Wednesday, March 23, 2011

It's Judgement Time, Pirates! Gokaiger Episode 5




It's a beautiful morning aboard the GokaiGalleon. Doc and Ahim serve breakfast, while Joe does sit-ups, Marvelous sleeps in his chair, and Luka reads the paper. She excitedly announces to the team that their bounty has been raised by the Zangyack. Joe, Doc, and Ahim seem worried, but Marvelous is excited.



Marvelous asks Navi to use her psychic powers to give them any clue to where the treasure may be. Navi then gives herself a concussion and tells them in her trance to "go to your local police." And they go!



Ahim questions Navi's prediction, as it is not logical for pirates to go to a police station. Joe says that the planet isn't under Zangyack authority, so they wouldn't arrest them. Luka questions the validity of the prediction and Don argues that Navi was eventually right about the man in black. Marvelous is excited to get the treasure and he rushes in.

Marvelous goes to the officer at the front desk, and asks him about the treasure. The cop looks at Marvelous's wanted sheet and exclaims that he's the guy and asks for help.



The camera then cuts to a girl wearing gloves and a jacket that says SPD on it and--OH MY GOSH IT'S JASMINE!




She cunningly tricks Marvelous into putting on handcuffs, and holds up her SPD license, putting him under arrest under multiple counts of piracy, as the Gokaigers walk in. Marvelous argues that the police must be so underfunded that they would turn to the Zangyack's bounty for money. Jasmine vehemently denies it, and recommends that they all turn themselves in.


The Gokaigers look nervous, but Marvelous smiles at them and nods his head, giving them their cue.




Luka says, "I recommend-- we all run!" as everyone except Marvelous make their exit.



Marvelous fights Jasmine and some officers all while wearing handcuffs. He leaves and an exasperated Jasmine pulls out her SPD license to call back-up.







Marvelous walks through a train yard where he is shot at by OH MY GOD IT'S DOGGIE KRUGER! They fight and go into an abandoned warehouse. The fight continues until Marvelous puts his hands up, as an attempt to get Doggie to cut through his handcuffs. However, Doggie's smarter than that. Doggie then confiscates Marvelous's Mobirate.


Suddenly, the an Action Commander comes in along with a bunch of Gormin. Doggie and Marvelous hide. A bunch of drills materialize.




We cut to aboard the Zangyack's ships, where Oiles Gil reveals his plan to use subterranean drills to destroy all of Earth's major cities. Insarn puts a Gormin in a headlock and says they were very expensive, so they better not screw it up.




The action commander sets the timer for when the missiles are launched to two hours. Doggie identifies the Action Commander as Bravdo from Planet Triggar, who has been authorized for deletion. Bravdo sees them and shoots at them. Bravdo recognizes Marvelous, and knows he has a bounty. Doggie puts Bravdo under arrest, but Bravdo shoots at him.


Back on the GokaiGalleon, Ahim gets no answer on Marvelous's phone. Joe doubts they would catch him, and Luka tells Doc to track him.




Back to our fight, both Doggie and Marvelous manage to pull a few good moves. Doggie of course kicks ass, but Marvelous manages to while in handcuffs. Bravdo then shoots at Marvelous, blasting him across the room. He is about to kill him, when Doggie jumps in front of him, and reflects the bullets with his sword.




They escape to a garage. Marvelous knows that Doggie has to shut down the drills, and asks him to take the cuffs off him, and give him his Mobirate back, so he can help him. Doggie says no, as he can not trust a pirate, and tells him to stay there. And after he stops the missiles, he'll come after him. As Doggie walks away, Marvelous notices a trail of blood. He remembers when Doggie protected him from the bullets, and believes a bullet hit him in the stomach.




Meanwhile, the rest of the team go to the trainyard. Doc finds his signal, but a bunch of Sugormin stop them from finding Marvelous. The Gokaigers wonder why the Zangyack are there. They then henshin, and go forward into battle.







45 minutes left. Back in the warehouse, a wounded Doggie enters from the stairs and watches Bravdo. He realizes if he destroys the console, the missiles won't launch. He bleeds, and some blood falls onto Bravdo's head. He wipes some off, and looks up at Doggie, and shoots him down. He's about to kill Doggie, when Marvelous swoops in on a chain and rescues him.






Back to the rest of the team, as they battle the Gormin guarding the warehouse.







Luka says this is getting old, and they transform into the Go-ongers. They use the Go-onger's individual weapons to attack.









They then transform into the Dairangers, and use the Dairanger's individual fighting styles to fight them. They then finish them off with the Qi-Power Bomber. They then go to find Marvelous.





Marvelous brings Doggie to a corridor. Doggie asks him why he saved him. Marvelous said he owed him one because Doggie protected him from the bullets. Doggie says that he will still be hunted down by the Space Police and the Zangyack. Marvelous says that the team stuck by their code of honor while traveling the universe, and will continue doing so, and will fight to protect that honor, even if people brand them pirates and the whole universe turns against them. Doggie asks him if he saved him because of that honor. Marvelous says, "I dunno." He leaves to fight, and Doggie stops him to take off the handcuffs and give him his Mobirate back.

Marvelous: So, you're putting your faith in a pirate.

Doggie: I'm not putting my faith in a pirate. I'm counting on his sense of honor.

Marvelous leaves.



One minute left until the missiles launch. Marvelous henshins and fights the Gormin and Bravdo, and destroys the console, stopping the missiles from landing underground, and launching.


The rest of the Gokaigers join him. "You're alive?" asks Joe. "Yeah," said Marvelous, "a goody-two-shoes space cop helped me."

"I'm the one who got help," said Doggie, who managed to catch up with them. The other Gokaigers look shocked, "from a goody-two-shoes space pirate."

The Gokaigers fight Bravdo first as themselves...



And then as the Dekarangers.







The girls do their own version of Jasmine and Umeko's twin-cam angel attack. And blue and green team up. Marvelous delivers the final blow, and the team finishes him off with


Insarn, of course, revives Bravdo, and the Gokaigers form Gokaioh.








They take one of the missiles that Bravdo picked up, and throw it all the way at the Zangyack fleet. Oiles Gil throws a hissy fit as he watches his fleet being destroyed and Damaras tries to calm him down. Doggie tells the Gokaigers that they have now unlocked the true powers of the Dekarangers, and they become DekaGokaioh. The use the Patstriker to attack Bravdo, and then get get in a massive gun battle. They deliver the final blow with Gokai Full Burst! And defeat them.






Later, the team walks with Doggie, with Marvelous helping him. Suddenly, a bunch of cops aim at them. "Hold it," says a familiar voice, and a young man wearing a red SPD uniform emerges from them and--HOLY SHITAKE MUSHROOMS IT'S BAN!







Ban goes up to Doggie and says that he has the results of the inquiry the SPD requested, and that the charges of piracy were fabricated by the Zangyack. Ban takes Doggie from Marvelous.

The Gokaigers walk away, as Ban says, "Hold it." They turn around.

"You better use our powers well or else!," he says as Dekared appears over him, meaning the Gokaigers realize he was Dekared, "I'm not as big a softie as boss here," he smiles.



"You're ever in trouble, you know where to find us," says Marvelous, as the Gokaigers walk away slowly. Ban and Doggie smile, knowing that their power and Earth is in good hands.


My thoughts:



Great performance. The cameos were great. I like seeing how much Ban matured, from the reckless hothead he once was. Of course, he shows a little bit of Ban-ness when he says that they better use their powers well, or else! Doggie kicked ass. Jasmine was a sultry and cunning as ever. I would have liked to see her at the end with Ban as well. I would have loved to see her use her ESP powers, and then all of the sudden a narrator says "Jasmine is an ESP-er!" I would have cracked up if that happened. But I'm still happy with what Jasmine did in the episode.



There was a lot of wire fu in this episode. They made it work, and it was very smooth and flowed nicely. Plus it was edited well.



I like how the theme this week was honor, and even pirates have honor as much as police officers. As well, I like how last week focused on sword combat, whereas this week focused on guns. Although I'm pretty sure that you shouldn't have a giant robot do a gun battle in between buildings. They shot through them. What if there were people in there? Anyway, it still was awesome.




Another very strong episode, although the best part for me was the fight scenes. I love out of suit fighting scenes, and Marvelous's was amazing, all while wearing handcuffs. The rest of the team as the Go-ongers and Dairangers were amazing. Luka's drunken fist, Doc's kung fu noises, and Ahim's version of Lin's Eagle fist was great.

A quick note: I'm not sure if any of you guys have wikipedia accounts. If I am talking about whoever did this, I'm sorry: someone edited Ban's entry on Dekaranger, Ban's entry under Legends for Gokaiger, and the episode summary. They said that Ban gave Marvelous the permission to be the new red ranger. Not only did that not happen, it is incredibly corny. I don't want to get a wikipedia account, but if any of you guys have, change it to Ban cleared the Gokaigers of piracy charges, and told them to use their powers wisely or else. If any of you readers, especially if you are one of the big tokusatsu bloggers, wrote that whole red ranger permission crud, I'm sorry for ranting about you.


Okay, next episode: Finally, a Luka-focused episode. I've been waiting for this, along with several other Luka fans. Especially the fanboys. Basically what happens is that Luka works for a rich girl in order to steal treasure from her house, questioning what Luka truly cares about: money or her team.





We get to see Luka transform into Big One! Eee! Along with some other costume changes: GoYellow, Yellow Racer, BoukenYellow, and Vul Panther. I think she pulls these while she is battling the monster in the mansion.





And we get to see Luka in a maid uniform. She says, "Welcome home, master," which is something that maids say in Maid Cafes in Japan. And as soon as that promo aired, fanboys had to go to the hospital because their jaws dropped, and their faces froze that way.



It looks like we will also see a flashback to her past. She might have been a poor street urchin, so that might be why she cares about treasure so much! I hope she has more dimension than that, though. I also hope she gets a ship tease with Marvelous in this episode... it's not just me, a lot of other people have noticed and want to see a Marvelous/Luka pairing in this season, in contrast to the Red and Pink pairing in the 30th anniversary season: Bouken Red and Bouken Pink.



Does this actress playing the rich girl look familiar!


Congratulations, Mao Ichimichi, you might have replaced Ayumi Kinoshita as fanboy bait. I doubt you read this blog, but I highly recommend you carry with you my official college woman kit: some pepper spray, a whistle, a screamer, and a ranger key. Just kidding!

4 comments:

  1. I thought this episode was kinda disappointing. It's still good, but I was disappointed that Jasmine and Ban had such small roles, especially Ban's, who had little to no impact on the episode. So far, I think episode 4 is the best episode so far in Gokaiger.

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  2. What? No mention of the Power Rangers RPM reference that Koichi Sakamoto dropped? D:
    Anyways, a really good review, and yes I agree, Luka is the new fanboy bait, what's more is that she is not a gravure model which makes the next episode "special" to most fanboys!

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  3. ^Many of those gravure models like Ayumi Kinoshita became a gravure model after their roles in Super Sentai. So we'll see where Luka is a year or two from now.

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  4. Guys, no fighting on my blog! And usually the sentai actresses who become gravure idols also do movies, like Yumi Sugimoto. It's not necessarily a bad thing--although depending on the girls' age it can go into a grey area. An icky grey area

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