Going into this episode I wasn’t sure what to expect because I’m not a big fan of Gekiranger, although, I figured that the episode would also feature a lot of interaction with the Gokaigers themselves as with previous focus episodes.
This episode provided some more great comedy following Navi’s prophecy about a “tiger’s child”. The whole sequence of the team trying to track down this ‘child’ was hilarious, especially when Marvellous casually asks a tiger “let me meet your children”.
Jan was well-utilized in this episode to train Don and Ahim, as other cameos previously have been. I liked the contrast between Ahim and Don in this episode; Ahim gets on with her training from the start while Don questions it before realizing that he needs to train. I also like how the other Gokaigers get some screen time in the episode rather than it just being about Don and Ahim.
The Gokai Change into Gekiranger didn’t seem a special event like in previous focus episodes with Magiranger and Dekaranger. Unlike other focus episodes, this change didn’t have the instrumental playing or a henshin sequence designed like the original. Instead, this episode had regular Gokaiger BGM (which is awesome otherwise) and a simple henshin sequence.
Before this episode, I wondered what the mecha battle would feature since previous focus episodes introduced a new ‘zord’ related to the team and magazine scans showed no sign of a Gekiranger-related ‘zord’. Instead of this, this episode had a Gekiranger related attack, which I like since it keeps the number of extra ‘zords’ to a minimum. While on the subject of mecha battles, I’m still disappointed about not having an individual Gokai Machine battle. The Gokai Machines still don’t seem to have a purpose other than being components to GokaiOh (except for Gokai Galleon).
It’s a shame we didn’t see more of Sha-Fu in this episode. It would’ve been interesting to see Don and Ahim’s reactions to an anthropomorphic cat. I imagine Don would react like Natsuki in Gekiranger vs Boukenger, whereas Ahim would be her usual calm self.
GRADE
This episode was a good focus for Don and Ahim, but it wasn’t amazing so I give this episode a 4/5.
This would be another simple episode to adapt to Power Rangers because it focuses on a team already covered. However, the scene involving SunVulcan would need to be reshot. Hurricaneger/Ninja Storm could be used for this scene because the Red, Yellow and Blue combination is required.