Ohranger Episode 2

 

EPISODE 2

Keeps with the nice pace of the first episode by having the race-against-the-clock premise of Goro needing to get the others back to base to receive their powers all while a giant mecha is attacking the city (and taking prisoners). The first full team battle does not disappoint, as all of the suit actors show their Choriki Strength, and the set piece here is big and chaotic, a Yamaoka specialty. I love that the regular sized team takes on the giant mecha and successfully bring it down without a cheat.

Only making a cameo last time, we're given our full introduction to Hiroshi Miyauchi's Miura. Casting Miyauchi as the mentor is just a genius move in order to celebrate the anniversary. I blogged before that there are rumors in the Japanese fandom that the production wanted Akiji Kobayashi as Miura, but his health was in decline. He ended up passing a year after Ohranger. I still don't know how true all of that is, and while it would have been awesome for Kobayashi to have had a Sentai role, it doesn't quite mean the same thing as Miyauchi's casting does. Miyauchi is just perfect. I've often thought of what it would have been like if they had gotten Naoya Makoto instead, and it's just not the same. Miyauchi better conveys the mentor and, as a performer, is flexible to the tone of the show. He's happy to play comedy without sacrificing his authority or coolness. You think Ohranger would be better regarded by Japanese fans just for the fact that Miyauchi is a regular in it -- that's a big deal!

It's funny how much Metal Hero blood is pumping through Ohranger and yet it doesn't feel as blatant as Heisei Kamen Rider does. Directors like Makoto Tsujino and Takeshi Ogasawara are more Metal Hero directors than Sentai ones. We just had Miyauchi as the mentor in two of the Metal Heroes, they brought Yamaoka over from there (he in turn brought in guys like Kazutoshi Yokoyama), they get Seiji Yokoyama for the soundtrack, they wanted to go with a theme song that was more Metalder/Blue Swat than the standard toku opening... When the Ohranger untransform after their first battle, they're sweaty, with Goro doing that old Winspector shake off the sweat and bask in the sun bit that Masaru Yamashita created. I feel like early Ohranger's even filmed in a style closer to the '90s Metal Heroes than the Sentai at that time. Meanwhile, a lot of people who had been Sentai staffers went over to B-Fighter...

After only being seen briefly at the start of the first episode, we're also given our first big encounter with Baranoia. And, yeah, they're grating. They move around too much. They're whiny and loud. I always wondered if they turned out this way because Toei knew they had to start Power Rangers-proofing their shows. Because the Baranoia CAN have cold speeches about humanity, but the suit acting is all just...over exaggerated and goofy looking. (The suit acting looks amateurish, like the way a lot of monsters of the week behave. We know Kazutoshi Yokoyama and Yasuhiro Takeuchi are more talented than this.) And then there's their moon base, making the set look IDENTICAL to Bandora/Rita's. What's the purpose of that other than catering to PR? My case for why I never necessarily bought into the Ohranger-changes-tones-because-of-the-subway-attacks is that B-Fighter suffered no changes. Toei still put out a movie that year centered on the villainous Hakaider...in which every human character dies! So I basically think Ohranger's biggest problem was that it wanted to do one thing but was very conscious of what PR would want.

This episode highlights my problem with Baranoia in one simple scene: Acha and Kocha descend and address a panicked crowd about Baranoia's intentions. The crowd is terrified and yet...look at Acha, for crying out loud. Nobody would be scared or intimidated by that thing. Not even a kid! The T-800 he ain't. And the entire time Kocha is parroting him in a kawaiiiiii anime voice. It's so much scarier to leave it at the endless Barlow soldiers and giant mechas and not know their origin than it is to show these guys, and especially act like the two comedic ones can stir any kind of terror within a person. (To be fair, I like Acha's design, and he works as the dorky servant character he's supposed to be. His voice actor is great and nails the part. The character's just not good as a face for the villains in this scene.)

But we know the Baranoia. The heroes apparently do, too. They know, at least, that they're based on the moon and...choose to do nothing. That's not my problem, really, my problem is more that the heroes knowing their location takes away from the threat they posed in being mysterious. If it's a so-far successful invasion of alien robots, then how much scarier would it be to wonder and not know where they come from, where they could be? And then you can unspool that mystery of...hey, these guys were created on ancient Earth! But the show just quickly wants to get to business as usual, where the heroes know the bad guys and the invasion and take over is glossed over.

 

Akiji Kobayashi in the 1995 Takeshi Kitano movie Getting Any?, to give you an idea of what he'd have looked like in Ohranger.