EPISODES 44 & 45
Episodes mainly about mecha. You know what a mecha fan I am. I'm guessing the reason these episodes were even made was because of the nefarious scheme they talked about in Akibaranger, of having a couple of mecha-heavy episodes in December to try one last time to sell the toys for Christmas. (Side note here: Akibaranger jokingly talks about a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. People take the show seriously, but...it's a comedy, so take the things heard there with a big ol' grain of salt.)
It's funny to think, in his quest to build the best robot, that Toranza made G2 as a contender. How do you go from G2 to what he finally ends up with, Veronica? Veronica is the one design Keita Amemiya contributes to the series, so it's one of the rare good designs Vyram sees. While the show doesn't exactly say how Toranza came upon creating it, it's obviously bio-mechanical and more of a monster than a robot, so it doesn't quite feel like "Ooh, the Vyram have their own mecha!" Veronica has organic parts, most notably the living interior where Toranza evilly places humans to feed the robot their life energy. A well-designed monster cyborg. Whatever, the show don't explain its origins, but it's neat.
The character bits in the first part take a back seat to the mecha action, but what we get is pretty crucial: Kaori reveals to Ako that her recent dates with Gai have been duds, while Gai is seen with two women at a pool, his thoughts far away and on Kaori, before he declares aloud that he just can't change who he is. (The scene with Gai features a very cool, alternate instrumental of his theme song, Honoo no Condor, which sounds like something from Thunderball-era Bond.) Later when they meet at Skycamp, they give each other a smiling acknowledgement...
It's pretty clear that they've decided, off screen, to break up. Things had been looking bad these past few episodes. I feel like the look they give each other says "Well, we gave it a shot. Can't ask for more than that. And let's not let it be weird." Would it have been nice for the show to do something a little more, something more concrete? Possibly. But I think it's interesting they chose to avoid a prolonged dramatic scene of a break-up. Here is just a simple look, you can gather where they're at with their feelings, and they need to just keep moving. It's extremely subtle, especially considering the explosive way things have played out on the show.
Part 2 has Raita, Kaori and Ako captured by Toranza, to be used as human batteries in Veronica. It ends up being a nice parallel to episode 14, when it was left to Ryu and Gai to save the three of them when they were captured by Camera Jigen. We see just how much Gai has grown, and how far he and Ryu have come. They're working well together on their own, with Gai even willing to be injured to try and fix a part on Jet Icarus mid-battle, as long as it ensured staying in the fight. He's come a long way from the stubborn guy who couldn't let go of his own priorities and who was zero help whatsoever back in 14 in terms of helping Ryu build Fire Bazooka. There's a bond between them now, they're friends, equals, brothers in arms, culminating in them buying each other a drink after their victory. (The series could have ended like this and made a lot of people happier.)
On the villain side, Radeige's arrogance gets in the way of Toranza's plan, and he sabotages Veronica by placing an explosive in the driver's seat. (The explosive is a repaint of the left-hand side of Liveman's Twin Brace!) When Toranza beats the crap out of Radeige as a result, he then places Radeige in one of the power slots to provide Veronica energy. Radeige eventually pulls a move where he vanishes -- leaving only his armor -- draining all of Veronica's power, before returning, freeing himself, and then freeing Raita.
The freeing Raita part bugs me. "I won't let Toranza kill you, Jetman -- I wanna kill you one day!" is one of those lame, Wolzard School of Wussy G-Rated Villain Cop-outs. Would it have been so hard for Radeige's motivation in freeing the Jetman to just be the ruining of Toranza's plan? It accomplishes the same thing, but doesn't make Radeige seem dumb for the sake of a silly plot contrivance. If he had just freed them, silently, before going on his way, it leaves something to the imagination and packs more of punch -- and would certainly confuse the hell out of our heroes.
That said, feast your eyes on the miniature work in this episode! Obviously Amemiya's contribution, his eye to detail. He wanted to show off his creation, Veronica, and do it in style.
Ah yes, the legendary "blue orb" prop finally moves to a mech! I'm surprised, given the show's popularity in Japan, that Veronica has no merch dedicated to it. It looks like it could have been a good 1988-95 Godzilla monster (better than Space Godzilla, at least).
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see how much anti-Gai fans seem to ignore these two episodes, which show how far he's come since the show's start. I'd put my emphasis on "show," as the episodes don't feel the need to explain out how he's changed with dialogue.
I do like the ending where Tranza sees his blood for the first time and gives a deranged laugh. It keeps him menacing despite his failure. His injuries may also describe why he thought a tomato dream monster (Toei finally getting their money's worth on those tomato head props) was a good idea.
What's really surprising is that there's no merch for Vernoica since it's an Amemiya creation.
DeleteGood point about "showing" versus clunky dialogue. "Subtly" escapes a lot of people. I don't blame them, I mostly blame bad shows; I feel like people who complain about Jetman, Gai -- or Showa shows in general -- are young viewers used to having their hands held by the poorly written new stuff, which too often just likes TELLING you because the show's too preoccupied with toys or have inept actors that can't convey information.
And I find a lot of the anti-Gai stuff just people who think they're cool for trashing a well loved character. (A lot of whom probably haven't even watched Jetman, they're just repeating points made by others.)
That ending is a great scene! I love how Hirose plays it, it's unsettling. I should have written about it. As for Toranza's tomato monster, I address this in my upcoming post, it's a good plan -- make one of the Jetman's deepest fears materialize -- it was just unfortunate he targeted Raita, who had a cartoony Ray Stanz fear. (But Stay Puft Marshmallow Man the Tomato King is not.)
The last episodes before the endgame
ReplyDeleteOh wow, you suddenly zipped through these posts! lol. Some comments for some of the previous eps:
ReplyDelete36: Not gonna lie, this ep kinda creeped me out as a kid. This was actually the first episode of Jetman I ever saw! I enjoyed it. But something about how they used the ants (like one of them crawling around a sleeping man's mouth), as well as the off-screen scenes of the dog or cows getting eaten, and Kaori eating questionable things... I know it's all really goofy. But kid-me was incredibly disturbed by a lot of this episode. And it kinda got me intrigued with shows like Jetman and the kind of tone they had. I also found Tran's growth into Tranza to be a bit of a freaky scene too. I think cause kid-me just found body morphing like what was shown in this ep to be freaky in general. And watching Tran scream in rage/pain as he grew didn't help much either. And that last shot of Tranza's ambitious eyes always sent a chill down my spine. As a kid, something about his presence just screamed danger.
I know some say it's weird how Tran essentially just grows up into Yutaka Hirose. But I feel Hirose makes it work fairly consistently. I often found Tranza memorable due to just how disturbingly insane he is. And how it's even more uncanny when putting in perspective that he's still a little kid, who just happens to get the chance at doing psychotic adult actions. It's really creepy if you ask me. And I found it fitting how Tranza would go out in the end as a result of this. I too love his maniacal laughter at the end of ep 45. I always had the impression that Tran/Tranza has never seen himself bleed before. And that one moment, he just kinda lost it. Which is pretty good foreshadowing for what's about to happen to Tranza when he gets horribly wrecked.
40, 41: Funny thing is, I remember being very meh towards this 2-parter when I first saw it. And it grew to be a big favorite of mine upon multiple rewatches. I think back then, Commander Ichijou really rubbed me the wrong way, and I guess I just didn't feel like wanting to watch the Jetman dealing with such a buffoon. But yeah, I grew to really love this 2-parter for just how much the team has grown.~
43. Y'know, I'm honestly kinda surprised they haven't tried doing a Doctor motif Sentai where they send super tiny mechs inside people to combat different diseases.
I just kinda see this ep as a very crazy over the top wild ride of an ep, lol. xD
44, 45: About Radiguet freeing Raita, I dunno, I always read that scene as Radiguet freeing Raita cause he wants the Jetman to mess up Tranza's plan. As a bonus, he'll get the chance to later kill the Jetman himself. Maybe he didn't word it the best. But I always felt Radiguet was just trying to sound like his usual overly prideful self in the presence of others, when in truth, he's just trying to kill two birds with one stone for his own selfish gains.
Veronica is so awesome looking. It's pure eye candy there~
Y'know, at this point, I'm kinda surprised that you've lost some faith at all in Jetman Shougo. I dunno, but so far, it sounds to me like you're really enjoying the show a lot more than I thought you did. With Liveman and Kamen Rider Black, I remember reading their later posts and really feeling how those shows sadly dwindled as time went on. But Jetman overall sounds like it's been pretty consistent from how you've written these posts.~
All these posts have been fantastic reads. I look forward to more Shougo. Good job! ^__^
Re: 36 -- I actually tried to keep in mind whether or not I would have found the episode scary if I had seen it as a kid. I think maybe the only thing I would have been scared by is Kaori becoming a monster; it used to give me the willies as a kid when something bad like that would happen to one of the heroes. (For example: the four Flashman becoming bad on Jin's birthday; Akira becoming Unas.)
DeleteHmm. I never really saw Toranza as crazy. When he laughs at himself bleeding, it's chilling, but I personally don't see that as foreshadowing. Toranza is prideful, he has extra-sensory powers, he's intelligent -- I think he thought himself so powerful, that his mind literally can't take his defeat in episode 47. And while he's injured, laying there in disbelief, Radeige just finishes the job and pushes him over the edge. I feel like there's also meant to be a lingering bit of childishness in Toranza, that his fragile mental state is the result of forcing himself to grow unnaturally. (Makes me wonder if maybe Toranza was going to end up with the mind of a child versus completely vegetative.)
As for enjoying Jetman...well, it did used to be a top favorite of mine, in the top 5. I grew kind of disillusioned with it over time and started nitpicking it. But when I went into this rewatching it, to blog about it, I tried to let go of my hang-ups -- i.e. casting disappointments -- and be really observant and try to appreciate and rediscover all it is that I liked about the show in the first place. (A good motivator is also all of the trolls who, over the years, began to dump on Jetman just because of it how revered it is. Another good motivator? The sad, sorry state of modern Sentai.)
With Liveman and Kamen Rider Black, those are shows I really love that have been really criticized by the fandom, and I feel for the wrong reasons, so I wanted to do posts on them highlighting where I felt they went genuinely wrong and work through some of my own problems with them. (As I said before: what happens to Black in its second half is just kind of frustrating. What happens to Liveman is heartbreaking. Black had so much behind-the-scenes turmoil, it's amazing that it still turned out watchable and still good. Liveman just really loses its narrative courage.) It's funny that, in terms of story and episode consistency, I'd probably rank Jetman over Liveman, but I feel Liveman's premise is just so strong and everything it was setting up places it over Jetman for me. I also kinda feel like Jetman wouldn't exist without Liveman. (Maskman, especially, but Liveman, too.)
I appreciate the kind words! :)