Wait, what? Even more 3D people on my animu blog? Welcome to the beginning of The Glorio Blog’s Super Sentai coverage! As with Kamen Rider before it, tokusatsu veteran Dragonzigg and (now relative) newcomer Aquagaze will be teaming up to cover every episode of the show where simply posing is enough to set off colour coded explosions behind you. Together they’ll navigate a world full of prehistoric beasts, alarmingly attractive actors and more spandex than you’re probably comfortable with! Vamola!

Recap: Souji struggles to balance his role as a Kyoryuger with the training inflicted upon him by his jerk of a dad.

Aquagaze‘s Thoughts: See that header image? That’s Kyoryuger for you. This show is on a completely different level from any Super Sentai before it. Koichi Sakamoto’s hyperactive hand in the action choreography shines with an awesome power and it is truly astonishing to witness the complete insanity of it all. With its great and plentiful unmorphed fights, wrestling moves, hyperkinetic beatdowns and more explosions than you can shake a fist at, these dinosaurs are an absolute joy to watch. Its stylized badassitude is more than enough reason to watch Kyoryuger, but sadly enough, that fact makes its disjointed story harder to swallow.

Had Kyoryuger abandoned the ideal of a twist-filled story and fleshed out characters, it might just have turned out for the better. In stead, however, it got Riku Sanjo on board, who tries his hardest to craft a fascinating cast of interesting characters, only to get shoved aside in favour of more explosions. Once again, Souji’s tale was seemingly closed off prematurely, even without some decent payoff this time. His father is still a demanding jerk and the moral of the story seems to be “deal with it”. In comparison to Nobuharu’s tale from last week, Souji’s wasn’t even very original to begin with. Nevertheless, he makes for a nice addition to the otherwise rather loud cast. Daigo, Nobuharu and Amy’s interactions with the sardonic Souji were by far the highlights of the episode, and I look forward to seeing the entire team getting together and becoming better friends.

That’s because the Kyoryugers are heroes you just really want to root for. They might not be the friends you know and love, but rather  those strangers who crash your party by driving their car through your front door, but they’re still fun people to have around. In a way, Kyoryuger is its Superhero Time colleague Kamen Rider Wizard‘s complete opposite: the latter thrives on a medium-paced story with menacing villains and large twists, at the price of lackluster characters and bored performances, whereas the former is loud, fast-paced, hammy and full of character at the expense of any real substance. Kyoryuger has been taking some very unique approaches to how its team comes together and I’d love to see that pay off in some way or another. With James Bond Ian Yorkland joining up next week, I look forward to seeing where the Kyoryugers will go next. After all, you should never judge a team until they’re complete.

Random Observations

• I’m glad to see Nobu’s sister and cousin show up in this episode, despite having no lines. It shows the show has not yet forgotten about them.
• I love the little samba dance the Kyorugers do before transforming, but just like Wizard’s infamous singing belt, this could very easily ruin dramatic moments — that is if Kyoryuger is even planning on having any.

Dragonzigg’s Thoughts:  I think Aqua is being a little overly dramatic when he describes Kyoryuger’s story as ‘disjointed – it’s only episode 3 after all. Furthermore, the fact that it actually has any sort of character development at this point is an encouraging sign to me – very often the cast are true companions right from the start and only get fleshed out later on. At least here the show is establishing some basic backstory for the Kyoryugers right off of the bat, even if it must be said that backstory is a little flat for the most part. It’s also worth remembering that unlike Kamen Rider Super Sentai for the most part sticks to one-and-done episodes and has a much larger cast to juggle.

Having offered up those excuses, it does have to be said that Souji’s story falls a little flat this week. We don’t get to see him grow much as a persona or as a member of the team – he’s a dour snarkster at the beginning and he’s a dour snarkster at the end. The supposed revelation he has about his relationship with his father is poorly handled and smacks of moral dissonance anywhere outside of Japan – basically ‘Your work is always the most important thing, even if I bullied and pressured you into it.’  The revelation that Souji Snr’s incessant drive for martial arts actually caused his wife to leave him makes it nearly impossible to sympathise with him on any level, and as result the ending feels extremely undeserved.

The flipside is that the action continues to be fantastic and is still keeping the energy which has powered it thus far.  The uptick in unmorphed fighting is particularly welcome, particularly given that this cast (and, most likely, their stunt doubles) can really move. It helps reinforce the connection between the characters and the suit actors, dispelling the idea that they only become badasses when they put the spandex on. It’s helped by what’s rapidly becoming an extremely likable cast.  Ryo Ryusei is simply excellent as King, communicating enthusiasm and boundless optimism without falling into goody two-shoes jerk mode (he pulls a gun in a sword fight after all!). Likewise, I’m enjoying Yamato Kinjo’s everyman take on Nobuharu, although it’s worth pointing out I do have an extremely high tolerance for bad puns. If there’s an identifiable weak link so far, it’s probably Ayuri Konno’s Amy, who fights well and smiles sweetly but whose performance (see especially the bit where the monster tries to escape after having captured King) is sort of bland and occasionally falls into…well, you know.

With the team looking to finally unite next week with the arrival of Ian Yorkland, I’ll be interested to see how quickly the show gets stuck into its main plot, of which we’ve had very little hint of so far.  Despite the appearance of a fluffier, more consequence free iteration of the franchise, I have enough faith in Sakomoto and Sanjo to hope that there’ll at least be a story arc of some sort. As it is though, while Kyoryuger stumbles a little over the drama, it still remains perfect bubblegum entertainment.

Random Observations

• Zigg: “Is Lukkiero meant to be a young boy or a cat thing?” Aqua: “Yes”
  
• Big fan of the awesome rolecall. The way the team pound the ground is reminiscent of Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger/Power Ranger Wild Force.
• Nobody can do the transformation dance quite as well as Red. Pink is particularly stiff at it because she keeps her other arm by her side throughout, which looks very unnatural.