Timeranger's Blues With Ayase's Sob Story

Shogo B'Stard has begun his latest Time Force related post called "Time For A Blue Streak" and I thought of bringing up one area in Timeranger where I'm mixed -- it's the whole story of Ayase suffering from the Osiris Syndrome. Okay, just a warning -- there'll be spoilers ahead so don't read it unless you don't mind getting spoiled!

Anyway, let's continue if you don't mind the spoilers. Personally, I'm somewhat a fan of sickness drama -- call me sicko or whatever but seldom -- I tend to watch some Taiwanese or Korean TV drama where people have a terminal illness such as heart illness (in Lavender) or the common leukemia sickness in K-Drama. In the case of Timeranger, we've got one terminally sick member called Ayase -- and he's got that incurable disease that resulted from a magnetic radiation disease from space. It exists in that space age era which can lead to a serious cardiac arrest. Ayase had an interesting plot with the Osiris disease -- something that most Super Sentai warriors don't have that kind of plot. Okay, don't even bring up Burai from Zyuranger who was living on borrowed life!

I thought about the hurt of Ayase feeling and how it must hurt Tatsuya. Episode 9 gives a hint to the heart attack and chest pain that Ayase fails. In episode 10, we finally realize that Tatsuya knows about the whole problem of Ayase's sickness. It's almost a very typical scene in Asian dramas where a character gets a terminal sickness and chooses to suffer quietly. That's what Ayase does in here and sometimes, part of me still feels like saying, "Wait, I'm watching Super Sentai and not K-Drama so why does this kind of plot exist here?" But I think it worked its own way one way or another. I always feel the real issue of how it gets somewhat ignored then it's raked up later. But Ayase chooses to live on like he doesn't have it, kept it a secret -- all because he wants to do whatever good he can until he finally has to leave us all too soon!

Episodes 39-40 reveals the symptoms finally getting worse. His performance starts to decline. The cat's out of the bag. Some people feel like he should just retire from his Timeranger duties but he says no. Honestly, it would be a very boring life to be subjected to pointless examinations in the 30th century (where it's about to become the 31st century soon) when he's going away forever. He decides to stay with them -- until he's going to die. Talk about trying to die a hero. He would rather die in battle fighting the Grim Reaper even if he knows he will lose -- it looks like that he wants to enter the afterlife as valiantly as possible.

Later, a cure for Osiris Syndrome was developed thanks to Captain Ryuya's interventions. I personally thought that at that point -- was Captain Ryuya really that evil as some would say? It's almost like Captain Ryuya hid a third final outcome -- what if the Great Disappearance in the Year 2001 was simply going to reset itself AFTER it happened? In short, it would be the great Reset Button that would bring all the people who got killed by the Londarz or make sure the 21st Century returns to the way it is -- where nobody has a single memory about the show's events? Also, with the finale -- it's unknown whether or not the cure still remained. I still feel that was the Osiris Syndrome just there for added drama by Yasuko Kobayashi or did she want to encourage the terminally ill? If you ask me, Kobayashi is pretty much hit or miss whenever she tries to improve ideas that Hirohisa Soda started introducing way back in the 80s!

This also brings me some criticism towards Power Rangers Time Force with carrying out the terminally ill plot. I'm not saying that we should get Lucas sick with Osiris Syndrome or some futuristic cancer -- I don't even think that would work if you want to keep your show as lighter and softer as possible! Lucas can go and be the healthy and happy guy he is. Where I want to criticize Time Force for could be Ransik getting some terminal condition that left him dependent on serum. Was it a plot device to prevent him from having Yosemite Sam's kind of near invulnerability? I thought that Ransik could have just been bitten by Venomark AND had his life saved by Dr. Ferricks (who became Frax) -- but I'd probably cut out the whole "terminal illness" scenario. I'd probably have Ransik blackmail everyone with the vaccine which only his blood alone alone can produce -- without having him as a terminally ill villain.

At the same time, I also feel like criticizing the rather experimental season called Kamen Rider Ryuki. Ryuki was a great concept but I still feel that until now -- I feel like Kamen Rider Gaim corrected a lot of Kamen Rider Ryuki's mistakes even if the former is not a perfect series. I may even want to criticize some things wrong about Gaim soon but it'll be too little to list IMO. The idea of a terminally ill protagonist was later carried into Shuiichi Kitaoka or Kamen Rider Zolda. Shuiichi is the opposite of Ayase. While Ayase wants to fight to the end doing right -- Shuiichi wants to get the wish to recover from cancer so he can continue living his luxurious life -- all the while he ends up as an anti-hero who ended up helping Shinji Kido or Kamen Rider Ryuki and Renn Kiriyama or Kamen Rider Knight as the series progressed. Not to mention, he's also established as the personal enemy of the genocidal first truly evil Kamen Rider -- Takeshi Takaoka or Kamen Rider Ouja.

As of right now, I wonder can Ayase's sob story be improved in any future installments by Toei whether it'd be Kamen Rider or Super Sentai? For me, I'd probably rather not do it so often. Maybe we can improve it but right now, I think it's best not to keep having sob stories and keep the current new school Super Sentai in the lighter and softer format. =P

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