Please note: This post may contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.
In recent years, each Super Sentai series have been experimenting with different things, such main teams consisting primarily of robots, having the first ever male pink, and an entire series where it takes place mainly on an alternate version of Earth to name a few (there are too many examples to list), and now were onto the 48th Super Sentai series, and the fifth series in the Reiwa era. Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger aired its first episode yesterday (or the day before, depending on your time zone). For this series, the head writer is Atsuhiro Tomioka, who has worked on the Pokémon anime series since the beginning, and while this is his first time working on a Super Sentai series, he was head writer in a tokusatsu series before, in particular, K-tai Investigator 7. The main director for the series is Shojiro Nakazawa, who was previously the main director of other Super Sentai series, such as Juken Sentai Gekiranger, Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger and, most recently, Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger.
Taiya Hando, a "delivery driver", abducts Mira Shifuto from her wedding after being forced into an arranged marriage, and ends up in a pursuit. They then encounter the Hashiriyan, an alien mafia gang who invades Earth to gather the screams of humans as their energy source known as Gyasoline. During a visit to a clothes shop, after Mira got into a change of clothes, Itasha uses a Hashiriyan Ignition Key to turn Mira's wedding dress in to a monster called Wedding Dress Gurumar. After Taiyo promising to get Mira's wedding dress back, using the Boonboom Changer, he transforms into Boon Red. Taiya's informant, Ishiro Meita, takes Mira to get to the airport to complete their "delivery", but on the way, Mira decides to "take the wheel for herself", and chooses to fight alongside Taiya, who gave her a spare Boonboom Changer. Ishiro and Mira then transforms into Boon Blue and Boon Pink respectively, and the team comes together to defeat Wedding Dress Gurumar. After their battle, Mira breaks up with her actual boyfriend (who ordered the "delivery"), and chooses to stay in Tokyo and become a member of the Boonboomgers, much to Ishiro's disgruntlement, but Taiyo didn't mind, as the job was done, but it was "re-routed" to the Boonboomgers.
Looks like we're off to a strong start with the series. The premiere focuses primarily on Mira, and already, we're seeing a little bit of characterisation coming from her, as at first, people always make the decisions for Mira, but a fed up Mira has had enough of it, eventually deciding to make her own decisions before joining the Boonboomgers. Not only that, we see her try to blend in to the team with two already experienced members, Taiya and Ishiro. Plus, her reactions to the whole situation regarding the Boonboomgers and the Hashiryian was priceless.
While Taiya and Ishiro don't have as much focus on this episode, I'll be looking forward to how things progress with them in due time. We also get brief appearances of Jou Akuse (Boon Black), a police officer who's one of the victims of Wedding Dress Gurumar, and Genba Bureki (Boon Orange) admiring Taiya's customisation of the latter's car, indicating that Genba already knows Taiya. Interesting to see how it develops. Of course, we can't forget about Boondorio Boonderas, or Boon Boon for short. His first scene shows him making curry at the team base without a care in the world. But often, he's a hyped-up fireball of a machine, and Rica Matsumoto embodies the role perfectly.
We also have a fun group of villains in the Hashiriyan. Consisting of Dekotrade, Itasha and Yaiyai Yarucar, we see them causing mayhem on the roads while pursuing Taiya and Mira, and at the same time, funnily enough, respecting traffic laws when it comes to people crossing the road on a traffic crossing before resuming their pursuit. One other stand out moment from them in this episode is when Dekotrade and Itashi, while initially confused about what's going on, are rooting for Yarucar when they (I don't know the gender of Yarucar) are trying to stop the Boonboomgers from preventing them from making Wedding Dress Gurumar into a giant.
Following the heavy usage of giant screens and green/blue screens (mainly the latter) for locations in Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger, we're finally back to doing outdoor fights on a regular basis, and we're treated to some excellent action choreography in Boon Red's debut fight. For the suits, I really like that they're going for a racer-style bodysuit, with a seatbelt-style belt, complete with the buckle. At first, I wasn't quite keen on the helmet, particularly the wheel and alloy, but once I saw it in action, the helmet designs really grew on me.
As for the mecha action, I like the Highway Space setting, which kind of reminds me of the Rainbow Road on Mario Kart (I don't know if this is an intentional reference). The cockpits for each mecha is a mixture of phsyical elements and CGI/green screen, and at first, the CGI elements have looked so real to me, I thought the whole cockpits were real. Impressive, to say the least. As for Boonboomger Robo itself, it's an okay design, although I did like one particular feature from Boonboom Off-Road. The Bakuage Driver, which acts not only as a sword, but as a screwdriver, to unscrew the bolts from the giant Gurumars.
A few known voice actors for this one, for the voice actor enthuisasts. Boondorio Boonderas (as mentioned earlier), as well as the equipment, was voiced by Rica Matsumoto (Satoshi/Ash Ketchum in the Pokémon series, Arthur G6 in Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman), Dekotrade was voiced by Junichi Suwabe (Victor Nikiforov in Yuri on Ice, Absolute Tartarus in Ultra Galaxy Fight), Itasha was voiced by Nana Mizuki (Tsubasa Kazanari in Symphogear, Pxycholon in Super Hero Taisen Z), Yaiyai Yarucar was voiced by Sumire Morohoshi (Emma in The Promised Neverland, Kyōka Izumi in Bungo Stray Dogs) and the monster of the week, Wedding Dress Gurumar was voiced by Masaharu Satō (Buffaloman in Kinnikuman, Khan Digifer in Gridman the Hyper Agent).
Overall, the premiere of Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger has been strong throughout, with exciting moments, brilliant action choreography, and a great introduction to some of our characters. Hopefully, they'll keep it up in future episodes. While people have said that the series takes a back to basics approach, I wouldn't be so sure yet, as this is only the beginning of what's to come.
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