This one moment in Gekiranger ruined me. This one little thing right here. Because this moment was so telling about Miki. We learn so much about Miki entirely via context over the course of the whole show, but especially during this whole thing between Rio and Gou. The concept of a three-part team has always been important in GekiJyuken. Before the Jan-Retsu-Ran triangle, there was the Rio-Gou-Miki triangle. They all trained together and were part of one unit. Three parts of one whole. The show does a lot to play up the friendship and rivalry that there had been between Rio and Gou as it builds toward it’s climax, but other than Miki commenting on it, this one old photo, and her reunion with Rio when he finally switches back to the good guys, her feelings on the subject of Rio’s betrayal and Gou’s disappearance are never really addressed.
But look at the photo Miki is holding. Miki is the one with her arms around both Rio and Gou. She obviously cared a lot about both of them. They were her teammates. Even if they bickered, Miki probably did her best to put them both in line. And this photo is clearly very old. Miki has kept it all this time, which is a clear signifier of hoe important her relationship with Gou and Rio was. Remember also at Miki comes from a rough background. In her teens, she was a delinquent and lead a gang. It’s very likely that Jyuken was her way of straightening out her life. It’s entirely possible that, being in the same role in the triangle that Ran is, and because she would have been the one who needed the responsibility the most to straighten herself out, she was named the leader of the squad.
From all of that it’s easy to assume that Gou and Rio were very important to Miki. they were her teammates, and potentially people she felt responsible for. Then Rio turns against what they were taught and only wants power and goes on to kill their mentor, and then Gou just vanishes without a trace. The two people that Miki was supposed to take care of, she was unable to protect, and the person she probably admired the most and looked to for support and validation was dead.
Think of what that must have done to her mentally, and then then about the person Miki is in the present canon of Gekiranger.
Miki is happily married and raising a child. Miki’s daughter Natsumi leads a very fulfilling life and she doesn’t seem to want for anything. She is a strong girl who knows how to stand up for herself, and even though she’s a bit rough around the edges she has a genuinely good heart. Miki is an executive at SCRTC, and likely one of the founding members of the company or at least the one who incorporated training GekiJyuken into it. She designs and builds all of the Gekirangers’ equipment and training materials herself. Miki did, in spite of her team abandoning her, master Leopard-ken and is a fully realized user of GekiJyuken. She laughs and smiles and jokes and enjoys her life. Miki rose above so much pain in her life, and did so much with herself.
And then we get these little moments where we’re allowed to see that wound never fully closed. What’s worse than her not knowing what happened to Gou is the fact that she knows exactly what happened to Rio. All through canon, Miki knows exactly who the Gekirangers are fighting. And it doesn’t seem to be any secret that Retsu is Gou’s brother. Miki has all of these constant reminders of the friends she lost around her, and it never causes her to so much as bend, much less crack or break.
Masaki Miki is a brilliantly written character and easily one of the strongest in Gekiranger. While it wasn’t really necessary to get more of her story than we did in Gekiranger, I feel like it’s sort of a shame she was as pushed aside as she was since she was so closely tied to Gou and Rio, who played very large roles in the plot.
Brand New Love Song 