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ANIME ActionGo! Go! Loser Ranger!
MANGA ActionGo! Go! Loser Ranger!

REVIEWS

• 

  RandomPerson9348

  50/100
  How The Mighty Have Fallen

  __-Spoilers for all of Season 2- __

  Loser Ranger was one of the absolute stand-outs of Spring 2024. A slickly animated and stylized first episode that instantly grabbed you with its ‘Power Rangers meets The Boys’ aesthetic and did not let go for a while. Sure, the second half slowed down and dragged just a little - but you still got some insane payoff by the end. Not to mention the absolute banger of an opening by Tatsuya Kitani that was the cherry on the top.

  So, it was only logical to look forward to something that would be even better than that when Season 2 rolled around. The first episode pulls you right back into the world and its craziness, even if the distinct style and tone it had back in its first season is gone. No more interrupting texts, no more fourth-wall breaking humor that genuinely works, no more gorgeous animation. But at the very least the story was still as strong. For…right about three or so episodes.

  The school time loop arc starts showing the major cracks in the adaptation of this season with the middling direction and less than acceptable editing. Even if it has some really good set pieces and visual ideas, the issues are so jarring that it is difficult to digest. For example - take a look at the scene where Fighter D starts realizing who the real boss monster is. It plays with the whole trope of repeating a few seconds over and over again to slowly build up to the reveal. But the completely tone deaf cuts probably make it the worst version of such a scene I have ever seen. It goes on forever, does not put you in the mind of the character and has zero build up of momentum as it goes on.

  Once that comes to an end, however, you are in for something worse. The next episode ends with Green Keeper finding out that Fighter D is Sakurama. And then instead of building up on that for even a second, the next one jumps to a completely different plot line with the Red Keeper “dying” for absolutely no reason (like, seriously, that is never brought up again and has no actual effect on the plot). What follows is an actual fever dream.

  The Ranger Force loses trust, gains trust, loses trust and then gains trust again as the Monster Protection Society rises. And, oh, did I mention Usukubo is the daughter of its head, and that they are planning on becoming monsters? Oh, and Hwalipon is helping them. Oh, no nevermind, Hwalipon is an evil boss monster. Oh, Daddy Usukubo pulled a Euphy and turned a stadium of humans into monsters. And now regular members can turn into monsters. And some of them can turn into boss monsters. And here’s lore for the Dragon Weapons. And Suzukiri is a Dragon Priestess. And there are a million Suzukiris. And now she has formed a Suzukiri cult. And Hisui is…what is she even doing, honestly? XX is with Peltrola? No, she is now against him. Sakurama (real) is a good guy? No, he is kinda ambiguous now. The Rangers are the enemies? No, we’re cool now. Sakurama dies? No, his sister dies. No, wait, she does not die either and is fine despite having her neck slashed. Fighter D is fighting the monsters, then he is fighting Tokita, then he is fighting Usukubo, then he is fighting the tiny Blue Squadron girl. Oh, now he is teaming up with Hisui to fight the big bad. And now…Usukubo loves him?

  Did that give you a headache? Well, I’m sorry if it did. But that is exactly what watching the season felt like.

  There is zero cohesion to any of these plot lines. Things just happen because they need to, not because they are correlated to each other. Season 1 had points like these as well, but they were used sparingly, and rather cleverly to maintain a certain uncertainty that increased the threat and horror brought by the Dragon Keepers. But because of how easily they appear in Season 2, they seem to carry no weight any more. The Red Keeper goes from being the Homelander of the show to an actual joke who takes the tension away from a scene instead of bringing more in - without any character development.

  The many, many random flashbacks of random characters really want you to feel the emotions they are feeling at that given moment, but it is not easy to pull that off. And the show never does pull it off. It is a jumble of storytelling that wants to tell the tale of a minor apocalypse caused by the savior complex of a human driven mad by love, but never ends up achieving it because of how little connection you have to these characters. Seeing the Keepers be the villains for most of the show, and then slowly building them up to demonstrate their individual strengths and stories could have made the final sequence where they come together to actually save the world for once an incredible payoff, but we get a mostly-boring action sequence with slightly better animation and zero actual emotion instead.

  I could go on and on about just how much of a misstep in terms of pacing this season is, but I’ll probably end up repeating myself over and over. The main point, I think, has been put across. There is nothing holding the second half of this story together. Nothing that you can actually see progress and develop, paired with characters who are more like two-dimensional caricatures being forced to be at points of mental development with no buildup. It is nothing less than chaos, and not in a good way.

  It is an absolute shame that this is how this is where the trajectory of this story took it. A lot of potential squandered because of a rushed arc that had no place so early on this show’s life cycle. I’ll watch Season 3 if they decide to make it, but with tempered expectations. All is not lost, since the soft reset at the end of 2 can give time to course correct and start over. All we can do is hope that lessons are learnt and mistakes not repeated.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  patkarunungan

  30/100
  A promising anime marred not just by a bungled adaptation but also by its own contradictory premise.

  Spoilers alert

  'Go! Go! Loser Ranger! Season 2' is supposed to provide clarity for Season 1, which, whilst promising in its premise, is ultimately riddled with ambiguity because the characters are morally grey. They have competing motivations that cannot be pigeonholed into simple good or evil, and that's why, even after several episodes, you are still lost on whom to support or where the direction the story is going.

  I gave Season 1 the benefit of the doubt and gave it a 6, but Season 2 left me seething with anger. Much of the negativity stems from how the anime rushed in its adaptation of the second half of the season. More specifically, after the school arc, it is widely believed that it has turned to something unflattering. And that's why some even recommend that you drop the anime at this point and start reading the manga.

  It's a fairly reasonable critique, and it is infuriating if you find the source material excellent only to be butchered by the anime adaptation.

  In this review, I will focus on two phases of the anime: 1) during the school arc, and how even then, I am less than thrilled with what's happening; and 2) post-school arc, where everything has become a turd and undermined the message of Season 1.

  ---

  § School Arc - Overview

  This is where Fighter D, who is disguised as Sakurama Hibiki, joins Hisui Kanon and others to investigate the disappearance of certain individuals and whether this is connected with a boss monster.

  ---

  § School Arc - Notes

  Whilst this arc is dull, everything about it is still consistent with Fighter D as an undercover. The one thing I found good with this arc is the backstory of Hisui Kanon, who came across as constantly angry in Season 1 and thus unlikable.

  As I said in my review for Season 1, this anime doesn't explicitly identify who the enemy is. Even the boss monsters, who have long lost contact with and should be on the side of the monster army (of which Fighter D belongs), have an agenda that might also be inimical, even to the monster army itself. That's why whomever Fighter D sides with is quite fluid.

  This ambiguity can be both its strength and weakness. It's a strength because of how this anime/manga deconstructs the sentai/Power Rangers genre, so that it's different. Instead of heroes, the rangers here, known as Dragon Keepers, seemed to be the villain and represents any government, especially an evil government, engaged in propaganda and blinding the citizens to what the world actually is.

  On the other hand, it's also a weakness because you're still on the fence about who to support. Of course, the viewers should side with Fighter D as we see him as that character with agency and a rebellious spirit, but you can't be sure who he should side with. Unfortunately, this weakness is made manifest in the second half, where it reportedly deviates from the source material.

  ---

  § Monster Protection Society Arc - Overview

  The Monster Protection Society aka Invader Rights Association, seemed to be on the good side as the people behind at are against how the Dragon Keepers have actually won against the monster army and that they are actually oppressing these monsters in a sham show every weekend. (It's like how certain governments don't totally eradicate their rebels, but keep some or even fund them so that there's an endless budget for maintenance and even acquisition of new equipment for the military. It goes without saying that taxpayers continually fund this sham, and we're not even mentioning the casualties in this conflict.)

  Their publick aim is to have a peace treaty between the Dragon Keepers and the monster arm, but their private aim is much more sinister. They want humanity to feel the pain of monsters by turning them into monsters themselves.

  ---

  § Monster Protection Society Arc - Notes

  One character whose arc is wasted is Suzukiri Yumeko. Her seiyuu made it sound as though she is borderline psychotick and might become an anti-heroine as she gathered divine artefacts of the Dragon Keepers. She had an ulterior motive, or it seemed to be so, and Season 1 hinted at this possibility.

  Instead, she became a forgettable character in Season 2. Her promising role in the narrative only ended on a broken promise. How she was barely given screentime is not even cited as one of the tragedies in this omnishambles. Of the few times she was given screentime, her potential as a major character was dashed. Perhaps she will have a bigger role in the manga, but the fact that Season 3 is unlikely to happen makes it truly tragick.

  Anyway, the biggest blunder that this Season does is how contradictory its message is. The Dragon Keepers were initially presented as the bad guys, an allegory of how evil the government is, as well as the media as an ideologickal arm of the state. Although they were revealed to the publick as arseholes, you can't help but be disappointed at how Season 2 presented them as a necessary evil, that they are only preserving order.

  This idea of keeping the publick in the dark regarding the existence of boss monsters and how they oppressed the monster army for their weekly charades is a form of paternalism. Worse yet, it is consistent with the detestable ideology of neoconservatism. It's possible that the mangaka did not have these in mind, but that is the implication, making me infuriated.

  Even worse, Fighter D became complicit in the maintenance of the status quo.

  ---

  § Conclusion

  'Go! Go! Loser Ranger! is a promising anime because of its deconstruction of the Power Rangers / super sentai genre, and it seems to also be critiquing people's sense of hero worshing. Alas, this promise has been broken by Season 2. This is why I am giving this a score of 3 out of 10 and marking it as not recommended.

  NOTA BENE: A grade of 3 out of 10 (or 30 out of 100 in anilist) means that I did not enjoy watching this anime despite being either well-regarded or at least popular, or perhaps I happened to rank them below my 4's but above my 2's.

  My enjoyment spectrum lies from 4 to 10. If I have scored an anime below 4, I actively dislike it.

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