Go! Go! Loser Ranger! Season 2

Episode 21

In “Here Comes Fighter D!”, the pacing doesn't quite feel like we're suddenly skipping entire weeks' worth of material; instead, the result is more like taking the stories from several episodes and cramming them all into a single sitting. This is, if you are willing to really stretch the definition of the word, an “improvement” over what Go, Go, Loser Ranger! has devolved into throughout Season 2. We have a story that is comprehensible enough, and characters that I can at least identify and follow. Does any of this mean that the show is good, again? Oh, goodness, no. It's merely somewhat less bad.

Still, to give credit where it is due, at least there is a plot this week that kind of holds together: Unable to decide whether he should take on the Keepers or the Monster Protection Society, Fighter D ends up squaring off against both when two MPS members inherit fallen Boss Monster Powers and trap everyone in a crazy, psychedelic obstacle-course dimension. On paper, that sounds like a storyline that would follow the massive and rushed revelations of the past few weeks.

In practice, none of the episode's story beats can land all that well, because neither the story nor the character elements have been given enough time to simply exist. Oh, sure, Ukyo and Jiji get a bunch of last-minute backstory that explores what might get two regular people to stick themselves with a bunch of Reanimator fluid and transform into hideous monster hybrids, but it doesn't carry any emotional weight. The same could be said for all of the developments we get for Yellow Keeper, the Divine Artifacts, and how Yumeko ties into everything. You could have easily devoted an entire episode alone to just showing us how Yellow Keeper's quest to obtain the unlimited power of the artifacts led to him playing god with a bunch of disposable human clones that look an awful lot like Himeko, which would explain why she is so dead set on destroying this organization. Instead, it all just amounts to a few more stray scenes tossed into a giant, disorganized pile.

Then there is the problem of the titular antihero himself. I love Fighter D, and I get why the show might be trying to emphasize how his inner conflict is rooted in a refusal to choose a side and define his identity in service to anyone else. At the end of the day, what we have is a main character who feels like an extra in his own show, at this point. The single best opportunity to give him some material to work with comes with the confrontation he has with Angel, who still doesn't know his identity as her former comrade. This is, again, a concept that could easily use a whole episode to flesh out and properly explore, since it represents the root of F.D.'s whole character arc. We don't get that. We just rush through scene after scene, furiously checking boxes in a list of story beats that G!G!LR! is legally obligated to adapt in record time.

The sloppy and weightless storytelling is made so much worse by the show's production values, too. Like I said last week, mediocre animation is something I am willing to tolerate when a story good enough to pick up the slack, but since we all know that the scripts for these episodes are being tossed into wood-chippers and rearranged randomly by unpaid interns, it is impossible to ignore the fact that this anime is just ugly to look at. There's no personality to the character animation, no vibrance to the setting, and certainly none of that tactile and vivacious spirit that makes tokusatsu so fun to begin with. I wish I could be more positive about Go, Go, Loser Ranger!, lately, but I don't think I'm alone in feeling like it's become work just to power through this mess so we can get to the end.

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Go, Go, Loser Ranger! is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+ on Sundays.

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