©春場ねぎ・講談社／ 「戦隊大失格」製作委員会
Okay, before we get into this week's episode of Go, Go, Loser Ranger!, I need to complain about a couple of localization/subtitle issues specific to Hulu's release of the show United States:
#first. The only subtitles are closed captions, which is inherently annoying because I have enough time to follow along as I read the dialogue in a new episode without having to remember the sound effects and ticks. Verbal occlusion is taking place. On top of that, for whatever reason, the captions couldn't decide whether to attach a last name or a first name to refer to the characters speaking, which made me even more confused when I remembered to call out all the new Apprentices What the hell is this!
#2. There's a pronoun-based joke in this episode when Fighter D is chatting with Komachi and accidentally switches to his more natural, aggressive way of speaking. Here is how to translate this sentence into English after Komachi teases FD for fear of arguing with Shion: “What? Ore? I mean, boku? No way!”Remember, I actually added italics to the Japanese pronouns; Now imagine how confusing that exchange would be for anyone watching without my kindergarten-level understanding of Japanese! Why is this line translated like that!?
I don't know what's going on at Disney+/Hulu, but between these bizarre errors and the fact that the subtitle tracks keep being programmed at the wrong time, the Mouse House needs to find a solution if it wants to continue operating. active in the anime streaming business. Or better yet, Disney can stop trying to compete with companies that actually know how to localize, market, and distribute anime! Some things to think about, right, Iger?
Anyway, I suppose I should now properly start discussing “The Twisted Road to the Final Exam.” Unfortunately, this week's episode of Go, Go, Loser Ranger! shares many of the problems I had with the final chapter of the story: It presents a messy “exam” story with unclear parts and too many new characters that remain undeveloped—and moments Short on interesting world-building and exciting action that could've made up for the overall sloppiness that plagued the entire product.
On the plus side, Shion is portrayed a bit better as we learn that he, like Hibiki, lost his family to a Boss Monster attack… even though he completely disappeared from the previous episode when the movie has time to do anything interesting with that development. The reveal that the Boss Monster is still alive is also very clear, but the way it's handled feels completely separate from the ticking clock of the entire exam story: We get two minutes when Lord Petrila shows up. shows up to rescue Warrior XX and kill some guys, and all it leads to is a big, fat “To Be Continued…” that could easily be saved for next week.
Warrior D's bond with the other “loser rangers” of the Cadets is also a good direction for the story to take, but it happens so quickly that we end up missing the moments that could have been better. out seem more important than they are. Like, isn't it a much bigger deal that Ranmaru, a character we barely know, knows about Fighter D's true identity? Do the other eliminated people he's working with know? Why doesn't D care? Were there any important scenes I missed while I was distracted by Hulu's terrible anime streaming?**
By any means, this isn't a terrible episode, but even if we ignore the technical issues, the material itself can be as rough as a dog in a maudlin family movie starring by Tim Allen circa 2006. I really hope Loser Ranger! Let's end this quiz storyline soon because I feel like we're starting to lose track of what made the show fun and interesting in the first place.
Rating:
**NOTE: Literally a minute or two after completing this review, Hulu Support reached out to me on Twitter to explain that they don't have any internal localization teams which relies on documentation from the “content owner”. I think that's an interesting explanation, although I don't know if that means the subtitles/captions are done by some other Disney entity (since they own the worldwide distribution rights). world, as far as I know) or if it was made by a group affiliated with one of the Japanese companies involved in production. Either way, there's clearly still some quality control lapses going on somewhere. Hopefully things will improve in the coming weeks (although I wouldn't hold out much hope if I were you).
Go, go, Ranger loses! is currently streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in other regions.
James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other popular cultures, which you can also find on Twitterhis blog and podcast.
