I’ve never seen an anime quite so indifferent to convention and the normal rules of the genre as this one. It manages to amorphously change personalities each week, and unapologetically so – don’t expect any explanations for the somewhat jarring changes of…well, everything.

This week it’s back to the Color Rangers, the five sixth-graders we last saw stranded on Prince Baka’s RPG planet with a super-powered demon lord ready to attack. How did that get resolved? Don’t expect an answer, because you aren’t going to get one. You also aren’t going to get even a brief appearance from the main character, or any of the other supporting cast not directly related to the boys storyline. What we get instead is an entertaining story about an aline, a split-tailed mermaid – apparently the last survivor of her species. She has the peculiarity that whenever someone tells her a lie, her tongue shoots out and pierces their brain. Talk about every guy’s worst nightmare…

This mermaid and her rare ability are taken advantage of by another group of aliens from her planet, who manage to fool her by modulating their voices with some sort of electronic device. Though she’d tried to sacrifice herself to spare the other four survivors of her species, they sell off the others and use her to make a killing (literally) by selling her off over and over for loads of money. It so happens that the most recent buyer – and victim – is the head of Yoshiki’s father’s company (we don’t find that out until later) who plans to transfer Gachi Blue’s dad and family to America. This leads to strife among the Rangers, as Yoshiki didn’t tell them until two days before his departure – but they’re brought together to try and save the mermaid. Fortunately their sexy teacher catches wind of what’s going on and tags along for much-needed support, though discreetly. In the end the mermaid shows her ruthless side and swims off into the sea, with a promise to keep in touch with her saviors – and Yoshiki’s dad no longer has to move to America.

Mayuzumi, you pimp…

That was certainly enjoyable on multiple levels. There wasn’t a lot of comedy (which fits the semi-trend of this show alternating between pure comedy and semi-serious arcs) although there were a few comic gems, foremost for me being the fact that Mayuzumi had absolutely no reaction when the mermaid stripped. I’ve liked pretty much every set of characters introduced in the various arcs, and the kids are no exception – they have a good group chemistry and their interplay is entertaining. It says something about the quality of the writing here that the nominal main characters can have no role and yet the show can still not miss a beat. Next week we get the return of the guy who looked like he was going to be the main character after the premiere but hasn’t been seen since the first arc – the baseball boy, Sado.