2016 Sentai Zyuohger Episode One Review

The first episode of 2016 Super Sentai, Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger (some other spell as Jyuohger) is broadcasted last Valentine Sunday February 14th 2016. The first English fansub also uploaded days after, enable me to quick review on this new series.
SPOILER ALERTS

The episode title is "Dokidoki Dōbutsu Rando" (どきどき動物ランド) with Wikipedia translated as "The Bustling Animal Land". The writer is Junko Komura, he write two episodes for Goseiger and one for Go-onger. His main works were in Gokaiger, which is a good series we all know. With this info, we expected high for the story writing part.

The opening song is simply titles as Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger by Hideaki Takatori. The music incoporated a lot on "jungle" choruses, added more uniqueness to the show. The style is J-Rock as usual very much Super Sentai feel.

Right after the opening song, we got to introduce with Yamato Kazakiri (風切 大和 ) actor by Masaki Nakao (中尾 暢樹 ). He is our red ranger and profession as Zoologist, also a Zoo tour guide. The main story revolved about his mysterious cube. The back story flash about his encounter with mysterious character who given his this cube, a potential backward story we going to see in Zyuohger.

mysterious cube to open up the mysterious portal link

portal door to...

Zyuland.... and first encounter with the other four main character from Zyuland

which to be disturbed by the main villain...Deathgaliens

beautiful Zyuland in cube shape theme

first monster of the week and the foot solider design, which is quite nice and muscular

original zyuohger henshin process

2016 Super Sentai, Zyuohger 

Blue Zyuohger, shark

Zyuoh Green - elephant power

Zyuoh yellow - Lion

Zyuoh White - tiger

and the late arrival Zyuoh Red , the only human who gain the power from Zyuland

Naria, the main female villain

as with many other previous Sentai, we no longer have female human form villain. Oh why Toei? You take out the fun seeing hot female villain in Super Sentai

the robo cockpit design for Zyuohger, all using cube navigator steering

nice idea

Zyuoh King design with cube shape and pixel ornament

TOEI going to harvest lot of toy income with this cube idea

interestingly, the main human form of our sentai team only shown near the end of episode 1, the first of this kind in Super Sentai tradition. This is LEO, play by actor Shohei Nanba 南羽 翔平. He must be our warm and cheerful Yellow ranger character

the two female ranger are Sela セラ (柳 美稀 Yanagi Miki) and Amu アム (立石 晴香 Tateishi Haruka), We haven't known how are their character development yet

 

obviously our cold character is Green , Tusk タスク  (渡邉 剣 Watanabe Tsurugi)

The ending game is guess the cube mini game for Japan TV viewer. Overall, very promising premise and premiere episode. Hopefully Sentai fans can get their redemption after mediocre performance of previous 2015 sentai, Ninninger. Episode two going to be aired February 21 2016, titled "Don't Underestimate This Planet Kono Hoshi o Nameru na yo" (この星をなめるなよ).


Zyuohger fan sub english download by Over-Time