Badass? Badass.
Jiraiya is so addicted to television, same goes with one Yokai and he wants to be a TV star! So how will he do it, by crashing every single TV show in existence! Thankfully, Jiraiya is around to stop him! Can Jiraiya stop this TV freak?
When Jiraiya first made his debut back in the show's 3rd episode, he instantly became my favorite Kakuranger. After his debut episode, we barely see him shine and for most of the time, he is often lumped with Seikai and Saizou. So yeah, he ended up becoming part of an unofficial Kakuranger group that I like to call "The Three Stooges". The only time I find Jiraiya relevant post his debut episode is me waiting on what English words he will say in an episode.
I have noted in my episode 8 review that Jiraiya's actor, Kane Kosugi does his own backflips during the Bakeneko Rock scene and I conclude that he is the only one who has proper martial arts training. Guess what, he was able to display all of it in this episode. But before talking about it, here's a rundown on what happened before we reached one of Jiraiya's finest moments in this series.
So basically, Jiraiya is so addicted to television, which caused some "problems" with his teammates because he acts what he sees in television. I am not sure what the proper term for that behavior is, but I guess what he is doing is basically what most kids do when they see something awesome in TV, they copy it! I can deal with him copying the TV actor's moves in the samurai drama that he is watching because he is just watching Shiro Izumi aka Dragon Ranger Burai and Change Pegasus in action!
Speaking of TV addiction, a Yokai named Dorotabo is also addicted to it and desperately wants to be part of a TV show! Unlike most people who went through a process just to appear on TV in the form of auditions with the help of agent, you know, stuff like that, he decided to take the quick approach, by crashing in every TV show every time he sees a TV camera around! For viewers, his actions are seriously irritating, especially if you are one of those guys who are watching the filming of a TV show when all of a sudden; this wannabee actor arrives and hogs the spotlight.
Because of his behavior, Jiraiya fights a fellow TV addict! His earlier fights in this episode are really impressive that it even impressed the TV host, who is played by Rika Kishida, the actress who played Kaori Rokumeikan aka White Swan in Choujin Sentai Jetman! I easily hated her character in this series because she is one nosy reporter. It didn't help that I hated Kaori in Jetman in general. I mean, after she got rejected by Ryu, she went with Gai, then back to Ryu after she doesn't feel the "love" coming from him! I will get into my hatred on Kaori on a different review.
Back to Kakuranger, so yeah, Dorotabo basically sucks and when he transformed into his Yokai form, his weapon is basically a lump of mud. Wow, this is probably, one of the worst monsters of the week that I ever saw in Super Sentai. To put it simply, he is easily beaten by both Jiraiya and Saizou. The only problem right now aside that he escaped is that one of the victims of the Yokai's muddy ball attack is injured, which means he can't join his son in some quiz show to win a trip to Hong Kong and Macau. So how did Jiraiya ended up in this father and son story? He helped the kid in the quiz show!
While he is busy answering the questions in the said quiz show, the Kakurangers met Dorotabo who once again, threw some more muddy balls and much to my surprise, he can shoot lasers in his eyes! Seriously, the guy can just shoot lasers at the very beginning instead of throwing muddy balls in the first place! Oh well, Dorotabo escaped and finds yet another TV show to crash into. Back to Jiraiya, after answering the final question, Dorotabo appears! Because his TV crashing needs to stop, Jiraiya challenges him in a duel, and if the Yokai wins, he will become famous.
This then leads us to a cage match set up by Dorotabo, which is divided into three duels. First duel is a karate match, the fight choreography in this one is intense, and you can even say that it is really amazing. The second match is with swords and much to my surprise; Jiraiya strips his top and shows us his really ripped body. For starters, it kinda stunned me since it's kinda rare in Super Sentai nowadays to feature actual martial artist with really toned bodies. Because he removed his top, it is easier for me to find the stunt double, one of the hobbies I developed while watching tokusatsu.
Much to my surprise, I barely see the stunt double even in those notorious distant shots that I hated. The sword play in this scene is really amazing; it's so intense that I am at the edge of my seat watching it. But what's impressive about it, is like I said, I barely see the stunt double in it, heck, maybe there is no stunt double in that scene! The third match is a boxing match, aside from Jiraiya's instant change to his boxing trousers; the boxing scene is fine I guess. Though not as impressive as the first two when it comes to fight choreography, but it is worth watching. To sum up what happened, Jiraiya wins all three duels, causing Dorotabo to transform in his giant form.
The giant fight in this episode is really great; the giant fight between Dorotabo and Black Ganma is really well done. The only difference is that Black Ganma's movements feels a bit more restricted compared to Jiraiya's awesome out of suit fight in this episode. Guess it has something to do with the costume that made their movements a bit restricted. At the end, they were able to defeat Dorotabo thanks to Muteki Shogun. As for Jiraiya, he is now addicted to pro wrestling and starts doing some wrestling moves... only to be defeated by Tsuruhime and her serving tray. So what about the TV crew that's following Jiraiya during the duration of this episode? The storyteller didn't tell us what happened to those guys much to my disappointment.
