VOLUME ONE
Featured episodes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
I'm surprised they skipped the 10th anniversay celebration first episode! Especially in favor of something like the Samurai Town episode or the Bouma Zombies.
VOLUME TWO
Episodes 7, 8, 10, 14, 15
OK, so we have the first episodes giving us some background details on regular villains Jinba and Jarmine, plus Yamimaru's introduction. I think it's ridiculous that they skip the episodes with Blue Swallow or the Ura Highway one, but to choose episode 10 over something like The Bouma-Beast Who Became Stars is just wrong.
VOLUME THREE
Episodes 16, 18, 20, 21, 26
Someone at Toei loved Daichi. But skipping character episodes like the one with Kid-Yamaguchi or Shunsuke helping the Demon Brothers?! SKIPPING "SEISHUN ROAD?!?!?!?" Madness. It's obvious by this volume that Toei went for either action-oriented episodes or comedic ones, and a lot of what they chose -- more importantly, the better quality ones they left out -- probably majorly contributed to the Japanese fanbase's negative view of this series for all of these years. And they needed to make room on this volume for the Rin episode.
VOLUME FOUR
28, 29, 30, 31, 32
Well, this makes sense. And here's where I have to correct myself -- according to the VHS cover for this volume, they DID include episode 28, which I had just said in my most recent post they excluded. Now, here's the thing...I had copies of these tapes. (By copies I mean "I found someone who had the actual tapes and they were nice enough to dupe them onto blank tapes for me" copy-copies, in the actual sense of the word.) I don't remember seeing episode 28 until well after I had that tape, though, and I don't think the person who copied it made a mistake. (I remember each volume starting with that distinct and trippy Toei Video purple haze logo.)
Volume 6 of this release has a wrong title listed for one episode, so I'm wondering if the list of episodes on the back of this volume is an error. I ain't buying this volume to find out, but I really don't remember it being on my tape.
VOLUME FIVE
35, 39, 41, 43, 46
See! Again with Daichi episodes! Who at Toei loves Daichi so much!?! How do you like how it goes from Ragon dying to coming back in just a couple of episodes, with only two standalones breaking those episodes up? Bad move.
There's so many good episodes they passed over: episodes 34, 36, 37, 38, 42...that could have been its own volume, called "The Good Episodes We Stupidly Skipped Volume."
VOLUME SIX
47, 48, 49, 50, 51
Obvious. The curious thing is, on the back of the case, there's a different title for episode 47, but I can't make it out. (All I see is "...reta yousei.") I'm wondering what that title is. (I'm assuming a working title for that episode, mistakenly listed, which is probably a better title than the one we actually got.)
Episode 17 should have been in here it's inesxcusable
ReplyDeleteDoing a shortened version of each Sentai season does sound like a pretty interesting task in terms of looking at a show in a certain way. It does make me kind of curious about how the other seasons after Turboranger were handled. Or even how the non-released seasons may have hypothetically been handled (for better or for worse).
ReplyDeleteVol 1. I'm shocked folks at Toei felt eps 5 and 6 were must-sees. Seriously, what did they see in those eps?? I've said before how I've felt those eps are majorly responsible for scaring people away from the show. I would've kept those two out. Imagine if folks watching these VHSs could go from ep 4 to immediately seeing eps 7 and 8. I think that'd be a much stronger "shortened Turboranger."
Vol 2. I agree with your thoughts on the eps they chose to keep and omit.
Vol 3. Y'know, I seriously have to question who at Toei thought "You know what's the best way to watch Turboranger? Like this! This is how it should be seen!" I mean, I'll respect whoever's opinion and how they enjoy Turboranger, but man, I agree, this probably did not sit well with a lot of other fans at all.
This does amusingly make me think of these episode choices as: "The Turboranger most probably see it as." =P
Vol 4. Well it's a good thing they didn't leave 28 out. Crisis averted, lol.
Vol 5. Wow.... that episode selection looks pitiful. It just hurts to look at. And the 2nd half of the show is generally the part most people love about Turboranger. It's just.... huh??? These choices just baffle me so much. What happened?? Were they getting crunched for time due to there being only one more volume left? Did they wait too long to get to the Kirika half of the show? Even then, yeah, someone clearly thought the Daichi eps were superior to all those other eps. As for the period of time between Ragorn's defeat and his return... I guess whoever was in charge of that felt the wait wasn't really needed and wanted to get on with the plot, or just didn't like those eps in-between too much.
Thanks for this post Shougo! This was very interesting!~ =D
Pretty much every show from Jetman onward got a full release on VHS and/or Laserdisc. The selected episode thing was more a problem for the '70s and '80s shows. Like, Dynaman had a VHS release that was only about the first 30 episodes, IIRC. Sunvulcan only released up until the first episode with Hiba. (I remember people seeming pretty excited once Toei Channel got to Sunvulcan and made the second half of that show easier to find.) JAKQ, I think, only had four episodes released! The first one, the one with Etsuko Shihomi, Big One's first episode and another one.
DeleteAnd if that's not crazy enough, how about that for shows that were 25 minutes -- like the Space Sheriffs -- they would put only three episodes per VHS! Greedy! And just sloppy. Whoever picked Turboranger's episodes really must not have known much about the show, or cared. Typing this post up made me realize that the VHS release probably is responsible for why the Japanese fans have treated Turboranger like it's Fiveman.
Yellow Turbo doesn't exist in the VHS, they skipped ALL of his episodes.
ReplyDelete