Thoughts on Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (Part 2)

Hey Toku Faithful. EZ Rider back again with more Gokaiger to dish out for you. Episode 1 was a mind blowing start to the show but can these swashbucklers keep it up? Let’s find out.

Man, these floating Red Lobster restaurants just
aren't going to work.

Back on Gokai Galleon, the gang decides what to do now that the Empire is camping outside the Earth’s atmosphere waiting for them. Marvelous wants to grab the treasure and flee so they ask their “fortune telling” parrot Navi to point out said treasure. Navi tries to, (slamming into the ceiling in the process) and says a person clad in black will tell them what they need. Why do all fortune tellers have to be so vague?

So our heroes look around for the person clad in black. As you’d expect every other person is wearing black. Until a teenage school boy wearing a black school uniform asks if they are the space pirates. He says he knows about the “greatest treasure in the galaxy”. He tells them he saw the team turn into other Super Sentai members. Of course they have never heard of Super Sentai. Surely you guys don’t think you’re the first 5 people to dress in primary colors and fight space monsters. Unless they are from another planet, which would make sense. This show is confusing.

"Ooooooh, I'll keelhaul ya for this!! Ya Varmint"

The kid says he can tell them about treasure but first wants to take a picture of Marvelous holding a ranger key. The kid tries to snatch it while taking the picture but Marvelous catches on just in time thank god. The kid runs off saying he didn’t know about the treasure. Little does Marvelous realize the kid swiped the Shinkenger Ranger Key until it’s too late.

Back on the Badyear Blimp, Oiles Gil throws a hissy fit over the Gokaigers beating his armada back so he follows Sentai baddie protocol and sends out a new monster. This one looks like something out of a tentacle hentai because, well, it has tentacles. Meanwhile Ahim follows Marvelous, no doubt feeding inspiration for many a fanfic about the two of them. (It’s ALWAYS Red and Pink am I right?). They have a lovers spat and Marvelous walks off.

Marvelous: She wants me.

The captain catches up with the thieving lad who refuses to give the key back since he claims it belonged to the earth in the first place. He also raises a good point. The team doesn’t even want to save the world (like that won’t change). And here we get some backstory. It seems someone entrusted these powers to Marvelous but we’ll get to that in a moment. The kid says his grandpa died in the first Great War (with all the Sentai in episode 1) protecting him so of course, he’s a peppy little spitfire who wants revenge. We see a flashback where Marvelous runs from a Zangyack invasion on, I’m only guessing here, his home world. We see a certain warrior clad in red save him from certain death. (It’s AkaRed!!! *fangasm*) He instructs our new red senshi to guard the ranger keys and find the greatest treasure in the galaxy.

But the fate of our legendary red clad warrior will have to wait. The Zangyack Empire is back and Gormin Sailors swoop in. The kid runs off to….do god know what. They lay waste to the city (shooting innocent civilians ON SCREEN. That is some cold shit.) Marvelous decides to let the kid live out his twisted fantasy and gives him the cellphone/henshin device, much to Ahim’s chagrin. The kid becomes ShinkenRed and runs into battle. To be fair he does pretty good against the grunts. (I guess the fighting ability is just encoded onto the key or something like that.) The others catch up and watch the kid battle. That is until Mr. Tentacle Head begins to beat the crap out of our new red recruit.

"It's Raping Time!"

He knocks him into a building and off a building which SHOULD have killed him but he just de-morphs. Damn. The kid whimpers that he can’t beat the monster and Marvelous gives him an “I told you so” speech. He asks the kid if the planet is worth protecting and the kid tries to convince him it is. It seems to work and our heroes run off to face the baddie. Well you can take solace in the fact that you motivated the team into saving your world kid. The team crosses paths with the squid man and transform. It’s ass whoopin time!!

So the team does more of what they did last time. Laying waste to grunts and what not, but that’s not we’re here for right? They wipe out the grunts with a sword AND gun combo with the Final Wave but they’re not out of the woods yet. The gang use their Ranger keys to become Dekarangers! First pirates, then cops, now ninjas as they become Hurricangers (using that awesome shadow technique by the way). Now for the coup de grace. They all use red ranger keys to become ShinkenRed, GaoRed, MagiRed, GoseiRed, and GekiRed. Now for the interesting part. MagiRed and GoseiRed combine their magic to send the monster into a fire cyclone. GaoRed and GekiRed go all lion and tiger beatdown next, and finally ShinkenRed chops him into Calamari. Holy crap I passed out the first time I saw that.

Anyone else seeing Red?

But it’s not over yet. The empire pulls an Astronema and uses the ships lasers to make the monster and some stronger grunts grow. You know what that means!! Mecha time!! Marvelous calls in Gokai Galleon. They board and fire off the cannons at the giant monsters. How they do that with a giant ship steering wheel is anybody’s guess. Maybe they have galley slaves loading up the cannons down in the bowls of the ship. Gokai Galleon unloads four other mechs (which must make the ship very hollow) and time for Gokai Gattai. They fit together to form Gokai-Oh. With a bitchin pirate hat on top. This is the best show ever!! Armed with two scimitars and a GIANT chest cannon, they blow the monsters to smithereens. Man this mech is way better than Gosei Great.

Big O! Final Attack- oh wait.

Well now that the monster of the week is taken care of our heroes set sail again. Doc makes a good point though. Was the “person in black” thing just a mistake? It seems so until a familiar face appears, watching from afar in a familiar black robe. That’s right. It’s Kai from Magiranger. Add suspenseful sting music here and end show.

Holy crap this show just keeps getting better and better. Seeing Gokai-Oh in action was very cool. I think the best part was seeing our heroes use different tactics from different Super Sentai teams together. There is so many possibilities we could see in future episodes so I have high hopes. Well that’s my thoughts on Gokaiger in a nutshell. I think we’re in for one hell of a ride. Hope to see you in chat for future Toku Riffing where me and Shades watch the rest of the series every Saturday. (Schedule subject to change.)

Well, I’m gonna get back to work on moving to Reviewtopia. Hope to see you there one day. As usual this is EZ Rider. Later.