Go! Go! Loser Ranger! Season 2

Episode 19

Sometimes, when you're an anime-only viewer of a show that is trying to cram as much of its source material into a given season as it can, you run into those episodes that make you suddenly feel like you accidentally skipped a week and missed out on a whole lot of critical material. This is an unfortunate but understandable evil of the adaptation process; there is only so much time and energy that a crew can commit, and sometimes material has to get cut to stick to the hard limits of a production schedule. What is unfortunate about “We Are the Monster Protection Society” is that it doesn't just make the unsuspecting viewer feel like they missed an episode between last week and this one; rather, the result gives the impression of jumping over and around multiple episodes, and some of those breaks happen smack in between scenes. Maybe the titles for the previous chapter and this one should have been swapped, because I was seriously lost in confusion.

Some of that confusion comes from elements of the story not being communicated very well, or being so rushed that you have no time to make sense of them in context. After Fighter D and Yumeko's humiliating failure to assassinate Dragon Keeper Green last week, you'd think there would be some consequences to their identities being blown and their true intentions being displayed for several of their enemies to see. Instead, though, Chidori just kept Fighter D. around as a lark—even though he is still actively trying to finish up his murder plot, and the events of last week are barely addressed at all. I could maybe excuse that as a funny and appropriately nonchalant way for a guy like Chidori to handle the problem, but what about Yumeko? She can waltz around the Yellow Keepers' base and keep mucking up their operations without anyone being the wiser, because…she wants to, I guess? Then there is Angel's sudden resignation from the Green Keeper Squad, which eventually gets explained… once we get to the post-credits stinger. Until then, you can only guess what motivates the character after she randomly stumbles upon that kid's ID card in the middle of the monster mess she helps to clean up.

Most of the confusion generated by this episode is tonal confusion, because so many seemingly world-shattering events take place in just a dozen minutes or so, and there is no time to take stock of any of it. For one, that Hwalipon guy has been sowing enough discord and discontent over the Keeper's lies and hypocrisy that all of society is just raring to turn against them—which is the sort of shift in status quo that you'd think we'd spend more than a couple of scenes digging into. Then, in a truly crazy turn, Fighter D. manages to murder the ever-loving bejesus out of the Red Keeper by accident in the middle of the episode. And he gets away with it.

There's already a mystery brewing about the stranger that the team immediately uses to replace their departed leader, so I'd bet money that there's something more going on here, but even if the Red Keeper's death is a fakeout—or even a meaningful stepping stone on the way to a solid payoff—there had to have been a better way to pace out the season so that Fighter D's victory feels like anything. Even if the anticlimax is the entire point, it feels sloppy to just shove the scene into an episode that also deals with Angel's defection to the Monster Protection Society and the crumbling of the Dragon Keeper's power over society.

The real shame is that, on paper, a lot of these developments are brimming with potential; I just wish the execution was handled better. It is, funnily enough, the exact opposite problem that I had with the first season. Back then, I was begging Go, Go, Loser Ranger! to pick up the pace and get us out of that Recruitment Arc. Now, I wish the show had the good sense to slow things down and tell its story without tripping itself just because it can't wait to get to the good stuff.

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Go, Go, Loser Ranger! is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+ on Sundays.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.