Turboranger Episode 6

Here's another one that has a situation that's meant to be bigger and more dangerous than the budget allows. In keeping with the show's environmental theme, this week's Bouma-Beast licks clean a polluted river, giving birth to groups of sludge-like zombies; both the monster and his minions discharge even more powerful and harmful pollutants. The dilemma's in the zombies causing mass destruction -- including the Turboranger's arsenal -- and that the monster is protected by a couple of kids who see its "cleaning" of the river's pollutants as good, especially since their struggling grandfather dreams of getting back to his life as a fisherman.

Problem number one is that the Bouma Zombies, while a neat idea -- they're kind of like a super version of the typical monster grunts, and a modern show would probably keep them around in addition to the Uras -- they only have five of 'em! It's meant to be this unstoppable army, but just as it was with the previous episode, the threat's not fully conveyed with the show's budget limitations. (I like their design and the way they emerge from the Bouma-Beast, however. Nice and creepy.)

Problem number two is that the kids aren't your more sympathetic toku guests. The little boy -- who most of the episode's focus is on -- shrieks his lines and his actor is Yuuki Kuroda, who grows up to be the creep who plays Glaive in Missing Ace. Also, the kid whines about the polluted river ruining his grandpa's dreams, but he doesn't mind using the river to piss in. (Thanks, director Kiyoshi Arai, for that low-angled shot where we technically get pissed on by Kid-Glaive.)

Problem number three is that the environmental theme is really heavy-handed here, down to the narrator lecturing us to do our part at the end of the episode! (What is this, Ultraman?) The worst part of the environmental heavy-handedness in this episode is when Reida's boasting about this plan to Ragon, Ragon's like "Let the humans be buried in the filth they've created!" Well...the pollution and the sorry state of the environment is one of the things that weakened the fairy magic and let loose the Bouma. So...why's Ragon preaching?

The most important thing in this episode is the introduction of the Turboranger's fancy new individual weapons. There's a sense of growing and progression to the Turboranger becoming the kind of norm; I think it's intentional they start out with a kind of puny team-attack before getting the big guns (V-Turbo Bazooka) that every Sentai usually has from the start. These teen heroes don't have it easy. Look at how they're just whisked away one day and taken to where their enemy is awakening and just thrown into the mix. There's no real obligation for them to fight, it's not their profession, they're not trained. But they still step up, and this set-up makes it more tense, because they feel like they're in over their heads.

I've seen Turboranger's set-up accused of being "random," but I think the whole point of the magical and fantasy setting is to imply that, by encountering and being showered in the Lights of the Fairies as children, that they were basically destined to get involved, picking up this battle where it was left off. The link in this battle is Shiron, who it's personal for, who has a history with the villains, therefore making it personal for the Turboranger by association. (I feel like that's good enough for the introductory episodes, until the show is able to REALLY make it personal for our heroes, which mainly happens with Yamimaru and Kirika.) It's a modern day repeat of the humans and fairies uniting to battle the Bouma, but the humans are now armed with technology and some of that fairy magic themselves.

I know people don't like it when something's knocked down in order to prop up something else, but that's the internet, sorry newb. But I never understood why Turboranger's premise and set-up has been so difficult for people to accept, with Turboranger so looked down on and called the worst, and yet Bioman's let off the hook. Bioman has consistently been one of the most worshipped and highly ranked Sentai shows. And Bioman's set-up is similar, but makes LESS sense to me. Planet Bio's destroyed, Peebo and the Bio Robo fly to Japan, shower the first five assholes they meet with Bio Particles, take a nap for 500 years and then seek out their ancestors when it seems like shit's going down because of that weird Doctor Man dude. Like...HUH?! That is some random shit. The source of the heroes' powers has no connection to the villains, the heroes have no connection to the villains, they're just picked at random, nothing's really tied together. And nobody questions that show! Even the newer fans who aren't all that into '70s or '80s stuff, and mock it, will praise Bioman. It's crazy!

While this episode, along with episode 5, doesn't fully convey the scope and threat they're supposed to, and fall short of being quality episodes, I wouldn't rank them as bad. They're enjoyable enough, even if they're not all they could be. There's really only one episode of Turboranger I dislike and think is a real stinker. Until that post, I'll leave you to wonder which one that is.