Turboranger Episode 14

Wasn't it weird when you'd get a new kid in class? But speaking as a one-time new kid in class, it's weirdER to be the new kid. Unless, of course, you are Hikaru Nagareboshi and you hate everyone, peg them for the assholes they probably are, and kick their asses all while never losing your hat.

Nagareboshi, literally the transfer student from hell! A big turning point for the show for many, the arrival of Hikaru/Yamimaru. This is mostly an action-packed episode, filled with Hikaru first trying to show up the Turboranger at school, and then kicking their ass all over Japan as Yamimaru. (It's pretty touching when a freaked Shiron prays for the Turboranger's safety.) I've written before about how, before there were Sixth Rangers there were "Sixth" Villains -- villains who joined the shows in the teens and spiced them up. I miss those days, because it meant the show was bringing in a character for the sake of the story and furthering the drama -- it *meant* something. A new hero is just a lazy excuse to milk out more merchandise; it's a Bandai directive, not anything organic to the storytelling, nothing that will further it in a meaningful way.

A new villain still sets up storylines which necessitate new merchandise -- I mean, a new arsenal! -- for the heroes. (Which ends up happening here, as well.) But how many Sentai shows bring in a sixth hero, shit out all of his merchandise -- toys, mecha, changer, song -- and then just shove them in the background? You ain't putting the likes of Kaura or Yamimaru in the corner! They have a much more meaningful presence and contribution and are actual additions to their shows.

Soda loves his villains and he loves villains that have beef with other villains and Nagareboshi is not only a new threat for the Turboranger, but he's an outsider to the Bouma, too. It's interesting that nobody knows what to make of him -- Riki and Dazai suspect he's a Bouma, but Shiron doesn't sense the Bouma when seeing him. It's only Ragon and Reida who recognize that Nagareboshi must be a Nagare Bouma -- described here as being just half Bouma, which allowed the Nagare Bouma to not be sealed in the ancient battle with the fairies, so they've just been wandering.

What's funny is that this episode does set up a Bouma-Beast threat of the week, but it's treated as secondary and unimportant compared to Yamimaru's debut. A bit sad, because it's kind of a fun one -- a dogu-based Bouma-Beast who is accidentally unsealed by diggers. Jarmine thinks it's an appropriate revenge to then bury the diggers, just as Dogu-Bouma was buried for years, which gives us these neat effects of massive sinkholes opening up, with people falling through and being buried up to their chins. All a backdrop. Yamimaru even ends up stealing the Bouma-Beast, who gets accidentally killed later on!

I like that Hikaru is such a nasty, vindictive guy, who takes delight in his taunting and torturing of the heroes. He gives Red Turbo a nasty shoulder wound and later, as Hikaru, puts his hand on Riki's shoulder, pretty much letting him know he's Yamimaru. But our heroes don't confirm that until the next episode, so the show still tries to keep Yamimaru mysterious, down to altering actor Yoshinori Tanaka's voice electronically when he's Yamimaru. It gives Yamimaru such a creepy and menacing vibe that they should have kept doing that effect.

Which brings me to Tanaka. I've said before that I find him to be a bit of odd casting for the role, and that he's a little stiff. He's GREAT as Yamimaru, most of his awkwardness is as Hikaru. I know that Hikaru's not technically high-school age, he's just posing as a high-schooler, but Tanaka looks WAY older than anyone else in the show. He's a 90210 high-schooler. Hikaru/Yamimaru is supposed to be tough, cool, dangerous -- you can picture the type of person they'd typically get to play the role. You get the impression that maybe they wanted some stunt-casting, maybe a popular singer or something. But the show doesn't have money for that! So we get Tanaka, who oddly doesn't have many credits before or after Turboranger. (He supposedly went on to be more active on stage than in movies or television, and is now mostly a narrator.)

I like Tanaka, I think he works in the role, but you can imagine what a damn perfect villain the character would be if the casting were a little more appropriate. I'm not saying he should have played him, because the dude needed a break, but obviously a Yutaka Hirose type should have played Yamimaru. I've often wondered if maybe Kihachiro Uemura would have been better as Yamimaru than as Shubarie in Fiveman. (I don't know if Uemura would have given the character the rage he's meant to have, something Tanaka accomplishes.) Even if he was a little too old, I used to think Yamimaru would have been the best Sentai villain for Jun Yoshida to play, until I realized he would have made a better Radeige. I always wanted Kazuyoshi Ozawa to have been in a toku, I think he could have made a cool, ruffian kind of Nagareboshi.

Nevertheless, Tanaka's fine, and Yamimaru proved to be popular regardless. He represents a big change for the show. There's the impression out there in the fandom that Turboranger is generic, it failed at what it did and got retooled. Turboranger has a shaky start -- Liveman ended without much of a budget and Turboranger looks to have even less than what Liveman went out on. Turboranger was trying out some new, untested things, like the fantasy element and the high-school heroes. The second half of the show is better received than the first, when the majority of the Bouma generals are written out and when Yamimaru and (certainly) Kirika join the series. People see this as the show being "retooled."

Retooled to me is like what happened to Hibiki -- higher-ups not being happy with what they're getting, so people are fired and a new group of people are brought on and DRASTICALLY change the show. Turboranger takes a while to find its footing, and gradually introduces a couple of characters that cause things to click in place, and it has the smarts to then jettison what hasn't worked as well. And what worked for the show is bringing in villains that have a direct and personal connection to the heroes, which is obviously important to superhero storytelling, but is something that Soda really made a thing with his shows.

For some reason, they just couldn't get those original Bouma regulars to work. I have a theory about that, though. Some of it is just the nature of the Bouma regulars; Reida, despite being played by a karate-ka like Masashi Ishibashi, is meant to be the old wiseman. Jarmine's title is princess. Zuruten is just the comedic sidekick. And even if Reida and Jarmine appear on the field a lot, they're not exactly action-y characters, they don't have a heavy interaction with our heroes beyond talking about their plans. Jinba's really the only one who gets in there and fights, and he's the costumed one, so it's hard to have our heroes really connect with him.

It's a surprisingly odd set-up to have in a Soda show, when he usually quickly establishes personal connections or strong, active villains. In a way, I feel like the villain types of Reida, Jarmine and Jinba are more in line with the types of villains Shozo Uehara had in his shows -- most of his regular villains would oversee plans, but stick to the sidelines. (He also favors kunoichi-type characters, sneaking and spying on the side.) Soda's the one who had his regular villains really getting hands-on with their plans and getting personal with the heroes, frequently fighting with them head-on. And I have to wonder if the reverting to that Uehara style, and the way Turboranger initially dials back on having the regular villains being more heavily involved is a result of Liveman.

Liveman's villains were not only humans, but peers of the Liveman, peers who committed murder before they were even supervillains. It's a pretty dark and heavy premise, one that obviously rubbed some higher ups the wrong way, which is what I think led to Liveman's getting softened, the backtracking of its themes and what it had initially set out to accomplish. So, Turboranger goes with villains who are just evil monsters from hell, without much of the same characterization or direct conflict found in Soda's other shows. Toei goes from Liveman having the first group of human villains to Turboranger having the first group of demonic villains.

So somebody behind-the-scenes saw that something wasn't clicking, and had the great idea to bring in Yamimaru and, later, Kirika -- fellow high-schoolers who are outsiders because they're half-human, half-Bouma. I'm sure there was resistance, a fear at repeating Liveman's classmate vs classmate theme and the heaviness that brought to the show, but Turboranger goes about it in a different way, and it was something the show really needed and ended up greatly benefiting from. It's such a smart move to introduce those two; they bring so much to the hero side -- giving them a crucial, personal connection to their villains -- and they bring so much to the villains. They raise the show and further tie into its stronger themes of growing up and making your own way and finding your identity, providing even more depth. So the show moves beyond and outgrows that more straightforward good-versus-evil approach of the earlier episodes, which ends up being represented by Reida, Jarmine and Jinba all being killed off early. The show finds its footing, but at least it does, and things REALLY click into place, beginning with this debut episode of Yamimaru, and it becomes an even better show. Turboranger doesn't get retooled, it simply evolves.