Four members down, one to go. Gai is the last member to not join the Jetman crew and it looks like he’s a stubborn bastard. Hit the jump to read up on this episode, then head on over to the discussion thread to talk up with the other HJUers!
With more than half of the crew being rather unskilled fighters, Commander Aya takes it upon herself to give Ako, Raito and Kaori a crash course in martial arts and physical training. And as you can expect, it doesn’t go over very well. They all seem very delicate and out of shape. Ako puts up a good fight, but she’s far too weak to stand up to Aya. Hopefully Ryu has a better chance at getting Gai to join the team than Aya has of making fighters out of this three.
We see Gai once again being a guy (See what I did there? Yeah, you did!). He hits on a hot police officer and even runs a red light just to get her attention. Why can’t I be more like this dude?!? Anyway! Ryu interrupts Gai’s game causing Gai to speed off in his bike, starting a cool looking bike chase. Ryu is persistant and catches up to Gai, who once again refuses to join the team. Gai’s reasoning is that the world will end one day anyway and he might as well enjoy it to the fullest. He also hates taking orders from people who think highly of themselves. So, being told to join the team by an upstanding soldier like Ryu doesn’t fly well with this cat.
Gai finally gets fed up and challenges Ryu to a bike race. If he wins, Ryu has to leave him alone. But if Ryu wins, Gai has to join the team. The race begins and Ryu ends up taking the lead before seeing a group of kids being attacked by fountains. He tries to help and gets attacked as well. Turns out its a monster called Fountain Dimension who also attacked Raita and the rest earlier. He asks Gai for help, who runs off exclaiming that Ryu should think more about himself than others. Ironically enough, Gai can’t get Ryu’s heroic words out of his head and comes back to rescue him. He joins the team at least and helps defeat the monster. The have a run in at the end with the four Vyram revolutionaries, who vow to defeat the team in due time but will watch and examine them as the fight. Seems like a very strategic plan for evil-doers, or a great way to justify 50 episodes of constant fighting.
Once again, we get a very Gai-centric episode. But really, who’s going to complain about that? He’s a freaking awesome character. He lives life one woman at a time. He doesn’t like getting pushed around, and he plays a saxophone. Gai also has a bit of a heart underneath all of that cool factor in that he couldn’t just leave Ryu to be killed by Faucet Dimension, even though he probably despises his type. But, I think that he’d rather kick the crap out of a greater evil like Vyram than to clash horns with Ryu, though I’m sure that will still happen.
As far as the other three members go, like Commander Aya said, they still have a long way to go. Ako seems to have the most energy and fight in her  since she immediately challenged Aya from the beginning. Kaori is your typical princess who’s pretty dainty and delicate in the way she fights. Raita is pretty interesting in that he’s a clutz through and through, but he’s also the most dedicated. He not only dragged those tires up the hill, he also dragged Ako and Kaori’s as well. Granted, he had no clue he was doing that and didn’t really feel the increase in weight he was dragging which could make him out to be a tad dense. But damnit, he’s a hard worker if nothing else, and that should mean something!
Alright, we finally have the team together and we’ve established the villians of the series. And I have to say, the set up for this show has been pretty damn interesting. It wasn’t rushed as quickly as most Sentai, and yet it wasn’t dragged on for a good 8-10 episodes like in some Kamen Rider shows. It hits that great balance in between and gets you pumped to see them in action more as a team.
