Turboranger Episode 37

I LOVE the idea behind this episode, but I think the villain plan is pretty hokey and takes away from it.

The good part of the episode is that Yamaguchi-sensei's younger sister, Mika, tracks down the five Turboranger. Mika's training in kung-fu, so she's ready to crack some skulls, and she's also played by future Five Yellow Keiko Hayase, so the episode's a winner just on that alone. Mika first crosses path with Haruna, who in Mika's opinion is more than a bit suspicious in the way she's "practicing" baton. (Haruna is training, using the baton in the way she uses her W-Stick weapon.) Mika's young, a bit brash, argumentative, and she's soon in an actual fight with Haruna. When the villain dilemma of the day is keeping the other four busy, Haruna's communicator portion of the Turboranger keeps sounding off, calling her to battle, which catches Mika's attention. She's not successful in shaking Mika off, though.

The dilemma of the day, the weak spot of this episode, is that Zuruten has created a metallic clone of himself. The clone, the Zuruten Metal Type, is not only strong and made of metal, but also has the ability to place a collar around a person's neck and turn them into a mechanical being. Eventually the person will become entirely robotic. This is a ho-hum plot out of a cheesy superhero comic from the '60s. The second issue of Green Lantern or Fantastic Four probably has a story where aliens are turning people into robomen. It's really out of place here, IMO, not really meshing with the M.O. of the Bouma. They're paranormal, supernatural. A lot of the Bouma-Beasts are rooted in youkai folklore or the occult. This plan of Zuruten's is too technological, veering into sci-fi, the plan you'd expect from a villain group like Baranoia. (In fact, they do have quite a few episodes like this in Ohranger.)

I already thought they were pushing it in episode 26, when the robotic-seeming Bouma-Beast Fujimi Bouma was turning Daichi and the others into its metallic, robotic-seeming offspring. But now here's this episode, which just pulls this plan out of its ass and forces it to fit into the show. They couldn't even write in something like "Let the humans become cold pieces of metal like the technology they worship, BWA-HA-HA!" That would have worked! But, no, we just get Zuruten being like "Look what I can do!" and that's it.

Thankfully, this episode has Keiko Hayase, who is so badass that she consumes all of Haruna's time -- ordinarily, when a toku gives us a scenario like this, the hero is able to make a getaway to go help their teammates. Not here! Mika and Haruna remained locked in battle long enough for the four others to fail in their fight with the two Zurutens and regroup with her. There they learn who they're up against and why: Mika traveled to Japan from Hong Kong out of concern for her sister. Over summer vacation, Yamaguchi-sensei visited her sister (who lives in Hong Kong to train in kung-fu) and wasn't like herself; she was in a depression, lamenting that two of her students -- Nagareboshi and Sayoko -- have gone missing and that there's the other five who seem to hide things from her, that she can't get through or understand. It's making her lose confidence in her abilities as a teacher. Mika hated seeing her sister like this, so decided to pay a visit to these pupils that are causing her such unhappiness. Maybe to investigate them, maybe to beat sense into them, maybe not in that order, and maybe literally.

Haruna and the others are conflicted -- they feel bad for Mika and her sister, but they know they can't reveal that they're Turboranger. (Haruna noting to herself that if the teacher's worried about them so much now, knowing what they were up to as Turboranger would only makes things worse for her.) They're then called back into battle by Dazai and are off, with Mika not far behind. The two Zurutens are back in a public space, turning people into metallic humans. Once they face their opponent, Haruna spots a spying Mika and holds up having the others transform. Just then, they happen to notice Yamaguchi-sensei, who approaches the others trying to usher them to safety. Zuruten's metal monster manages to snap a collar around her neck and she becomes a metallic-human, beginning to attack. Not caring about Mika's spying on them anymore, the five transform to try to put a stop to the craziness.

Mika gets in on the fight, throwing some angry kung-fu moves at Zuruten's clone. They have no effect, and Pink Turbo saves her from an attack, both being knocked away from the battle, with Pink untransforming. Mika grabs the left-hand portion of Haruna's Turbo Brace, wanting to take matters in her own hands and fight to save her sister. She tries to transform by pressing the brace's button -- against Haruna's warnings -- and gets an electrical shock which blasts the brace off of her wrist. She's in a desperate panic, but consoled by Haruna, when the brace suddenly flies before them -- Shiron found it and is returning it to Haruna! And then...Mika briefly sees Shiron. Haruna gives her a condensed version of Shiron's history and the fight they're in with the Bouma before heading off to save the day, clearing up some of Mika's doubts about these five.

The other Turboranger are having a tough time of it, because they're being attacked by Robo-Sensei and don't want to fight back. Mika appears to help, but can't get through to her sister and is struck by her. Mika's locket unfastens in the attack, opening to show a picture of the two siblings. Robo-Sensei sees it and stops... She eventually turns to strike the Robo Zuruten in his weak spot, which causes all of the collars that's been attached to the fine citizens of Japan to short out and detach, returning the people to normal. (I like that Misa finds the strength to rebel. Sensei's tough!)

The episode ends with the Turboranger seeing Mika off at the airport, with Mika telling them that she put in a good word for them with her sister, without divulging any of their secrets. Imagine how different this episode would have gone if Mika happened to find Nagareboshi or Sayoko first! Good thing she found Haruna.

I like when they involve Yamaguchi-sensei more, and it was a great idea behind this episode, made even greater by getting someone as likable and kickass as Keiko Hayase to play the sister. (You can just tell she's going to be the star of a subsequent toku series.) The robo dilemma, though! Even though it's a Zuruten plan, it's not exactly played for laughs, but it comes across as pretty silly and you can't take it as seriously as the episode hopes you do. So putting Yamaguchi in this "danger" doesn't have the impact it should and that the episode is likely looking to have.

And it's not bad enough that the Metal People plan is lame, but the show doesn't have the money to depict it, so they just haphazardly slap some gray paint on their face -- yeah, gray, not even metallic silver like Jack Haley wore in The Wizard of Oz. Gray! And then they're directed to move robotically, but if they don't want to, that's cool, too, man, they don't have to. (There's only one of the extras who's REALLY into trying to move mechanically. He must be a mime.) It just doesn't make sense to me. If it's supposed to be a shock to see Yamaguchi like this -- lifeless, dispassionate, a tool -- that could have been conveyed by, like, having a monster that turned people into zombies or kyonshi or something. Why robots?!? Seems so random to me.

Mika seeing Shiron is a surprise, and an interesting development that they don't treat as importantly as they should. They kind of gloss over it. Haruna notes that Mika is "different" and that she's a believer, with the narrator saying at the end that Mika's someone else who shares the same values as the Turboranger (and therefore the fairies, I suppose). I like to look at it as...Mika's young and has a caring heart and was quick to pick up on all of the things like the Turbo Brace being weird, being open-minded about the strange and unusual. (That's one of the oldest jokes amongst Sentai fans. "Why doesn't anybody notice and comment on the weirdo watches these guys wear?") She's courageous and throws herself into battle with the Bouma for the sake of her sister. I think the show's trying to introduce the idea of magic and belief catching on and growing beyond just Team Turbo, and that's pretty interesting and should be delved into, but it's like they're hesitant. That idea has a symbolic power, but maybe the glossing over it is the staff feeling like it would take away from the uniqueness of our heroes, the stars of the show?

Think of earlier in the show, it's not just pollution and technology, but a loss in faith that weakened the fairies. So maybe throughout the course of their battles, the Turboranger have caused belief to grow and strengthen, if it didn't already exist to some extent within some people. The casting of an action actress like Keiko Hayase makes you imagine if this story had been told earlier in the series, with the character returning in an even more heroic capacity later on.