Jetman 23-26

EPISODES 23 & 24

Inoue brought us the first sixth hero in Maskman, and here he brings us the concept of a secondary Sentai team within a series. Treading new ground again.

This episode introduces the Dimensians, a trio of last survivors of a dimension destroyed by Vyram. That they're played by faces familiar to Sentai fans is an added bonus -- heck, maybe it's even why I like these episodes so much. (They could have stuck around for a couple episodes longer. Nobody would have missed the upcoming shadow episode or the stupid, awful caveman one.)

One's played by the likable Blue Flash, one is my favorite Pink Mask, and the other is the one who goes on to be Tricera Ranger. Yeah, I'm never exactly excited about Tricera Ranger, but he works in this role. It's a Maskman reunion with Blue Flash and Pink Mask -- he played her doomed love interest in the Inoue-penned 34th episode of Maskman. (I know Inoue will write parts for certain performers, as writers tend to, so I've always wondered if the casting here was on purpose.)

What I like about the trio is how efficient they are; Rei (Blue Flash) & Kanna (Pink Mask) are obviously a couple, and have been at this for quite a while, while Dan (Tricera Ranger...of course) is a young goofball who they look at with bemusement. They enjoy his shenanigans and it's an unusual, different dynamic for a team. That they all get along so well and care for each other -- showing up just when the Jetman team are falling apart and separated from each other -- brings out a contrast between them and our regular heroes. (Also: Blue Flash actor Jouji Ishiwata has matured so much since Flashman, and is a really calm, collected leader. He and Kanako Maeda make such an impression here and seem like they share such a closeness that I used to think about what it would have been like if they had played Ryu and Kaori.)

The Dimensians bring with them the Jet Garuda -- and wouldn't you know it, just in the knick of time! Semimaru has hatched and trashed the Jet Icarus. (And it's a good thing that these guys are bird-themed, too. That's a helluva coinkydink!) At least the episode has the sense to show them working on the way the two mecha will combine, rather than it just happening automatically, while there's some other shows that try to cheat and skate by and not explain why two mecha from differing origins are so compatible.

Being the youngster of the group, Dan takes a liking to Ako, and looks to get out of helping them work, realizing that there's little they could do. Dan's a typically boisterous character who talks big, who rubs Ako the wrong way before she comes to like him. There's a tragic cloud hanging over the Dimensians, but they're hopeful that they can help Jetman beat the Vyram and just hope to resume a normal life on Earth. Well, things don't go that way...

Despite the brief amount of time we've spent with them, it's still a shock when Radeige's image appears before their ship, and he manages to fatally stab Rei with his sword. The ship's crashing mortally wounds Kanna, who dies before she can make it over to Rei's corpse. Dan's just so shaken about the loss of his friends, I think actor Hideki Fujiwara does a good job here of just the sense of loss and fast growing up he does in the blink of an eye. Because fury just takes him over, he transforms, and goes to take on Radeige, saving the Jetman before being dealt a fatal blow from old Blue Face.

As Dan lays dying, Ako ties a flower around his ring finger, as he did to her earlier, to show her acceptance and feelings for him. It's a sad moment, one that would be rare in a toku today.

Random note: When Semimaru first hatched, he looked exactly like a Pokemon or something. A blue turtle with red spots. But when he grows, he becomes some red-colored, winged Gundam thing. It's like they used two different designs from two unrelated shows. It's a really strange choice and inconsistency.

Random note 2: Sentai's filled with dead comrades who died for our team's newest mecha. But since the Dimensians made such an impact, and there was that comparison between them and our regular heroes, I feel like the show needed to address the team's quickly taking ownership of Jet Garuda better. Like a simple they jump into the cockpit and Red says something like "Let's do our fallen comrades proud." No! Pretty soon the Dimensians are forgotten, and the Jetman are complaining when the latest monster of the week's beating up Jet Garuda.

EPISODE 25

A cool-down episode by Araki. There's not too terribly much going on in this episode; Maria's monster creates shadow copies of the Jetman, which drain our heroes' power the more the copies are active. To keep them active, and potentially kill the Jetman, Maria uses her powers to keep the sun out as long as she can. (That's a helluva ability there, Maria. If she can do something like that, why's she wasting her time with piddly-shit like some of these harebrained monsters and plans she's come up with?)

The best parts of the episode involve Gai and Grey. After all of the recent tension, Gai's isolated himself from the others -- choosing to hang out by a poolside with some knock-off Playboy Bunnies. And his stubbornness actually saves the day, since he's not there when the others are copied; it's up to him to save everyone. When Grey takes a hit from Radeige intended for Maria, Maria shows the robot kindness by bandaging his wound, which then leads Grey to protect the exposed Maria once she's taxing herself to keep the sun shining. We get a prolonged battle between Grey and Black Condor, as Black Condor tries to stop Maria, and I feel like this episode really solidifies their rivalry that the later episodes will play up. That reason saves the episode, in my opinion, and keeps it from falling in the Filler File.

EPISODE 26

Stupid, awful, terrible episode. I'd like to leave it at that, but let's go into it...

I think it's this episode that gives me a negative coloring of Tomihisa Naruse as Raita. Give the guy an entire episode where he doesn't shut up and...eek. He has that high-pitched voice and he says his lines the exact same way. And he's loud! In this episode, especially, he's just kind of yelling everything. He's like a bad kid actor. You know those bad Japanese kid actors who have helium voices and just YELL EVERYfrickingthing they say in a monotone?

Anyway, if that's not bad enough, we get the Jetman sent back to caveman times. Raita's split off of from the rest and saved by a cavegirl who looks exactly like Kaori if she were to be attacked by Vyram's Tan-in-a-Can Jigen. Since Raita started the episode daydreaming about Kaori, this scenario gives him the chance to live out his dreams with a stand-in. Now, I already said that it's ridiculous that Raita's fallen in love with Kaori, too, but this scenario is just...kinda wrong seeming? It reminds me of that terrible Star Trek TNG when Geordi's obsessed with Leah Brahms and creates a holoprogram under the guise of getting her help to build something, but he turns it into Geordi's Perv-Out, Stardate 2366.

Speaking of Star Trek, Raita also breaks a ton of time travel rules that would surely get Time Investigation's Dulmer and Lucsly on his ass. He's teaching them Japanese, he's inventing them farming tools, he's showing them how to easily make fire, he's eating their food (bringing with him who knows what parasites back to the present). He also ends up going down in history, with illustrated tales of a fat guy who becomes a fat, yellow owl being recorded. Raita even starts dreaming of staying in the time period and settling down with Kaori Flintstone.

The episode kind of seems to be sending the message that an ordinary, hardworking farmer has no place in modern society and would only fit in in caveman times. Or is he saying only cavemen appreciate farmers? Farmers only provide to cavemen? So...way to go, writer Naruhisa Arakawa?

Random note: This episode also forgets that the show takes place in the vague 199X, since we see 1991 displayed on the monster of the week's timer. And, for some reason, this episode also hauls out Kamen Rider Black's toilet flush of time special defect effect.