Mashin Sentai Kiramager Review: A Very Simple Shine

The last time I had seen a modern Sentai in full was back during Kyoryuger. Furthermore, the last time I saw more than one episode of a modern Sentai was back when I got halfway through ToQger while it was airing. As you've probably guessed by all the Sentai reviews I've done so far, I've been making my way through older Sentai for a while due to the modern stuff having trouble catching my eye these last few years. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me combined the fandom's hype so I decided to check out this show. Without further adieu...Kiramai Go!

When the kingdom of Crystalia falls to forces of Yodonheim, princess Mabusheena flees to Earth. Knowing that Yodonheim has their sights set on Earth next, she goes to look for 5 dazzling people to partner with the KirameiStones.

Characters: The team is fine overall and their actors do fine jobs. I don't really have too many complaints with them.

• Juuru Atsuta/KiramaiRed: Juuru is the artistic type, the man loves to draw and has the greatest imagination out of all of them. I like his style of leadership. His approach is that he doesn't feel the team can fight at their fullest if something is bugging them or they're not having what they enjoy as a priority. The kid is just a wholesome, loveable character overall and he really just wants his team be at their best and most dazzling.
• Tanemoto Imizu/KiramaiYellow: A pro gamer and the team's sharpshooter. He tends to be the calm and collected type. He is also a pretty good tactician. Its honestly kind of cool because I don't think I've seen too many yellows fill that role. When the dude gets serious, he is actually kind of scary. Dude actually managed to make a Marrskman straight up quit because he kept using the Marrskman's timeloop ability to curbstomp him over and over.
• Sena Hayami/KiramaiGreen: A track and field star. She is usually the straight forward type. Sena overall is fine and I particularly like how one of the later episodes reveals the entire reason she can rush into things and make split-second decisions so easily is because she is running all the possible outcomes in her head at once. Its something rather cool about her character because the show really never forgets about her speed aspect.
• Shiguru Oshikiri/KiramaiBlue: A young actor. I like Shiguru because even though he tries to act like this cool dude, the man is actually a goofy dork. That entire schtick could've gone so badly but his actor seemed like he was really into it. He was the only one who actually thought of trying Juuru's imagination trick to try and enhance his swordplay. I was actually surprised that the show remembered he could do that when it got near the end.
• Sayo Oharu/KiramaiPink: A genius surgeon. Sayo's focus episodes are alright but the show kind of forgets about her day job and doctor skills for a bit. I can only remember it coming up two or three times outside the band episode. I kind of remember her more for her parts in other episodes, particularly in Takamichi's debut. She isn't bad, I just kinda don't have a lot to say about her.
• Takamichi Crystalia/KiramaiSilver: Takamichi seems like the lone-wolf type at first but he isn't actually a brooder. He just wanted to do stuff on his own in his first 3 eps because he thought it was more efficient that way. I like the guy well enough but once the curse thing is done with and Kiraful mode shows up, he kind of starts getting sidelined during the ground climax fights unless an episode focuses on him. I'd have liked to see him do more outside of his focus episodes.
• Mabusheena: The princess of Crystalia. While she believes in the team, she can't help but worry about them. She also feels guilty about her inability to help a few times. She does her best to power through those moments so as not to worry the team. She kinda has the funniest focus episodes out of the main characters. Her drunk episode was surprisingly pretty fun and its honestly a testament to how the show's comedy is written because I was laughing the entire time.

Villains:

Garza is the one who betrayed Crystalia. He is the one I have issues with. Mostly because we only really get his backstory in the 3rd to last episode. Its just not hinted at much because for most of the show, he is the standard gruff serious villain type with brother issues and then its all just info dumped in one episode. The reveal of him being evil because of Yodon's influence as a child should've been a big earth-shattering moment for me, but it wasn't. Thats a big shoe to drop near the end without a lot of buildup and it felt kind of rushed. The man also kind of flips between being Juuru's rival and Takamichi's rival to the point where its sort of unclear for a bit. He isn't particularly a bad villain, he is just kind of ok imo and I dug the way he just kept shredding on his guitar in the band episode even after the kaijuu was summoned. Dude looked like he was having so much fun and I would've liked to see Garza act more like that. If I had to guess, I'd say a lot of his development was crowbarred in at the last minute because of the show being 4 episodes shorter than usual due to the pandemic.

Crunchula reminds me Michela and Voff from Abaranger. The artistic creator who makes Yodonheim's monsters. His reasoning for making a few Marrskman is fascinating and it leads to a few interesting villain plots. I quite like his little back and forth with Yodonna about his monsters being needlessly strange instead of just being powerful and threatening. It was pretty cool seeing the guy insist that a Marrskman's style was just as important as whatever powers he gave them. It was nice seeing him and Juuru bonding over art when he was suffering from creative burn out.

I like how cold and detached Yodonna feels. She acts so emotionally dead to everything that I'm willing to speculate it even weirds Garza and Crunchula out. She also does this tongue thing that the fandom goes crazy over and licks her lips a lot. She kinda sends a chill down my spine. She doesn't even understand emotions in general to the point where she will do this really creepy dead-sounding laugh just because she thinks it might be the right time to do it. I would've liked to see her take a more active role and fight the Kiramagers more often. Her attempted rivalry with Tametomo kinda goes nowhere.

Favorite Episode: Surprisingly my favorite episode is episode 19 ("Partners"), a mind swap episode. This episode somehow manages to avoid the overall cringe that mind swap episodes tend to entail. What helps is that the show just kind goes all in and focusing on the machine's having control of their partners' bodies instead of them trying to pull some kind of ruse to keep the swap a secret. Seeing the Kiramagers cheer on their partners during the fight was nice and heart-warming. Its a nice little episode about just how quickly people can grow and improve with just a little encouragement.

Mecha: The Machines feel like Kiramager's answer to the Bakuryu from Abaranger which is pretty fitting since they're both Arakawa shows. This show actually managed to surprise me with some of the auxiliary mecha combos. Before this show, I never would've thought a garbage truck turning into a vacuum cleaner would've been a viable option. Kiramazin is nice looking and I quite like the sparkling crystalline look of the thing. Having each Machine's part glow when they talk is a nice touch in a few episodes. Its combo sequence feels a bit Abaranger-y to me since Fire makes up about two-thirds of the mecha. Mach unfortunately feels a little tacked on for Kiramazin, he just forms a shoulder pad and the head. Granted Jetta himself just forms the sword but because of that he gets more use in the combo than Mach. Gigant Driller is fine and I find it kinda neat that it requires Takamichi himself to become a stone in order to transform. Its a decent way to set it apart from the other mecha in the show. Dashark Express is neat. I kinda like how Dashark himself stands out from the rest of the KirameiStones given his animal characteristics. Its a nice contrast to Garza's Smog Steamer in that regard. Grateful Phoenix feels a lot like a Magiranger mecha to me. It brings back memories of that combo Kai had with that unicorn. I'm also very thankful that there is no cluster final mecha.

Music: The opening theme is alright. Its a not a bad hype machine but its kinda generic sounding. It actually reminds me of Kyuranger's opening (Lucky Star) so much that I end up transitioning into that whenever I try to sing Kiramager's opening theme. The ending theme is an alright way to close out the show but personally it does nothing for me. The character songs are all passable...well except Takamichi's and maybe Sayo's. Takamichi's singing is a bit too low for the style of song he is going for compared to the others. Sayo's is a nice attempt at a jazz sound but something about her singing is off. Mabusheena's is probably my favorite of the bunch as it is wonderfully happy sounding and addictive.

Final Thoughts: Surprisingly, episode plots that would usually make me cringe, had me hooked. This is mostly because well, the show quickly sidesteps the cringe parts with a joke (Takamichi immediately blowing Juuru's secret identity in front of his classmate) or having the characters genuinely get invested in the ruse (going all in on the fake play for Mabusheena's mother). The show is actually funnier than I expected with just a dumb moment or two here and there. The show actually managed to surprise me with the Kiramagers' problem solving abilities, particularly in the Reset Button and Glue Marrsk episodes. Its ToQ's imagination schtick done right imo as the answers the Kiramagers come up with are ones that only they could've come up with. Overall, while nothing really wowed me or left my jaw on the floor, its a pretty decent show that gets the job done perfectly fine. Its actually kind of amazing how consistently this show managed to leave me with a smile on my face. I think that in and of itself says a lot about how much I enjoyed it. Its a show made with quite a bit of love and understanding of what Sentai is imo. I'd have liked to see what the show would've been like if it hadn't lost 4 episodes of its run to the pandemic but I'm rather happy with the show. I'm honestly glad this was my reentry point for modern Sentai. Without getting too much into my personal life, its a show that I desperately needed right now.

Ultraman Gaia Review

For this entry on the Ultra kick, I'm going back a bit to cover a non-New Gen Ultra show. Part of the reason I picked this next is because I wanted to watch an older Ultra show and it was on Crunchyroll at the time. The other reason was because a friend of mine was raving about it. I don't have much else to say in this section. I'm going to do my best not to spoil the show. Its definitely worth checking out for yourself. Sadly, as of the time of this post, it is now gone from Crunchyroll. I don't have a decent intro reference from the show to make so...lets get into it.

Premise: Gamu Takayama is a member of a group of highly intelligent people known as the Alchemy Stars. While working on an experiment, Gamu's mind is transported to a strange dimension where he witnesses a giant fighting a monster. Shortly after, another monster attacks and Gamu contacts XIG asking if this was the scenario they had been preparing for. Gamu falls through a strange portal and meets the giant himself. The giant gives him the power to fight off the monster and protect the Earth.

Characters:

Gamu Takayama is a pretty smart dude even if a lot of what he says feels like techno-babble to me. He actually built the propulsion engines for XIG's fighter jets and their base. I love how his response after his first battle as Gaia is to immediately ask to join XIG so he can help the team fight off the monsters as more than just as an Ultraman. I also liked how he didn't have a henshin device at first and had to build it himself. It was a great way to show off his technical skills. His ideological clash with Fujimiya was great and pretty well written. Both make great counterpoints to each other, even though I tended to always side with Gamu because of his more optimistic approach. I rather like how episode 26 brings up just how much Gamu brings to XIG beyond Gaia's power. The team admits how valuable his analysis is when he keeps sending them information after they've briefly kicked him out. Overall, dude is a pretty nice protagonist who does his best to make sure humanity doesn't keep making mistakes that could potentially devastate the planet.

XIG is absolutely massive and I love the scale of it. Its got about 6 different teams on its payroll. It ends up having a pretty large recurring cast and I'm amazed I could keep track of them all. Teams Lightning, Falcon, and Crow are the fighter pilots, Team Seagull is the rescue squad, Team Hercules is the ground assault squad, and a sea-based squad called Marlin handles the underwater stuff. Tho team Marlin sadly kinda only gets one outing due to their underwater specialization. It was actually rather amusing when they got called in because one of their members was ecstatic about finally getting to do something. XIG even their own paranormal/mystery investigation team code-named Lizard. Another cool thing about episode 26 is that once Commander Ishimuro realizes that Gamu is Gaia, he doesn't report it to XIG. He just tells Gamu to rest up and heal because the real fight is about to begin.

If I had to pick my favorite team, it would probably be Team Hercules. They just seem so nice and they're legitimately worried about Gamu not getting enough exercise. They were also not even remotely afraid of the idea of taking on a dragon with nothing but their blasters and a machine gun once their tanks were out of ammo. Their appearances also feature some of the most detailed models in the entire show imo. Team Crow is a close second because I like their style and how coordinated they are. They're the most in-sync of all the fighter teams and their whole drive to prove themselves was great plus they had a nice confident hotshot entrance with some killer music.

Fujimiya is a former member of the Alchemy Stars who became disillusioned with how they wanted to achieve their goals. He is the host for Ultraman Agul and wants to protect the Earth. However, while Gamu views Gaia's power as a way to protect both humanity and the Earth, Fujimiya believes that Gaia and Agul exist to save the Earth itself, even if that means humanity goes extinct. He also believes that its pretty much the Earth's will for humanity to disappear so the planet can recover and he only focuses on the damage humans do to the Earth. It gets really heavy for him and I love his character arc. Seeing him question his entire purpose when he founds out exactly whats going on was great. Under the circumstances, I do see his point of view even though Gamu is right about him taking the easy way out by just wanting humans to disappear. His character arc throughout the whole show is fantastic and its great seeing him and Gamu finally team up near the end of the show. I love the way Agul fights and its a pretty cool first outing for a blue Ultra. Him having a light rapier for a sword was a perfect touch to set him apart from Gaia.

Reiko and her news crew give a nice look at the civilian perspective on all these monster attacks. Its fantastic because like XIG they're looking into whats causing the attacks and eventually whats driving the monsters to do what they do. It was a surprisingly gripping and unexpected angle to see in the show. Reiko herself gets embroiled into Fujimaya's stuff and she helps keep him grounded when he becomes conflicted about what his power is for. She is so integral at keeping Fujimiya from losing it that she gets targeted herself a few times. Her boss Tabata even gets some pretty nice self reflective moments and awesome action to himself. The man's drive and dedication to reporting is amazing and it helps contribute to some great moments. I'm glad they got so much focus as it really helped the show feel even bigger than it already did.

Favorite Episodes: This is a really tough call as there are quite a few contenders for this spot and I honestly don't think I can pick one so get ready for a list. A lot of the plots with Mezard (this creepy jellyfish monster) involved are pretty good with "Fourth Symphony Of A Nightmare" being my favorite of those episodes. "When The Rain Stops" is a fun little scifi episode involving cloned organs getting mutated into monsters by green rain. Episodes 23-26 are fantastic and they legitimately feel like a finale in and of themselves. "The Accursed Eye" and "The Future Seen Before" are an interesting pair of back-to-back episodes cuz they're both about fighting destiny but one is a little more literal in that regard. There a lot more episodes that I love but if I listed them all, this section would be way too long. The sheer amount of episodes that spring to mind when I think of Gaia says a lot about how well done the show is.

Action and Effects: The show has a high budget and oh man, it makes such good use of it. The creature effects look absolutely amazing with some great designs, puppetry, and suit-work. You also get to see them get blown apart piece-by-piece a lot in the show. The models cities are fantastic if a little less detailed here and there than I expected. The Ultra vs Kaiju action is fun, the choreography was good, and the miniature fights were nice and tense even if some of the jets maneuvering was a bit iffy due to cgi. My favorite effect in the entire show is from episode 50. Agul gets blasted and slides across the entire city while everything he crashes into just collapses beautifully. The action overall is excellent with everything feeling nice and heavy. The fights between Gaia and Agul were nice and tense. It was pretty cool seeing them slug it out at human-size inside the Aerial Base during one episode. I like just how much of a change Gaia Supreme's fighting style in is compared to regular Gaia. Supreme tends to prefer tosses and throws alongside energy attacks compared to base Gaia. It also makes Gaia look buffer.

Final Thoughts: I was a bit worried about the show being able to hold my interest over 51 episodes (due to me watching so much New Gen Ultra before this) but the show was amazingly consistent. There wasn't a single episode I disliked. The show handles its theme of how humans affect the Earth and how the Earth affects us in turn rather well. It even acknowledges that the monsters themselves as being part of the planet's natural ecosystem. I'm not sure how accurate the science in the show is but I was on the edge of my seat wondering what countermeasure Gamu would come up with each episode. I was surprised just how many times Mezard showed up. I was rather surprised to see the deliveryman from Wolfgas episode show up two more times and that he got attacked by another werewolf, thats some bad luck. Its also some nice minor continuity because he still has the scar from that first attack in his other two appearances. Its a fantastic show overall and I highly recommend checking it out. Its definitely up there with Orb and R/B for me and this show probably has my favorite final arc out of the Ultras I've seen so far.