Choujin Sentai Jetman Episode 2 "The Third Warrior" Review

In honor of the July release of Pacific Rim and August release of Gatchaman, I will be doing reviews of each episode of Chojin/Choujin Sentai Jetman.

The second episode falls where the first one left off, searching for the remaining Jetman and hoping for a more powerful team than the first outing. The conflict between the Ako and Kaori; Ryuu and Gai was interesting. I would have found it interesting that they had made one of the Jetman not join the team. Although the storytelling of the show is great, it is not that fancy or unpredictable of a show. I wonder if some of his loner personality was put into Dillon of Power Rangers: RPM albeit his reason was more concrete, SPOILERS ALERT being the only hybrid on the show, although Go-onger had an interesting Black as well. However, how effective can that plot device be if you have him on the intro for the show in costume?
The episode establishes the very campy directed approach that Toshihide Wakamatsu had to pull off straight in the show, always winning with incredibly unlikely hands against incredibly unlikely hands making very unlikely situations without actually showing how he beat his opponent in a kid friendly un-auteurish show, This made him very memorable for better or worse.
Speaking of which, the theme of the episode was money and competition.
Gai beats a lady in a game of five-card poker before courting her. He then beats up a man who accuses him of cheating.
Ako then wants to be bribed to participate in a sports competition before mentioning saving the world.

Having the servant show up for Kaori adds a certain dimension to the show that Super Sentai shows would learn to adapt.
Gai shows no attraction to Kaori this episode, which is understandable as his conflict was Ryuu was the episode's purpose.

What I found odd was that the episode before Ryuu made a big deal of his girlfriend's death. This episode, he just talks about saving the world. Maybe it was a time issue or a retcon correction to his selfishness, but it seems very odd for him to change motivations in between episodes.

Again, although this show is not as auteurish as say a Christopher Nolan film, one must admire the fact that they again use the Commander to travel by plane like a Jetman to contact Jetman. Imagine the speculation people must have for the possibility of her having Birdonic Waves.

On a final note, Gobusters could have learned from this Ghostbuster attack, opposed to their arbitrary weaknesses.