Red Sentai Isekai Ep 1 Review: Kizuna Red Sanjou!

After the success of Fuuto PI, we’re picking up on the Toku anime wave with a new series this season: The Red Senshi Isekai and becomes an Adventurer! Toku-themed anime isn’t a completely new thing, as we have several such as Borgman, Shikizakura, Chouja Raideen, and Netflix ULTRAMAN, but their numbers are very low, so more series with similar heroic theme is always welcome. And furthermore, thanks to being anime, the series can polish many tropes familiar to Tokusatsu series without the constraints of real life special effects, and especially the giant robots.

The initial setting is quite standard, with the Super Sentai featured being a very stock-standard Sentai series. We got an evil organization, we got a team of brave people from various walks of life, we also got a theme for the team, a kick-ass robot and theme song, etc… Basically they could have made a 50-episode anime series with this Sentai theme. But the series focus is on the Red Senshi – more specifically, after he sacrificed his life to finish the final boss. Afterwards, he was transported to another world with magic and monsters, and of course – no Sentai. Well, the gimmick is his power is still working in this world – meaning he can transform, summon his weapons, as well as his Zords. So it’s essentially not one of those “cheat skill in another world” but rather he brings his power over, although in the new world, his skills are also very cheat-like lol.

And also, this anime really embraces the Sentai villainess’ seductive look – but they applied it to the heroine of all people lol. The heroine is a mage – with a very large hat to distract viewers from…other big things. Well, she’s one of those characters who are very pure in motivation, which only aims to help better the world and life for her people. I find it kinda funny that her butler is literally named Poseidon – god of the sea lol. And Mr. Red Senshi even confused it with Sebastian which is the stereotypical Butler name in Japanese media. She’s also not very forthcoming at all, so Tougo’s – the Red Senshi – very straightforward and pushy attitude is too much for her to handle lol.

Also, the series kinda skipped over the “initial” period where Tougo just arrived at this world, and made it so that he has familiarized himself with the basics here, as well as learning that he can still use his power here. It’s definitely simplified A LOT of explanation, and yeah they just went “well, he’s a Senshi, he should be able to figure it out, or just push through with sheer willpower”. And Tougo is definitely your standard gung-ho warrior. He pushes on relentlessly without fear. After hearing Yidhra’s dream, Tougo immediately makes that his priority and vow to make it come true.

In this episode, we also get to see Tougo fight – basically an initial demonstration of how a Senshi would fight in a Tokusatsu series. He show off his own transforming device and sequence, as well as his personal weapon. It’s quite funny when he transformed, the area around him exploded and blew Yidhra away. It’s basically poking fun at Tokusatsu special effects and take it seriously for once. I reckon there will be more of these gags from now on. I know the manga is already out much further but we’ll do a review with the perspective of a fresh viewer. And there’s a lot of things that can only be seen on anime.

And one of them is the Maximum Kizuna Kaiser. I can tell they put extra effort on this because this is one of the fan drawers for the series. As a manga, it is really hard to convey the awesomeness of mecha, and it doesn’t feel the same when you can’t see how the Zords combine in motion. Well, the anime takes care of that and give us a glorious combination sequence for the Kizuna Beasts, completed with a badass theme song from none other than Akira Kushida – a legendary Toku and Mecha singer. The Maximum Kizuna Kaiser basically act as the highlight for this episode – pulling an Obari pose, then perform a Hissatsu Hou attack.

As a first episode, the series did a good job setting up the first steps for Tougo and Yidhra. Just like other Super Sentai series, the first few ep is to establish the characters, with their basic personality, and then slowly building them up over time. Since we will probably only focus on 2 character this season, it should have plenty of time. And furthermore, we’re here to see Super Sentai shenanigans in a fantasy world, as well as how the traditional heroism apply to this society with a different set of rules. Looking forward to more bonding!

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