. There's the whole elephant in the room that, despite making changes later on in a effort to better capture viewers' attention, One of which was particularly Big, this is the Sentai that called it quits after a relatively short run, especially when compared to its immediate predecessor. Honestly, based on the first impression I got here, I don't have a hard time seeing why the show failed to grab as big an audience as Goranger did.

There's an overall idea here that I think was very well intentioned, but also very likely the thing that backfired on JAKQ immediately, which is the clear shift in tone from Goranger. See, another huge part of that fascinating underdog factor is that JAKQ is the only Sentai about that most classic of Ishinomori staples – tragic cyborgs who fight crime. A much greater focus is placed in this premiere on fleshing out ts main heroes, Everyone gets formative backstories and motivations for becoming heroes considerably deeper than "everyone but them got shot to death", which contributes to an atmosphere that is also clearly aiming to be more grounded in reality, to the extent one of these shows can be. When I say that JAKQ fights crime, I actually mean they fight Crime, which is seriously the name of the criminal organization they're up against. Appropriate for the name, they're played up more as particularly nasty crooks than as the more typical grand fascist armies of the era.

Now, I realize as I'm writing this that a Sentai show featuring a more grounded tone and a smaller, more focused cast of developed characters, that underperformed and was met with some retooling, arguably also perfectly describes my absolute most beloved Sentai, Go-Busters, as well, which would go a long way towards explaining my attraction to JAKQ. This also makes it deeply ironic that I'm about to criticize this show for sacrificing the vibrancy that defined the series before it.

Mind you, I'm also going to stick up for it, as I think the conscious effort to differentiate JAKQ was smart, and I can easily imagine it paying off in episodes beyond the premiere, but talking strictly about first episodes (as is the goal here!), the difference between these two shows is night and day, and I'd be lying if I said I had more fun with JAKQ. It's not something I can really objectively quantify, though. It's not so much a matter of JAKQ doing anything wrong as it is a general feeling I have that Goranger was this lightning-in-a-bottle success that instantly pulled me in. And you know, if I feel that way, as someone who actively appreciates the goals JAKQ had more, I can only imagine what a lot of kids at the time must've felt like. Still some pretty fun toku in its own right, with some very cool concepts, and I can't speak for how it develops from here on, but I do have to admit I wasn't particularly impressed by this one out of the gate.

(As a footnote, the Kamen Rider Blade fan in me desperately wants to make some joke about Clover King being the Strongest JAKQ, but failed to work one in anywhere. Everyone else is welcome to try in my stead.)