Your Latest Schoolmate Hikaru Nagareboshi Is A Nagare Bouma Known As Yamimaru

I decided I won't respond to Them's Fightin' Words for every Turboranger post but after Shogo B'Stard decided to write on episodes 14, 15 and 16 -- I decided to write on my thoughts on the three episodes collectively. This would be the introduction of neutrally-aligned villains which was quite common fodder for Hirohisa Soda -- we had Silver in Bioman and Kiros in Maskman. Turboranger would have Yamimaru himself as a neutrally aligned villain -- who would later temporarily join forces with Ragorn for his own benefit.

Before that, I'd like to focus on the possible impact he made in this episodes. He's half-human and half-Bouma -- he's an outcast of both races and he's leaving himself pretty much bitter with the world. He arrives in the disguise of Hikaru Nagareboshi. He was recognized by Rehda and Ragorn to be half-Bouma. If that's the case then Zimba always a Bouma or was he human? Granted, Zimba was also sealed because he was a Bouma while Yamimaru's half-human heritage prevented him from getting sealed.

I was having Kiros for a bit in my thoughts as a new threat who's aligned to neither which side. Yamimaru appears and seals Jarmin's monster Dogu Bouma. The Turborangers attempt to do their Plasma Attack on him but he freaking cuts it! This causes Dr. Dazai to realize that maybe he needs a powerful weapon to defeat this new menace. I love to see how Jarmin was easily trolled by this newcomer villain and how the Turborangers don't immediately realize that Hikaru is also Yamimaru until the next episode. Also, I love how this guy shows he's a troublemaker. I do feel sorry for the Turborangers getting wrongfully punished when Misa thinks they were the cause of the trouble. Sigh, growing pains isn't it?

Episode 15 proves that Yamimaru is no pushover and it teaches a lesson in impulsiveness. Yamimaru introduces Darumaotoshi Bouma -- who's based on a Daruma doll. I thought it's WTF crazy that both Youhei and Shunsuke decide to rush into the field with an obviously unfinished weapon. I really wanted to make those two go WTF why that? They do fire the weapon which hurts Yamimaru but it also hurts them. Worse, the reactor is about to explode within a time limit! They end up using the engine which is set to blow against Darumaotoshi Bouma. In giant mode, they also use the Road Saber to pin the monster down before firing its twin guns to destroy the monster. It was also in this episode where a bleeding Hikaru reveals that their new schoolmate is indeed Yamimaru!

Episode 16 shows us why the Turborangers were chosen though it also addresses -- how many children were scattered by fairy energies? This was probably where Hirohisa Soda was either starting to run out of ideas or wanted to explain it off why teenagers were chosen. The Turborangers lose their powers thanks to Yamimaru's latest attack with the help of Lump Bouma. They try to regain their powers and recall an incident back in their childhood. They saw some fairy energies by a forest which causes them to regain their powers! This suddenly makes more sense than randomly choosing random teenagers to fight against the Bouma -- though were there other children who were bombarded by it? The Turborangers use their V-Turbo Bazooka for the first time and subsequently -- it'd be used a lot in many episodes to come!

Overall, it was a nice introduction for Yamimaru. Strangely, he's already millenniums years old but why does he still have the mind of a teenager with attitude even while he wanders around? Later, we'd also get introduced to his would-be partner and lover (?) Kirika which also wrote off the three Bouma generals in the most epic way possible. But what caused that retool in the show? I'll probably just wait for Shogo B'Stard to come to that point before I'd "respond" to his blog posts again.