Turboranger Episode 22

A standout episode, one of the show's best. With wonderful, atmospheric, raw direction by Takao Nagaishi, it's one of the most dramatic and serious Sentai episodes ever made. To me it comes close to Liveman's first episode -- all of the focus is on the human drama, human brutality, the bonds of the characters, and the superhero action saved as a strong punctuation to the emotional drama. And it's a serious, timely look at juvenile delinquency, especially amongst Japanese males who join gangs.

Nagareboshi has dropped out and become a biker thug. It makes sense -- he's a wanderer, a guy caught between two worlds, wanting power, hungry for battle. He successfully beats up numerous rider gangs, and soon word is out about Nagareboshi's activities. Riki and the others are determined to stop him, while Yamaguchi-sensei is determined to save him. Yamaguchi shines in this episode -- "Even if they were in my class for just a day, that child is always my student." -- as it's revealed that, when she first started teaching, one of her students died in a bosozoku-related accident, and that she vowed to never let it happen again. (Nagareboshi is cruel, scoffing and dismissing her when she confronts him, telling him the story.)

When Reida observes what Nagareboshi is doing, he decides to free Racer Bouma, who's sealed in a painting of a chariot race. His plan is to have Racer Bouma violently beat up bikers -- possibly kill them, actually, it's kind of unclear -- and leave behind evidence framing Nagareboshi. Riki was already determined to do whatever it takes to stop Nagareboshi, but after the Bouma-Beast's frame job of making much more violent scenes, he gets PISSED, just volatile. All signs point to Riki maybe even wanting to just finally kill Nagareboshi. Riki is wanting to put an end to the violence, but is also coming from a place of violence, and Yamaguchi recognizes that. She's the one that gets him to snap out of it. Of course, they know what she doesn't, which is that Nagareboshi is the half-demon Yamimaru, but she can't stand to see her students so eager to hurt each other. She knows that they're all going through the same thing and should be open to communication, not giving in to bloodshed, and that Nagareboshi can change. Riki sees Yamaguchi in a new light and puts his faith in Yamaguchi's faith, really, before trying to pursue and stop Nagareboshi.

At one point, both Red Turbo and Yamimaru are cornered and attacked by Racer Bouma, both getting massively injured. When Riki takes Yamaguchi's words to heart and decides to track down Nagareboshi, he finds that Nagareboshi plans to hunt down and fight Racer Bouma on his own, but he's still too injured. Riki's just frustrated with Nagareboshi, who just doesn't listen, doesn't care, is difficult to get through to. So he punches Nagareboshi and tells him of Yamaguchi and her hopes for him. "Think of that punch just now as a punch from Yamaguchi-sensei." And he tells him he'll go after Racer Bouma, which he does. We get a cool chase between Red Turbo's Turbo Attacker and Racer Bouma's vehicle that ends up at the rocky quarry; something helping the atmosphere of this episode is the gloomy weather -- the ground's constantly wet, with the fight scenes and the chase scenes kicking up a lot of mud. Red Turbo performs a drive-by GT Crash on the monster!

There's a couple of cool chase scenes in this episode, notably Riki and Nagareboshi's motorcycle chase. The episode makes a lot of use of Eikichi Yazawa's synth-y "Kanashimi no Kanata-e," and it gives a scene in which Riki chases after Nagareboshi on motorcycle a bit of a Miami Vice feel. (I once again have to say: don't you miss when tokus would use mainstream songs in episodes, and not just material created for the show?)

This episode's working on so many levels, it's cramming a lot in, it leaves you asking questions. (COULD Nagareboshi reform?) When people call Turboranger "comedic" or "the worst" it's proof they never watched it, never paid attention or never made it to this episode. It's kinda weird that an episode so heavy takes its title from the feel-good ending theme; it works, but puts a cloud over the ending theme, doesn't it?