Let's fly! Jetman 1 - 3

EPISODES 1, 2, 3

The Toei Hero Club edit was impressive, but cut out a couple of crucial scenes from these episodes, like Ryu and Odagiri's initial failure at recruiting Gai and the heroes laying eyes on the Vyram at the end of episode 3.

These episodes are impressive at setting up the hero side of things, but not so much the Vyram, who just kind of come out of nowhere and have unclear motives. (The biggest being...why turn Rie into Maria?!?!? One of the franchise's biggest mysteries, IMO.) Their big showing is targeting the Sky Force's Skyship, which is meant to be more impressive than it comes off. (It's basically like the Justice League's Watch Tower, but with random Sky Force guys instead of the Justice League.)

I mean, compare it to Gozma's show of force in Changeman's premiere, how brutal their assault on the military was, until Japan's troops-in-training was whittled down to five. And the Sky Force just seems unprepared and unprofessional -- they take the hits, jump ship, and lose control of their important Force Gun, which held the Birdonic Wave.

It always seemed strange to me how unclear the show is about the Sky Force. A lot of people escaped the Skyship, and that surely didn't hold every member. So why does the show act like only Odagiri and Ryu survived, with Skycamp their only location? Changeman did it better by having their base seem fully staffed by the Soldier Group. And the Sky Force is obviously a bigger organization than, say, what Maskman's Sugata was working with. Sugata and the Maskman had government-backing, but they were obviously small-scale for secrecy's sake.

While it does make things seem dire for our heroes, I don't think Ryu and Odagiri seeming so cut off and isolated is intended. However, the Force Gun breaking and sending the Birdonic Waves out at random does create a nice feeling of being backed-against-the-wall for our heroes. I like how downtrodden and out of it Ryu is at first; when he's recruiting Kaori, he ain't making a convincing case, thinking mainly of Rie and being constantly kept in check by Odagiri. I think it takes Gai to get Ryu out of his despondence; hearing Gai's pessimism, his whole "Who cares about the Earth? People are horrible" speech shakes Ryu out of it, and reminds him of what's at stake and what's important. That Gai's a total time-consuming pain-in-the-ass to recruit also likely gives Ryu less time to mope; the way I see it, Gai's stubbornness in being recruited distracts Ryu enough to get his mind off of Rie and begin leading the team that desperately needs leadership.

'Cause they need all the help they can get. Kaori's just looking for something to do. Raita's rude and turns them down. Ako needs to see some green to get properly motivated. And Gai's a nightmare. But they're all decent people, deep down. I like that Kaori and Raita get on board fairly quickly with becoming heroes, but they're really not prepared, they're not confident, they don't know what they're doing. Ako realizes mid-battle that she's in something bigger, a part of something important, so she doesn't want a payday. Gai's initial transformation is for the sake of saving his ass, and getting revenge on the monsters who attacked him. I like how confident and capable Red Hawk is in battle; he's instructing everybody on what to do, what move to make, what weapon to use. And he's a one-man army in himself, taking down grunts and giant monsters. Ryu also benefits from having Kazuo Niibori in suit, but that's a given. Because, thanks to Tanaka, Ryu needs all the help he can get.

I really like the character of Ryu. As written, he's one of my favorite Reds. Inoue gave us a traditional hero who's a genuinely good person, who is moral and believes in right and all of the things a good hero should. He's shown on his early mission with Rie as being a hotshot bad-ass who will throw himself into the eye of the storm to save the day. He's supposed to be cool, command respect. Part of what Gai hates so much about Ryu is how GOOD he is -- good at his job, good as a person. I think that Ryu is cooler than Gai; he always bests Gai. On the surface, Ryu might look like a generic Red or typical hero. But Ryu is hiding a lot of pain, and yet he soldiers on. He's haunted. In typical Inoue fashion, he's flawed. His world's fallen apart. And yet he soldiers on, he has to. And he's dealing with a team of bickering amateurs on top of it!

I think Ryu's a rich character, who would been one of the all-time greats if they had a performer who could hit all of those notes. I still stand by my casting choice of Hiroshi Watari. HE'S a guy who you can believe is an elite soldier, who's smart, knows his shit, inspires confidence. (Tanaka is so bland and has no real presence; therefore, he doesn't exactly inspire confidence.) And by having seen him in so much toku, it would be a shock to see someone like Watari, as Ryu, when he eventually loses it and caves in to his depression in the middle of the series. If Jetman was going to be the last Sentai, think of how cool it would be for Ryu to have the stunt-casting of a Watari-like performer.

And I don't want to beat a dead horse about Kotaro Tanaka, but he's just weak. I tried, Ringo, I tried real hard to keep an open mind about him and pay attention to his performance on this rewatch. (Same with Tomihisa Naruse, and same with Daisuke Tachi.) And you know what? He has good moments which I'll acknowledge, but he's still, for the most part, just off of the mark. The only thing he really brings to the part is a sense of maturity and seeming like an average dude, an Everyman, which works for Jetman's attempt at wanting to be more dramatic and realistic in its depiction of the heroes. Viewed in that way, I can SORTA let Tanaka off the hook more. Also, if Jetman really was trying to evoke the feel of a trendy drama, Tanaka's totally reminiscent of the types of bland leads a lot of those shows had. (Like a Yousuke Eguchi, for example.)

The big, big problem with Tanaka -- other than just not playing all of the layers Ryu's working on, which is obviously huge -- is the way he plays Ryu often makes the character come across as a simpleton. He'll at times be aloof or he'll make goofy faces or have a strange and dorky reaction in a scene. Ryu's not supposed to be foolish or unintelligent. And it's something that ends up working against the character in that people will misconstrue Inoue's intentions and think he's making a statement about traditional heroes and their values being stupid. That's definitely not the case here. Ryu's supposed to the head honcho, the guy with all of the answers who can always be depended upon. (Which is why it's meant to be so scary when he loses it to the point where even Gai feels bad for him.)

While I think there are some later characters of Inoue's who are meant to be the big-hearted hero, but because Inoue became cynical over time or because he just didn't write them well, the character will seem insincere or disingenuous. (For example: In The First, Hongo feels really phony to me. His speeches about snowflakes, his answer in class that life is the most beautiful thing. It just doesn't seem genuine. Likewise with Faiz's Keitaro, who's meant to be earnest, and the heart sandwiched between two cynical grumps -- who ridicule what they see as his being naive -- but the actor's weak and turns Keitaro into a cartoonish blockhead.) But Ryu, and certainly a character like Shouichi Tsugami, are meant to be genuine and from the heart. Agito lucked out with Toshiki Kashuu being good (and supposedly a lot like Shouichi in real life). Jetman wasn't so fortunate.

Like I've always said -- Tanaka's not the worst actor to play a Red. But Ryu desperately needed someone stronger. If Tanaka had played a blander, one-dimensional Red like Gaku Hoshikawa or Goro Hoshino, an eye wouldn't be batted. But he got a great Red role and didn't have it within him to make it soar. Since he does have some moments throughout the series where he can be good, and will be unpredictably hit-or-miss, I've come to the conclusion he just didn't take the role seriously, not understanding -- or deserving -- of a special Red role like Ryu or a show like Jetman.

BTW, I need to make a minor correction here to a couple of my past posts. For YEARS, I remember reading on a Jetman fan site that Kotaro Tanaka was a member of the Japan Action Club. (You could obviously see that with how much action he does in the show.) So, I repeated that he was a member of the Japan Action Club. And then, years down the line, I saw people say he wasn't, that he was never listed as a member of the JAC -- that he trained with them early on, but was never a member. So, I had to go correct myself, and have stated that Zyuranger's Yuuta Mochizuki was the first JAC to play the star of a Sentai. But, no, apparently Tanaka WAS a member of the JAC, making him the first JAC to play a Red out of suit, so...thanks for the mess you made, internet wannabe know-it-alls! (Don't you hate them?)

Random note: The very first lines of the first episode belong to the narrator, telling us the show takes place in 199X. Remember that. Because the show won't. (Including: two minutes later, when one of the monitors displays the date as being from late 1990. See also: Posh Boy Ryu's jacket, which says 1991.)