Turboranger Episode 48

I love the crazy way this episode begins, with Nagareboshi and Sayoko both out on a mountaintop in darkness, getting drenched in a massive storm, calling to the sky to hit them with lightning in hopes of regaining their powers. When Riki and the others try to stop them from this madness, Nagareboshi reasons that if the Turboranger could regain their power by being pushed to their limits and while under duress, they should be able to achieve the same. They're only stopped by the arrival of Kashim, who's able to make the storm disappear and the sky turn blue.

Kashim tries to tell the two Nagare Bouma that their true forms are as Nagareboshi and Sayoko, that the Nagare Bouma should be a symbol of peace, not battle. Nagareboshi thinks he's crazy, but he commands all seven of them to listen to him as he reveals the truth about the Nagare Bouma. (And, boy, is it some crazy Clive Barker-y stuff.) He tells them of the ancient times, of the humans and fairies uniting to fight the Bouma. He says there was once a beautiful woman who helped a wounded Bouma-Beast, Devil Mask Bouma, who's described as the most brutal Bouma-Beast. This act of kindness touched the monster, who realized this human truly cared, despite who or what he was. Because of this, she was shunned by other humans, so she and the Bouma-Beast moved deep into the forest together, eventually falling in love and having a kid, the first Nagare Bouma. "The two prayed that this child would grow up to be kind, with a heart as deep as the sea." He tells them that Devil Mask Bouma and the beautiful woman hoped the Nagare Bouma would be something that united humans and Bouma.

Nagareboshi doesn't want to hear it, resuming his call to the sky to strike him with lightning. It's at once hilarious, yet so cruel that Neo-Ragon hears his request at the Bouma Castle and is like "So you want to transform? OK, you'll transform." He sends a kind of parasitic webbing down to the Earth, which clings to Nagareboshi and transforms him into Bouma-Beast Gomugomu Bouma. The idea reminds me of that Space Beast Soldier in Changeman whose true form was netting, but he'd gather rocks within that netting and make a monstrous form. Like, Neo-Ragon takes this seemingly-living slimy webbing and makes a Bouma-Beast out of it when it's combined with someone.

Gomugomu Bouma (who mainly just growls, but it sounds like Yoshinori Tanaka and not just a random seiyuu, which is a nice addition) beats the heck outta the Turboranger, even spitting ooze which eats through the Turbo Suits. Sayoko tries to reach through to Hikaru, but can't, Kashim even taking an attack for her. (Sayoko refers to Hikaru as her only friend in the world.) Eventually, Gomugomu Bouma fires a webbing at Sayoko, but before she can mutate, a panicked Kashim fires a beam from the locket he wears at her, which dissolves the webbing. He then fires it at the Bouma-Beast, who reverts to Nagareboshi. Pissed off at this turn of events, Neo-Ragon sends down an energy bolt to blast the two Nagare Bouma to smithereens, only to discover...it was the answer to their prayers from the beginning of the episode, as the bolt recharged their powers and they transform into Kirika and Yamimaru once again. (Which pisses off Neo-Ragon, shocks the Turboranger and worries Kashim.)

Yamimaru sends the parasitic webbing Zuruten's way, and he becomes the Gomugomu Bouma. (And you can tell it's Hideyuki Umezu providing the voice this time. Again, nice detail.) As the two charge into battle, Kashim grabs Yamimaru's leg, repeating his belief about peace, Yamimaru responding with a kick that sends the old man falling off a cliff. He lies at the bottom, weak, injured, as Riki and the others race to him. Kashim becomes a Bouma Beast and they discover that Kashim wasn't a Nagare Bouma, but is actually Devil Mask Bouma. The story he told them was about himself, and the woman in the story -- we saw in the flashbacks, whose picture is in his locket -- is a dead ringer for Sayoko. She's Kirika's mom and Kashim is her dad, who hid the truth from her because he didn't want to upset her. His dying request is for the Turboranger to save Sayoko, make her understand the true heart of the Nagare Bouma, to help both of them. He hands the locket to Riki and vanishes.

Riki and the others confront the two Nagare Bouma, who are fighting the Uras and Gomugomu Bouma. Riki shows her the locket and tells her the truth, that Kashim was her father. She doesn't want to believe it, but thinks it helps explain why he put himself in danger for her. But she sticks with Yamimaru, wanting to uphold their promise to one another, and continues to fight instead. (If you're worried about Zuruten, and think this is his time, don't worry. After a blast from the Turboranger, Zuruten is able to separate himself from the webbing, absentmindedly tossing it aside for an Ura to receive. This also reminds me of a moment from Changeman, when Shiima pulled herself out of the Space Beast Soldier Zuune, and it absorbed Hidora soldiers instead.)

The episode ends with the five placing Kashim's staff on a sandy seashore as a grave marker, placing flowers there, praying for him, and promising to get through to Yamimaru and Kirika, as his words echo: "The two prayed that this child would grow up to be kind, with a heart as deep as the sea."

I like this episode, I think it's good and well made, but...the retcon-y nature of it always bugged me. (I think I'd also rather have the Nagare Bouma be mysterious; explaining their origin and having Kirika be so important -- if Kashim was telling the truth, that makes her the FIRST Nagare Bouma! -- it takes away some of their mystique.) We were led to believe in her debut episode, in episode 31, that those skull monsters were Sayoko's parents. OK, so you're changing that, Writer, but...you aren't going to bring them up at all, you aren't going to find a way to work them into this retcon? Now how are we to make sense of this storyline, then? So when exactly did they enter the picture? How did Omamori Bouma become involved? Shouldn't we be shown how they came into guardianship of Kirika? Did Kashim hand her over, or did he just abandon Sayoko, only for her to be found by Bouma, Bouma who then raise his daughter in a way that goes against everything he said he and her mother wanted of her? That would make Kashim seem like an ass or a liar or a fool, then. That's a BIG change to Sayoko's story that really, really needs addressed, but it isn't. At all! It seems careless of Soda to leave this hanging.

There's a lot of times Turboranger will simply infer or imply something, or will give you enough details to fill in the blanks yourself, but not here. There's just too many questions raised. Kirika's been with the show such a short period of time, it's strange to shoehorn in this development as if nobody would remember her introduction. And it's a massive, crucial piece to one of our regular character's history to alter and pave over like this. I really liked the set-up shown in Sayoko's debut episode and found it more interesting than this sudden turn with Kashim and his talks of peace; I thought the skull monsters were more unsettling and cooler, and Omamori Bouma was a fascinating addition.

So it sucks to just gloss over all of that great material to make this change, which is the beginning of an important redemption arc for these two popular villain characters, but SOMEthing of an explanation would have gone a long way. (I have to wonder if Kashim was going to end up being Yamimaru's dad, but Soda realized that Kirika was more sympathetic, and that you wouldn't necessarily buy Yamimaru changing so suddently. If Yamimaru was given this story and was to be affected by Kashim, it would take away a lot of the conflict in these final episodes by removing Yamimaru as a threat to the Turboranger.)

While Turboranger's one of my favorites, at the same time I recognize it as the beginning of Hirohisa Soda's burnout, because he wouldn't ordinarily leave inconsistencies like this hanging. And on top of that, I think there have been reasons beyond his control which affect his writing for this show -- the way the show evolved, the transition it had to make after getting rid of the old villains, budget issues, there's a time-slot change, there's changing plans because of certain characters' popularity and so on. I also think you can just look at late '80s toku shows and realize there was a crackdown to lighten them. (Look at how Black and Liveman softened their narrative; look how kid-friendly shows like RX, Jiraiya and Jiban are.)

Anyway, Soda would usually have written a little something to address all this. We would have gotten a little scene or even just a line about the skull monsters finding Sayoko or kidnapping Sayoko or Kashim handing her over to them before being sealed or SOMETHING. An explanation of SOME kind. Why not just dialogue to tie this together? It's not expensive to just SAY something. Just even, like, there was an attack, Kirika's mom died, Devil Mask Bouma was blasted away, and then baby Kirika was found by a Belgian skull monster and his fifteen year-old love slave, who were looting the accident scene, and they raised her to be evil. You know, that old chestnut. Kashim wanted to reach out sooner, but those Belgians made her too damn evil.

There's really no way to make the scenario work tidily, on your own, with what's been presented. If Kashim was hiding out in the forest with Kirika's mom, are we to assume he never was sealed? If he was sealed, I could buy that maybe Kirika would have ended up in the hands of others. But since it doesn't seem like he was, just how did she end up with those other guys? What the hell's Kashim been doing for 20,000 years? If he was never sealed and has just been wandering Japan for 20,000 years, you'd think he would have been able to track down Sayoko well before he did and stopped her before Yamimaru and her awakening powers brought out the worst in her. If he WAS sealed, then who unsealed him? WHY NO EXPLANATION? It just doesn't add up. You mean to tell me they could haul the skull monster suits out for a tiny flashback in episode 41, but not again here? Bah!

I know I've devoted too much time to this, but it's just something that's always bugged me, and I don't think I've seen anyone question this turn. I mean, it's not a deal-breaker. These episodes are still good and still manage to work, even if the inconsistencies nag at you. I call it a plothole on this Seishun Road.