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... to give this one the benefit of the doubt.⏎ James Beckett ⏎ Rating: 4 ⏎ One thing I occasionally have to remind folks of is that I call out all of the crappy isekai anime ⏎ that come out every season not because of the fact that they all fall within the same genre ⏎ tropes and cliches, but because so many of them are freaking godawful. When something that ⏎ sticks to a tried and true formula is also good, I'm more than happy to give it its flowers. Case in ⏎ point: The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in a Another World is charming, funny, ⏎ creative, and entertaining throughout the entirety of its premiere episode. Also, it's a riff on ⏎ Super Sentai, so I'm basically obligated to like it on a personal level. Zordon would never forgive ⏎ me if I were to betray my beloved Rangers. ⏎ Yes, we all have those particular styles and genres that just speak to us on such a fundamental ⏎ level that we're bound to enjoy anything that does a decent job of representing them, and I'm a ⏎ fanatic for anything operating in the tokusatsu realm. Yes, I prefer my toku to be live action, ⏎ since that's the only way you can appreciate the clash of plastic toy weapons on oversized, ⏎ rubber-monster bodysuits, never mind all of the gloriously excessive explosions and superpower ⏎ name callouts. Still, when an anime does a good job at poking fun at the decades' worth of in- ⏎ jokes and references that franchises like Super Sentai and Ultraman have accumulated, I'm ⏎ going to be a happy camper. My favorite aspect of The Red Ranger Becomes and Adventurer in ⏎ a Another World is that our hero Red brings all of the tokusatsu magic and absurdity with him ⏎ into the new fantasy world he gets isekai'd to, and the show has a lot of fun using this stylistic ⏎ class to spoof both genres at the same time. ⏎ Unlike most of his meager, potato-y competition, Red is a protagonist who is possibly too full of ⏎ energy and personality, though it makes sense, since his whole shtick is being the leader of a ⏎ relationship themed Super Sentai team that is very literally powered by friendship. I love the ⏎ joke of his toyetic weapons being themed over any kind of bond that a person can have, such ⏎ as his laser blaster that has firing modes all based on marriage puns. This doesn't just make ⏎ Red a fun character to inject into an otherwise by-the-numbers RPG world, but it also gives his ⏎ whole story some much needed purpose and direction. Yes, he needs to work with his new ⏎ mage pal to find a way home, but he also needs to save every single person in this new world ⏎ from despair and sadness. That, my friends, is a good hook for a comedy adventure cartoon. ⏎ For her part, Yihdra does a good job of representing the isekai half of the equation, which mostly ⏎ amounts to her trying not to be driven insane by the reality-breaking cartoon logic of Red's ⏎ spontaneous explosion powers and giant, animal-themed mecha summoning abilities. Being the ⏎ straight woman to a guy who is so inhumanly heroic and friendly could be a thankless roll, but ⏎ Yihdra holds her own by demonstrating just enough snark and bewilderment to stand out as an ⏎ individual character. I like these two, and I am very excited to see where their new bond of ⏎ friendship takes them. Could it eventually get old, seeing the usual cliches of tokusatsu and ⏎ isekai stories called out and made fun of so directly? Maybe, but for now, I am having a grand ⏎ time.