7 Thoughts About Kyuranger Episode 15: "The Savior of the Ocean Planet, Vela"

Well, not every episode can be a winner...

1.) We kick things off with Balance having discovered the location of the remaining three globes they need to find the legendary ship Argo.  They quickly pick out which of the two they want to go for first, but...well.  The reasoning is suspect.  Still, if we're being honest: the team hasn't really been in a bind that they didn't immediately discover a way out of, so I guess it makes sense that they treat this more like a vacation than something serious.  Jark Matter's really going to have to turn it up in the next two thirds of this series or they're going down as the least threatening villains since Gokaiger's Space Empire Zangyack.

2.) This guy actually had a pretty ingenious plan.  Rather than make his presence known to the natives, he decided to turn himself into a self-styled protector that the people could worship as he saved them....from his own Jark Matter subordinates who would attack regularly, be "defeated", and then later share in the food offerings the native people make to Gonessy.  It makes sense, as you learn the guy isn't very strong at all, he's just smart enough to know that and take advantage of it.  And it all works until a young girl of the tribe he's been terrorizing, Martha, discovers him.   We'll get into why that's silly a bit later.

3.) This episode's far more interesting B-plot sees Champ and Stinger try and chase down Scorpio, and even though not much time is given to that story at all, we do learn something about the make-up of Jark Matter's hierarchy, and get to see a new development in Scorpio's story.   First, Stinger explains that Jark Matter is a *big* fan of promoting within, explaining to Champ that typically they choose someone within the system to run it.  This suggests that perhaps Scorpio chose to run his system in order to "protect" it, thereby saving it from a potentially worse ruler.  That's if they choose to go down the path of making Scorpio a good guy.

Second, we see Madaako again and she's attempting to work under Scorpio with the intention of avenging Ikaagen.  This is cool because I was hoping she would long out live her partner, and also because I've got this feeling she'll eventually "reform" and I like when I'm right.  Yay narcissism!

4.) The true point of this week's plot was to give some background on Hammy's past, as we learn she was a very shy, soft-spoken girl until one day she saw Jark Matter invade and spoke up in order to save her village.   In story this is meant to give the native girl who saw the "truth" of the planet's "savior" some courage, but it really just left me wondering why we couldn't just visit some of Hammy's people to get this story instead of going to a planet that had nothing to do with them and then tying it to one character's development.

5.) Gonessy's plan to continue getting free fish and being worshipped by the natives is to have the young girl who saw him get offered to him as a "sacrifice" in order to silence her.  And that makes sense, but...this scene doesn't.  If his plan is to keep her quiet, I cannot imagine why you'd allow her to have any last words.  Well, there is a reason why they keep knocking around Jark Matter so easily I suppose.

6.) Lucky Update: This week, Lucky's good fortune causes him to attempt to blast Gonessy to mimic Hammy's cool ninjutsu techniques (probably the least impressive a ninja in Sentai has looked in my memory), but Gonessy deflects it...only for the blast to land on a whale, who promptly surfaces and drenches the Jark Matter associate in water.   The sad (or hilarious, depending on how you look at it) thing about it is, this is by no means the most ridiculous thing he's ever accomplished.

7.) Next Week: Awwww yisss.   Stinger vs. Scorpio in a showdown for the ages.  I'm betting Champ is all but useless as a fighter for this match, as nothing has indicated he's leveled up properly.  Still, it's been fifteen episodes coming so I hope we get lots of time with these two interacting, and maybe even learn why Scorpio betrayed his people.