Okay shift into Turbo... WRONG SHOW... it's time to time for ACCEL CHANGER... CARRRRRANNNGGERR!!!!! I'm currently watching Gekisou Sentai Carranger. This is my latest marathon and I hope Haroranger finishes the last two episodes soon. What's my latest view? Carranger is basically taking Turboranger's car motif to a whole new level with a comedy twist. Instead of teenagers of attitude, Carranger's rangers are workers at the Pegasus Garage who are chosen to use the Carranger magic. IMO it made more sense than Turboranger to choose Pegasus Garage workers because these guys knew much about cars, they had their dream cars and they would probably be the best choice against evil space aliens, than teenagers with attitude (a trope that was later taken into Megaranger). So I know the basics of Carranger from start to end but, nothing beats it like when I really watch a season from start to end right?
What's not so surprising really is Dappu and even before I saw the show, I already read some details about Carranger from Lavender Ranger's websites hence that was the time I started pretending to be a Sentai expert when I'm not. If you saw the Power Rangers Turbo movie (which I saw last 1998, long time already), you'll notice that Lerigot is inspired by Dappu. But unlike Lerigot, he doesn't have a family and he's the last of his race and he doesn't want the Earth to suffer the fate of his home planet Hazard.
The five worthy recruits are namely Kyousuke (a test driver who starts off as selfish but later learns his lesson), Naoki (the youngest and smartest of the team), Minoru (a salesman), Natsumi (your rebel in red like the late Mika Koizumi) and Yoko (an airheaded accountant). They are hesitant at first but through Dappu's pretended death, they see that they are needed or the Earth ends up in kaboom! In terms of favorites, my favorite is Kyousuke for being badass and he somehow reminds me of myself and my struggle with selfishness. My other favorite is Natsumi who is snappy, somewhat rebellious, wears a red outfit, she's a good mechanic, she's pretty tough (she also rides a motorcycle and tends to act on her own) and I can view her as a season long Mika Koizumi. Good thing Yuta Motohashi didn't run off the set like Yuki Yajima (the actress playing Mika).
Now for the villains as they were introduced. The Bowzocks are a group of comedic villains who always have one stupid plan after the other to blow up the Earth. I mean, come on why don't they just NUKE THE EARTH?! Again, considering Sentai villains aren't so smart in general except for a few game-changers. Even when a Super Sentai season is serious, villains still lack common sense. I mean, most of the time, expect a convoluted and/or unbelievable plot. Later, they would employ the services of Professor Ritchhiker whose plans aren't doing any better until some time later. I won't spoil too much okay? Meanwhile, I find it funny how that while Gynamo is the president of the Bowzock but... Zonette serves as their de-facto leader as Gynamo usually follows her desires.
What makes it funny is how Grotch himself got into the mishap of enlarging after he accidentally ate from sweet potato jelly from Imocho. What is also stupid is how Imocho doesn't really notice anything weird about Grotch as a habitual customer, the monsters attacks and so on. But that's what makes the show really fun to watch.... because of how silly stuff can get. It's all about well-written silly stuff. Now I do like Carranger better than Go-onger, but still I can't hate Go-onger even if I'm liking the latter lesser now.
For Carranger, I thought the mecha here are better designed than Carranger. RV Robo is like a better designed Turbo Robo from Carranger. The way that the robot assembles is somewhat funny yet similar to how the dinosaurs in Zyuranger form the Dino Tanker before it becomes Daizyujin. They all assemble their cars running (hopefully they didn't kill anyone in the process and nobody was stupid enough to cross the streets during a monster attack) and then it forms the RV Robo.
Signalman himself is a wacky police officer who appears as some kind of parody "anti-hero" in a sense, he doesn't easily cooperate with the Carrangers. Carranger had no sixth ranger but it had an extra hero ally instead (sigh, I'm getting bored of sixth rangers for some reason) and this guy for me is another Robocop shoutout. Janperson was a Robocop shoutout in 1993 (that show was very Robocop-ish) and before that, Jiban was a character created in response to the success of Robocop. Like Robocop, Signalman upholds the law but unlike Robocop, he has his own personal mecha. I view this guy as a Robocop parody.
Well I'm hoping to finish Carranger soon and add it into my database collection.
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