With Wizard on hiatus, Zigg and Aqua have delved far, far back into the depths of time (i.e. 2004) to check out the first two episodes of one of the most beloved tokusatsu shows of recent years. It’s the tale of five spandex wearing police officers and their distinctly canine captain, presented in glorious 4:3 by your friends and ours over at Over-Time Subs. Justice Time!

Summary: Newly inducted into the Special Police Dekaranger, rookie red ranger Banban Akaza arrives on Earth to team up with his fellow rangers under Chief Doggie Kruger. Their first mission is to investigate the assassination of one of their informants by a mysterious android.

Aqua’s Thoughts: Dekaranger starts off with an epic car chase in a model town between two toy cars that are supposedly as tall as apartment blocks and reach speeds up to 20 mph. As the car being chased crashes through the window of a furry church, interrupting a furry wedding ceremony (I kid you not), the police car, piloted by village idiot and – of course – Red Ranger Banban Akaza follows suit and eventually manages to take down the criminal by crashing into him from behind and launching him into the air, after which our hero manages to stop his car before plummeting into a toy ravine created by a toy bridge exploding using his car’s two giant robot hands.

Super Sentai, ladies and gentlemen.

Dekaranger is the much-beloved and also extremely silly 2004 incarnation of Super Sentai and hails from the good old days before CGI made its way over to Japan, so it seems. As opposed to the more recent shows that introduced me to the genre, Dekaranger could be easily outclassed in terms of special effects by a B-film from the 197os. The opening seems to have been made with PowerPoint, the Dekaranger headquarters clearly consists of a bunch of corridors of different buildings that don’t look anything alike, Doggie Kruger looks like a stuffed animal whose mouth doesn’t move when he talks and the many vehicle scenes don’t even try to mask their stop-motion heritage. Though, admittedly… Would we ever want it any other way?

The Dekarangers are by far one of the most stereotypical incarnations of the show’s standard team structure, but here it barely hurts their case. Ban is the hot-blooded Red Ranger, Houji the collected and wary Blue Ranger, Sen the nice and clownish Green Ranger, Jasmine the sexy Yellow Ranger and Umeko the cute and cheerful Pink Ranger, who aside from pretending to be the leader also takes a page from Yuno’s book and provides ample dadservice by bathing on an episodic basis. Of course, I only felt the need to mention this because I have the mental age of twelve. If there is anything Sentai is great at, it’s crafting simple, yet brilliantly engaging characters though, and Dekaranger is no different. Ban, Houji, Sen, Jasmine and Umeko are quirky and instantly likeable characters that complement their much beloved counterparts from Power Rangers S.P.D. greatly.

The two episodes of Dekaranger Over-Time Subs gave us provide even for someone accustomed to the cheese of Power Rangers and the more recent Sentai shows a glimpse into the franchise’s even sillier history, to a great effect. How much more I will watch of it will probably depend on how much more of it Over-Time will sub and release. They had better, though. I don’t want to end up depending on these baka-tachi at TV-Nihon.

Zigg’s Thoughts: Dekaranger has long been regarded once of the premier shows of the recent Super Sentai era and even from just these first two episodes it’s easy to see why. We’ve got a personable and amusing team, with some nice distinct personalities. We’ve got a cool gimmick, complete with awesome suits.  We’ve got a badass supporting cast (one of whom admittedly does look like a reject from The Muppets) and some cool freaky aliens.  Sure, it’s pretty close to formula, but then pretty much every Sentai has followed this formula since time immemorial, so you can hardly use that as a knock against it.

I think what struck me strongest upon rewatching this series (which I have seen in its entirety before) is how much older it looks. It’s actually relatively recent, airing throughout 2004, but a number of factors conspire to make it feel much more retro than that. I think the big thing here is the absence of much CGI – yes, it’s used occasionally, like for the giant bus-hijacking monster or the diving Dekaranger Robo, but it’s clearly still an expensive novelty for the most part.  Sequences like the hugely entertaining car chase that opens the series are all done practically with models, which looks hilariously cheap but at the same time also adds a touch of life and craft you don’t really get in the more modern shows, where big action sequences tend to rely heavily on crappy CG. Yes, Doggie Kruger looks utterly dumb (especially if you’ve seen his far more sophisticated Power Rangers S.P.D. counterpart) but all it does is make the nod-and-wink fun that much stronger. This might be the last of the Super Sentai shows to have that rough, scratchy charm that makes the eighties and nineties iterations so interesting, grainy 4:3 video and all.

That said, Dekaranger can easily stand on its own merits, with smart writing bringing to life some sharply realised characters. Banban is an incredibly fun protagonist, mostly propelled by an excellent performance from Ryuji Sainei, all wide eyes, shouting and camera mugging. Houji meanwhile is pretty much the archetypical angry by-the-book guy but the writers take care not to make him excessively jerkish. We don’t learn too much about the other three in these two episodes (aside from Umeko’s bathing obsession, in one of the least subtle pieces of dad appeal ever) but they come off as smart, funny and kickass and that’s all we really need.  Dekaranger isn’t one of the series that changes drastically over the course of its run – what you see here is what you get for most of the run basically – but it’s a lot of fun and it’s definitely recommended if you’re looking to get into Sentai or just after a fine, funny show in general.

Dekaranger is currently being subbed by Over-Time. The entire series has also been fully subbed by TV-Nihon.