My Personal Thoughts On Zyuohger's Premiere Episode

I was pretty nervous before Zyuohger's premiere. I thought that after Gokaiger, there was really this "fatigue season". I do like Go-Busters but the series wasn't really popular with the rest so it might as well be considered as a fatigue point for Super Sentai. Then came Kyoryuger or what I want to dub as KYOOOOOORRRRYUUUGER which I thought didn't appeal to me. ToQGer was another season which I felt was a real fatigue point due to the writer Yasuko Kobayashi was burning out beyond belief. It was Kamen Rider Gaim that filled my Tokusatsu void during the airing of ToQGer, Kyoryuger, Samurai and Megaforce. It's time for Zyuohger and I really can't believe I'm getting a real huge breathe of fresh air from this series. With Junko Komura (main writer of Satria Bima Garuda) doing the job, I wonder how will she fill the void left by other writers?

The story starts with the entrance of Yamato Kazakiri (who's revealed to have gotten that cube from a Zyuman years earlier) into the world of Zyuland. I guess they were repeating some concepts from Go-onger (parallel worlds to human world) and Zyuland happens to be a place filled with anthropomorphic animals. So really, did producer Takaaki Utsunomiya watch too much either Kung Fu Panda or classic Disney cartoons during the planning process? Granted, Power Rangers was with Disney and Saban that time so I guess they copied a few ideas from the west like Go-onger feels inspired by Cars, Dekaranger followed some elements from Western movies (ex. Armageddon, Rocky), some 80s Super Sentai were inspired by Western sci-fi shows and I guess Zyuohger is no exception.

The premiere episode was pretty fun with how the Deathgaliens introduce themselves as some kind of space mafia. I guess we wouldn't be seeing any Big Bad stuck in the wall as Ginis the Big Bad is seen sitting on a throne instead. They belong to another group of those planet destroying villain groups like Gozma Empire (Changeman), Silver Imperial Army Zone (Fiveman), Bowzock Gang (Carranger) and Balban Army (Gingaman). Earth is the 100th planet in the list of Deathgalien which they will play in what might be a killer gambling game.

Sidenote, with another red ranger with an eagle motif, the Sun Vulcan song "Yume No Tsubasa" played in my head when Yamato changed into Zyuoh Eagle. Speaking of eagles, Ryu Tendo's Gatchaman counterpart is known as Ken the Eagle. It's been some time since I've seen a red ranger with a bird motif. The last ones we've seen were Vul Eagle, Yuusuke Amemiya/Red Falcon, Ryu Tendo/Red Hawk, Goro Hoshino/Oh Red, Hurricane Red, Kai Ozu/Magi Red and Sosuke Esumi/Go-on Red. It's nice to see the theme repeated after some time. I do find his Eagle Riser to be pretty funny to how it can double as a rail and a sword then again Tokusatsu is supposed to have a lot of impossible stuff or it's not a superhero show. Plus, it was nice to see some out-of-suit fighting for Yamato, something that both ToQGer and Ninninger BADLY needed. I hope the other cast do the same because we badly need those do your own stunts scene!

With how the series was, I felt like it was an abridged version of Gaoranger's premiere episode. Unlike Gaoranger where the gattai happened in the second episode, the giant robot immediately made its debut in the first episode. At the end of the episode, you have Tusk trying to leave the team a la Gai Yuki style. So how will Tusk be convinced to join the team in the second episode? I can't wait to see the next episode.