Go! Go! Loser Ranger!

Episode 9

I'm happy to report that this week's episode of Go, Go, Loser Ranger! is a step up for the arc, even if this storyline's weaker elements remain. Yes, the parking garage remains a very bland and confusing setting for such an action-heavy premise, and I still think the story focuses on too many new characters at once. Still, the improved production values, along with the injection of some genuine drama, make "Battle! Fever! Fighter D!" an episode that is a lot more fun to watch than its predecessors.

To get my major complaint of the week out of the way, though, I have to say that I wish that G!G!LR! didn't attempt to introduce a dozen new characters with such a chaotic tournament-style training story. I get that, on paper, it makes sense to throw all of these new cast members into the mix at the same frantic pace that Fighter D has to meet them, but the execution has just been too all over the place. In this episode alone, we have four different character flashbacks of varying length and impact that are all meant to communicate different things using different tones, and that is in the middle of the nonstop fighting between all of the cadets. It doesn't help that the present-day action in the parking garage is just too poorly blocked out to be as effective as it could be. There's no real sense of where different pairs of characters are about each other or how much time is passing during/between each of the different fight sequences, which results in a chaotic yet also kind of boring mess of random scenes that doesn't endear us very much to any of these new Cadets.

Thankfully, the episode picks up in a big, bad way once it narrows its focus on the fight between Fighter D, Fighter XX (in disguise as Renmaru), Kai, and Blue Keeper. It's refreshing to focus on one specific spot in this parking garage for once, and there's a much greater sense of danger, what with how Blue Keeper is taking so much glee in his attempts to torture and murder XX. Up until now, all of the Cadet Games stuff has felt way too separated from the life-or-death stakes of Peltrola's assault on the compound, and it has been hard to be otherwise invested in the "Who will be accepted as an official Ranger???" aspect of the plot. Blue Keeper's arrival brings those two halves of the arc together and gives Fighter D something more interesting to do than wrangle a bunch of tiny keys from people, which I am all about.

Plus, further developing Aizome, Blue Keeper, and XX brings back some of that awesome world-building we've missed out on while stuck in the parking garage abyss. As obviously corrupt and dangerous as the Keepers have proven themselves to be, Peltrola and XX remind us that the monsters and mooks we've been rooting for on behalf of Fighter D are still villains. The more complicated and messy the world of G!G!LR! becomes, the more compelling Fighter D's journey will be. You won't catch me complaining about that.

Rating:

Go, Go, Loser Ranger! is currently streaming on Hulu in the United States and Disney+ in other regions.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.