Recap: Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger, Episode 2 – Global Police, Chase After Them

The Lupinrangers and Patrangers battle while also not forgetting about Garrat Nargo. Kairi stops Keiichiro from finishing off Garrat who manages to sneak away.

The Lupinrangers hop into their Dial Fighters and fly off. But the Patrangers also hop into their Trigger Machines to chase them down. The Patrangers learn how to handle their new vehicles as they go, but are able to keep up with the Lupinrangers.

That is, until Keiichiro tries to hop onto Kairi’s Fighter. He falls in the water instead.

Back at the bistro, the Lupinrangers wonder why the police have Lupin Collection items. Umika tries to stay positive, but the guys aren’t so optimistic. Tooma says it has to be them that defeats the Ganglers.

Kairi returns to the wharf which is now a crime scene hoping to find some clues about Garrat. He sees Keiichiro speaking with the people Garrat stole from and promises that they will defeat the monster and bring him to justice.

The three Lupinrangers, separately, flash back to one year ago. Kairi is upset with his older brother and shoves him to the ground. He walks ahead of him until he hears his brother scream. Kairi hurries back and finds him seemingly frozen in ice. As Kairi approaches the ice block, it shatters and his brother disappears.

Tooma also encounters several frozen people, including a young woman with an engagement ring. Umika is at a mall and sees Shiho-chin and other passengers shatter before her eyes. She sees a strange hat-wearing, whistling person walk past.

As each of them three try to process what happened, Kogure approaches them with VS changers, explains the Ganglers and offers them the task of collecting the Lupin Collection for his master descendant of Arsene Lupin who would then grant their wish of returning their loved ones.

Any wish can be granted using the power hidden in the Collection.

The three of them come together at the bistro and vow to bring their loved ones back, even if means one or all of them die in the process.

Garrat starts rampaging downtown. The Lupinrangers show up first and hope to take the treasure before the Pats arrive. The Lups morph and do a roll call.

They are able to hold Garrat to give Kairi enough time to take his Lupin Collection. The Pats arrive, morph and roll call as well.

The Pats and Lups fight off Podamans first. Kairi hears Keiichiro reiterate his promise to defeat the Ganglar. That seems to endear him to Kairi a little and he goes to help Keiichiro with some Podamans before stopping Tooma from shooting at him.

Umika joins them on the rooftop as Kairi says it’s time for them to go since they’ve got what they came for. Tooma doesn’t fully understand, but he follows Kairi and Umika as they pop off. He asks Kairi why he stopped him from taking out the cop. Kairi just says the Lupin Collection get was more important.

Sakuya asks if they should pursue the thieves, but Keiichiro says the Ganglar takes precedence. Podamans charge at them, but the Pats merely order them to stop and get in formation. That allows them to systematically destroy all the Podamans.

That leaves only Garrat. Sakuya gets a case out of the car and a new Lupin Collection piece: GoodStriker. When Keiichiro sets it in his VS changers and the three of them somehow combine into PatRan Ugou.

The three of them shoot a One Hit Strike and it finishes off Garrat’s first life. After, they realize they’ve fused.

Dogranio Yaboon tells Goche Ru Medu to give Garrat another chance. She pops into the human world and uses her treasure to embiggen Garrat.

The Lups hop into their Fighters to take on the embiggened Garrat.

Suddenly, the GoodStriker removes itself from the VS changer and flies to Kairi and offers to help.

Kairi welcomes him inside and sets it into his VS changer. The GoodStriker embiggens and it allows the Lups’ three Fighters to combine into Lupin Kaiser.

The Pats separate back into their own bodies. In the cockpit, a puppet-thing pops out of Kairi’s console and introduces itself as GoodStriker, a Collection piece.

Together, they are able to finish off Garrat with a barrage of different attacks.

Back at the bistro, Umika suggests they call GoodStriker “Goodie” instead. Goodie thinks that’s fine.

Just then, three customers walk into the bistro.

The Pats! Umika hides Goodie in a pot.

Episode Thoughts

Okay. So that cliffhanger is kind of funny because you know the Pats are only there to have lunch or something. lol

Anyway, this was a good second episode. A little bit more world building, or really arsenal-building. The Pats learning how to use their mecha on the fly was a good way to introduce them to us as well. Otherwise, the rest of the weapon and mecha introductions were pretty standard Sentai.

What wasn’t standard though was the increased use of CGI action sequences.

I believe it was Dino Force Brave that Toei really went all-in with CGI for the first time. Of course, the CGI mecha battles there make sense for the lower budget and condensed episode length. But I’m not really sure what the budget comparison is for CGI scenes vs. live action scenes of mini-cardboard cities getting blown up.

Anyway, I actually very much enjoyed the CGI mecha battles on Dino Force Brave. I remember when people were shocked a couple of years ago when it first announced that they’d even use CGI at all. I think it was even announced that the mecha battles would be fully-CGI, but they never were until Dino Force Brave. With LuPat, it was about 90% CGI and it allows for some fresh, creative action sequences.

At the same time, the chase scenes at the start of the episode felt like a little too much. It was almost reminiscent of the CGI clusterfrak final battle sequences in some Kamen Rider Movie Wars. You get bombarded with loud visuals, non-stop for a couple of minutes. It can get overwhelming. The mecha battle later on also started to feel the same way, but it ended at a good time.

It will be interesting to see if they continue to do the same amount of CGI moving forward. Again, it’s very refreshing and they can get creative with it. But as long as they don’t do too much and overuse it, it’ll be a nice change.

I’m not sure how I feel about Goche Ru Medu being a Naria-type of character. Fawning over her master and basically only existing to embiggen monsters. Of course, Dogranio Yaboon doesn’t seem to be as depraved as Ginis, so that kind of lessens the idea of Goche Ru Medu being only some kind of subservient slave. Hopefully the show really builds up her character, especially with that apparent rivalry with Destra Maajo. I hope for a vibe similar to the Shadow Line in ToQger. It would be great to see a season-long battle between the two and any other general that might pop up later.

Speaking of ToQger, Ticket obviously comes to mind when Goodie pops up. I love Ticket, so Goodie’s got some huge shoes to fill. Interesting creative decision there though to have Goodie also be a puppet of some sort. Oh, sorry. Ticket is not a puppet. =)

I very much enjoyed the Lups and Pats switching off at the beginning in who they faced off against. It was fun.

The theme song is also very cool and creative, using that mash-up technique thing to blend together two different songs. I wonder if they’ll release the separate versions of the songs.

The fresh camera angles also help bring something new to the series. They’re also increasingly using drones for many shots.

The little glimpse at the Lups’ past and seeing how they came to become LupinRangers with the help of Kogure and his mysterious master of course was good. I wonder where the frozen people have disappeared to. I hope they’re actually somewhere, being held or something. I’m not too keen of bringing people back form the dead. I blame Kamen Rider Ghost for rendering death meaningless. lol But I don’t know that I’d want to see that here either. It would be better if the ice people were “somewhere” or turned into some kind of energy or something instead of just being completely, fully dead.

Also, PatRan Ugou is very strange. I don’t know how to feel about that one. Very awkward. lol

Overall, a solid second episode. I’m not 100% sold yet, but there continues to be lots of promising things about the season.

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