Mirai Sentai Timeranger

Liveblog

I’ve seen a couple of Kobayashi Sentai now, as well as a few non Kobayashi sentai, and I think the real standout of her sentais is a lack of Red or Sixth Ranger focus. She’s very set on making sure everyone feels like they’re getting their space on the team and they’re not just the backing cast to the story of the red or sixth. Now the pay for this is you don’t get as developed a red of sixth ranger. As long as her stories can support that, then it’s still good, and Timeranger definitely has a story that doesn’t revolve around Tatsuya or Naoto. Even though they’re our 20th century humans, it isn’t about them reacting to things and we focus on the story that came with our 30th century team. They’re not growing to be as good as them or the upstanding example that they all need to grow to, they’re just another part of the team.

That said though, it feels weird to do a time travel story where most your cast is from the future but just completely lacking in any fish out of water style stuff. All the timerangers were given the information they needed to adapt to the 20th century because that’s what made sense for them to do.

It also feels and interesting take to go with this idea that it’s not a big deal what they do in the past, that their actions don’t have a significant enough impact for it to effect the future. Later in the series, when they reveal that actually that’s because a lot of this was pre-written and their Captain actually wanted them to change the past to change his future, it makes more sense but it’s interesting to be presented with it not being a big deal. It can be both good and bad because like, a small change probably shouldn’t be future ending, but we are putting giant robots in the middle of the city.

Then again, this is confirmed to be in the same universe as Abaranger, Gekiranger, and GoGoFive, so I’m sure the giant robots aren’t too worrying for them.

One thing with this show is that Domon and Honami’s relatshionship really got to me. They were so cute and I loved them dating, it was really good.

Then we had Tatsuya and Yuuri which made no sense to me and just seemed like it got thrown in when they realised they’d resolved the relationship drama for Domon and Honami and felt they needed to keep an active romantic subplot. I also don’t think Yuuri was ever really going to be able to pursue anything romantic until she dealt with her revenge and trauma. It made it really hard to sell that they would be anything more than friends during the series.

The actors also just didn’t have good chemistry to be convincing of the relationship, so a lot of the elements didn’t come together to make it work.

Yuuri is the leader of the Timerangers. This is non negotiable.

I cried multiple times for Yuuri. They did a really good job of having her so focused on her goal and good reason for why she hated Dolnero so much. It’s really clear how the murder of her baby sister weighs on her. Despite the fact her entire family dying, she seems to have grown to continually realise the actual horror that someone would murder a 5 year old girl and that there was nothing she could do.

Also just the horrible emptiness from the lack of revenge. Of Dolnero not even remembering giving the orders to kill her family.

I ended up just absolutely adoring Yuuri, and she really held that energy of being the leader to them all.

Tatsuya is a complete goof ball and I love him. I really liked how they handled a lot of the pressure that was on Tatsuya from his father. It’s understandable why Tatsuya resents him and his company. I really liked how Tatsuya used jokes and karate to hide the issues he was facing, and how the others came to understand this about him.

I also like that he’s just a loveable doof housewife boy.

I love Ayase and I really liked the writing, but there’s something that’s just… he’s got The Anime Disease. We’re sorry there’s no cure because it’s Anime Disease, which makes people just suddenly die.

But I liked at the end having Ayase to balance out the desires of the captain. Even though Ayase doesn’t want to die, or at least not anymore, he puts a lot of value in the lives of others. He doesn’t want to sacrifice others just to save himself and doesn’t feel it’s right for anyone to do so. I really liked having a character that just cares so strongly about living despite everything.

Sion is such a precious baby brother and so easy to love. I love having the simultaneously very smart and incredibly dumb character and he’s just so precious.

The hometown stuff really got me because it is so hard that Sion never saw where he was in the 30th century as his home. His planet was destroyed. He was kept in a lab where he never had real comfort. His home is in 2000, with Tatsuya at Tomorrow Research. Sion deserves to stay there with him, he deserves to be happy.

I can’t believe we really made Domon a deadbeat dad, absolute wild choice.

Domon and Honami are too cute. I’m honestly upset that he has to be a deadbeat dad because it’s clear he’d love to raise his kid. I did like how much it weighed on Domon though that he was looking at a relationship that he didn’t expect he could maintain because he knew he’d have to return to the future. Then deciding he has to just live for the now. I get that in order to keep the strength of that, they have to make it he goes back to the future and his siblings and that’s it. I still wanted him to stay with Honami and the kid though so…

I feel like Naoto is the character that suffered under the lack of sixth ranger focus. He gets a decent story but just not as strong as I would of liked. I feel there was a lot more we could of done with his feelings towards Tatsuya, his resentment towards him for throwing away money when all he ever needed was money. I think we could of developed that more, like why he is the way he is could of just been expanded upon as a general thing.

I generally like our characters that stand as being what happens when you try to make your value from a big company. He wants to achieve so much and he puts in so much, but at the end of the day they’re just using him and he’s just another employee that if they don’t feel is benefiting the company, or worse is a threat to them, they’ll fire him. I think it’s one of my favourite messages of tokusatsu because it is trying to teach you that despite society, especially Japanese society, you have value outside of your work, and you should find it.

His death is really effective however, I clocked it early in the series because of linking the show to other sentai, but I really did expect the heroic death, with the explosions and everything. So it was a lot to see him just be taken down in such an underhanded way, without a suit, and because one man felt his life had less value than his own. I also think him being treated as having less value is just the core part of Naoto’s character. It serves to show the cruelty of people in power.

Also he had V-Rex, who is perfect and I adore.

Overall, I understand why this series is so loved, and I recommend watching it, especially if you’re a Kobayashi fan.

If you’re in North America, support the official release by picking up the DVDs from Shout Factory! You can also stream the series on Shout Factory TV!