REVIEW: Kyuranger 3
The gang are on a mission to destroy a machine capable of destroying planets, which Lucky thinks will be no problem at all, until a new enemy appears: the Orange Kyuranger, Stinger! Not only does this new fighter have Jark Matter ties, he also has a dark connection to Champ (as well as a sweet scorpion tail).
Stinger was the most important cast addition this week. As much as I loved Misao as last year’s antagonist/Evil Ranger, I hope that Stinger doesn’t follow his path. I really want to know his motives, because it does not seem that he is being controlled by Jark Matter in any obvious way. He also admits that killing champ’s professor/creator was a crime worth atoning for, but we still don’t know why he did it. If this mysterious, venomous jerk turns into another goofy tagalong, I’ll be extremely disappointed.
This episode was also the debut of the new commander, Xiao Longbao, who is a hot mess and was presented almost as an afterthought. Considering Stinger is the arguably more important new character this week, I think it may have been a wiser choice to introduce Xiao a couple weeks from now. I may grow to like him, but at the moment he seems like an attempt at comic relief when we already have plenty of it. However, his contrasting nature to Raptor makes me like Raptor even more. I’m currently convinced that she should be running both the ship and the Kyurangers, rather than Xiao and Lucky.
This was a great episode for Champ. I appreciated that the opening scene kind of explained how the non-organic characters work: Balance is mechanical but not a robot. Meanwhile, Champ is definitely a robot…a robot who lifts weights, has dreams, and can plot revenge. There’s no valid explanation for this, but is an explanation for a cool character always necessary? However, I did wonder whether “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” inspired any of the show’s writers.
The final fight was excellent – I liked the use of the Gemini globe, but this is minimized by the fact that I think Xiao was introduced in this episode solely so that Lucky could utilize this new Kyu Tama. We are already seeing some of the huge cast taking a backseat during the fighting. This is both a relief and a necessity, because I can only imagine how tiresome it would be to see all nine transform, combine, interact, etc. The balance between action and comedy was near perfect – I had to pause the show because I couldn’t stop laughing after Moraimarz turned into a giant fighting robot and Lucky cried, “Is this allowed?!” Seconds later I was enthralled by Naga’s attack after he switches with Hammy as an arm.
Next week is going to focus on Raptor/Pink, who is also an android (though her origins and mechanics have yet to be explained). She is currently a successfully tsundere character, and I’m looking forward to her developing more beyond that persona.
