While rewatching
Kosoku Sentai Turboranger - I thought that one thing I didn't notice was the flashback in its 40th episode. It's this flashback of Yamimaru with an infant Kirika and the two Skull Monsters that raised her in the 1970s. I just can't help but agree with Shogo B'Stard when he says the following in this
episode review:
The really big problem for me. When Yamimaru is explaining the motivation behind his plan to the Turboranger, we're shown a clip of Yamimaru in old times, walking with bloodied feet. He's not alone, though, he's wandering the land with the skull monsters who raised Kirika, who have with them BABY KIRIKA! What fucking sense does this make? The skull monsters raised Kirika as a baby in the human world starting in the early '70s. So how and why and what are they doing walking the earth with Yamimaru? Also: Yamimaru didn't know shit about Kirika, even when she was appearing to him in prophetic dreams! He pretty much chanced upon her that day of her 18th birthday. But here we see him taking baby Kirika off the exhausted skull monsters to protect her? WHAT IS THIS?!?! DOES NOT COMPUTE! I really don't like this.
How does that fit in? Granted, Hirohisa Soda was the writer and he was showing signs of burning out in
Turboranger and did really poorly during
Chikyu Sentai Fiveman. Did Soda forget the plot progression he had earlier on when Yamimaru was first introduced and during the
Bouma Realignment Arc? A mysterious woman (actually Kirika) appears to Yamimaru in a dream telling them of their final moment. I felt that Soda may have forgotten about his earlier intention that Yamimaru didn't recognize the woman. Then again, it's possible that Yamimaru got separated from the two skull monsters and Kirika along the way. It's possible that Yamimaru did suffer from selective amnesia.
Episode 31 was the beginning of the entrance of two teenagers with a real attitude problem. Yamimaru explains to Kirika that the two skull monsters (her foster parents) and Amulet Bouma watched over her for 20,000 years. Yup, it's somehow unexplained how she remained an infant but it seems that the very mysterious dimension that was also in the flashback was probably where time stopped. It's possible that Kirika's foster parents stayed in that supernatural world where time stood still until they saw the right opportunity. Yamimaru just explains it all to Kirika like it happened just yesterday. Were those dreams meant to recover his memory?
Episode 48 has Kashim/Devil Mask Bouma saying that the birth of Kirika started the Nagare Bouma clan. Wait, WTF! Personally, I can't help but agree with Yamimaru that Kashim is senile. Sure, Kashim is right in saying that the Wandering Bouma is a symbol of peace and that they should stop fighting. However, what's not so explained is how did Kirika get separated from her parents and ended up in the hands of the two skull monsters and Amulet Bouma? Was Devil Mask Bouma in exile and later put on a human guise? Speaking of human guises -- didn't Chime Belle Bouma also have one? There was really no dialogue to explain.
Anyway, Soda would usually have written a little something to address all this. We would have gotten a little scene or even just a line about the skull monsters finding Sayoko or kidnapping Sayoko or Kashim handing her over to them before being sealed or SOMETHING. An explanation of SOME kind. Why not just dialogue to tie this together? It's not expensive to just SAY something. Just even, like, there was an attack, Kirika's mom died, Devil Mask Bouma was blasted away, and then baby Kirika was found by a Belgian skull monster and his fifteen year-old love slave, who were looting the accident scene, and they raised her to be evil. You know, that old chestnut. Kashim wanted to reach out sooner, but those Belgians made her too damn evil.
I just felt that Soda himself was really running out of ideas. Shogo was pointing out some loose ends. If I were to write the story -- I'd probably have a DIALOGUE where it says where Kirika's mother died. I'd have the skull monsters take the baby Kirika from the entire rampage. Maybe, have it that they were friends of Kashim but later deviated from his original plan due to years of being an outcast. TBH I do feel like Episode 40 could've been inserted in the dialogue. Kashim could've told Yamimaru like, "I didn't hand over Kirika to you guys to let her grow up like this." stuff. I guess Soda really was really getting that tired or having that really bad burnout. We know it just didn't end well when he was tasked to handle Fiveman. Fiveman was overshadowed by Tokkei Winspector that same year. It didn't help matters for it that Kyukyu Sentai GoGoFive ended up becoming what Fiveman could only dream of back then. I mean, it can be easy to ignore Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue while watching GoGoFive but not Fiveman. Fiveman really can't be forgotten as the near-franchise killer though it may have been vindicated if it's true older fans liked it better. Then again, who can forget near-franchise killers? Soda should've been given more help during Turboranger and maybe Fiveman should've been handled by any new writer instead. Toei really sure has had a bad habit of wearing out its best writers huh?
Though, I feel this somewhat inconsistent writing in Turboranger can't be as bad as what happened in Kamen Rider Black RX. Black RX had more jarring inconsistencies such as the Crisis Empire strengthened cells plot while earlier episodes had Crisisians easily blending into our world. The finale also had some really questionable stuff such as when General Dasmader admits that the Crisis World is a twin of Earth and that humans caused the problem. Yet, earlier on, a Crisisian scientist in their dying world says it was Grand Lord Crisis' stupidity that led to their world in its dying state.
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