Start date: February 11 for 50 episodes(?), airs Sundays at 9:30 am on TV Asahi
Main Cast:
Lupin Rangers
Asahi ito as Kairi Yano.... Lupin RED
Haruka Kudo as Umika Hayami,.... Lupin YELLOW
Shogo Hama as Toma Yoimachi.... Lupin BLUE
Yoichi Nukumizu as Kogure
Patrangers/Global Police officers
Kousei Yuuki as Keiichiro Asaka.... Patranger RED
Ryo Yokoyama as Sakuya Hikawa.... Patranger GREEN
Kazusa Okuyama as Tsukasa Myoujin.... Patranger PINK
Ike Nuwata as Commander Hilltop
Plus the robot Jim Carter who does all of the accounting and desk work
The Gangler Villains:
Dogranio Yabun, the leader
Gostu Ru Medu
Destora Mazzio plus probably many more of them in the future
This is the 42nd Tokusatsu series, not a huge follower of them but think this is the seventh one I've watched, to date 'Dekarangers' is easily the best. But beside these shows have also viewed many seasons of 'Ultraman' plus have seen "Iron King" and "Super Robot Red Baron". All of them are so similar yet they're usually a fun watch, main problem is that they're fifty episodes.
But at least the shows are only 23+ minutes long so they make for a quick watch, don't think I'll recap every show but will try to do as many as I can. One big reason for watching this series was that Haruka is starring in it as a Lupin Ranger, she was a Morning Musume member who graduated last December and she was the group's most popular member. There was an event for this show so may do a post for that soon, at the top is a short promo feature for the series.
These should be short recaps, if you've seen any of these shows you know how an episode usually plays out with the heroes battling the monsters 2-3 times and always coming out on top. But this series is slightly different and have no clue how it'll play out yet as there's two teams of 'good guys'. Sure they'll hook up in the future but as of now one of the teams is hunted by the other team which consists of police officers.
The main team/heroes is the hunted trio who go by the name of 'Lupin Rangers'. Being heroes never pays that well so when they're not hunting villains they run a small French restaurant, hence you see a lot of words mainly spoken by residents of France. Here are the three members of the team who are Kairi, Umika and Toma. The fourth person isn't an official member but gets the info for the Lupin collection items the three need to find, his name is Kogure.
The trio have become quite popular with the public as they've destroyed many monsters and have been able to recover many of the Lupin collection. That collection was assembled by the master thief Lupin over a hundred years ago, there's been many mangas and animes about the character. However the collection was stolen by Gangler, they're space invaders who are using the collection for evil.
The Lupin Rangers aren't the only ones going after the Ganglers as there's also the police team of GPSO aka Global Police. The team isn't happy with all of the attention the Lupins are getting and consider them to be thieves which is where the show's title came from. The police team consists of Keiichiro, Sakuya and the female Tsukasa, most of the shows have one cutie but this one has two like 'Dekarangers' did! Rounding out the GPSO team is Commander Hilltop plus a robot named Jim Carter who does all of the office work.
So far we've met three of the villains from the Ganglers. Their leader is Dogranio, the others have been Gostu and Destora though we don't know much about those two yet. During the show Dogranio in front of his faithful crew of monsters has announced his retirement, he's now 999 years old! The demon that can first control the Earth will take over the throne of the Ganglers, this should be one of the main stories in the future.
That was the hard part, honestly doing recaps for these shows is very simple as I've have already talked about 3/4 of what happened as the first shows are usually devoted to us meeting the main characters. We first met the Lupin Rangers in the opening scene as they raided a casino run by some Ganglers who can also transform themselves into the shape of humans. The monsters were rigging the games at the casino and leaving the players flat broke, makes you wonder what do aliens need money for?
Kogure had alerted the Lupins of the happenings at the casino, the power to control the game was from one of the relics of the Lupin collection. No matter how many monsters there are the heroes in these shows never have a problem defeating them which is what happened and the trio were able to recover the stolen relic. They returned it to Kogure, we've just met him twice so don't know anything about his background and actually could say that about all of the main characters.
The Lupin Rangers are once again heroes to the public which infuriates the members of the Global Police. They don't know what to make of the Lupins yet, they consider them enemies but they are bringing down the bad guys though it's making the GPSO look bad that they're always late to the scene of the crime.
It's time for another raid for the Lupins as Kogure has given them another assignment. At the time their French restaurant was packed but they quickly shuffled the eaters out the door as it's time to once again save the world from the Ganglers. But the Global Police have also heard word that the Ganglers will be where the Lupins are heading, is this their chance to finally nab them?
That bottom screenshot has the trio saying in unison 'Thief' Change', that allows them to change into their uniforms along with giving them seemingly more powers. Those powers were needed as for a change the heroes had a difficult time defeating a monster as the battle went back and forth with each side appearing to win.
Natto was the name of this alien monster, the fight had started in a warehouse but it went on for so long it eventually moved outside. It took some time but the Lupins were finally able to defeat Natto, right at that instant who should show up but the threesome from the Global Police. It's taken some time but the police were finally able to meet up with the Lupins and announced they were under arrest. But the Lupin Rangers noticed something odd with the Global Police, they themselves were in possession of some of the Lupin collection, and what they are hasn't been revealed yet.
Both sides are fighting for the same goal which is to bring down the aliens of Gangler and to retake from them the Lupin collection. For now though the teams are enemies of each other and the question is can the Global Police be able to arrest the Lupin Rangers? Probably not but we won't know until the next episode as this one ended on an intriguing note which is that the trio from the Global Police are also superheroes!!!! In unison they chanted 'Police Change' which changed them into the uniforms of the Patrangers, with the Lupins looking on in amazement the show came to it's end.
Not a massive fan of these series but every one I've seen has been fun and enjoyable, being 23 minutes an episode is also a big plus. First show gets the Nao seal of approval and this appears it could be one of the better Tokusatsu shows or at least of the ones I've viewed. Just one show a week so will be back with the recap for the second episode in a week. Subs are being done by Overtime who do a good job with them and here's many more screenshots to help you follow the action better though don't think anything that happened was left out.
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