"I don't care about your choice."

I spent almost the entire series being nearly completely wrong about Captain Ryuuya. They deliberately kept him a mystery to us, which of course made it certain I had a lot of fun speculating about him. We were never privvy to his thoughts, and we rarely saw him. I think I'll cover the things I thought he was, first. Originally I thought he was Tatsuya, flung into the future by some accident at the end of the series. But quite frankly, they did him far better than my idea. One thing is certain, he is a haunted man. He is a descendant of the Asami family, probably of Tatsuya himself. He seems to live at the Provider Base.

The image on the left is not him. It is Lira disguised as him, and in the process of hijacking the Time Ship. The image on the right is him, with the expression he always wore that led me to believe he was haunted by the things he had to do. I watched him when he appeared. I read his expression and read his actions. The first time our heroes called for the Time Jets, he waited and I thought he waited because he could not send them earlier than they were meant to go. Hohoho. Our heroes also thought things like that, when the ships appeared or did not appear they accepted that this was because of how it was written in history.

And then one day he came back himself. In Episode 42. And believe me, I kept a close eye on the proceedings, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. The first thing he did, when he appeared, was go and free the nastiest of the three villains, Gien. Then, when the Time Rangers almost stopped Gien, Captain Ryuuya stopped them. And once they accepted that he was himself, he explained why.

History had changed.

And it was his fault. It was his fault because he had sent the Time Jets to their aid the first time when he was not supposed to. They were to have died that day, all except Tatsuya. Tatsuya Asami had survived that battle, returned to his father's house and used the family business to form the City Guardians. But that was not what happened. Instead, Tatsuya stayed with the four and it was his father who formed the City Guardians. Maybe this wouldn't be a problem, except Captain Ryuuya pretty much said that because of all these changes, the 30th Century was suffering a disaster that would destroy it. His ideas of how to solve the problem were a bit heavy-handed, naturally. One was make Tatsuya return to the Asami corporation. After all, according to history Wataru Asami would die that very day. Tatsuya had to take up the reins or else the future would be gone. Another was make certain Gien was not merely alive, but fully active. (It took a while before this intention became clear) And almost most importantly, was destroy the G-Zord, under the fear that if this was not accomplished, the entire 30th Century would be sucked into a vortex. That was one of the first things that struck me as slightly odd, until I heard that it was the G-Zord's power source that was causing the disaster. I decided it had been pulled into the 20th by a weakness in time created by the alteration of history. However, Captain Ryuuya told them he had left them live just so they would be there to fight the G-Zord, so that meant THAT scenario was out. I came to the conclusion that this was his excuse for saving their lives. That he could not bear to kill them. Hah!

So he led them into battle against the G-Zord. A number of decisions he made and orders he gave did not make sense at the time. I thought they would later, haha. And they did BUT.... there's a lot of buts when talking about Captain Ryuuya. When he told them that they were supposed to have died, he would not look at them until he got his expression under control. He was very upset. When Sion remarked that the G-Zord's accident sounded just like the one that happened to the V-Rex, Captain Ryuuya reacted to that statement. He seemed courageous, leading the group into the heart of the battle. He also was careless of their feelings. He treated them like machines, just there to obey orders and the fact that they almost continually questioned him annoyed him no end. And he could not seem to keep Gien from getting in the way. He was desperate to keep Gien from getting killed. Why? Hahah. He also seemed surprised when the V-Rex and Time Fire arrived to help. The fact that every time he seemed to have a scenario worked out, he was interrupted by Gien, was driving him up the wall. The best laid plans of mice and men... you know how it is. It got to a point where even Takku would not obey him any longer. And Captain Ryuuya was totally bewildered by his robot's rebellion.

When he had repaired history, he told them it was over and the 30th Century was safe. He knew this because shortly the 21st Century Earth would be about two thirds destroyed, and the 30th Century Captain Ryuuya and the others knew would grow on its ashes. That was true.

Captain Ryuuya refused to send the Time Ships back again. He said he would not interfere in that time again. He also insisted that the others return to the 30th. However, now he had no leverage with which to make them do so. He had succeeded in all his goals. The G-Zord was destroyed. The terrible disaster that would lead to his time would happen. He had undone the damage done by his decision to let the four live. However... HOWEVER....

Captain Ryuuya had a terrible secret. You see, as we knew in the year 2994 there was a disaster with the G-Zord. It went tumbling into a time vortex. What we didn't know was that Captain Ryuuya was caught in there with it. There he saw things to chill his soul. He made it back out with the knowledge of two possible pasts that led to his time. In one, the G-Zord appeared in the 20th Century, killed Gien and he as Time Fire died fighting it in the V-Rex. In the other, Gien did not die, and Captain Ryuuya as Time Fire was killed fighting Gien instead, and two thirds of the Earth was destroyed.

He made it back to his native time, terrified through and through. For the next six years he worked overtime to protect himself, without destroying the 30th Century in the process. Little things. He was the only person in a position to know what would happen. When the V-Rex had its little accident, Captain Ryuuya made certain the Time Fire suit was in there with it. He would not have the suit, he would not have to wear it and die in it. Hedging his bets, he decided to save the lives of the four young cadets trapped in the past. If they were there to fight the G-Zord, perhaps he would not have to be. But four lives take up a lot of space and they distorted history because Tatsuya stayed with them, rather than formed the City Guardians. Things were beginning to spiral out of control. Gien was neutralized and would remain so. The G-Zord's energy backwave was destroying the 30th Century and that was not acceptable. He had to go back and get Gien active again, and make certain the G-Zord was destroyed. And he kept as far away from Time Fire as he could. This being a kind of "have your cake and eat it, too" thing, he wasn't doing so well because Gien was intent on getting the G-Zord's power, and so kept getting into the line of fire. And Gien had to live to cause the disaster leading to the 30th Century. *whew*

And when at last the four arrived where they should be in the Time Ship, Captain Ryuuya breathed a sigh of relief. There were still a few problems, though. Things he had not foreseen but decided to live with. History had changed in subtle, but very important ways. All but Sion had returned to lives where the most teribble things that had happened to them had been/could be fixed. They would have a good life from now on. But their knowledge of the real past had to be erased before anyone found out that he had changed history. Perhaps trying to comfort them, he told them first how history had changed. He left them to think and dream upon their better lives, while he prepared to have their memories altered. And then he had to deal with the astonishing fact that these new and better lives were not enough to keep them from deciding to return, to try to stop the terrible disaster.

This, for a man who had spent six years struggling to save himself and his world, was impossible to grasp. He authorized use of deadly force to stop them. Unfortunately, his fate caught up with him from a most unexpected hand. For he had one problem he had not anticipated. If you know when and how you are going to die, and you manage to change the events that lead up to it (which he did), then you DON'T know how or when you're going to die. Then you don't have the sense to protect yourself from an unexpected danger.

Captain Ryuuya Asami didn't make it. He also did not understand, even at the moment of his death, how Ayase particularly could choose certain death in the 21st over an assured life in the 31st. It was "us VS them" to him, and that his people did not think of the people a thousand years in the past as "them" was beyond his comprehension. I went through a multitude of emotions about him, and ended with a mix of "He got what he deserved," and "Poor thing." I feel pity for him.