So, this episode was something else. It had no Ouji whatsoever. In fact, none of the recurring characters aside from the color rangers even made an appearance. There also was hardly any comedy and it actually was really focused at telling a serious story here. It’s an excellent change of pace for just one episode, especially considering how next episode the hilarity is surely promising to return with the reappearance of Baseball Guy.
Now, something obviously was missing in this episode, but even so the story it told was quite good. It was a bit simple, but it fitted quite nicely within just twenty minutes, and it made good use of the Color Rangers in a setting completely different from an RPG parody (plus it actually fitted in some development for the spiked hair guy). It had very typical bad guys, but even they were just more than evil for the sake of being evil, and were quite successful at creating some tension.
Also, I’m surprised to see some actual karate used in the action scenes. You could actually see that that the two kids practice the basics a lot, and they really got the basics down. At the same time though, you could see that they didn’t have much experience in actual fighting against a partner: their movements were a tad too neat and slow; in a real fight while using karate, you’ll always see people sacrificing clean techniques in favour of being able to move fast enough to actually be able to hit your opponent. This time the kids were lucky that they were helped by their powered suits.
In any case, this episode was the weakest of Level E so far, and yet I still really liked it. This show has always had the problem that it was nearly impossible to live up to the absolutely fantastic first arc, but even considering how the subsequent arcs were a step back it still had plenty of stuff to like.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
I kept waiting for the mermaid to turn into Ouji, since they looked so alike ^^;
Uh yeah don’t think this would’ve gotten anywhere near this rating if any other show did the exact same episode.
Boring premise, predictable execution. – for me.
It was a cute episode…but yo the mermaid killed those guys DEAD and the kids just let her??? LOL
No comment on the neat visual touches? For shame!
The mermaid’s tail was weird.
I think the first arc feels best because it got element of surprise: Now that we know that Prince is a massive troll, we are just wondering how he will troll.