The show opens with a group of Time Protection Bureau cadets being given orientation in the 30th century. While this is happening, a mafia boss (Don Dolnero) is being transported to the building's cryo-prison. Dolnero and his crew stage an escape and actually tricks the TPB into accidentally sending him back in time to the 20th century. Four of the cadets are assigned to chase after him in order to keep him from changing the past. They run into a man from the 20th century and enlist him to help them track down Don Dolnero.
Characters: This cast is pretty good and all of them are compelling characters in one way or another. Their actors also give great performances all around. Its a tough call to pick who my favorite character is.
Characters: This cast is pretty good and all of them are compelling characters in one way or another. Their actors also give great performances all around. Its a tough call to pick who my favorite character is.
- Tatsuya/TimeRed: Tatsuya is pretty cool. He comes from a rich family but gets very noticeably uncomfortable around his father and in his interactions with his family's rich associates at a party in one episode. He tends to be light-hearted and jovial. His plot basically involves trying to get out of his family's shadow and live his own life as his own person and not who his father wants him to be. Masaru Nagai really captures Tatsuya's drive to prove there is more to him than just the name Asami as well as his frustrations with his father.
- Ayase/TimeBlue: Ayase is the calm and collected type. He dreamed of being a racer but had to give up his dream when he was diagnosed with an incurable disease known as Osiris Syndrome. His plotline basically involves him dealing with this and living his life while a lot of his focus episodes end up dealing with death in different ways. Due to this disease, he developed a relatively reckless streak shown early in the show to the point of willingly throwing himself in front of an enemy's attack because he thinks the danger doesn't matter because is basically living on borrowed time anyway. Ayase's episodes are usually pretty nice and tense with his best episodes being episodes 39 and 40. Yuji Kido manages to play him to the point where he is very stoic but also manages to get across the idea that dying is always in the back of Ayase's mind.
- Domon/TimeYellow: Domon is the team's easy-going strong guy with some pretty cool goofy and serious moments. Shuhei Izumi plays this role really well and gives him a very nice amount of likeability. He starts out really relatable in his first focus episode because its revealed he is homesick and is pretty freaked out at first at the idea of them being stuck in the past. Beyond that, his plotline revolves around him falling for a reporter while grappling with the fact that he will eventually have to leave her behind and return to the future. Needless to say, his best episodes are the episodes dealing with his romance with Honami. Surprisingly, this is the plotline I was the most invested in. I'm usually not a fan of the "will they, won't they" romance trope but Timeranger did it really well.
- Sion/TimeGreen: Sion is the smartest member of the team and the tech guy. He is a Hubbardian and the last of his kind. He was raised in a lab so a lot of his episodes involve trying to find his place both on the team and in the world. I like Sion well enough and Masahiro Kuranuki does a good job in the role but his episodes are probably the weakest in the show. Aside from his first focus episode and episode 21, something about his episodes just makes them not hit the way they should. They're not bad as there isn't an episode of this show that I dislike, something about them just feels off.
- Yuuri/TimePink: Yuuri is a tough as nails detective from the Anti-Mafia police division. She starts out really cold and distant at first but the other Timerangers manage to keep her grounded. Her dramatic episodes tend revolve around her having lost her family to Don Dolnero as a child and her drive to beat the Londerz in hopes of recapturing them. The show brings up how this drive is her main reason for living a few times and it gets heart-wrenching near the end of the show. Mika Katsumura plays the role well and brings the right amount of seriousness to her character while capturing the pain of losing her family.
- Naoto/TimeFire: Naoto is Tatsuya's friend from college. He is basically Tatsuya but coming from the opposite direction in life. He tends to be more serious and cynical compared to Tatsuya. Shinji Kasahara plays the role really well and captures Naoto's cynical nature perfectly as well as his thirst for power. He is introduced late in the show but it works perfectly because by that point, we already know who exactly Tatsuya is and so the contrast between the two comes across without needing much establishing on Naoto's part.
Timeranger does something really neat with Tatsuya and Naoto's relationship and it honestly fascinates me. Tatsuya and Naoto are essentially after the same thing, they want to carve out their own futures with their own hands. This is even reflected in their suit designs. TimeRed and TimeFire have similar suits and its really fitting because even their suits tell you about their personalities. Tatsuya has arguably always had the power to forge his own path, he just needed the other Timerangers to open the path for him. He also approaches serious situations with jokes and laughter hence the white highlights on his chest and the silver bands on his gloves and boots. Meanwhile, Naoto has always known the path he wanted to take but didn't have the power to open that path until he became TimeFire. Due to this, he tends to be more serious and cynical than Tatsuya hence the black highlights on his chest, the black bands on his gloves and boots, and his edgier visor. Maybe I'm overthinking it and this whole thing may have been unintentional on the writer's/designer's part but either way it adds a whole new layer to the show.
Villains:
The villains are pretty cool. The Londerz are pretty interesting group imo because their main motivation isn't actually conquest, they just want to make money. Well thats Dolnero and Lila's deal anyway, Gien however is pretty messed up and he has thing for destruction. Dolnero is a lot deeper of a character than I was expecting and its pretty much all tied into his relationship with Gien. Dolnero feels like he owes Gien so much because its his fault that Gien is the way he is now. That reveal kinda puts the episode where he turns on an old friend of his for interfering with the family into a new light. Lila loves buying expensive things and is usually seen going on shopping sprees. The series treats her as if she just hangs around Dolnero for the money but near the end she reveals that she kind of would've liked him even without the money. I'm not going to spoil it here but Gien is pretty tragic. I legitimately felt bad for the guy after finding out how he met Dolnero and what he went through. The Londerz goal of making money is a neat thing about the show imo because instead of going into each episode wondering what powerful foe the Timerangers had to overcome, I went in intrigued as to what the Londerz racket was going to be and how the Timerangers were going to bust it up. It managed to make even the petty criminal Londerz memorable.
Favorite Episode: Given how the show is structured, I actually have a few contenders so I'm going to split them up. First, episodes I think stand pretty well on there own: Battle Casino and Deathmatch City. Battle Casino plays out like an episode from a cop show and I love it. Basically a dude a goes missing after going to an underground fight club prompting his wife to hire the Tatsuya and the others to investigate his disappearance. The rest of the episode plays out like a classic cop show sting operation. The action for this episode handled really well and its cool seeing Tatsuya go toe-to-toe with fighters in the club out-of-suit because all of them are played by suit actors. Deathmatch City is basically the start of Domon and Honami's subplot. It centers around a Londerz basically forcing a city's population to beat each other for an experiment with the intent to escalate things to what would have been likely more fatal outcomes. The whole episode is pretty tense and scary. It feels straight up like a horror movie and I felt bad when Honami got in the way during the episode when the Timerangers have a plan to stop the Londerz early on. Even without the subplot starting there, its a pretty solid episode with some great atmosphere.
My favorite episodes overall however hands down are episode 39 (A Lie Soaked In Rain) and episode 40 (Ayase Retires!?) as they are Ayase's best episodes in the show. It gets to the heart of who Ayase is, where he stands in regards to his disease, and how he views what time he has left. I won't go much into spoilers for those two episodes but I will say they are the best written episodes in the show. As soon as I finished these episodes, I immediately wanted to rewatch them (which I did shortly after finishing the show itself). They're so good that Ayase is probably my favorite Blue because of them. They're actually on my list of favorite episodes in all of Sentai.
Music: The music in this show is pretty great. The opening theme has this ominous epic feel to it. As soon as it starts you get the vibe that you're in for a grand adventure that will decide the fate of the world. The ending theme is pretty good and its got some nice energy to it. Its actually a more addictive song for me than the opening theme. The episodes Battle Casino and Pink Temptation feature a nice saxophone cover of the ending theme during their montages.
Mecha: I like TimeRobo and the show makes it feel cool. Its a pretty nice looking mecha and it even has 3 seperate modes. Timerobo Alpha is meant for melee combat with its sword and shield combo, Beta is designed specifically for long range combat, and Jet Gamma is built for speed and maneuverability. Having these modes gives the main mecha a nice degree of variety and utility. I wish the franchise would do another mecha like this.
TimeShadow is pretty cool and I quite liked its introduction episodes. Its debut in the show is pretty ominous. Its got this cool summoning scene where it basically bathes the world in a solar eclipse then flies out of the moon. I just really wish it got more time to shine by itself. Sadly, only a few episodes after its debut, it gets relegated to being add-on parts for Time Robo for the most part. It does get some more use as a solo mecha in the last handful of episodes but thats about it.
V-Rex is nice. I love its design and it fights like a wild best before Naoto takes control of it. Its robot mode is pretty cool and its interesting that for the most part like Dragon Caeser and Delta Mega, Naoto does not need to be inside the robot to control it since its operated by his voice. Thats actually a pretty good Achilles heel for it too since a Londerz manages to take control of it by copying Naoto's voice and stealing his brace. It has a surprising variety in the number of weapons it uses. Its got the fangs and tail in Rex Mode and blaster, missile launchers, and a rocket punch in Robot Mode.
Final Thoughts: Timeranger is a weird case for me because while Domon and Honami's romance is my favorite plotline, Domon is not my favorite character. Its a tough call but if I had to choose, I'd say Ayase gets that award, with episodes 39 and 40 being the reason. I wasn't actually expecting the show itself to confirm that Domon and Honami had a kid. I might have to rewatch Gokaiger's Timeranger tribute to see if it hits any differently. Masaru Nagai plays a dual role later in the show but I like the show so much that all I'm gonna say is that he is able to play two vastly different personalities really well. A neat little aspect about the show that I didn't catch until the 40s is that for the most part each episode is dated in-show with the date the episode aired (minus the multi-parters). Overall the show well written, well acted, and I enjoyed it a lot. Note: I didn't talk about the suits because the review was getting kind of long and I plan on covering them in the 2000's Sentai suit post.
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