Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patoranger (2018)

I admit I am not a fan of newer sentai series because its so obvious that they aim it more to kids. For example the ending songs/dances or the repeated themes like ninjas, animals, dinosaurs. There was something about Lupinranger vs Patoranger which was this vs concept that they tried out. Yeah it's been reported that this show did not reflect well at all in terms of toy sales which is their main target but to me my purpose to watch super sentai is not for the toys but for the enjoyment of the show in other terms like the plot. This show was not the best I have ever watch nor it was not the worst thing ever but it was a good show.

Story: The motive for an usual sentai team is that people gain the power as a ranger then they use it to defend the world from monsters. It's simple but it can get worn out and become bland. Now for the lupinrangers, they have an interesting motive to why they are lupinrangers which is because they need to gather/steal these collection pieces from the ganglars(monsters of the show) in order to make a wish so that their loved ones can return alive again from a tragedy that happened. See for the lupinrangers it's not really about destroying the monsters and protect the world although it happened just a bit, but they just want to take the collection pieces and flee. It's something different and interesting for a sentai team to do and you wonder if they would continue to be lupinrangers when they gather all the collection pieces because their goal is done and they don't have to be lupinrangers anymore. Let me say that this show was heavily more focused on the lupinranger in terms of about everything. The Patorangers are a police team, they protect the world from the ganglars and arrest the lupinrangers. The Patorangers are more of the normal sentai team. The addition of the 6th ranger Noel was another new interesting idea because hes a member to both teams but again is more on the lupinranger's side. I like the guy, he has a good personality but his backstory was lacking.
The lupinrangers have the best characters and I was cheering for them. Each of the three have good backstories. Although I wished they could have done more a bit with their backgrounds. Now to the Patorangers, they were shafted in this show. I couldn't really care for them except for Keiichiro because he played a key role to Kairi. The other two weren't focused well enough to make me care for them. The Patorangers were mostly used as the comedy characters. Something interesting during the show was how would these two teams interact with each other. Sure enough the Patorangers were just good customers to the lupinrangers cafe. Only Kairi and Keiichiro had a good interactions from the two teams and was the best relationship from the two teams. I thought the Umika and Sakuya pairing was a bit dumb especially for Sakuya's side of liking Umika it wasn't explained well. My favorite relationship of the series was Kairi and Umika sharing a brother/sister relationship. I even liked that episode of when Umika's dad appeared.
A big part of this show that kept you watching was the reveal of the lupinrangers identities and let me tell you I was let down of how they did it. I think they could have don it better or heck not even do a reveal since the patoranger knew by the end who they were. Maybe they could have build some small side characters that were friends of the lupinranger like there was this neighbor lady that knew Umika but later on was never shown again. If they still went with a thieves reveal, it should have been done around episodes 30-39 to build an plot of the lupinrangers being on the run. I am glad that at the end they stayed to the vs concept with both sides not becoming one team but still competing against each other. The story of this show was very good but not perfect.

Acting/Cast: The actors of Kairi, Keiichiro, Umika, and Noel stand out the most. I do think that they could have added more minor side characters like older people as friends to the lupinrangers.

Music: The main reason I actually watched this show was that the opening song was so catchy to me. I was already hooked to this show because of the song. The opening song is a duet of two songs by different artists and its so catchy. I also liked that this show didn't have an ending dance/song because of how more serious this sentai was. Lupat's opening has become one of my favorite sentai opening songs ever.

Re watch value: Hmm this series did have lots of filler episodes and I only enjoyed one of the sentai teams but I may one day re watch this series but it won't be on my top priority list.

Overall : I thought that this vs concept in super sentai was something new and interesting to do and would love for them to do another series like this. I think this is one of the better sentai seasons. I wish more sentai series would focus more of reality/life in the shows with the characters. It could have added a bit more to this show. This show is good at its characters and the plot is simple, different, and interesting. If your not a fan of the more childish sentai series then this is a good sentai series to watch.

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Mild spoilers ahead.

Everything the show did well:
-The 6 Main Rangers are all very likeable characters.
-Battle choreography is consistently amazing.
-Very good cast of actors, the 7 rangers have ton of charisma.
-Pretty great soundtrack.
-The conflict between the Lupinrangers and Zamigo help their stakes feel real and make them more endearing.
-Some episodes can be pretty funny.
-The dynamic of having a kinda morally ambiguous team alongside a good-two shoes team is interesting.
-The show has lots of style that makes it stands out aestheticly from other Tokusatsu.

Everything the show did bad:
-While the overall cast is likeable, the show has favoritism towards the Lupinrangers. The Patrangers get shafted most of the show and barely get any upgrades. It ultimately ends up mostly wasting the dual team dynamic.
-The rivalry between the 2 teams feels very forced since it mostly stems from the Patrangers killing every monster they encounter rather than arresting them or even interrogate them which they only did twice in the show. This is especially grating if you've seen the other 2 cop Super Sentai where they actually arrest their monsters and only kill them if they've been properly judged. This overall makes the story feel very draggy.
-While the 7th ranger Lupin X has ton of charisma and it's pretty likeable initially, he fractures the already flawed team dynamic even further.
-Lupin X whole character arc and the truth behind Lupin comes off as kinda uninteresting since it feels very detached from the goal of the other rangers and the villains, plus it really never felt like something the other rangers would be opposed to him after the reveal. All of this ultimately makes him a pretty unlikeable character by the end.
-The villains are pretty boring for the most part because their actions feel very detached from their goal of world conquer as most monsters just do whacky low-scales crimes which makes the fact that the Patrangers don't arrest them feel even weirder. Again, this feels more unacceptable if you've seen other Sentai shows since a lot of them manage to make goofy monsters while also making them feel like a world-level threat. At least the writer got it right with her later show Zenkaiger.
-The villain generals barely get any backstory or even a chance to do something interesting after the first quarter.
-The main antagonist Dogranio despite having an entertaining personality, feels boring overall because he barely does anything on the show and we're only given his backstory at the very end and only via dialogue.
-While Kogure manages to do some interesting stuff with his disguises, him and the rest of the sidecast from both teams are mostly not relevant nor interesting.
-Despite LupinBlue being a likeable character overall, he isn't as likeable as the other five because the writer kind off sucks at writing a straight man character, but granted this is mostly a nitpick.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Producer Utsunomiya wanted to make an even more different team dynamic than the one from Kyuranger. Action Director Hirofumi Fukuzawa wanted to make the show even more stylish than the previous cop Sentai Dekaranger, so he went more all out than usual. Main writer Junko Komura is really good at choosing lead actors for her script. The pilot made by Sugihara had a very cinematic feel, so the following directors had to keep the momentum of the first 2 episodes to make the show feel consistent.

Reasons for the show's flaws:
Main producer Utsunomiya was afraid that 2 teams would be alienating, so requested that the villains were closer to standard Sentai. There's nothing particularly wrong with this approach but main writer Komura did a really generic execution of this idea, which ultimately resulted in the monster of the week format being worse than usual. Also she has the issue of focusing on only a few characters which doesn't make that good of a fit for Sentai since it's a team-based series. On top of all that she probably focused more on the Lupinrangers because in an interview she said she was scared that the Patrangers would feel too similar to the other 2 previews Cop Sentai shows. Other possible reason for the show focusing more on the Lupinrangers was that according to Utsunomiya the reason why he chose Junko Komura again so soon was because prior the animal theme for Zyuohger he considered doing thieves (That's how he phrased in the interview but I assume more that he means that there was going to be a thief plot point in Zyohger since other interviews indicate that Komura was chosen after the animal theme which is usually the standard for writers in Toei Tokusatsu), so he wanted her to use some of the ideas she couldn't do. So maybe she had a lot of plans for the Lupinrangers due to this but not as much for the Patrangers.
Ultimately this show would result in Utsunomiya being demoted due to releasing two consecutive financial failures, while the show's quality was definitely a factor, most of the fault is on the toy designers making pretty bad toys rather than the show's staff which makes this feel kinda unfair.

Overall:
For everything this show did right, it felt like it did something wrong. The overall storyline comes off as boring past the first arc, and the cast focus is kind of muffled. However, the actual direction of the show is great and the main 6 cast members are really likeable which keeps the episodes from being straight up bad in spite of being dragged down by the villains. Overall, the show felt average to me, but if you like the characters enough I could see it being a good time for other people, just don't go in expecting the Patrangers to get the same level of treatment as the Lupinrangers nor a particularly deep plot.

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