Kyuranger has been killing it. While the premiere turned me off from the show, the following three episodes saved face by delivering solid action accompanied by decent character moments. Unfortunately, this week’s episode doesn’t live up to its immediate predecessors—though it’s nowhere near as bad as the premiere.
The story of episode five feels like it’s missing something. The Kyuranger team decides to stay on Earth and liberate it from Jark Matter, but when a five-man Kyuranger squadron lands on the planet, they encounter two young brothers opposing the alien forces themselves. Before the Kyurangers can offer their assistance, Stinger shows up and is ordered by his Jark Matter superior to kill the children. Stinger decides to take the kids as hostages instead and urges the Kyurangers to gather their remaining three comrades—he believes it would be more interesting to face all eight of them at once.
All of that is fine by itself, but things start to unravel pretty quickly. We finally see some of Stinger’s origin story—he’s on a mission to find his older brother, who became Jark Matter’s top assassin and betrayed his home world. It’s nice to finally shed some light on Stinger’s history, but the weight of his past doesn’t leave much of an impact on the audience due to how brief it all feels. When the eight Kyurangers gather to save the boys—with Lucky insisting that he trusts Stinger—they willingly give up their Kyutama orbs without any debate whatsoever. While I fully believe that Lucky would blindly trust Stinger enough to do something so stupid, I can’t understand why the others would go along with this plan (especially Champ, who still holds a grudge against Stinger). It feels highly out-of-character for anyone who isn’t named Lucky.
The straw that breaks the camel’s back in this episode is the revelation that Stinger is a Rebellion spy…which is related to the Kyuranger team by Xiao Longbao himself, who simply “forgot to mention it” earlier. I have two huge problems with this: firstly, Stinger’s characterization in his debut episode is now completely shot and made irrelevant with the knowledge that he’s a spy; secondly, I know that this is a lighthearted kids’ show, but couldn’t Xiao Longbao have mentioned this to the team in advance? His silence on the matter is played up as a joke, which I find to be quite frustrating. In summary, Stinger’s character ends up being incredibly boring even with the tragic history, while Xiao Longbao demonstrates some serious incompetence; meanwhile, characters like Spada and Hammy have yet to receive any decent characterization. Kyuranger plays out very well when it treats its characters accordingly, but I’m starting to think that my original assertion was correct: the show has a problem properly balancing its large cast.
Things pick up when the episode shifts into its action-heavy second half. It’s just epic to see all nine Kyurangers fighting together on the same team. If the first half of the episode disappoints with its story beats, the second half almost makes up for it with dynamic action shots like Lucky slashing enemies while running along a rocky dune, Garu exhibiting what look like wrestling moves, and Raptor taking Hammy along for a girls-only aerial attack. All of this is set to what appears to be a fight song by Psychic Lover, who previously performed the opening themes for both Dekaranger and Shinkenger (as well as the ending theme for Boukenger, among others). I haven’t been able to confirm who performs the song as of this review, but it certainly sounds like them—and it’s a welcome treat. The mecha battle is also great, featuring multiple Kyuren-Oh combinations as we finally see all of the Voyagers working together.
Stinger decides to stay on Earth for the time being in order to investigate the planet’s “secret” but he remains a loyal Kyuranger in case the others need to call on him. I worry that this means we won’t see many integrated character moments for the entire team. In the meantime, though, it looks like we’re finally going to get a Hammy focus episode next week. Here’s hoping Kyuranger returns to form soon!