ToQger Episode 3

Attempts to catch up on episode recaps now boarding. Yes I'm going to continue the lame train jokes as we work our way through this series. I can't help myself honestly. Fact is the Japanese are possibly the only people who know how to make trains seem exciting. Whether it be in superhero shows or that awesome ass board game from last year (That would be Trains by AEG.) It's a strange feeling to have any respect for trains given how they've driven me nuts my entire life. I have been by tracks everywhere I've lived. Even my dorm room was like half a block from a crossing. I can't escape them but by god Japan seems intent on making me respect them.

Anywho, today's episode focused pretty firmly on Kagura (the pink ranger) which was sort of a surprise as stories about the girls tend to come around more often at episode five or six. Combined with several other factors I can see this series offering the ladies a lot more story time. Back to my point, the group has theorized that their hometown was overcome with darkness at their imaginations where too bright to stay in there, thous they were ejected out onto the rainbow and shadow line respectively and their memories were damaged in the process. Kagura starts to wonder about abandoning the team to go and search for home since she doesn't think she's up to snuff for this hero routine. Before this point I found her to be the least interesting member of the team and this story didn't change much. I'm not saying the character is awful just that she's currently either too whiny or obnoxious for my liking. Thankfully Right was around to give her some good advice as well as stalk the train conductor in order to find out whether that monkey puppet is really alive. It's so nice to have a main guy who can pick up the slack when needed.

I haven't gone into discussing Ms. Wagon yet. Mainly because she kinda scares me. So far she's added nothing to the story other than being a noisy mascot who is also some kind of sexy robowoman. In truth she fits in quite well with the overall nuttiness of the show so I'm willing to see what she amounts to later.

As the story moved on Kagura accidentally got locked out of the train and had to face off against a coffin obsessed monster who made short work of chaining her up and taking her hostage. Believe it or not this is actually another good sign for the girls getting more screen time. An observation I've made during various sentai seems to be that the more the girls are mistreated, the more attention they get in the series overall. It's an odd balance of feminism and perversion. Think of it like barbarian princess flicks from the 80's.

 

As the tale moves along the rest of the crew catch up and rescue her resulting in her kicking some fairly serious ass. A trick with Kagura is that she imagines herself as various tough girls in order to better stomp her opponents. The show has now introduced that she can get so far into character that she may end killing herself. No doubt we'll see this get revisited later on but for now Right got her out of the fight and dunked her in a pool. The result was remembering that their hometown was somewhere by the ocean. After that, they ice the monster, spread good feelings all around & continue on down the track.

Overall this was a marked improvement over the previous episodes in balancing both the dramatic and comedic elements of the show. Wouldn't rank it as well as the premiere but the show is showing some good promise. Now I'll leave you with a train boner.