Ninja Sentai Kakuranger Review

So I got Kakuranger as a Christmas present since I wanted to add it to my collection. I got a lot of the show and I wasn't even expecting most of it. What even is this show?! I mean this in the most positive way possible. Nothing I've seen in Sentai feels like this show. Without further aduei: Hiding among the people and punishing evil! Ninja Sentai Kakuranger has arrived!

The show opens with a flashback showing how the Yokai were sealed. Then it cuts to the present day where two friends see a man getting robbed on the street. They help him out and he hands them a bag begging them to take it to an island. They get to the island and end up being chased by ninjas leading them to inadvertently opening the door sealing the Yokai in the process. The two are saved by a ninja clad in all white and told they must take up their ancestor's blades and stop the Yokai.

Characters:

• Sasuke/NinjaRed: He was actually a lot calmer than I thought he would be. He is a laidback goof so I expected him to be a bit reckless in a fight. However, the second he gets into trouble he actually starts to think before deciding on a course of action. Even when he was distraught about a kid under his protection potentially dying in episode 20, he still managed to stay calm and think things through. Coincidentally, that also happens to be my favorite episode for him.
• Tsuruhime/NinjaWhite: She is the most cool-headed member of the team as she doesn't seem to be frazzled by much. Her father died when she was young so she had to step up and take his place as a Kakuranger. She gets some pretty good episodes to herself, the best of which tend to revolve around a subplot regarding her father. Outside of that subplot, I really liked the episode where she meets her childhood friends again. It was nice seeing her kickback a bit.
• Saizou/NinjaBlue: A lot of his moments tend to be more comedic than the others but he does get some nice dramatic bits to himself. He is also a bit girl crazy like Seikai. The two actually felt so similar to me their until about their scroll episode that I would get them mixed up for about a minute of any episode that was not one of their focus episodes. Needless to say, that stopped after that episode. My favorite episode for him is either the Amikiri episode or the one where he falls into a Yokai plot by trying to help save a ninja dojo. "New Year's Manga Hell" is also a good episode for him.
• Seikai/NinjaYellow: He is obsessed with girls and food. He also tends to be the most reckless. He does have some pretty good comedic moments and one of my favorite gags is when he gives a great speech to a girl he likes about the heart of a hero and why he has to fight then he immediately undercuts it when she is out of earshot by basically saying "I may have gone overboard with the drama". The scroll episode he shares with Saizou is pretty good because he randomly attacks Saizou in order to try to get Saizou to kill him so at the very least one of them can escape the kappa curse. I think those two bits sum him up rather well. However, my favorite episode for him is "The Stray Ghost". Its a nice, heartwarming episode where Seikai helps a kid learn to move forward and become stronger after the death of his grandfather.
• Jiraiya/NinjaBlack: His whole style makes him the standout member of the team for me. Kane Kosugi's action skills are top notch and he has gotten the most out-of-suit action seems out of the whole team. Jiraiya's father was murdered by a Yokai when he was a kid so he was taken in by his dad's best friend and trained in martial arts. Without a doubt, his best episodes are 28 and 29 (the Gali episodes). It leads to a pretty gut-wrenching dramatic moment and performance but I will probably cover that later in the review.
• Ninjaman: He is pretty reckless and full of himself while single-mindedly focusing on fighting the Yokai in his early episodes. He was an apprentice of the Three God Generals before getting sealed away after being tricked into hurting humans by Daimaou so he has a grudge against him. The dude was straight up willing to potentially let himself be killed during the DaraDara episodes if it meant stopping Daimaou's plan. Overall, I think he is alright and I don't have many complaints with him other than him showing up a little late (even compared to TimeFire).

Villains: The Yokai in general have a style all their own. Their monster forms are fantastically designed. Their human forms all expertly played by their respective actors and they manage to make themselves creepy with even minor gestures and movements. Its pretty obvious they were having fun the roles. Even when they have a goofy personality they still manage to get across a level of menace.

I love Junior's style. Kenichi Endo plays the role well and gives him this big goofy rockstar energy while also getting across that Junior is not to be taken lightly. It fits Kakuranger's tones as a whole. Junior's music perfectly captures his personality. He can play this sweet controlled music one minute and just move seamlessly into chaotic wailing on the instrument the next. The dude is pretty much a powerhouse in general and the show always makes sure to get across that the Kakurangers are in big trouble whenever he shows up. I was sad when he was defeated in the show for a status quo change up. Thats how much I dug the character and Endo's performance.

I quite like the Flower Kunoichi-Gumi. The choice to put pink and purple on the same team was interesting plus their designs are really sweet looking. These ladies are nasty piece of work and episode 20 is a great example of the kind of threat they pose with how they managed to push Sasuke into a corner. They went so far as to try and run over a kid knowing Sasuke would help him and then goaded Sasuke by saying its his fault the kid is caught in the crossfire. They even tortured Sasuke with the thought of the kid dying as a result. I would absolutely love to see a team of evil ranger-like beings again (as far as I'm aware, its just these ladies and the Nezirangers from Megaranger). Also thanks to these ladies I can officially add "Ninjas riding a missile while shooting machine guns" to the list of stupidly awesome ways to try to kill someone I've seen in toku. They don't get much development or characterization outside of being the Yokai's hit squad but honestly they don't really need it. I was a bit disappointed there wasn't some kind of climactic battle with them in the show.

Daimaou is great. Something I especially loved is that despite him calling Junior a fool, he still laments his death and vows to make the Kakurangers suffer for killing his son. It would've been so easy to make him the type of villain that takes joy in the death of a commander whose own foolishness was their undoing but I'm so glad he wasn't like that. He is also not easily fooled. Dude saw a betrayal coming and immediately factored it into his plan instead just trying to stop it. The reveal of what he is and how they had to beat him left my jaw on the floor because I was not expecting that at all.

Favorite Episodes: My favorite episodes are episode 28 and 29, the Gali episodes. They're a pretty good dramatic set of episodes for Jiraiya. Its also when we first learn his backstory. The bulk of the two parter features a ton of out-of-suit action so Kane Kosugi really gets to shine here. All of that makes for a really amazing and heartbreaking set of episodes when you find out how his dad died and why he was killed. They're so good that I'm not even gonna do my usual plot-breakdown for this section. Basically if you like Jiraiya than you will most likely love these episodes.

Mecha: The show features a lot of mecha. Its got the 5 Beast Generals, Muteki Shogun, the 5 Jusho Fighters, Tsubasamaru, the 5 Super Ninja Beast, and Kakure Daishogun. Thats a total of 17 and that feels like a lot for a show from the 90s. It has Dairanger's fast mecha fights which felt odd going back to since I finished off Timeranger before this. It really fits the hectic nature of the show. I like that Kakure Daishogun has a 5episode entire arc dedicating to bringing it in. It helps that the entire arc leads up to one of the biggest status quo changes I've seen in a Sentai show and ends up giving its debut a lot of weight.

Music: The music is pretty good. The opening theme is a fantastic hype machine. I was singing along and even dancing by episode 4. That shamisen solo sounds fantastic and it gives the whole opening its own unique feel to match Kakuranger's feel as a whole. Ninja Matenrou Kids (the ending theme) surprised me. I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. I was practically dancing to it by episode 6.The show also uses a slower, more mellow, instrumental version of it during the more somber bits of the show and it works really well. Hoshi Yo Nijimura is a pretty killer insert song that plays in episode 44 when Sasuke is raiding Daimou's place. That song made the entire sequence even better. The show's bgm is great and I'm pretty sure I was able to pick out a few pieces from Dairanger in the mix which is fitting since the two shows have the same composer.

Cameos: The show features a ton of cameos from past Sentai actors which just manages to add to its already surreal and weird vibe for me. Its nice seeing a lot of these actors again. This section is pretty much just gonna be me listing off the ones I noticed and ones that friends pointed out to me. Burai (DragonRanger and he was also ChangePegasus), Kaori (White Swan), and Lady Ring's (Dairanger) actors all cameo in episode 9. Radiguete's (Jetman) actor and Byakko's (Dairanger) voice actor show up as Yokai in episodes 5 and 6. Dora Sphynx (Zyuranger) plays the rag Yokai. Rumi (FiveYellow) plays Sakura in the Flower Kunoichi-Gumi. Lami's (Zyuranger) actress plays Amikiri. Mei (PteraRanger) shows up in episode 25. Tsuruhime's father is played by the second VulEagle. The facestealing yokai went on to play MegaRed's dad. Tsuruhime's two friends were her co-stars in Shushutorian (a Fushigi Comedy series). Kirinranger's actor and his twin brother play Taro and Jiro. While he hasn't actually been in Sentai before (as far as I know), I'm adding Gali to this section because he is played by Kane Kosugi's father. Its not really a cameo since he plays the Red in Kakuranger but Sasuke's actor went on to play Black Knight Hyuuga in Gingaman. So yeah, there are a lot of familiar faces in this one show and there are probably more that I didn't recognize.

Final Thoughts: I really like how the team is usually doing their own thing and they just stumble onto a Yokai in town. Its also a nice world building detail that since the battles usually take place in some out of the way place, not even urban legends surrounding Yokai and the Kakurangers pop up in-show. It gives the show a real "war in the shadows" feel, so every civilian ends up reacting like each Yokai appearance is the first time its ever happened. I would of loved to see more of the ancestors in the show since I dug how instead of going on and on about how grave the situation was, they just gave them life advice or snarked it up when they met their descendants. I love how lowkey most of the ninja stuff is. Most of it feels doable and the only thing I'd outright call magic is mecha summoning, the elemental attacks, and the transformation jutsu. The episode "The Great Snow Woman's Snowball Fight" has the single best Jiraiya action setpiece for me. His actor really gets put through the ringer in that episode. I don't usually comment on fashion choices in toku but man the Kakurangers' outfits sure are something else. It says a lot about a team's fashion choices when the guy who debuted dressed up as a cowboy managed to look the most normal. They get new outfits later in the show so they end up looking a bit more normal...well except for Sasuke. Who lets this man dress himself? Overall, I had a lot of fun with the show. If you're looking for some good ol' 90s Sentai fun with a surreal vibe, great monster designs, and some good dramatic bits, then I can't recommend this show enough.