To be honest, I was worried about Kyuranger after the awful pacing and absent exposition in the premiere. I almost didn’t want to continue reviewing the show, but I held out because we all know that you can’t judge a Sentai series on the first episode alone. Thankfully, the next adventure of the Kyurangers rectified the mistakes of the first in an entertaining and unpredictable second episode.
Balance and Naga are everything. They’re basically running their own rebellion by stealing from Jark Matter, but that’s not what makes them great. Their dynamic is what sets them apart from the other characters in the show so far. Balance is an energetic and zany robot while Naga is an emotionless alien who wants to learn how to feel—you would imagine that the robot would be the cold and distant one, but instead of relying on old Pinocchio tropes, the show turns this around and gives us a lively robot and an emotionally dead humanoid. Balance tries to teach Naga how to emote through the adrenaline rush of stealing from the empire, but it doesn’t seem to be working very well…until Lucky shows up.
Here’s the thing: Lucky is still annoying as he spouts off his catchphrase in response to pretty much everything, but this type of hyperactive shounen character works well with quiet, unfeeling characters like Naga. I can forgive Lucky’s antics this time around because they exist to bolster Naga’s quest to feel emotions, even though the way Lucky ends up on their planet is irksome (seriously, nobody is that lucky—it feels like lazy writing).
The episode delivers even more twists and turns when Balance betrays Lucky in an attempt to fulfill his original goal of stealing a valuable crystal, and again when Naga decides to throw in with Lucky. Of course Balance returns to save the day before Naga and Lucky get executed, and of course they are chosen to become Kyurangers themselves: Tenbin Gold and Hebitsukai Silver. The fight sequence is actually a lot of fun to watch, and not just because it’s cool to see a makeshift three-man Sentai team composed of Red, Gold, and Silver. Balance picks up Lucky’s habits, but surprisingly it’s not done in an annoying way (and as a random sidebar: when Lucky transforms earlier in the episode, the transformation sequence itself is used as an attack, which is amazing as it feels like it’s 2006 and we’re all watching Kamen Rider Kabuto). Even their final pose ends up being cute, particularly because the fight and the pose are all informed by the characters themselves! This is exactly what Kyuranger’s first episode lacks.
There are other moments that stand out to me in a positive way. We finally get a decent character moment early in the episode onboard the Orion, and Raptor shows off a bit more of her personality (she reminds me of a strict professor with a short fuse). Hammy, Spada, and Champ are all still rather one-note, but Garu gets a nice line that suggests he’s maybe a bit dense—I’m starting to have faith that this show will be fair to its characters, but it’s going to take time. I like the Kyurangers’ stylized role call art cards during their fight in the first half of the episode, and I adore how Tenbin Gold and Hebitsukai Silver’s Voyagers attach to Kyuren-Oh. They basically rip off the mecha’s arms, apologize for it, and then attach themselves as new limbs. It’s tongue-in-cheek and almost hilarious. The mecha battle itself is decent, but short-lived and not as epic as last episode’s.
I’m surprised by how many good things I have to say about this episode, so here are some negatives to balance (no pun intended) things out: I’m still not really feeling the villains. The empire known as Jark Matter still feels too distant and supremely powerful to take on a strong presence, though at least we get an explanation as to how the empire is structured in this episode. Still, the villains so far seem to be facing the same problem as those from Gokaiger. When you have an evil empire that’s already conquered most of the galaxy/universe/whatever, it can be difficult to portray them in a truly menacing way. At the same time, I’m okay with this for now—we’re still in the early stages and we’re actually still gathering our heroes, which is normally done by the first or second episode of any given Sentai series. We still have two more Kyurangers to meet (well, just one—Raptor will be our Washi Pink, but she hasn’t been revealed as a chosen Kyuranger yet…I’m curious to see how that will go) and that will have to do before we can properly develop our villains this year.
Next time, we’ll be introduced to Sasori Orange and it looks like he’ll initially be an adversary! This is the type of conflict I was looking for in a show with this many heroes: more Chouseishin Gransazer, less Star Wars. I’m happy to report that I’m eagerly anticipating episode three. Let’s hope that my worries for the show were premature.
-AquaVersus