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.