REVIEW: Kyuranger 24
Throughout the past two dozen episodes, Kyuranger has introduced characters that I either met with apathy or absolute hatred, only for them to grow on me. Stinger, Shou, and Kotaro eventually found themselves as characters that I enjoy rooting for. In fact, my favorite parts of this episode were anytime that the Commander was on screen. But I’m not sure that Ohtori will become one of the characters I grow to love.
I don’t hate Ohtori – in fact, I find him quite interesting - but he is still coming across as a bundle of contradictions. The show is trying hard to make him sympathetic but are doing a medicore job, introducing the tragic backstory of Ohtori’s former battle strategist, Kuervo. Apparently good battle strategy is to needlessly sacrifice yourself as a shield – something that Ohtori himself was against, but quickly gave into Kuervo’s begging to become his human – I mean, bird – shield.
The contradictions continue later in the episode when Lucky and Ohtori find peace with each and agree to fight as equals…kind of. Lucky agrees to be a “fighting” shield, which leads to the two fighting over each other mid-battle because apparently being a fighting shield sounds so cool that Ohtori decides that he wants to be Lucky’s…so yeah.
I was pleasantly surprised that Vice Shogun Tecchu transformed and fought the mecha, eventually using his Monster of the Week Gabbler as a shield, which leads to a funny moment where Lucky calls out Ohtori’s contradictory disgust. Tecchu himself is not that interesting and looks like a penis with a patchy beard. The fact that Shou held his own fighting against Tecchu alone leaves me even less impressed.
But we did get to see the debut of the Kyutamajin, a mech that includes all of the Kyutama. Kyutamajin looked super cool, but I had a major issue with this scene – namely, that only Lucky and Ohtori were piloting it! The rest of the crew seemed to be super cool with it, which would not be my reaction if I came across as so unnecessary. Alas, Lucky did note that it was hard to manage with just 2 pilots, so hopefully this won’t be a common thing. I like my Super Sentai to have, you know, sentai.
