Gosei Sentai Dairanger: Final Review

Gosei Sentai Dairanger: Final Review

Many Sentai conflicts appear to be conflicts between the forces of "good" and "evil", defining them in terms of "black" and "white" and making sure that the heroes are the greatest, the villains the most evil, and that one side will ultimately overcome the other in pure victory. However, conflict is something that never ends and is never as clear as it should be: good people work for evil men, evil warriors may be more pure and loving than they realize, and the concepts of black and white may force a war that may ultimately never end. The conflict of the Dai and the Gorma in Gosei Sentai Dairanger seems rather straightforwards at first but becomes more complex; but this complexity is both a good and bad thing. While it does a strong case regarding this, it more does it through several personal stories which are much stronger than the general battle going on behind the scenes of the main saga.

Characters: Since Dairanger is more or less built upon sagas of characters and interactions, this won't be done by "hero vs villain" but by story arc:

*Ryo of the Heavenly Fire Star: Ryo feels to me the first Red who isn't a leader because he is the smartest, the most strategic or a natural but just because "he's the strongest"...well maybe not the physically strongest but the most adept at martial arts. Even before he learned any style of qi control, Ryo knew how to fight, using his abilities to defend himself and defining all of his interactions by his fists instead of his mind. It's tough to say if Ryo is the "first" of the "simpler" styles of Reds that would start to emerge from here on out but he probably is one who was so different from the 16 before him that it was bound to shock those who were used to the way Reds were...and who had no idea of the ones to come. To Ryo, fighting and making the perfect Chinese gyoza were probably the most important things to him. Probably the only thing that comes close is taking care of those who matter, whether it be the Dairanger or his little sister Youko (who I found weirdly missing after a point making me wish she stuck around). While I respect what was done with him and Jin Matoba, Ryo's best arc is actually the earlier two-parter where he ends up meeting his missing father Zhang Liao and discovering his traitorous action even with his loving heart that at least raised him long enough to see him on good footing. I also found it interesting he had the first encounter with the Three Stooges; but we'll be getting back to them in a bit. Its tough to say there were "bad" episodes for Ryo, though he did do some stupid things even in good episodes: though I generally liked the Birdcage Vagabond episode, there were still problems mostly due to the stupidity of him and Shoji leading to the major plot. *Jin Matoba: Jin Matoba is the general archtype of a martial artist who wants to prove himself as the strongest no matter who else is out there and whatever difficulty he has to face. In many ways, Jin is Ryo's antithesis, even if it isn't as literal as the Kou/Akomaru scenario. Whereas Ryo fights generally for others and in protection of those he cares about, Jin fights only for himself, choosing to continuously fight for power and to do anything in order to gain or prove his power. When he arrives, he is essentially the classic dojo destroyer, attacking anyone he sees as strong just to prove his Leopard-style is stronger than all others. When he meets Ryo he doesn't see much in him, but Ryuuranger's tenacity combined with his quick study (due to the spring training) makes Jin take notice, to the point he siezes the opportunity from Zydos to become even stronger with the Demonic power even at the cost of his girlfriend. Of course even with said power, Jin refuses to play by the Gorma rules and generally becomes a freelance threat, even with Zydos trying to get him back. It sort of became a bit tiring seeing that Jin really didn't change in his second appearance even though he had an interesting strategy that Ryo had to overcome. For the most part the major character development occurred in the final story where he ends up hurt to the point of Ryo finally letting him take care of him and to face him even as he mutates into the Garouki form and becomes a monster more for Gorma usage than for

conscious martial arts combat. Yet even as Jin finally gets respect from Ryo, his end ultimately just involves him facing off against Zydos' forces to the end, defiant on proving his strength but at least finally acknowledging Ryo as a worthy rival and possibly a friend. *Ryo & Jin (Arc): Jin relatively appeared late compared to all the other storyarc leads; even Kameo had cameoed a couple times before Jin was even in the series the first time! Because of which, it does feel like more could have been done with him and spread out, but what we did get...well it was respectful but I think a bit over the top. It feels like because Ryo is a powerful warrior, they need a still more powerful warrior to face him in combat and to turn his rivalry into one of understanding each others by their fists. I sort of get it but I think that the way that Jin was portrayed just overemphasized how hard Ryo had to work in order to get his respect; and even then he still wanted to help Jin whereas Jin didn't want the help or assistance for most of the series until near the end after Ryo nursed him back to health. The major key is probably the difference in how they learned their styles and gained their experiences: Ryo had a loving father (for the most part) and learned to fight to defend; whereas Jin's father "threw him away" in order to learn a colder path that lead him to not trust anyone and to only prove himself by fighting. Ryo gained the help of the other Dairanger and had them sacrifice themselves many times to help out (see the Pot Taoist and the "Dance of the Spiders" incidents), while Jin never had anyone and was forced to scorn any aspects of "love" thinking it would not make him strong. Ultimately when Ryo takes care of Jin and helps him stand up to Zydos does Jin finally seem to comprehend and is willing to sacrifice himself against the one he got the power from, which was never meant to be his in the first place but that he made his own.

*Daigo of the Heavenly Phantom Star: Daigo to me just feels like a major problem in this series because...well, he's too perfect. Unlike leader Ryo and the rougher, problematic aspects of the other characters, Daigo is a character who never seems to show any flaws in any way. He's the most obedient to Kaku and the one who stands by his side the most, is the one who connects the easiest to children and females due to his sensitive nature...heck, even the fact he's a guy working at a pet shop and who cares for animals and plants as if they were human just seems to show how sensitive he is! Probably the only flaw I can see in Daigo that ends up leading to problems through the season is his blind devotion to what he believes in and what he sees as right, leading him down the wrong path many times as he tries to solve problems. While it is a positive when it works such as during the Key Jester two-parter and the incident he rescues Kujaku; the Kujaku arc does appear to blind him into this obsession in helping her solve her problems even with how it ends up causing problems itself time and again. Both Heatwave Hood and Count Kalideoscope take advantage of Daigo's obsession and end up causing even greater problems just as he tries to make sure Kujaku can be taken care of. Perhaps it is the sensitivity and the ability to fall in love that ended up hitting Daigo so hard that it makes him become blind to the ability to reason things out and makes him get hurt over and over. In regards to his best episode, probably the only one I can say I liked was the very first Kujaku episode where he rescues her from Master Mirror; even though she was associated with the episode, this is where Daigo's abilities to work through a mystery and see it through to the end were its strongest. Unfortunately after that episode, all of the Kujaku episodes get really bad with his character just going through a lot of crap. In fact, nearly all of other Daigo-based episodes are either putrid due to these problems (two words: General Cactus) or just all-out weird and going in bizarre directions that just take away anything good. (the Key Jester arc at the start, where he literally steals a story from Shoji and Kazu just because the little girl trusts him more) *Kujaku: The Peacock Buddha is probably the purest and most active of the original Dai warriors from 6000 years ago; unlike anyone else from this time, she has no you/Gorma abilities within her and yet she was able to enter into the modern war because of being trapped in Master Mirror. But instead of being this normal Dai warrior sent out of her own time and fighting in the modern conflict, she ends up

standing out due to her specialness, gaining the "rainbow qi" due to her training and yet being so pure in her power that she is ultimately dying due to the change to the Earth over the last 6000 years making it nearly uninhabitable to her. Somehow due to Daigo's sensitive nature, he ends up falling for her, even if most of her time is either trying to survive or trying to take down Gara, who we find out later is her rival due to all the crap regarding a face scar making her become the Peacock Buddha originally...which is utterly ridiculous. As noble as Kujaku tries to make herself out to be, it was her selfishness in thinking she needed special training and powers just to heal a face scar caused by Gara saving her life, especially when it merely took an artifact to save said face. (let alone if it's an artifact, they never said there was anything special about it or that you needed the special rainbow qi to use it or anything) I know they try to make her appear selfless when she finally uses the power to heal the face scar instead of trying to survive, but the problem is that the wound that was created was more due to abandonment than any sort of face blemish. And to make matters stupider, she always seemed to become a completely different person whenever Daigo was around (do I need to count how many times she said his name the entire series)...let alone due to the final twist, Gara essentially HAD forgiven her by the time she finally arrived in Heaven once she finally passed on! So...yeah, it was for the most part nothing, but I guess the best you can say is Kujaku's ordeal was about not merely defeating Gara or even finding Daigo's love but healing the wound within her own heart to gain the bitterness that Gara caused when they had the rivalry 6000 years in the past. Her greatest victory before her ascension was coming to grips with what she did and ultimately allowing herself to forgive Gara instead of letting revenge for the past consume her and keep her on Earth forever, particularly a planet she was now too pure for. *Lieutenant Commander Gara: The Gara we saw all season was easily the coldest and least emotional of the Gorma Triumverate, usually being more calculating than the ambitious Shadam or the rage-filled Zydos. Most of Gara's cold appears to have emerged due to her past, being a former warrior of the Dai abandoning them after Kujaku abandoned her for her "Peacock Buddha training" and thinking there was no one left for her after becoming all alone and forced to defend herself with nothing but a spiteful scar caused from saving the friend she thought she loved. In her mind, if there was no one to care for her, then she should care for no one and fight for no one but herself and for the glory of the Gorma who took her in after abandoning her Dai roots. Even when Kujaku was not around, Gara tended to do as she had to, sending out many of the Gorma minions and tormenting the Dairanger using merely her power and you abilities while understanding the cruelness and uncaring nature of the world which she merely wished to help her masters gain control of. When Kujaku did return, she had another threat from her past, but seemed to heed no mind towards her at first even as her former friend kept going on and on due to the initial capturing that happened in the past that drove them forwards until the later revelations came to light. Ultimately when Kujaku finally was able to keep her emotions in check and do what she needed to help her friend, Gara did appear to get some resolution and cared about her again...though until the final revelation, it was a tad strange that she would revert to her "former state" once Kujaku was dead. That luckily was cleared up once the revelation of the Gorma being clay dolls was cleared up, as did the fact that the real Gara not only had forgiven Kujaku but had returned to being Dai and had been given the ability to go to heaven after all! It's hard to say how or even when the real Gara was able to forgive, but I sort of think sometime between Master Mirror capturing her and her ultimate death (yet with enough time for Shadam to get what he needed), Gara realized how petty it was to go after Kujaku regarding the scar and that they were friends after all; forcing her to ask for forgiveness for all her past action until ultimately she was "saved" and brought to heaven. On the other hand, maybe it was Kujaku's finally ascension that completed it for the real Gara...but its hard to say. *Daigo, Kujaku and Gara (Arc): This arc was probably the most excruciating for me to go through, as I may have mentioned, but its' an arc for the most part about the lengths of revenge and the lengths of

forgiveness for past action. Although Daigo was instrumental in many aspects of this arc (such as freeing Kujaku in the first place and helping her with her various needs), this is mostly an arc about the rivalry and revenge between the former friends of the Dai and about how selfishness and vanity can cause ruptures that take eons to heal. The moment Daigo saved Kujaku, the first thing she did was go after Gara without delay, leading to multiple engagements with the two of them evenly matched with their warriors and their own skills. Kujaku only thought of revenge, Gara only thought of defeating her eternal rival, and Daigo only wanted to find a resolution that allowed for Kujaku to both return to peace and return to him. The matter became more troubling as Kujaku's sickness to the world and she had a limited time to save herself or else she would be lost, both in her revenge and to Daigo who wanted her to stay around forever. Making matters worse is the selfishness in the concept of the just "mission" that both Kujaku and Daigo had in saving her while defeating Gara. For some reason, Daigo thinks that by helping the Peacock buddha it is going to help her live forever and thus stay with him forever, even though it feels like he's doing it less due to the nobility and more due to his blind love as we find out later on.

The later revelation regarding the reasoning behind Gara and Kujaku's hatred of each other being associated with the scar really seemed to demonstrate the extents of both sides miscommunications leading to the utter chaos of their arc. Gara took a hit that hurt her and saved Kujaku's life when they were younger, which should have been a moment of pride for both of them: Gara in helping her friend; Kujaku in their bond. Yet Kujaku is so built up with guilt because of Gara getting hurt for her that she ends up running off to heal her and by becoming the Peacock Buddha thinking it will be enough to save her. Yet by not telling Gara, she seals her fate by making her so angry at Kujaku that she ends up becoming a member of the Gorma to get the strength to stop her and feeling resentment instead of pride in what her friend had done. Even with the general concepts of the season, the thought that Kujaku created Gara and really could have stopped this by just talking to her really further suggests the utter riduclous nature of all that happens. Just to rub more salt in the wound, the final revelations of the Gara we know of all season was fake and that the real Gara had forgiven Kujaku to the point that she ascended to heaven just rubs more salt in the wound that basically Kujaku was trying to take vengence on a fake. The only good that came from the arc was Kujaku being forced to move beyond revenge, even at the sacrifice of her mortal life. Really the whole arc was less about the love of her and Daigo and the Gara stuff and more just Kujaku realizing what an idiot she was for leaving Gara all those years ago and coming to grips with that, becoming selfless enough to sacrifice her Peacock Tears for her eyes (and yeah, the scar too) so she can go to heaven just to meet with her real friend. I really wish that we got a study of the real Gara to see how or when she started to get over the scar and her anger without Kujaku around, since it would have been interesting to see how she changed and evolved from what Shadam saw when he created that clone of her.

*Shoji of the Heavenly Gravity Star: Shoji, like Ryo, is one of the more physical and blunt characters of the season. However whereas Ryo is more notable for his martial arts prowless and his perfectionist nature, Shoji is more blunt as a boxer, powering right through to any of his problems. He isn't necessarily the character that would be the best to be a Dairanger compared to the others but his bluntness and his background makes him way more relatable; his aggrevation and frustration at the matters going on become our own more than the more white-hat feelings of someone like Ryo. At the start of the series, Shoji feels the one who had combat experience as a boxer, but not as well known in matters such as qi manipulation, especially with something that was much harder to control and with way more potential like gravity control. I sort of wish that we got a bit more with his qi abilities but he was really creative in his skills, best seen in the Father Magnet fight. Due to his feelings, Shoji is probably one who is the most open and the most closed to new ideas and concepts; he is the most

suspicious when certain strange things happen (such as some of his encounter with the Gorma Stooges), but he is still open to redemption if someone really means it or in helping out when he can even with his feelings more cynical compared to Daigo. Weirdly the best episode Shoji has was the finale with the Stooges; though at the same time he was generally the best thing in some bad or flawed episodes, such as the early episodes with Purse Priest and Father Magnet. I also loved him in the Birdcage Vagabond episode but I think some of the stupidity at the start between him and Ryo prevented it from being a perfect classic but it was still great. *The Three Gorma Stooges: These three weird Gorma are obviously the creation of Naruhisa Arakawa; being flawed but extremely noble and comedic characters who are torn in their loyalties but are unwanted by all sides of the conflict. To me, they sort of feel like a continuation of sympathetic MotW that started under Hirohisa Soda at least, but for Arakawa they were the next step after getting a truly sympathetic and redeemed comedic MotW such as Dryer Jigen but before characters such as the Bowzock or Yatsudenwani. Their storyarc is about cameraderie, with Boss Kamikaze, Company President Gravestone and Teacher Telephone sticking together due to their perceived "weakness" as Gorma (probably just weren't as good at you-manipulation compared to others) and yet using their own talents, skills and deceptions in order to try and prove themselves both to the Dairanger and to the Gorma higher ups, usually Zydos. Because they can't use You-powers like other Gorma, they use human abilities such as various sporting events that they can prove themselves with; from the sport games they use in their initial appearances to the bike race Kamikaze uses during the climax of their arc; in some ways this is their way of proving their abilities by proving themselves in means that humans can go through (even though many of the Gorma Minions are probably mutated humans in themselves; perhaps in their lack of you they were able to keep some of their humanity as a consequence thus making them flawed and even sympathetic) Their downfall was unlike other Gorma in that they just didn't want to be seen as losers anymore, in a world that just didn't respect them and an organization that prides cheating over heroics, giving them a departure that feels more noble and heroic than anything with the mess Kaku pulls in his endgame. It's hard to say if they died or not...sure they "survived" in a way but considering the bizarreness of the endgame, they may have, even if it wasn't on screen. (then again with the way Shoji interpreted their end, maybe he thought it was a prank they pulled and thus the weird feeling he thinks they're still dead during the end-game...or perhaps they were part of that mess of everyone being clay; it's never spelled out) *General Zydos: Zydos has to be one of the most confusing of all of the Gorma. While on the surface he is the simplest and most violent of the main villains, he does seem to differ based on the writer who is writing for him. For the most part, he's the main villain of the arc with the Three Stooges, and Arakawa paints him in a more comedic light, making him like a taskmaster from a Looney Toons cartoon who ends up doing things but gets messed with at the end. (in an Elmer Fudd or Wil E. Coyote vein) This is easily seen with the extremely cartoonish ways he was managed towards the end; first being squashed flat and floating away against the most powerful mech combo in the Stooges finale, and then his weird volcano head during his final battle and the unintentionally hilarious ending in the end-game when the clay statues start falling apart where he channels Christopher Lloyd from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (his screaming just makes me laugh even thinking about it). Yet on the other hand, Toshiki Inoue uses him for the Jin Matoba arc and Zydos is suddenly a cruel threat of a different sort, using black magic and mercilessly trying to get back his "creation" after Jin steals the power of the Gorma's ultimate warrior and keeping it for his own testing. Zydos in the Inoue/Jin Matoba episodes is way more compitent in keeping his minions in line and is best seen in the Western-like "firing squad" ending to the rebellious martial artist...which is utterly shattered an episode later when Arakawa turns him into Wil E. Coyote with the Stooges end. It's almost like you have two different characters with the same guy, as if "Inoue-Zydos" and "Arakawa-Zydos" should have been two separate characters...maybe I have a reason but I'll explain it below.

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download