Alternate Titles: Express Squadron ToQger, Ressha Sentai Tokkyuger, Power Traingers Megadorks
Tokusatsu series by Toei

Premise

When mysterious monsters are attacking the children of the world from magical trains, only the forces of the Rainbow Line can stop them. Step forward the warriors of imagination, the Express Sentai ToQger!

Aqua’s Verdict: Train Wreck

After Kyoryuger turned out to be a massive gravy train for Toei, ToQger did not have an easy time selling itself to fans over the age of six upon its first reveal. The costumes came straight out of a low-budget parody of Super Sentai you’d see in an anime, the giant robot looked cheap and uninspired and the overall cheesiness of the teaser trailers and the cast’s promo pictures seemed to invoke almost everything that makes grown-up fans of tokusatsu throw themselves onto the rails. The cast seemingly full of goody-two-shoes man-children reminded me of the Goseigers, an uninspired bunch of frustratingly saccharine stereotypes that were so completely upstaged by their colleagues in their respective crossover movies, it was almost painful to look at. Sadly enough, ToQger follows up on what appears to be becoming a bit of a genre tradition now, replacing the intensely charismatic Kyoryugers with, well, this bunch of dorks.

While it’s hard — and rather unfair — to rail against a show’s cast based on their very first episode, this pilot provides so very little characterization to work with, it only makes the show’s many other flaws worse. Right is as cookie-cutter as Red Rangers go, Pink Ranger Kagura’s dialogue seems to have been written by a four-year-old, with lines and jokes that are infantile even for a kids’ show, and worst of all, I don’t think Green Ranger Hikari even talks at all in this episode. The actors clearly try to chug along, and there’s a good enough chemistry between the lot of them, but no enthusiasm can safe a script that runs out of steam almost immediately. The childhood promise is a lazy excuse to railroad around the part were the team learns how to get along, and while I applaud any attempt to flesh out a Super Sentai cast, ToQger presents its mysteries and twists in such a diabetes-inducing, half-hearted way, it isn’t worthy of more than a facepalm. This is the kind of show that spends less then a a single minute on its big twist, slapped unceremoniously in between a lengthy fight scene and the end credits, without any form of natural transition. Wacky? I don’t think so. ToQger tries so hard to be off the rails, but it’s so nowhere near as funny as some Sentai that weren’t marketed as such.

To stray away from the negative train of thought for a while, it’s not all bad. Amongst all the goody-goody and comedic faux-pas, ToQger does manage to make itself stand out with a strong visual style. Clever use of iconography and sound effects bathe the series in style, and aside from the aforementioned ranger uniforms, the costume design is actually very impressive. The gloomy fortress where the baddies hang out invokes a cinematic, Tim Burton-esque atmosphere and on the heroes’s side, I will especially remember the check-in gate our heroes use to access their giant robot. Sadly enough, the show cannot extend that visual swagger to its actual action scenes. The directing is thin as a rail, the fight choreography is nothing to write home about, and while the idea of the Rangers switching colours is pretty cool, I fail to see the point. I could forgive all of that, however, if it were not for the absolutely atrocious special effects in this first episode. Super Sentai‘s steam-engine-era budget has always been part of its charm, but the decision to edit in stock explosions rather than using actual pyrotechnics feels like a railroad spike in the back for those who love the heart  and soul poured into the franchise’s long history of practical effects. On top of that, it looks atrocious too.

It is fair to say that my first impressions of Ressha Sentai ToQger were all but positive, yet it’s not fair to say that means the entire show will suck. It’s hard to write a good first episode for a Sentai show, as the franchise’s unwritten rules demand the team to be formed and fighting the enemy within the first fifteen minutes of their pilot episode. Nevertheless, like many other pilots, this one does manage to give us an impression of what the rest of the series will be like and judging from the plotting, characterization, pacing and humour on display here, I don’t think ToQger is going to be a particularly enjoyable experience for me. A complete lack of drama or common sense, exposition with the subtlety of a sawed-off shotgun, cringe-worthy gags and a subject matter with little universal appeal, there is simply nothing here that makes me want a return ticket. As the preview hints at a second episode exactly like this one, I’m afraid I’m already about to jump ship, err, train. It’s no problem, though. This is one hype train I don’t mind missing.

Random observations

• Vigilant fans of Kamen Rider Den-O might have noticed lots of reused stuff from that show, from the ghost train set to the flying, battling trains that make their own rails. Makes sense, as Den-O and ToQger were both written by Yasuko Kobayashi, also of Shinkenger and Kamen Rider OOO fame. Yeah, this drivel was written by the same person who made some of the most personality-driven toku shows in recent memory, Let that sink in for a while.
• No Super Sentai without some appearances by well-known anime voice actors. Ticket, the sock puppet, is voiced by Kappei Yamaguchi, aka Teddie from Persona 4. Among the villains we have Lelouch himself, Jun Fukuyama, as Baron Schwartz and Sailor Mercury, Aya Hisakawa, as Madame Noir. By the way, if you are the kind of person who watches something just because Yui Horie is in it — yes, they exist — you might want to know that she’ll pop up later as what looks to be a robot train attendant.
• What kind of name is Right anyways?
• Please don’t buy that robot. My eyes hurt just from looking at it.

Zigg’s Verdict: Rickety Rails

The first episode of a new Sentai show always has it real tough. Not only do you have to very rapidly introduce a new cast, unfurl a new premise and get some decent action in, you also have to battle viewers’s affection for the previous team and gimmick, which they’ve grown used to over the course of fifty odd episodes. Some do it better than others, and many seminal shows have started off with slightly wonky. With that said, this isn’t a great first stop for the ToQger train, and it’ll be a while before this lot can erase the memory of dancing dinosuars.

That’s not to say ToQger seems bad, but there’s a definite lack of energy and inspiration to this first episode that makes it difficult to fall in love with. I think the main culprit here is the cast. While we’ve only had a little over twenty minutes to get to know them, my immediate impression is…nothing. They’re bland as bland can be, and that’s a big problem. Normally Sentai teams fall into predictable but lovable stereotypes, and then flesh out their characters as time goes by. There’s some inklings of that – Mio and Kagura’s no nonsense/woman child relationship is pretty de facto for Yellow/Pink – but nobody really leaves much of an impression. They’re a bunch of goody two-shoes who make it painfully obvious that we’re going through the motions, and I’m highly sceptical of the decision to make them all childhood friends, as I suspect it may dull some of the infighting which always provides a spark for the early part of these shows.

The show also suffers from notably poorer production values than its predecessor, and while I’m not saying ever tokusatsu production needs Koichi Sakamoto’s exaggeratedly flamboyant directing, he’s certainly missed in the action scenes. Gone are the whip-sharp cuts and generous pyrotechnics of Kyoryuger, replaced with a battle that can best be described as pedestrian. While the ToQgers being able to switch colours at will seems like a cool gimmick in theory, in practice it doesn’t really seem to have much point and I’m already tired of it just one fight in. It’s not all bad though, as Shōjirō Nakazawa displays some nice visual flourishes of his own (check out that pull out crane shot of Right binding up the bad guys). There’s some great design on display too – the fedora wearing mooks are creepily distinctive, the villain castle is an admirable piece of techno-gothic design, and I love the morphing sequences for both the rangers and the robot. The stunt team make hay with what they’ve got and though the use of superimposed explosions is pretty unforgivable, I’m hoping that’s a one off due to tight time constraints.

The real issue here though is just a lack of substance. The show, and the premise, feel flimsy, and there’s a lack of inspiration and motivation behind everything which happens. The emphasis on pratfall style Japanese comedy is worrying to me. While I fully support embracing silliness wherever possible, there’s a big difference between the sugar-rush insanity of Kyoryuger and the tired hijinks we get here. I’m sick of Conductor already and the lame WAH GROUP SHOCK joke style seems lifted from the very deepest wells of anime cliche. There’s a chance it’ll become more palatable as we get to know the characters more, but as an opener this is a decidedly flat tone to take.

If it seems we’ve been very hard on ToQger…well, we sort of have to be honest. These shows are so strictly formula that first impressions are very important, and despite some flair in the design there weren’t enough compelling hooks in this episode to really pump me up for next weeks one. Having said that, these long runners can be pretty slow starters – look at Gaim for a recent example  – so I’ll be hoping for improvement as the weeks go by. Not a great first step however.

Random Observations

• As Aqua mentioned, noted tokusatsu golden girl Yasuko Kobayashi (who was also lead writer on the anime adaptations of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Attack On Titan) is writing ToQger. While she has an enviable track record, Kobayashi’s last Sentai series was the underperforming Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters, so she’s got a lot at stake here too.
• There are a LOT of similarities to the phenomenally successful Kamen Rider Den-O, most notably the flying train-to-train combat and the eccentric trainrunner. The comparison is not flattering for ToQger.
• Great to see that, for the third straight series in a row, Toei has abandoned the mobile phone morphers and gone back to some classic wrist mounted designs. The entire morphing sequence is super cool, though those toy train accessories look cheap and, well, toy-ish.
• In the long tradition of dumb looking combining weapons, this bazooka more than holds its own.
• Both the opening and ending are kind of generic. Trains of the World is a poor replacement for Dancing Heroes of the Week.