Setting The Stage: Ninja Sentai Kakuranger

I might be giving away the game here but honestly, wanting to take about these two episodes is what gave me the idea for this series. Lets talk about the what are easily my favorite first episodes in Sentai at the moment since they perfectly capture the overall feel of the show: Ninja Sentai Kakuranger. Also I found out while typing this that this year happens to be the show's 30th anniversary so this ended up being rather timely. Say it with me: Kakuranger! Ninja ninja!

Lets start with the first thing you'll see when you hit play on the first episode: The opening theme. Its a great lead in the for show and I just start laughing my ass off  whenever I remember that the scenario in the song is about a dude going "What the fck was that?" and "Oh shit, its a ninja!" while on a date. Its nice and mellow and the song fits the ninja visuals well.

Now into the first episode proper. The episode opens on 5 ninjas fighting a yokai and managing to seal him away. After that it cuts to the present day as two broke ass dudes (Sasuke and Saizo) are arguing over what to have for dinner. Some bizarrely dressed guy is getting his ass beat and they come to help him out. He gives them a mission to drop some money off at a weird out of the way place. The second they set foot there creepy kids start chanting, ninjas appear, and they get chased around. They end up unlocking the seal and unleashing all of that sweet sweet yokai energy. Another ninja appears, points to some swords in the ground, and tells them to 'em yank them out. Thus the Kakurangers are born. This shit is wild and one hell of an opener for the show.

Ok so the premier is actually a two-parter (well technically a four parter maybe). Anyway the episode opens with the yokai (Kappa) getting away after being rescued by his wife. After that Tsuruhime tells them that they can't fight yokai with just the three of them so they need to find a 4th guy and sends Sasuke and Saizo to go get him. Cut to an arcade and we meet the soon to be 4th member of the team: Seikai. Dude is just chilling playing games with his buddy when the yokai running the lady running the joint asks him to test a new game. Seikai follows and gets sidetracked. His buddy sees the two yokai fooling around and comes running screaming about monsters. So now the fight is on as the Kakurangers show up to rescue Seikai and his buddy. They take him back to where the swords are and tell him to grab his. He does and transforms. Its a good fight and it ends with one of the craziest mecha fights I've seen in Sentai. Most of it is a chase scene cuz Kappa is just warping them all over the place. Once the guy's wife is done for, he gets merced too.

This was supposed to have been out way before now. I have spent months trying to type this to try and do these episodes justice but I still don't think its enough. These episodes are a lot to take in imo and I mean that in a good way. I straight up had to abridge most of episode 2 while typing this. Now the team isn't actually complete until like episode 4 and trust me when I say that they are just as wild as the first two. They are just so friggin' good. Everything in this show just feels like a fever dream. Yeah Dairanger and Zyuranger feel like dreams too but their premiers take themselves a bit more seriously. Meanwhile, Kakuranger just embraces the chaos. Something that ends after the team is assembled is the ancestors from the show's opening and I honestly still think thats a shame. Every time the team got a new member those guys would show up and snark it up or just give basic life advice. It helped add to the show's fever dream style.

These are without a doubt the best first episodes that I have seen out of all 16 Sentai I've finished so far and they are basically semi-burned into my memory between watching them on my own, showing them to people, watching them on lunch at work, and watching them again for this post. I'm not really too sure if I got this across in the synopsis but these episodes are damn near perfect for setting up the show. They tell you exactly what you're going to get from Kakuranger: Ninja shit, insanity, and this wild fever dream of chaos.

Welcome To The City Of Dreams

This is going to be a little break from my usual gushing about tokusatsu, anime, and Supernatural. I've been thinking about CyberPunk 2077 and playing it a lot. So I figured its time to talk about one of my favorite fictional settings: Night City. Lets roll chooms!

Life isn't easy here. You either work for a Corp or try to get by day to day. Even then the Corpos still have to worry about being stabbed in the back, either leading to them losing their job or ending up with a bullet in their skull. Some folks make a meager living managing to scrape by and some basically just grab a pistol, chip some chrome, and start taking on jobs as mercs. It ain't just the Corpos fckin' with you that you gotta worry about on these streets either. You got gangs shaking down folks and throwing their weight around and thats if you're lucky. If you're REALLY unlucky you might just run into some borged out freak who wants to take your head off.

And thats really all I'll say about life in the city because its pretty much what you'd expect for a place like this. I just love the atmosphere and vibe of the city. When I'm not hacking up street gangs with a katana, making a new outfit with some gear I found, or stalking the streets like I'm goddamn Batman, I'm just taking a stroll around the city. I absolutely love ducking between alleyways, prowling the backstreets, cruising down the street on a sweet ass bike while listening to the radio, and just chillin' while exploring just to see what I might find. Hell, sometimes I will just stand in one spot listening to the ads or npc conversations. I practically know this city like the back of my hand. Well I know Japantown and Watson anyway. I know my way around Northside a bit and I tend to get ganked in Heywood cuz I keep walking into gangs aggro zones when I round a corner.

At night, I'm just soaking in the lights and sounds of the city. Some of my most chill moments in the game have been just finding a beautiful spot on top of a roof and watching the skyline. All the neon and blaring ads are oddly soothing at night and the city just hits different. It feels like everything just melts away. All the streets and back-alleys feel like they've changed. Places I've been plenty of times during they seems to have little extra corners and hiding spots even though its the exact same map.

And thats what I love about Night City. Its just a really cool place and 2077 is usually the game I pop in when I don't know what I want to play. I've spent countless hours just wandering the streets after the first act. I've barely done the main story or even the side missions because its just so much fun to farm random gang members for loot and test their loot tables while seeing all the sights the city has to offer. There are very few fictional places I wish I could go to and Night City is one of them even though I know I probably wouldn't even last a day. I am legitimately a bit sad that I don't live in this particular dystopia and I can't figure out why.

Supernatural Season Five: Its The End Of The World As We Know It

Ok so...season four ended on a doozy. Sam ganked Lilith in order to keep her from breaking the last seal. That ended up being the absolute worst thing Sam could've done because Lilith herself was the final seal. To make matters worse, the angels knew it was going to happen and actually wanted to bring on the apocalypse as well. All the dominos have fallen into place and now the end of days has begun. NOTE: I will definitely have to spoil major parts of this season since its 4 seasons worth of buildup. You've been warned.

The first episode of the season opens with Lucifer breaking loose. Sam and Dean get caught and the blast radius and somehow end up on a plane while Castiel is back despite being annihilated by an archangel after siding with the brothers over heaven. The brothers get word of something that can gank Lucifer and stop Armageddon: Michael's sword. Demons learn the location as well so its a race to find it. They make it to the place and find some dead demons but no sword. Some angels reveal that there is no sword...because the thing that can kill Lucifer is Dean. More specifically, its because Dean is Michael's vessel. Heaven itself had Castiel pluck him out of the pit not to stop the apocalypse but to be Michael's meat suit for the big prize fight.

The drama this season is absolutely fantastic. Its all about Dean trying his damnedest not to say Yes to Michael while he and Sam try to stop Lucifer. Its made just so damn much harder because Sam is Lucifer's vessel. No matter what they do, everyone says the same thing: The only way this can end is a knockdown drag out fight between brothers and only one of them can come out on top.

I really like how this show paints the angels in this season. They're very much egotistical and holier than thou but they aren't letting people suffer because they believe in the greater good or paradise or whatever. They talk a big game but really...they're doing it because sky daddy stopped calling millennia ago and they're tired of keeping the gears turning. The heavenly bigwigs just sound so defeated, frustrated, and burned out. They simply do not care at all about humanity but god help any talking monkey that does anything to displease them or get on their nerves. They straight up only tolerate Dean because they need Michael to show up for the big brawl. They're very inhuman but incredibly petty and human at the same time.

So...the Trickster in this season twice and I absolutely love him. His actor has done a great job at stealing the scene whenever he shows up. The man has such a great arc. See...the greatest trick he ever pulled is making people think he was a Trickster. He isn't one, he is an archangel, Gabriel specifically. Dude went into hiding after Lucifer's fall because he got utterly sick of seeing Lucifer and Michael at each other's throats all the time. Its really kinda tragic. The man doesn't want to watch his brothers fight and kill each other but both he knows damn well are two stubborn to avoid it. At this point he doesn't care who wins, he just wants this little family spat to stop. The other episode is so good that I kinda don't want to cover it here because I don't think I could do it justice.

Something I didn't put together until I started writing about this season is the little allegory with the Winchestors. I thought it was weird they were specifically the vessels of their opposite angel personality-wise. Then I realized its not just brothers going head-to-head as the classic trope. It sums up the brother's roles in their relationship. Dean is this big rebel who disrespects and disregards authority, except when its an order coming from John. He becomes a good little soldier on that front. Meanwhile Sam is the complete opposite. All too eager to respect authority to a point...except when John shows up. Dean and Sam essentially are Michael and Lucifer so I guess that kinda makes John God in their little family dynamic.

I had planned to try to cover it all when I first started typing this post but man this is a lot to cover so I guess thats my cue to leave some of this in the dark. This season is downright perfect. I mean, how could it not be? Its been four great seasons worth of buildup coming to ahead. On the off chance you haven't seen this show, I highly recommend the first 5 seasons and I can't praise it enough. I knew it was good, I just forgot how good until this rewatch. All in all, its just fantastic tv.

Supernatural Season Four: Bad Moon Rising

Season four takes place about 4-ish months after season 3's finale so I kind of have to talk about that. Surprisingly (back when I first saw it anyway), Sam wasn't able to get Dean out of his deal. Thats right! Dean died trying to kill the demon that held his deal and went straight to Hell. I can't imagine many shows these days actually going through with that plotline. How do you even top a finale like that? Well the answer is actually pretty simple: You start walking down the path to the apocalypse.

Dean wakes up in a pine box and digs his way out of his grave. He is beyond freaked out and drops by Bobby's place to let him and Sam know he is back. After Bobby and Dean try everything they can think of to see if Dean is still human, they think Sam sold his soul to get Dean out of the pit. The problem? Not only would no demon do the deal, they don't have the power to do that anyway. So Dean and Bobby decided to try to summon the thing that did it. What exactly had the juice to pull that shit off? Its an angel named Castiel. Thats right, an angel! A goddamn angel of the lord! Its the perfect oh shit moment and shows just how big of a problem whats coming is if Heaven itself wanted Dean plucked out of Hell. So that clears up the how but not the why...well, lets just say that heaven has plans for Dean Winchestor.

Every episode of this season is fantastic. They're so consistently good across the board that its legitimately hard for me to pick one. So I'm gonna go with one that kinda breaks the mold for the show. The episode "Monster Movie". The episode is basically the show's attempt at Universal monster movie, right down to the sets and sound. Essentially Sam and Dean come to a town during Octoberfest after catching wind of a weird death. Victim was seemingly sucked dry by...Dracula? No not a vampire and I'm not being snarky, it was Dracula. While in town, they hear about a dudes getting killed by the Wolfman and the Mummy. Sam and Dean are kinda baffled and the case just seems to be getting weirder and weirder. So what exactly is going on in the town? Its a shapeshifter with a fixation on the classic movie monsters and a bartender. Yeah, its fairly simple in terms of how it plays out and all-in-all its really kind of a mundane threat for the brothers but what makes this episode my favorite is the Universal style inspiration and classic monster movie feel.

The main plot of the season is about Lilith (the demon who held Dean's contract) trying to crack the locks on Lucifer's cage to bring hell on earth. There are hundreds of locks on the cage but she doesn't need to crack all of them. How could things possibly get worse? Well...it was Dean who cracked the first lock for her by being a good man who broke from being torn apart in Hell and agreeing to put other souls on the torture rack to make it stop. To this day, that reveal managed to chill me down to the bone even though I knew it was coming! While its true that Dean is the only one who can stop it, lets just say that the angels aren't being entirely truthful. Despite having all the power of Heaven trying to stop her, somehow Lilith is always one-step ahead. Its such a bizarre situation that even the loyal soldier Castiel starts having doubts because things aren't adding up. How could the host of the almighty Lord possibly be losing to some cloud of smoke from the pit?

This season is fantastic and like seasons 1 to 3 make for extremely engrossing TV. Seeing the Winchestors fight tooth and nail against monsters and stopping them while still losing because the seals are cracking is harrowing. Now something I didn't touch on is exactly why things aren't adding up on the angels' end of things and why Lilith is somehow always able to keep breaking locks. Well...thats a story for season 5.