Jetman 48-49

EPISODES 48 & 49

If, in early 1991, you had polled 50 Jetman fans and asked them where they thought the Maria story would end up, not a single one of them -- not even if you were asking Toshiki Inoue himself -- would ever guess "B-Movie vampire schlock." And if anyone did guess it, they were either insane or a prototype for the internet troll.

I talked about these episodes in a previous post of most disappointing Sentai villain demises. I think the evidence is clear that Inoue never had an idea of how to handle Maria/Rie. Maria's the only Vyram member whose send-off isn't given a touch of grandness or uniqueness; she accepts Radeige's offer to give her power, and he turns her into a vampire in the hope of her going full monster and becoming his.

OK, here's about a hundred problems with this scenario. It makes Maria look stupid to accept Radeige's help. Remember how competitive the Vyram are with each other? Remember how nasty Radeige is, the levels he'll stoop? None of these guys liked each other. Here's another problem: I take it we're to assume Radeige has feelings for Maria -- the Kaori of the Vyram side, just everybody loves her -- and wants to turn her into a creature like him, so she has no choice but to be with Radeige. (I sadly never really realized Radeige's a vampiric creature, but the evidence is there; from the usage of his blood to the dime-store plastic vampire teeth he dons when monstering out.)

THE SHOW HAS NEVER INDICATED THAT RADEIGE CARED FOR MARIA! Radeige gave Grey a dirty look 70 episodes ago, and THAT'S IT. Radeige obviously only cares about Radeige. Other than when Torazna was around, he treated his cohorts with disdain. I know Inoue likes to leave some things up in the air, to make them mysterious, so maybe you're meant to question if there's more to Radeige (especially if you consider how different he was when he lost his memory), but...it's such an important detail to the character, such an important component of the storyline, that I think it needed to be MUCH clearer and definitively stated.

I've always read people say Radeige loved Maria, creating a love triangle within the Vyram that mirrored the one within the Jetman team, but I thought those people were crazy and really reading into it something that wasn't there. While I think a lot of those people are just shippers, something IS supposed to be there. It's just extremely vague and poorly done. If Radeige is a vampire, you could have made this some kind of sick, Gothic love story. But there's nothing there. In fact, with the way Radeige despises humans, it never made sense to me he even grabbed Rie in order to turn her into Maria. So, it makes even less sense that he'd love her. Inoue probably thinks this makes Radeige seem complicated, but it's really just sloppy writing.

The whole thing with Maria being a vampire, stumbling around and sucking the blood of a bunch of random dudes is the weakest part of this two-parter. She eventually turns Ryu into a vampire, and it's just kinda silly to me. It's meant to be shocking to see the reliable Red of our show turned into a monster, only being freed by Kaori's love and devotion to him, but it all just seems like padding. Like a way to avoid a genuine final confrontation with her.

The best parts of these two-parters is the sliver of episode remaining after the vampire nonsense. A healed Ryu confronts Maria, in one last attempt to reach out to Rie, and kisses her. While this was probably pretty shocking at the time -- I can't recall any toku show prior to Jetman showing an on-the-lips kiss that wasn't comedic -- it's marred and made laughable by the fact that Kotaro Tanaka can barely make contact with Maho Maruyama because all of the vampire make-up and prosthetics.

Maria reverts to Rie, but we know it's not going to be a happy ending here. For the entire series, Ryu has vowed to save Rie, but we know Toshiki Inoue better. Rie feels too burdened by her sins, so she makes a the decision to attack Radeige, guaranteeing her death. (She feigns that she's still on Radeige's side and then stabs him in the back -- literally, too.) Radeige cuts her down, and in her final moments, she tries to cut Ryu loose, before being whisked away by Grey. This pretty much destroys Ryu, in a display of raw emotion so upsetting that Gai commands the other Jetman to leave him be and not even witness it. Can our Red, our trustworthy leader, be dumped on any more? This is the good stuff. Why we couldn't have more of this instead of silly shit with vampires...I dunno. Tanaka does a good job here, and Maruyama's at her best as Rie, rather than Maria.

Rie's final words to Ryu are a request that he forget her and move on. She tells him to erase all traces of her in his heart; this is pretty damn close to the phrasing Kaori uses in episode 22, but I'll talk more about this in the next episode.

Rie dies in Grey's arms and he cries, his tears transferring and scattering her into the sea. An interesting stylistic choice. It's a little sad that, outside of Toranza, Grey's stuff with Maria is the strongest portion of the Vyram side -- considering he's, you know, a robot, and that Rie's presence as Maria DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE! Grey has a couple of good moments in these episodes; one when he approaches Maria to let her know Radeige's just using her. (She doesn't care. Why?!?!) Another when he approaches the Jetman and asks them to help Maria.

The episode ends with a scene, a vision of a cheerful Rie in a park, running towards the camera in joy, her image fading in and out before finally settling on a fade out. A nice, stylish choice by director Masao Minowa in his last Jetman outing.