Turboranger Episode 16

I think there's some small similarities between Changeman and Turboranger. I've often thought that Riki was kind of like Tsurugi, Jr. -- the baseball player who's an all-around bad-ass leader. There's that the Earth Force is basically mystical, not unlike the fairy magic of Turboranger; the Changeman and the Turboranger are the result of magic and technology combining. Then you have Nobuo Tanaka narrating, c'mon. Anyway, this episode is kind of a condensed version of the arc in Changeman when Ahames first acquires the Rigeru Aura, while also offering some backstory as to how the Turboranger came to be...

Yamimaru continues his brutal attacks on the Turboranger. (Even destroying the just-finished engine for the V-Turbo Bazooka.) Yamimaru beats the color out of 'em! That is, they take so much damage, they revert back to those Growing Form, all-white suits. They soon find they've lost the ability to see or hear Shiron. (I like that she's worried enough to go to them, and when she realizes they can't see or hear her, she pulls a pen from Riki's pocket and writes on his hand for them to run, because Yamimaru's on their tail. The whole episode is basically a tense chase between Yamimaru and the power-less Turboranger.)

When Yamimaru and the Bouma-Beast corner them, Shiron takes a gambit and uses her life-force to emit a blinding light, taking an angry blast from the Bouma-Beast. It's kinda sad that the Turboranger can't see or hear her, but know she's in bad shape, but they don't let her attack be in vain -- they take it as a chance to escape and take shelter in a cave. There, Riki has a realization...

The light Shiron gave off reminded him of an incident in childhood; he was in a forest and found a tree which emitted the same kind of light. An old villager told the young Riki that what he saw was a holy power left behind, throughout the forest, by the souls of fallen fairies, and that anyone who is showered in this holy light will possess great powers. One by one, each of the others recall a similar event taking place in their childhood. Desperate to regain their power, they decide to find that forest, only that Shunsuke knows that it's been torn down. This leads Daichi to the brainstorm that the forest the wounded Rakia was trying to escape to way back in episode three must hold power, so they head there...

Only Yamimaru beats 'em there. They're in a desperate struggle, Riki ends up holding back a strike from Yamimaru's sword with his bare hands. His hands bleed heavily, and he shouts a reminder to the others, to himself -- "We're the only ones who can protect the Earth!" And, suddenly, a tremor, and an entrance is opened into a cave that's glowing with the sacred light. The Turboranger get closer to it, absorbing its power, becoming Turboranger once again. While all of this is happening, Dazai has whipped up a new engine for the V-Turbo Bazooka, which is ready to go and used -- killing the Bouma-Beast and knocking Yamimaru across town. After the fight, the Turboranger gather an unconscious Shiron, placing her near the light-filled cave opening and saving her.

So, it's reminiscent in the way that the Changeman lose the Earth Force once their enemy Ahames gains a new power and beats them senseless, with both teams kind of having to "re-earn" their powers. There's also a little bit of the Rigeru Aura in the way the fairy light is depicted, so the Turboranger are basically at once both Changeman and Ahames.

This is just another good, tense, action-filled episode, with added emotion of Shiron facing peril, and finally some nice backstory and information as to how these particular five youngsters came to find themselves in this new war against the Bouma. And I like that they tie Rakia and the early episodes into it. (I don't know if they're filming in the same place as episode 3 -- it looks different, but it was snowing in that earlier episode, so maybe it's just hard to tell.)

And now Turboranger finally has a proper team finisher with the V-Turbo Bazooka. I like that they waited to bring it in. I like that Turboranger has not always followed the toku rules -- some monsters have been killed by methods other than the Plasma Shoot. Turbo Robo doesn't always kill the monster with the Turbo Crash. The bad guys each have their own way of making the monsters grow. And as I've mentioned, the monsters of the week will be brought in in various ways; some are sought by the regular Bouma and freed, some are accidentally freed, etc. Turboranger shakes things up and does things a little differently sometimes, and it's nice.