Category: Ranger Reject

Welcome all, to another episode of Ranger Reject! This week continues the exam, revealing the true secret behind it and driving our cast to conflict, meanwhile in the background a greater threat is beginning to arise. Pretty ominous right? Well lets dive in and talk about it!

Starting with the test itself, the reveal that this wasn’t actually designed to test pairs of two but full teams of five was really interesting. Suddenly a seemingly impossible test designed to fail everyone instead becomes a measure of leadership, team work, and judgement on who you team up with. I still wouldn’t call it perfect, the way Ranger Reject presented it last episode was still very flawed, but this episode was a valiant recovery and may end up saving the arc for me. Shion’s betrayal despite everything Fighter D did for him yesterday, the way Fighter D is slowly building up his team of rejects to steal back the keys they need, as well as everything else going on in the background, was all around pretty good. It still suffers a bit from pacing, but not nearly as badly as the previous episode.

Continue reading “Ranger Reject – 7 [The Zigzag Road to the Final Exam!]” →

Welcome all, to the halfway point of Ranger Reject This week is another fast one, blazing through content in way I’d rather Ranger Reject didn’t. That’s right, this is another 4-5 chapter episode, meaning we have a lot to talk about and not all of it is good. Lets dive in!

As I said, this episode moved fast and covered a lot. Ranger Reject was running a mile a minute this week as it speeds its way through the Final Exam. And you know what? I can’t say I’m particularly happy about it. We went from just meeting these people, these other cadets, to immediately getting thrown into a big exam where most of them are probably going to fail. The exam itself also serving as our proper introduction to the 2nd-in-commands of the various squads as they act as the “obstacles”, letting us meet characters like Hisui properly. This kind of sucks, because I was hoping we would get more time training and getting to know this large cast of new characters. That the final exam would be the climax of the season rather than the mid-point. Maybe Ranger Reject can make it work? But I’m starting to worried.

Continue reading “Ranger Reject – 6 [1 Plus 2 Equals… Threat!]” →

Ranger Reject is back everyone! Sports may have stolen our episode from us last episode, but I think that breather did the series good because this episode was much better than the previous one. Not perfect, and we’ll talk about why, but it’s nice to see Ranger Reject back on the upswing. So without further ado, lets dive into the episode!

So starting off, Ranger Reject slowed down a lot this week it felt like. Last episode we covered 5 or 6 chapters I believe, and you could feel it in the episode. We sprinted through content that, if we’re being honest, needed much more time to explore. And it looks like that’s what we’re getting this week as Ranger Reject circles back around on Hibiki’s past, how he got here and what his plans were. In fact, the only major issue I see with the episode is the sheer size of the cast it’s introducing. We got like… 9 new characters this week, none of which I’m going to bother remembering until they actually do something. Not because of any stubbornness on my part, I just have no idea which ones will end up being interesting so it’s up to Ranger Reject to make them worth remembering.

Continue reading “Ranger Reject – 5 [Fighter D, as a Part of ‘Ranger Force’]” →

Welcome all, to another week of Ranger Reject. A lot happens this week, not all of it necessarily good, so lets skip the pleasantries and dive right into the episode!

Starting off, this was a really fast paced episode, and not necessarily in a good way. Ranger Reject covered a lot of ground, 5 entire chapters from what some friends have told me, and there were a lot of concepts in this episode that don’t feel like they got the attention they need or deserve. Take the Rangers and their power structure for instance. We get a small scene early on revealing their 2nd-in-Commands, as well as an introduction to the idea that the Rangers can be replaced and how little they care for each others lives. This was our chance to really dive into the internal politics of the Rangers, to show us they weren’t a unified force, using Suzukiri as our point-of-view character. Instead it’s a rather quick scene only showing us how ruthless they are, something we really already knew.

Continue reading “Ranger Reject – 4 [The Soldier With Love, Hibiki!]” →

Welcome all, to another week of Ranger Reject! I know, Black Lagoon isn’t out yet, I promise it should be out tomorrow. I have it done and written I’m just collecting screenshots and re-reading it now. My delays aside though, lets dive into our weekly Super Sentai show!

The episode picks up right where we left off, with Fighter D plotting to steal the Divine Artifacts. What’s surprising though is that Ranger Reject actually goes and does it right away. Seriously, I expected some kind of infiltration and intelligence gathering arc or something first. A delay of some kind where he gets to know Suzukiri better, learns about his enemies and formulates some kind of plan. But no, Ranger Reject says fuck it and has him march in the front door the next day. After all, because of the Sunday Showdown they already know when the Rangers won’t be home. So why not? Honestly, it’s kind of refreshing. Pacing was a bit fast, maybe could have been handled a bit better in spots, but it was memorable, kept the shows energy up, and was better than dragging it out for 3+ episodes. Good job!

Continue reading “Ranger Reject – 3 [Our Evil Will Bloom, Someday]” →

Welcome all, to the first post of the Spring season and the first full-coverage show of 2024! That’s right, I enjoyed Ranger Reject so much that I wanted to promote it to full coverage. Will I be able to keep up with it? When I’m already behind on so much else? Probably not, but by god am I going to try. So without further ado, lets dive into the episode!

First up, lets take a closer look at Ranger Reject’s production. Visually, I still think it’s rather strong. Maybe it doesn’t move the best of the season, and the CGI we get isn’t as well utilized as say… Girls Band Cry. But I think Ranger Reject has a good understanding of color, pacing and posing. Stuff like Red Ranger’s “fight”, the showmanship of it, felt right out of a Super Sentai show, which makes sense considering its roots. My point though is that Ranger Reject is doing a good job of bringing that to animation, of not forgetting where it came from even as it seeks to deconstruct it a bit. Other than that, the OST is pretty hit or miss, often not fitting the scene it plays over. Which makes the OP being pretty great, definitely one of the best of the season, rather surprising.

Continue reading “Ranger Reject – 2 [Go! Fighter D!]” →