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What are you watching (Sentai edition)
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09-15-2021, 08:06 PM
#
8864
Fish Sandwich
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
~Fish's Zenkai Tour!~
Episode 27 – Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger
Abaranger has a real way of staying off my radar, for whatever reason. I know stuff about it, but not that much, and I know people seem to like it, but I don't hear it talked about enough to really gauge
how
much. I have a feeling this is once again down more to my own ignorance than anything. And I do mean ignorance! Like, it wasn't until embarrassingly recently that I figured out this was the first Sentai that Naruhisa Arakawa was main writer on. I mean, I've definitely seen that information before, but when I think of a mid 2000's Arakawa Sentai, there's always been a certain show I think of, and it isn't this one. It's like the fact he was the lead on more than one Sentai that decade was utterly incomprehensible to me for the longest time, and I have no idea why. You'd think I'd be well aware of all the juicy details of the first Sentai show helmed by Arakawa, a lifelong toku nerd, long-time episode writer for Sentai even back then,
and
the guy who had, only a few years prior to Abaranger, played a huge part in revitalizing the Kamen Rider franchise as the main writer for Kuuga, a show I'm rather fond of, to say the least. The guy's got passion and talent in abundance, so surely I've been missing out on something pretty awesome ignoring Abaranger for so long, right?
Well, if Abaranger's first episode is any indication, I have
definitely
been missing out. Like I said, Arakawa knows his stuff, and he applies that here to create a debut that subtly breaks the mold in a lot of places, and feels so much fresher for it. You can tell it was written by someone who knows the rules well enough to know which ones he could disregard.
Right away, the show is living up to that
abare
mentality, because this premiere is on a rampage out of the gate! Hurricaneger introduced cold opens to Sentai midway through its run, which freed Abaranger up to not even bother with a title sequence here. Instead, you've got the team's first additional member, Abare Black, throwing down with bad guys on another world as the theme song plays, which is rad as heck. It reminds me of when a video game starts you with all the power-ups you're going to get before taking them away to dole them out gradually later. It's a great way to generate a sort of intrigue by teasing you with the prospect of all this cool stuff you'll be seeing, presented in such a deliberately overwhelming fashion that you've just
gotta
stick around to see where this is all going. I didn't call Abare Black the team's first "additional" member by mistake! He won't properly be fighting again for a good while after this intro, but before he loses his ability to transform, he demonstrates a bunch of powers and abilities that will all be relevant down the line. The writing here is very
conscious
of this being the viewer's introduction to this world in a way that felt significantly more clever than usual to me.
The rampage just keeps on going as three giant robot dinosaurs start, well,
rampaging
all around Tokyo, because this episode just needed to be even cooler, I guess. But wait! This is a show about dinosaur-themed heroes! So naturally, these guys aren't actually the bad guys, but merely under the control of the real villains. Unable to become Abare Black for the time being, it's up to our courageous hero from another world, Asuka, to find people on our Earth who have the Dino Guts needed to become Abarangers and get this situation under control. Fortunately for him, things are looking promising, with five people who have the power to hear the dinosaurs' cries for help. But wait! This is a Sentai with three people again! See, this is where not having the usual opening pays off, because the episode gets to do the most dumb, amazing, ridiculous, impossibly clever thing imaginable by having Asuka's first recruits be some klutzy girl and an elderly man. And they get to wear the transformation devices and everything! And try to transform with them! And the stock footage even starts going! The episode seriously waits until the last possible moment to admit the trick it's playing, and I can't help but admire the commitment it has. It's definitely more purposeful than just a wacky gag, which helps its case, but even if it was done entirely for the sake of it, it'd still be so much weird fun.
Again, Arakawa knows exactly the right ways to play around with the formula. And of course, the episode does all this while still giving a decent taste of what the actual main trio are like, establishing the partner dynamic between each of them and their dino of choice (taking Gaoranger's ideas a step further by having the robots speak this time), and even dropping hints of some epic lore surrounding one of the big bads for the series, all done succinctly enough to leave time for
another
fight set to the teme song, the team officially receiving their name, AND a cliffhanger to top it all off. (!)
I really can't stress enough how much raw
swagger
this episode has. I'm a little blown away by it, but I guess I shouldn't be, because,
Arakawa!
They put this one in safe hands! There are premieres I've covered as part of this tour that make me want to go watch the rest of the show right away, and then there are ones that make me upset I haven't already done that. Abaranger is most certainly in the latter category.
__________________
誰かの笑顔のためだろ?
Last edited by Fish Sandwich; 03-05-2022 at
06:36 PM
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