Choujin Sentai Jetman Episode 7 – Ryu’s Marriage?!

Oh hey, look, we’ve get another grandmother episode. How exciting.

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[竜の結婚！？] Ryuu no Kekkon?!
Ryu’s Marriage?!
Writer: Toshiki Inoue

During a game of tennis with the others, Ryu goes into the streets to grab a ball and runs into his grandmother. Grandmother reveals that the time has come for Ryu’s arranged marriage and he doesn’t seem too happy about it at all. Going through with the marriage would mean that Ryu would have to quit the team, something he can’t afford to do at the moment. While the others plan to help Ryu out of his situation, Gai thinks Ryu getting married would be a great idea – it would mean Kaori being free for him. The newest Dimension monster, Mirror Dimension, heads out to capture people through reflections. After Ryu’s scheme goes wrong, his fiance realizes that Kaori might have genuine feelings for Ryu and that she herself has feelings for someone else. When the Mirror Dimension attacks and Ryu’s fiance is captured, his grandmother lends a helping hand and frees the people captured by the Mirror Dimension. After defeating the Dimension beast, the others learn that Ryu’s fiance is actually planning on getting married to someone else, freeing up Ryu for the right woman to come along.

Now I’m not normally fond of grandmother episodes in Sentai and I can’t say this is one that’s going to buck that trend. I feel like it doesn’t quite work with what Jetman is trying to do, it’s a little too whimsical for how seriously Ryu’s fiance and Kaori’s secret feelings were played. This is a plot that would have been better served by having someone a little more stern come along as they tried to force Ryu into marriage. It’s not a terrible episode, but I feel like the idea of introducing a whacky grandmother to move alone the plot was pretty lame and not something I cared for at all.

I’m liking that the love triangle is finally starting to bloom here. Gai, as it turns out, might have genuine feelings for Kaori, who herself is realizing she feels something deep for Ryu. This is one of those things Jetman is known for, even to people who haven’t seen the show before. It’s always a great experience when you get to see the formative moments to one of the most iconic love stories Sentai has to offer. It’s only going to get more intense from here on out. I was actually surprised by how serious Kaori was when she played the sleazy girl that Ryu was banging around with, at least when it came to her wondering what the heck it was that Ryu saw in Emiko, his fiance, that she didn’t have.

At the moment Jetman is still an odd series. It clearly knows what it wants to be, but it still feels like it’s having to bear the trappings of a regular Sentai. There’s that bit of a whacky plot going on with the grandmother and with everyone dressing up to help fool Emiko and Ryu’s grandmother into thinking that he’s a no good player who shouldn’t get married. I actually liked the scene a heck of a lot, if only because we get to see Raita in a different like. Well, sort of. Raita portrays himself as…I wanna say a pimp or something in this episode, he’s supposed to be gruff and while he can sort of pull it off, he’s too much of a nice guy for it to be entirely convincing. This isn’t a failing of the actor of course, it’s part of Raita’s character. Despite any guises he might need to wear, he’s always going to be that loveable loser of a yellow Ranger that everyone enjoys watching.

This isn’t my favorite episode of the series thus far and, like I said, it really highlights the problems that show has at the moment. Granted, those problems haven’t come up too often, but they are there. Jetman’s love triangle and more serious story about roles in life that we take doesn’t lend itself incredibly well to the wahahahaky schitck that the grandmother provides. Though, oddly, the scheme Ryu thought up goes along with it rather nicely. Even though they’re supposed to be playing different roles, Raita and Kaori can’t help but let their true personalities shine through – and in the case of Kaori, this is something she can only do when she can cast her feelings off as merely part of the scheme. Those early moments when you realize you have feelings for someone else and might be rejected are pretty scary that way.