Kyuranger episode 48 (Finale): For finales, I'm gonna be doing things a little different. I'm gonna give my overall thoughts on the episode, then I'm gonna do an overview of the show as a whole. On the off chance that there is anyone who wants to see all of my episode reviews, here's a link to all of them:
docs.google.com/document/d/1GGXSW0-1vhEMDLzJ14RtBYePI_PqsdDGo8D6YuE--4Y/edit?usp=sharing As for my main thoughts on the finale, I thoughts this finale was surprisingly meh, generic, and underwhelming. I guess I was surprised because of how much I liked last episode, but maybe I shouldn't have been, because SS finales aren't always that great. That's one thing PR has over SS.
The Good: Also surprisingly, I like the 2nd half of the episode better than the first. I know everything wrapped up in a neat bow, which would have felt more earned if the show, as a whole, properly built up the stakes, but I still liked seeing what happened to all the rangers after beat Don Armage...again. I also loved the unmorphed roll call. That is a must-have for a sentai finale.
The Bad: The whole first half of the episode, however, was typical, average sentai finale...stuff. I just found the action just meh, and the speech stuff just fell flat to me. Seeing the rangers give their individual part of the speech and their individual yells in the cockpit just made it come off silly just from the sheer number of rangers. I feel like stuff like this in finales (except for the last minute reveals, because that's
always gonna be stupid) is only as good proportional to how invested you are in the show, so even it I wasn't clear how I felt about the show as a whole before seeing this finale (and I was), this episode cinched it for me.
Overview: Yeah, I don't think this is a good show. I describe mediocre shows as shows that are almost bad, but Kyuranger is the opposite to me. Kyuranger is almost good. It happened slowly over the course of the show, so slowly that I felt that I needed to watch the whole show to determine if I thought it was good overall, which has never happened to me before with a sentai, but it did eventually cross that threshold for me.
The Characters: I'm gonna give my thoughts on each character and their journeys.
Lucky: Admittedly, he really did come a long way. I went from in the premiere calling him potentially another Takaharu, to him being a character I like. I once said that if they develop his character, I could grow to like him, and I honestly didn't think they could pull it off, because I hoping they would for Takaharu, and they didn't. Lucky is certainly not perfect. His speechifying does get old sometimes, but I will take that over how he was in those earlier episodes. The show keeps wanting me to be on his side during moments where I think he's in the wrong, like in episodes 4, 29, and 46, and even after rereading through all of my reviews, I still don't completely understand how his luck works, but besides all that, he's still an okay character.
Stinger: He started off iffy to me, but grew to be one of my favorite characters on the show. In the beginning, everything having to do with Stinger and Champ were my favorite episodes of the show. I also liked the stuff with Old Melonhead Scorpio and Kotaro. Some of my problems with him lie with him doing unlikable things to achieve his goals, like knocking out Garu and Raptor to steal the Argo Kyutamas, and the fact that after that arc, there wasn't much development for him. I still think he's a good character overall.
Garu: Probably the most disappointingly lamest character in the show. He had such a great backstory, with him being the last of his race or clan (as I've said many times before, they never made that clear), but all of that potentially great character development goes out the window when he becomes "man's best friend". Like I've said before, I wish we got an episode similar to The Southern Raiders from A:TLA. This could have been a tragic character, but you never feel the tragedy of the backstory because they always play him for a joke. The show barely ever reminds us of that backstory. It rarely ever informs his character. What a waste.
Balance: I love the idea of a flamboyant and lighthearted robot that teams with an emotionless humanoid alien. He mostly existed to be comic relief, and for the most part, I found him funny. His big moment came with the Dark Naga Arc, and as much as I appreciated them trying to develop them, I think Balance worked better when he's just a side character being funny.
Champ: I think Champ is a fun character most of the time, and I liked the stuff with him and Stinger, and I liked the potential of the stuff with Professor Anton, but that Anton stuff didn't pan out as well as it could have. I liked the stuff in the beginning with Anton telling him that if he loses the desire to protect people, then all he is is a machine, but the reveal that Anton had a split personality was lame, and it took some of the impact of that storyline out.
Naga Ray: I thought an emotionless character was a great idea, and I liked Naga...most of the time. There are times where the comedy worked for me, like when he breaks the 4th wall, and times where it doesn't work, like with the Cup Kyutama joke. The Dark Naga arc felt like a complete waste of time. Overall, I think he's a meh character, and it's a shame because at the beginning, he was one of the standouts.
Hammy: One of the most pointless female ranger characters in recent sentai, next to Fuuka. She started out with this stupid and annoying joke of finding everything funny, and when they dropped that, she had no personality. She is also one of the most painfully least developed characters in the show.
Raptor-283: This one breaks my heart, because they brought back Mao "Luka Millfy" Ichimichi to play such a lame letdown of a character. She started out as this no-nonsense character that kinda reminded me of Kendall, who is one of my favorite Dino Charge rangers, but then she becomes whatever character they need her to be to make a stupid joke. We need someone to act hysterical and overreact? Use Raptor. We need someone for shipping jokes? Use Raptor. The episode where she got her powers took a character I liked at first, and made me not like her, and she never recovered. Also, the Orion thing was stupid.
Spada: Yet another underdeveloped character. I liked the backstory with him feeding his brothers and sisters, but then the show does nothing with it. I also slowly over the course of the show started to get sick of his food puns and his "Grazie". He reminds me of Cilan from Pokemon, and I think that characters annoying too. I also think him being shipped with Raptor is just stupid.
Xiao Longbao: I find Xiao to overall just be meh. He is just all over the place to me. He would just flip-flop back and forth between being a character I liked in one episode and being a character I hated in the next. When he's being serious, I like him, but when they play him for laughs, it doesn't always work for me. I'm not opposed to a mentor character that's comic relief, but the way they did it with Xiao, I couldn't take him seriously. I really started to get sick of the backache jokes. If they wanted to have a mentor who was also comic relief, I feel like Sha Fu is a perfect example of how to do this.
Kotaro: I didn't mind the idea of a kid character, and I think it works, for the most part. I like him overall, even despite hating the Koguma SkyBlue debut episode. I love the brother dynamic with him and Stinger, especially in episodes 11 and 20. One of the biggest problems with Kotaro is how his own brother isn't mentioned for long stretches of time.
Tsurugi: I'm glad I can say that overall, I like this character, because I completely hated him in his first arc. As annoying as his "Nante Kotta" and his "Densetsu" was at first, I eventually got used to it. He has such a great backstory, and I liked the stuff with Kuervo... at least until they ruined it with that stupid reveal. I also think his interactions with Lucky also helped his character, and by the end, I don't think he's as bad as he was at first.
The Villains: I'm gonna keep this one relatively short. Pretty much everyone except for Scorpio sucked. The Scorpio, Stinger, and Champ thing is my favorite arc in the show. As for the other villains, Eridron was only there for 5 episodes, and didn't amount to much. I actually almost forgot about him until I reread my Kyuranger reviews. Ikagen was kinda cool, but I forgot all about him also, and Madako got annoying after a while. As for The Vice Shoguns: Tecchu also didn't amount to much, Akyanba was just annoying (which breaks my heart because she was voiced by Arisa Komiya, who played Yellow Buster), and Kukuruga was the best of the 3, but again, a lot of these villains were unmemorable. As for Don Armage himself, I don't like him at all. I think him taking over peoples' bodies was handled poorly, I didn't like the stuff with the clones, and I especially didn't like the Kuervo reveal. I also didn't like that last minute bullcrap they tried to pull with him being all the bad luck in the universe or whatever.
Final Thoughts: Despite having some of the best suits in the franchise, and one of the best OST's also, I still found this show to be a massive disappointment. It had a premise that was right up my alley, but it all just couldn't come together. Underdeveloped rangers, poor pacing, and a ton of needless silliness keeps me from calling this a good show. I still refuse to believe that the problem was just the number of rangers, because, like I said before, if CA:CW can balance 12 characters in a 2 and a half hour movie, there's no reason this show couldn't balance 12 rangers in 48 episodes. The one thing I wanted this show to do was justify having such a large cast, and it didn't. There are past sentais that started out with 5 rangers, but still knew how to pace things out, yet this show felt the need to rush through everything. Other sentais with numbers in their names (Goggle V, Fiveman, and GoGo V) stuck with those numbers throughout the show, yet Kyuranger, with Kyu meaning 9, with a core team this large, still felt the need to add more rangers, and I think that's ridiculous. Hell, the title of the show is a lie. I guess they felt "Ju-niranger" didn't roll off the tongue. Say what you will about Kyoryuger, but that show had the right idea, with introducing the auxiliary rangers slowly over the course of the show. 9 rangers is plenty for a show, and they could have did it in a number of ways, with 3-2-2-2, 5-2-2, or 3-3-3. This show could have been the Second Coming of Gokaiger, but it's
yet another post-Kyoryuger modern sentai disappointment. As for my ranking:
Current Sentai Ranking:
1) Gokaiger
2) Shinkenger
3) Gekiranger
4) Go-Busters
5) Magiranger
6) Dekaranger
7) Gingaman
8) Timeranger
9) Kyoryuger
10) Boukenger
11) Go-Onger
12) Goseiger
13) Zyuranger
14) Abaranger
15) Dairanger
16) GoGo V
17) Zyuohger
18) Gaoranger
19) ToQger
20) Kyuranger
21) Hurricaneger
22) Ninninger
23) Megaranger
24) Kakuranger
25) Ohranger
26) Carranger
(1-4: Brilliant) (5-9: Great) (10-14: Good) (15-17: Okay) (18-19: Mediocre) (20-26: Terrible)
Next Sentai: Everything about Lupinranger Vs Patranger looks promising. Every year, for these past 4 years, I keep getting disappointed, but I keep hoping the new sentai will be the one to turn it around. I'm loving everything i'm seeing so far, so I'm looking forward to it. I would love to see a new sentai make my top 15, or even top 10. I would love to love a new sentai. Here's hoping.
