Reach the unreachable stars

Trying to get into Ryusoulger, but it still hasn't bitten me yet. Sure, the characters are cute and all, but I feel like Sentai has a problem where they're not throwing in enough meat, so to speak.

Not that the problem is having a light-hearted, not plot-heavy season. I love ToQger, after all, and each episode of that is 24 minutes of trying to justify a dick joke about a train robot.

But I feel like there's a lot of potential in this season, and in a lot, to explore the overall world they've created. I actually think Lupinranger vs. Patranger did a pretty good job exploring their world, with a team of thieves already fighting the bad guys, while police had to gain powers to stop both of them. And sure, I would have liked Tsukasa and Sakuya to get as much love as the rest of the cast, but I never sat there, wondering if I liked the show or not.

Ryusoulger has the potential for a really rich backstory. It has three characters who grew up in an extemely sheltered world, told that they had to protect their temple from outsiders, raised on legends of monsters from millions of years ago who had been bested by their ancestors (also...HOW? Seriously, are they even human?). And then the monsters return, their masters are killed defending them, and their temple is destroyed while awakening a giant robot T. rex, which is just par for the course in this franchise. So now they have to interact with the outside world. And there's also two others who had left years before, but the world turned them harsher. How do they wind up with such wildly different views? And when you introduce a mentor just to kill them off in the first episode, how do you maintain a level of connection with the audience about them? How do you make us care?

And I feel like Sentai has been rushing these things. There's so many tropes they have to hit, so many toy gimmicks they have to sell, that they forget to slow down and tell a good story with good characters. Part of why I liked LuPat was that they took the time to build the characters. Keiichiro was one of the biggest surprises of the season for me, since he'd started as a cookie-cutter hotblood justice nut, and turned into someone deeply worried about his younger friend, Kairi, and realizing just how many issues the kid had and trying to be there for him while also trying to respect his space. And then of course finding out that he was Lupin Red and blaming himself for not having had the power to do more before Kairi had to resort to crime to save his brother.

So I hope I do wind up liking it, but for right now, it feels like a Kyuranger or a Ninninger, where I'm going to like the characters a little more after I don't have to deal with the show.

So I just finished up South Korea's first original foray in the Power Rangers/Super Sentai franchise: Dino Force Brave. Yes, it has its problems. It goes too fast, and just about every character other than Juyong, Juhyeuk, Deisaurus, and occasionally Torin feels extraneous. Purun and Dohee are probably the worst offenders, since at least Sechang and Hyunjun were beginning to get personalities--those two never really developed.

But the acting is pretty good. I think it's probably the hardest thing to act well in anything that has this number of special effects and people in costumes. There's this inherent sense of "...you know I'm talking to a giant bird with hair coming out of his eyes," and the focus on action makes it hard to develop chemistry between the cast. But I think as far as it went with everyone coming to trust Juhyeuk and how badly he realized he needed their trust and friendship--that was done well.

The final battle does have me wondering if the last battle in any Sentai season should eschew traditional effects and rely heavily on CG. It is thrilling...but at the same time, everything is going by so quickly that it's really hard to see anything. I think if Sentai can figure out a better balance of that, they could make the most boring part of the show, the giant robot vs. monster battle, one of the most exciting.

Also, props to the casts of Dino Force Brave and Zyuohger for one of the best hand-offs in history. The Sentai hand-offs are a tradition, usually between the Reds of each team. As far as Power Rangers is concerned, the only real hand-offs have happened in a meta sense, with one season's cast announcing the next during conventions, and the Sudarso brothers putting together their own Blue Ranger hand-off from Dino Charge to Ninja Steel. But I like how Juyong and Juhyeuk handled theirs to "Animal Force," or the Zyuohgers. It's a good way to get everyone pumped for the next season, and it looks like they tried to have at least Yamato's actor flown out to South Korea for the hand-off. It's cute.

Overall, don't expect anything mesmerizing. A lot of the issues with Sentai and Power Rangers as a whole are still there, but it's still pretty memorable. It's just meant to have fun, and that's sometimes what you want to see most.

Okay, it might have been a mistake to watch this after the Doubutsu Sentai mini-movies. I'm enjoying Hiroya's get up a little too much, and I swear there is a blink-and-miss-it cameo by Jealousshito.

I am very proud of Lucky and Spada for trying to stop themselves from falling a third time...but then the gold bedpan from Ninninger made a cameo too.

And while I'm not crazy that Hame was out of the episode for so long, at least they had her running evacuations. Plus, we get her episode next time, so hopefully that'll work out. Maybe now, we're getting things a little more balanced in terms of characters.

Again, not much energy from me, sorry. But good episode. I kind of needed it, with Lucky's insistence on trying to turn his luck around.

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Edit: Wait, Henshin Lesson 3--that's KO-35! And I swear you're playing the RPM background music! Is this secretly Power Rangers? It's secretly Power Rangers, isn't it?