Series Good sentai, but lacks things.
Gekiranger is considered in the west as one of the Best end 2000s sentai, rivaled by Shinkenger (We'll get to that) and Dekaranger (also getting to that), but let's find out:
Main Characters:
- The main Gekiranger are mostly lacking: It's not that much about them, since the story mostly focus on Rio evolving and getting stronger with each master, and how he is connected with Jan and Gou, and the rest have just some episodes for exposing their character, but not development (well, Retsu sort of does have, but not that much).
- The masters were boring, but Miki was cool (and I just loved her Let's Get Dangerous moment)
Fight Scenes:
- The fight scenes are okay, but the abuse of SFX is wasted whereas they could do more Wirefu and more actual martial arts, but I'll admit I love Bae doing his giant robots fight commentator while they just duke it out.
Designs:
- The Gekirangers suit are cool, but the helmets are too much look-alike, and I admit Gou having a Gong changer makes no sense, but Rule Of Cool and stuff...
- The Power-ups were lame, it was just a color swap, and it's disapointing because Dekaranger and Magiranger had some cool-looking power-ups.
- The Robots look cool, but it's mostly me gushing about Gekitoujah, even if his finisher is kinda lame, and Sai Dai Oh is also nice, but nothing beats having a squad of Robots chargining at you.
Overall Plot:
- While I was dissapointed that the characters were just there except the main characters, I admit I like this sentai because it's a rare exemple of a sentai avancing with each episode (even though it only applies to Rio, and they forget their Aesop, save for the major events), and I did cry for Mele and Rio.
Bad guys:
- The early vilains were boring as hell, but only Rio sama's Majesty made me go through it.
- The Kenmas are okay, but it's especially thanks to Kata's training from Hell.
- Rio sama is sexy, and you're gonna like him, because Mele said so.
- Long is one monstrous bastard, but while he lacks some charisma that make me instead prefer Radiguet or Basco, he is one hell of a threat, and he damn feels like it.
Overall, Gekiranger was good and enjoyable, but I didn't feel it was any special, it's a good sentai to begin with though.
7/10.
Series German's love Hasslehoff indeed.
I remember seeing comments floating on youtube when I was watch jungle fury of how it was crap compared to gekiranger. Honestly it wasn't an unexpected reaction but I felt there was a fair bit of originality behind some of the things in Jungle Fury/ Gekiranger. So I started watchin the series and boy did I not regret it.
Firstly the suits are real radical departure from the usual sentai ones. They where a slimmed down helmet which doesn't just look like a motorcycle helmet that were alterred. The spandex was more skin tight this series but the biggest thing was the lack of a belt. I remember someone commented that without the belt they feel naked. Another thing was there was absolutely no typical guns accept geki choppers wierd morpher/weapons. The rolecalls were awesome with jan doing back flips and stuff and it felt really cool.
The mecha are really streamlined down as well for at least geki touja which meant the fights coould involve a slight bit more variety like geki touja dribbling! The fights do more then just throw cutscenes at you so I'll forgive the lack of gimmicks.
Because of the whole kung fu thing they all got character development and the used of new tools/styles. There was a growing cast of peripheral characters but i fell they still were able to weave them into the story from time to time well enough.
The main reason i love this series is the villains. They get a whole lot of screen time and also development in learning new things. It took the main villains rio and mele and sometimes changed up their roles like making rio, a forced henchman under maku. But really for me the best thing was the rio/mele relationship. It reminds me of the joker/harley relationship in how one shows devotion but the other may or may not be capable of love. Rio also has a motivation to fight the gekirangers which becomes real important in the backstory and later on. Mele is pretty fangirl but i like her because well she's hot and has a sense of honour and can be good as well as clued in.
I don't want to spoil the end but it is definetly a worthwhile wait. Like alot of things in this series it isn't such a typical sentai ending. It was a pretty mature series and avoided the over use of the kawaii aspect you get a lot of in sentai. For me its the best sentai ever.
Series A Sentai Where the Villains Shine
Gekiranger is a very enjoyable season for a number of reasons but perhaps one of the most enjoyable aspects of the season is seeing the two primary villains, Rio and Mele, grow and develop into characters.
The usual stand point of upgrading villains in a Super Sentai is normally after a series of defeats they either gain a new member who provides a new challenge, they rapidly upgrade in a single episode, or they gain a new weapon or ability that the heroes have to counter.
In Gekiranger, Rio and Mele go through a progressive upgrade. Rio doesn't just sit around and observe while the Monsters-of-the-Week get destroyed. He trains and gets stronger, preparing for the day he fights his opponents, as well as awakening the Kenma to train him, even nearly getting killed in the process of his training.
Mele was a huge surprise as well. She appears at the beginning as a love-sick girl who annoys Rio. But Mele herself also begins progressively getting stronger, though her motivations were more to help Rio than for herself.
These two progress in getting stronger at the same rate that the Gekirangers do.
As for the rest of the show, there are the average pros and cons. The Mecha doesn't seem all that special, though still fun to watch and the starting weapons seem bland. I do like the various teachers the Gekirangers have as well as the training, but after training there wasn't much for them to do.
The Gekirangers themselves don't stand out much, and don't seem to have characteristics that haven't been seen in Super Sentai. The suits were okay, but the core three lacked uniqueness from one another, and I didn't care much for the mid season power up. The two additional rangers are OK in their individual episodes but overall, not really too notable.
Overall, I'd give the season a 7.3/10