The cast
I can't actually read Japanese, so someone will have to help me with this! I'd like to know who plays the rangers in both teams as well as the supporting characters.
Kyosuke/RedRacer : Minoru/GreenRacer(Hey, it's my namesake!) : Naoki/BlueRacer : Natsume/YellowRacer : Yoko/PinkRacer : Captain Hoshino Gorou/OHRed : Lieutenant Mita Yuuji/OHBlue : Lieutenant Yokkaichi Shouhei/OHGreen : Lieutenant Nijou Juri/OHYellow : Lieutenant Momo Maruo/OHPink : Dappu : Miura : Signalman :
Plot
The Carranger fight SS Sutatanza who is trying to get cars to run away from home using a special gasoline, but with the help of Signalman, his plot is foiled. Then spotting what appears to be a Borzock, but is actually Bara-mobile(the last surviving member of Baranoia), Kyosuke and the others are led into an encounter with the OHRangers. Bara-mobile convinces Kyosuke that UAOH (United Airforce Overtech Hardware, organisation that OHRangers belong to) is evil which leads to an explosive battle between the OHRanger-robo and the RV-robo. Will Kyosuke realise that Bara-mobile is wrong or will one of the teams destroy the other? Click here for the full plot.
Review
Due to this being my first actual encounter with sentai, I can hardly compare it with any other sentai. As a stand-alone viewing, though, this is enough to make me want to go and get more videos. I actually watched this several times in one week, which means it must be good, since I tend to watch something once, sometimes twice, in one week before it gets put on a shelf and left there for a year before being seen again. The apparently feature-length episode of Carranger (it has a series-like title sequence) is probably typical of Carranger. My favourite character is quite possibly Kyosuke, particularly in the way he and Chief Miura interact. Chief Miura's apparent love of anything that goes 'BOOM' shows in the way he treats Kyosuke during training. If Kyosuke does something wrong, Miura is seen to be brandishing a weapon (I especially love the bit when Naoki is eliminated from the training where Kyosuke annoys Miura enough for hime to be brandishing some super gun). The pace rarely lets up even during the training, but where Kyosuke gets to when the Carranger-piloted OHRanger-robo arrives at Baribarian is beyond me. I'd give this a preliminary 9/10. Keep it up, Toei!