Monday, December 3, 2018

Tokusatsu Review: Uchu Sentai Kyuuranger vs Space Squad Part 2: Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.

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 Welcome back to my last written review of 2018 everybody. Yeah sorry but this is the time of the year for friends (the few I still have), family (the ones I actually want to affiliate myself with) and making sure both groups don't kill each other over petty nonsense by pacifying them with material goods. Though in all seriousness this has been a busy year for me and I need a bit of a break. Besides I need to catch everyone up on Kingdom Hearts before the big day comes next month so I'll be dedicating myself to posting the rest of my LP of Birth By Sleep. So now to wrap up the adventures of Dumbluck and his gang of stooges. Here's the link to last time, now to get this party started.

https://ondavidsbrain.blogspot.com/2018/11/tokusatsu-review-uchu-sentai-kyuuranger.html

 So after Dumbluck, Robo Bison and Pine Tree showed us how little they actually know about how the world works, and Shuu gets a good sniff of Bootleg Spock after sniffing Tsurugi's female secretary, the guy must collect restraining orders like Yu-gi-oh cards. Everybody is brooding over this whole situation while Spiro is still incapacitated, he could really use either a Spa day or surgery. Dumbluck and his group meet up with Luigi Mario where they surprisingly encounter Spyro who tells the four to look after Yera and that the enemy is going to attack the Neo Kyuutama production facility, yeah I know what's happening but just let those in the back of the class figure it out for themselves. Tsurugi even gets a message from Demost about the same attack. Sure enough Yera's there and ambushed by Tsurugi, Sasuke Clone #3472, Kurumi, Bootleg and Josuk3PO.

 But before they can catch her, get her to a safe location and figure out what the hell is going on, the moron brigade show up, transform and fight with Tsurugi, Sasuke and Kurumi. Dumbluck even gets back up from Leman Russ, but even Dumbluck didn't want him involved in this since he has a family to look after, but nope Bros before hoes and pups I guess, god when even Dumbluck can see that that was a stupid idea, just, ugh. Anyway it's 5 on 3 with Yera still refusing to explain herself while Demost is watching and putting the finishing touches by performing a Jutsu. While back at the fight Spyro shows up again gets caught in a sword clash between Dumbluck and Tsurugi making things 1000 times worse, so what does Yera do while her friends and teammates are killing each other? She runs away like a fucking coward!

 Even Mele tries to call her out on her bullcrap when Shuu intervenes and starts another fight/ flirting session with her. Then the three are attacked by Spyro forcing Mele into her monster form. He tells Yera the exact wrong thing to resolve this situation and Mele uses her chameleon powers to escape with Yera. Back with the moron's fighting Gavan finally shows up and manages to defuse the situation. However Demost knows that Gavan is in the neighborhood and is now on a major time crunch.

 Now here's where we finally learn why Yera is doing all of this, Demost approached her pretending to be be from her Ninja clan and tells her he wants to help her resurrect her master who was killed by Jark Matter by getting the Neo Kyuutamas. So she was willing to trust the words of an obviously evil looking space ninja who says that he can help her bring back her dead master. Do I need to tell you all how stupid this is? I mean do I need to repeat my joke from my recap of Lupinranger vs Patranger, actually yes I will! Unless you're using the Dragonballs resurrections tend to go pear shaped really fast!

Unless Yera really hated her master for some reason and only wants her to suffer as an undead abomination.
Or as an unborn demon that can't even beg for death.
Or to use a more recent example, be resurrected as part of a Zombie Pop idol group for the as of yet unknown purposes of an eccentric asshole as part of a poignant social commentary about how fucked up the Japanese Pop Idol industry is!
 Also no, this isn't a trick of Demost, her master really is still alive, how, why these are questions the movie doesn't feel like answering. Moving on Geki and Shuu catch up and give some advice to Dumbluck and Tsurugi. We also have some scenes about "how are we going to get over something like this" that I've seen handled way better in Persona 3 The Answer so just play that then listen to this tripe. The only important thing to come out of this sequence is that Yera tries to leave Demost but he shows his true colors and fatally wounds Mele for their little heart to heart talk that lead her to get a clue in her head. But Demost shows Yera that her master is alive and he'll kill her again if she doesn't follow his orders.

 His true goal is to conquer this universe as an offering to Fumein and the only thing that stands in his way is the Kyurangers. That's why he even approached her in the first place, and to further drive the wedge between the team he used his Jutsu to disguise himself as Spyro while the real Spyro is still in the hospital. Now for his master plan to destroy the Kyurangers, he'll have Yera kill Tsurugi and to make sure she gets the job done he sends Basco, Juzo and Escape to oversee the operation and kill anyone who gets in the way. Speaking of Tsurugi in a press conference he announces his resignation as President of the galactic Federation. Yera tries to make her move but she just can't go through with it, so Escape does the dumbest thing possible and fires on her, blowing their cover and sending the entire crowd panicking with Basco and Juzo being cornered by the other Kyurangers and fighting back in their monster forms.

 But enough of that it's time to see where Demost was hiding the whole time. He was actually disguised as Tsurugi's female aid, having killed the real one in her apartment. Bootleg and Josuk3PO were sent by Shuu to investigate when he noticed the same perfume smell on both the aid and Bootleg from when Demost had him in a headlock in their earlier encounter. Now that the jig is up, Yera's master is safe and Demost finally kills Mele for her betrayal the 11 Kyuuurangers and Space Sheriffs work together to defeat Demost and put Basco, Juzo and Escape back in the ground. Actually it's not all that clear because even though Demost was defeated he wasn't killed so how does him getting beat up a bit lead to the three that he resurrected go back to being dead? Oh whatever the film's almost over, with Yera's master safe and Demost in Shuu and Geki's custody the Metal Heroes finally go back to their home universe and we'll never have to hear from Dumbluck and his goons again until we unfortunately have to deal with their team up movie with both the Lupinrangers and the Patrangers.

 So to wrap up the Space Sheriffs apologize to Jiraya for nearly killing himself keeping the portal open. But he doesn't care about that as another of the 12 Apostles of Genmakuu is out and is a pyromaniac as apparently he's been running around a planet and setting fires to skyscrapers, the latest one having killed 900 people! So we get the tease of the next Metal Hero that Geki will be working with, Fire AKA Ryouma Kagawa from Tokkei Winspector. So that was Kyuranger Vs Space Squad and spoilers like anything involving Kyuuranger it sucked like a Quantum Singularity. Though I fully admit that I have a major bias against this movie since Kyuuragner was as of this date the only Super Sentai that I ever gave up watching when it first premiered, the characters pissed me off that much. 

 That aspect is still carried over to this movie, Dumbluck is still insufferable and most of the core Kyuurangers are still as one note as when I last saw them. The only ones I don't have an issue with is Pine Tree and Tsurugi since they showed up after I quit the show and thus have nothing to be angry about with them. Another point of contention that I have is with the resurrected villains, most of whom cannot be resurrected due to their nature as AI in Escapes case and the reincarnation with Mele. Now I'm guessing that that the actors for these characters were the only ones available and the producers just didn't care so, meh whatever it was at least nice to see Basco back. Though the cynical side of me is telling me that the only reason why they even brought back past villains like this was to draw in the fans of those shows because they know that Kyuranger was a ratings disaster and were desperate to get anyone to watch this movie.

 Speaking of desperate it was painfully obvious that with the split team dynamic that Toei was trying to ape Captain America Civil War. But again they only copied the superficial aspects of what made it work. Now sometimes when Toei does this it can work, most prominently when they copied Twilight with Kamen Rider Kiva, they only used the "Vampires who sparkle" thing and that was thankfully it. But here, it just makes you want to see Civil War again. Honestly the only way I would recommend this is for the Space Squad ongoing story as it shows how Demost was defeated and sets up the Winspector team up for next time. 

 Now that this review is finally done with I can get on with a bit of a well deserved break for the holidays. And by that I mean I'll be focusing on my personal art, streams and Lets Plays until I feel the review itch again sometime after the New Year. So be sure to stick around for not only the rest of my Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Lets Play but also my end of the year recap. Till then, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Happy Holidays and good cheer to all.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Super Sentai is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
Metal Heroes is owned by Toei Company.
Solomon Grundy is owned by DC Comics, created by Alfred Bester and Paul Reinman
Fullmetal Alchemist is owned by Studio Bones, Square-Enix, Funimation, Viz Media and Hiromu Arakawa.
Zombieland Saga is owned by MAPPA, Megumu Soramichi, Crunchyroll and Funimation.

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