All five assembled! Goranger!
3 years ago, I wrote a review of Goranger's 1st episode. After checking my old review, I decided why not rewatch the 1st episode again and review the episode using my current format because... why not? Anyway, in this episode, 5 EAGLE bases were attacked by the Black Cross Army; the ones who survived formed a team to fight this organization that aims to conquer the world! They are the Secret Squad Goranger!
After three years, Goranger's 1st episode still remains one of my favorite Super Sentai 1st episodes because for starters, it literally kicked off with a bang. By a bang, I mean explosions, buildings destroyed, people died because of biological warfare (!) and soldiers were killed by enemy foot soldiers that are considered by most people as disposable. Even if that is the case, at least there is one survivor for every EAGLE branch in Japan. These survivors are Tsuyoshi Kaijo, Akira Shinmei, Daita Ooiwa, Peggy Matsuyama and Kenji Asuka.
What's interesting about these survivors is that after what happened to their bases, they continue with their lives as soldiers and started training to become Gorangers. What really interest me is that they know their color designations and how to transform! I can understand that they know how to use their weapons and such since they are soldiers, but them knowing how to transform and color designations? That is something I can't understand until now.
Tsuyoshi as AkaRanger is observing his new teammates; he then sends them a message to meet up at Snack Gon. The best part about it is how he delivered the message, which range from really cool, to something that I cannot comprehend. The Gorangers meet up and in their first meeting; the one that stood up is Daita. Daita is the big guy who likes to eat too much curry and can't figure out a joke that Kenji told him. That alone is one reason why I immediately like this guy. After Tsuyoshi arrives, they decided not to wait for Akira and enter a secret chamber. Not surprising, Akira is waiting outside of the entrance of their base!
My initial impression on Akira is that he is the cool guy. The opening scene also gave me an impression that he can be a good team leader if he wants too. So yeah, if Tsuyoshi is not the leader, Akira is the obvious choice for the team leader. Now that the team is assembled, it is time to open the secret base. I can’t say much about it because it looks kinda small for a secret base. Inside the base, we heard a mysterious voice, the team's commander. This is something that intrigues me, if they are the survivors of the 5 EAGLE branches, who is the guy ordering them to move out and fight the Black Cross Army?
Anyway, after learning that the Black Cross Army kidnapped some kindergarten students... for some reason, it is time for our heroes to spring into action. We saw bits of Tsuyoshi's leadership skills and Daita being too eager to join the fun. By fun, I mean, ride the Variblune, a ship that has a dog for a face and looks really cool. This is when we saw some really good use of practical special effects to give us an impression that some giant airplane mecha just left its hangar. The use of great camera angles gave me an impression that the Variblune is indeed real.
As for the rest, they are the ones who look for the Black Cross Army, leading them to some abandoned warehouse wherein we learned from their teacher that the kids are inside the bus that is inside the warehouse, which is about to explode thanks to the Black Cross Army. Seriously, for an army that gave us one heck of an opening scene featuring a lot of dead soldiers, their second plan in this series is something that felt like a vengeful 5-year-old kid will do to his/her classmates. For the first enemy organization, they make a really bad first impression.
As expected, the kids are saved thanks to Akira and Daita ramming Variblune's giant claw on the warehouse's roof, thus saving the kids. Now that we are done with it, Tsuyoshi is pissed with the Black Cross Army and decides to face them alone. For the first Sentai team leader, Tsuyoshi likes to let his emotions get the best of him. Granted, he knows how to delegate his soldiers but the fact that he rushed towards his enemies without his teammates is something that I think, a good leader should not do. As I have expected, he is surrounded by the enemy foot soldiers and thankfully, his teammates arrived just in time to help him!
Now that all five are assembled, it is time for the first team roll call! The first team roll call is one of those badass moments in the series. One by one, a Goranger pops out and tells his/her color designation till they reached Tsuyoshi who then transforms into AkaRanger. Now that we are done with it, it is time for the show's first team battle! It's fun, action packed and something I expect from the 70's. But I think the best part about it is not that, but the team's weapon system. It's really cool to see that their weapons came from their visors. This is when I start to wonder how they developed the Goranger suits and the like.
The team finisher, called the Goranger Storm is seriously simple. It's just them passing a football (or soccer) ball till it reaches Red who then performs the finishing kick. Watching it again, I can't believe that the franchise evolved from this into those fancy bazooka or team sword finishers that we have right now. At the end, the Black Cross Army is now aware of the existence of this secret squad and its officials now want to kill them. But never fear, the Gorangers will not be defeated by these masked villains!
