Go-Busters 02 released

[takenoko]

Oh, I guess this is a silly even year series after all. My one weakness... no candy... and chickens!

I guess the backstory is kind of interesting. Oh wait, I guess it is pretty silly that the kids and the scientists just happen to be at the center on Christmas.
Edit: Wait what? You don't have time to escape, but you do have time to inject your kids with computer shit so that they can fight Skynet when he comes back to this world? ???

I like blue since he genuinely seems like the older brother type to yellow and red's antics. Red is surprisingly unlikable and he hasn't really done that much to justify it. Maybe the series will be about how his personality causes him to fail and learn from his mistakes? Right now he's like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory.

Youko spends a lot of the episode kind of angry, but her reasons seem pretty justifiable. The sunglasses are still pretty retarded, but in the transformation and the regular suit. "Let's run 6 feet and then throw them away."

I guess the small and big enemies of the week are going to be separate entities. That's interesting. They haven't really done that since Deka. It's kind of nice to not have the big guy always be the resurrected version of the little guy.

Edit: Let's talk a bit more about why the glasses as fucking retarded. First, the regular glasses. It's really cheesy because it draws attention to how Go-Busters is a kid's show. It's a completely artificial way of doing "coolness". This could never happen in the real world because people don't put their glasses on only to take them off. At least in Men in Black, the sunglasses have a functional purpose. In this, it seems like they just have a disposable sunglasses dispenser. Unless you're CSI Miami or trying to do a deliberate parody, don't do this sort of thing, it's distracting and takes the viewer out of the believability of the show.

So in this episode, Ryuuji transforms, but Enter catches him before he can put on his helmet glasses. Why? Does this create tension? Without the glasses, is his suit not fully powered? Like the sunglasses, they do this because it's supposed to look cool. But it doesn't because it's super impractical. Again, the viewer isn't given any reason to think that the act of putting the glasses on the helmet serves any purpose, so it's distracting and takes the viewer out of the show. If the device can create a full body suit, it can create the glasses too.

Oh Hollywood vaccines. Vaccines don't work that way! Hmmm, so if normal humans can't survive teleportation, does that mean everyone in the Center is dead? Because it does sound like Hiromu plans on saving their parents at some point. Unless he's promising to restore them to being normal humans?

Gotta love the way Ace impales the Megazoid with his sword, and there's a line of swords just ready for transporting back at base.

Wait, the good guy's mecha are called Megazoids too?! <Slaps head>

Just to be clear, I do like the conflict between Youko and Hiromu. It's just that their characters haven't been developed enough to make either of them very likable in the same way Ryuuji is.

Another thing that has always seemed odd to me about Power Rangers was giving the members special powers. I mean, it's a double-edged sword. If you give them too much powers, it makes their suits redundant. A lot of the time, in Sentai their special power was just to transform in the first place, and any special powers they had was due to having those suits. If they had special powers, it would be limited in some way and didn't obviously obsolete their ranger suits.

So how does Go-Buster do? Well, they've definitely got special powers. Ryuuji bends metal at the beginning of this episode. (Wait, how does a program give them super-strength again?) Then later on we see that Hiromu can teleport and that Ryuuji is using his super strength to lay waste to the bad guys. They defeat all the grunts before transforming because of the Metaroid. I guess the leather coat protects them from fire? But no wait, Hiromu doesn't even get hit by the fire, he just teleports away like he did untransformed. He's an X-man! Ryuuji... his arm gets big, but he's basically super strong like he was earlier. And I guess Youko punches really fast? My point is, the suits don't add anything.

For further proof, go back to the beginning of episode one. The first time they're under a hail of bullets, they transform by running into the gun fire. This either means that they can afford to be shot before the transformation is complete, or that they're so fast the the bullets are totally harmless to them. Youko does get hit by a bullet as she pauses to let the transformation finish, but it's deflected. It's not terribly done, but it is a criticism that can be made.

Amazing! http://countzaglasses.com/

[zeldAIS]

Hiromu / RedBuster must have read this comic that he freezes every time he sees chickens - http://www.alanguilan.com/sanpablo/elmer/about.html

[Arigomi]

I guess the backstory is kind of interesting. Oh wait, I guess it is pretty silly that the kids and the scientists just happen to be at the center on Christmas.
Edit: Wait what? You don't have time to escape, but you do have time to inject your kids with computer shit so that they can fight Skynet when he comes back to this world? ???

The lab must have been on lockdown to prevent the Vaglass from escaping. They probably only had enough spare Enetron to teleport the kids and Buddyroids outside. The rest of the Enetron was used to teleport the entire lab into the subdimension.

The backstory doesn't leave much room for any latecomers to join. This year might be focused on a small team.

Another thing that has always seemed odd to me about Power Rangers was giving the members special powers. I mean, it's a double-edged sword. If you give them too much powers, it makes their suits redundant. A lot of the time, in Sentai their special power was just to transform in the first place, and any special powers they had was due to having those suits. If they had special powers, it would be limited in some way and didn't obviously obsolete their ranger suits.

One possible explanation for the suits is that they help to deal with their weakness. Ryuuji's suit probably has a built in cooling system so that he doesn't overheat as easily. Youko's suit probably helps her burn less energy to do the same tasks. Hiromu's suit probably pumps him with sedatives or stimulants if he ever panics. Of course this is all just speculation. I'm just making this stuff up off the top of my head.

The evacuation scene is very similar to how these situations were handled by past super sentai.

I'm reminded of the Gummi Bears cartoon every time they toss the sunglasses. In the Gummi Bears cartoon, they would chug Gummi Berry Juice from a glass bottle to gain temporary bouncing powers. It always bothered me when you heard the sound of glass breaking as they haphazardly tossed away the empty bottles. One of them could have ended up with a butt full of glass shards as they bounced around.

[takenoko]

Hmm, maybe. But a superhero whose special power is ambiguous or needs justification by the audience might just have an uninteresting special power. Let's cheat and see what their profiles on TV-Asahi says they do. Hiromu: Both his calves give him super speed, allowing him instantaneous transportation. Ryuuji: Both his arms are really strong. Youko: Her legs give her super jumping powers. Her legs are strong.

So at this point, the suits appear to be armor and that's it. At worse, it's a disguise to protect their identities... oh wait, Enter has seen their faces. So it's not that. I dunno, the point isn't that this ruins the show. It's just that it comes across as one of those things that got thrown in there without any thought put into them. "Of course they have super powers and they morph, that's what Power Rangers does." But usually super heroes have a reason for putting the suit on. In the past, it's because the suits made them stronger and fight better.

Batman could probably go around fighting crime without his suit, but he has a reason for putting the suit on. That's where he keeps his utility belt and it hides his identity. He doesn't go around as Bruce Wayne with his utility belt on. The Go-Busters do have a uniform before transforming that has their Transpod thing on there already.

It's fine if the suits do nothing more than make them look cool and gives them added protection. But at the same time, it's not as important for them to transform because they have all the abilities that they need to fight without the suit. If Tony Stark could fly, had super strength, and fire energy bolts without his suit, then built an Ironman suit, people would be like "Why did the creators do that? He has all these powers, the robot suit is redundant."

It doesn't break the show, it just comes off as poorly thought out.

Oh man, the Gummi Bears opening song, oh man. The Gummi Bears opening song.

[Go-On Macaroni]

"Vegeta, what does the scouter say about the cockpit's temperature level?"



Sorry, couldn't resist doing that.

[PHurricane]

I really like the lyrics to the OP theme. They seem very informative. The ED theme is okay. The way it blends character scenes and dancing reminds me a lot of Tao from Gekiranger.

I don’t mind the special powers since they explained them fairly logically, within the framework of the story. Actually, I think it’s more accurate to say I don’t mind the weak points. Freezing, crashing and low battery life - it’s clever how they’ve taken computer weaknesses and applied them to humans. The special powers aren’t tied in quite as well. But if you're going to have weaknesses, I guess you better give them a benefit to serve as a counterbalance.

As for the glasses issue, if the Go-Busters and the enemy are part computer and they all wear sunglasses, maybe their eyes are super sensitive? I kind of doubt it, since they didn’t explain that along with the rest of the weaknesses, but I’d like to think there’s a real reason for the incessant sunglasses wearing (and subsequent throwing).

The suits...I’m drawing a blank on the purpose too. Maybe to keep their identities a secret from the general public, who might freak if they found out how young the people protecting them are? The female operator was surprised by their real identities in episode one. (Or maybe that’s just because it was their first suited mission.) And I know she’s just serving as the mechanism to give the audience a lot of exposition in a short period of time, but that female operator is hilariously normal and rational with her questions and observations.

I’m warming up to the team pretty quickly. Ryuuji is definitely the easiest to like so far, and it’s fun the way he looks at Hiromu and Yoko like younger siblings. Hiromu is just obliviously blunt. He wasn’t trying to insult Yoko, but did it anyway because he wasn’t being sensitive to her feelings either...and she was deliberately looking for the most offensive meaning of his words possible. She strikes me as being more spoiled than Hiromu, even though that’s her complaint about him.

Here’s the thing - I think we’ll eventually learn that the Go-Busters were a huge mistake. The scientists probably vaccinated the kids and teleported them back to the real world because they wanted to save them from being trapped in the sub-dimension, not to be trained as fighters. The Commander even admits that, with the Center Chief missing, they didn’t know the details of why they did what they did. Otherwise, it’s incredibly illogical to ship three- and seven-year-old children off to fight a computer virus bent on taking over the world.

[takenoko]

Don't get me wrong, my complaint about powers outside of suits is a broad complaint in general. If I were to specify it to Go-Buster in general, I'd be wondering why Hiromu doesn't spend all his time teleporting (sorry bike!) and why Youko doesn't spend all her time jumping everywhere. It's not a broken structure, but the supports are lacking at this point.

I can understand why Youko wouldn't like Hiromu though. While she and Ryuuji were training to be Go-Busters, he basically was away all this time getting special treatment. He arrives like a stranger, has a terrible personality, and gets special treatment. We know that her attitude isn't terrible in general since she doesn't treat Ryuuji this way. I dunno, I just feel like I get where she's coming from.

The Commander was the traitor all along! I knew it!

[toni2212]

Messiah just pronounce itself as 'watashi'. Kind of expecting 'ore'.

In 2 episodes, they already throw 10 glasses away. A lot of budget for that?

A reference to RPM, where Messiah/Venjix was accidentally created by the Ranger system creator. Still too obvious. heh.

A question for this episode is: Since Ryuuji crashes if he overheates, wasn't it a bad idea for him to get close to something that burns and heat things up? I can only think of cartoon logic here.

[bobgoesw00t]

In 2 episodes, they already throw 10 glasses away. A lot of budget for that?

I guess so. I'm pretty tempted to keep count of how many glasses they throw away during this season's run...it should be VERY INTERESTING to see how many time they do it xD.

[archer9234]

Guys think out of the box. They aren't blowing the budget on glasses. Those are the same pairs they keep throwing. Unless they break. They are reused. There's probably a pad or a person catching them off camera. As for their powers not being used out of fights. Super heroes tend to not bother using their powers all the time. You don't see the Fantastic Four always using there powers to do menial tasks. She-Hulk takes the train like everyone else, to get to work. But could simply jump around the city etc. It's also a limitation for them too. Yellow would waste even more candy. Blue would overheat more often. But the powers making the suits redundant, totally yes. This was a big issue in PR. Now they are a logic issue in Go-Busters. Especially if they get forgotten overtime.

[Lunagel]

Shh, spoiling our fun.

[CeronosLive]

Edit: LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. Skimming posts sure is smart!

[locuas]

so they have super-powers? like in the disney-era of power rangers!? it is possible they will bring more odeas from disney? then you know this season will be great!!(hehehe...please somebody kill me...)

Anyway, about the suits, the suits are ARMORS, they always have been. they were in shinkengers, Gekiranger, etc. they probably are designed to, as was already said, to aid them with their weakness, at the same time as it protects them from their enemies. about the helmets, they are to protect the head.

Hey? the villains trying to stop a ranger from transforming? that's something nice to see.

I liked the fact that wasn't just the "novice" who was unable to fight and Yoko was the one who made a mistake.
I liked the mecha fight, but i preffer episode one.
About the parents doing that to the childrens, as they said, we don't know the details and could only transport 3 persons besides the buddyroids. i mean, i don't think it was a simple decision to do, but, at the end, they decided to do it just to let them live...it's actually a hard thing to decide, if they didn't do that, the kids would have died, if they did it, the kids would have some day to fight them. My only question is: why the sister wasn't there?

I guess the backstory is kind of interesting. Oh wait, I guess it is pretty silly that the kids and the scientists just happen to be at the center on Christmas.

why? if you look closely, during the flashback, in the car, there are presents, it's not that strange if they had a christmas party there.

[Catastrophe]

I love the number of spare giant robot swords they had sitting around.

And chickens? Hopefully that gets explained somewhat.

[Niek]

I think the only interesting part in this episode is the backstory. This episode (and probably the rest of the series) has a lot of questionable things, but then again it is a sentai series.

The weaknesses were really lame, especially in execution. Youko acts all normal without any troubles until she gets into action and then suddenly she cannot stand upright anymore due to lack of energy. No offense, but with any battery there is a graduate decrease in energy. You will notice the low energy levels long before you get to a run out. Especially when it is a human battery that results in hunger. She had to show signs by getting unstable and weak in the knees. Hiromu's weakness is even more ridiculous in execution, as it has been shown twice already. Each time he was frozen in an unstable position. Gravity should have pulled him down to the ground. Instead he keeps standing upright, as if he is frozen in space as well as in body pose. But how come the robot can lift him up and drag him over to the action. And wtf is wrong with chickens. I think these weaknesses are added now, but they will be forgotten and no longer mentioned later on.

The super powers. I have to agree with Takenoko in that they diminish the suits. Yes they are armor, however in episode 1 Youko and Ryuji were running into bullets before the armor even appeared. But if the audience has to make excuses for something then it is bad story writing. However I must say that the super powers remain even if they are in suit. Unlike power rangers where the super powers dissappear once they morph.

I must say that I am not impressed by the show yet.