It's
no secret that the Super Sentai recaps have fallen way behind of late
with this update still leaving things a month behind schedule. For
once there's a better reason than the usual excuse of holidays and
laziness. Yours truly has gotten some great news regarding the return
to school which will result in far less debt when all is said and
done. While I look ahead at a full-scale barrage of coursework that
will have me entering the coming decade with a fresh bachelor's
degree I finally carved out some time to sit back and play catch-up
with Ryusoulger.
And while the first few episodes we're gonna talk about maintain the
usual quality of the series thus far it is a double whammy of
episodes 32 and 33 that mark what is likely to be the definitive
moment in this show's run. Settle in with your comfort blanket folks
cause shit's about to get heavy.
Story:
For
the 28th
installment of the show we're given something almost like
body-horror. This unsettling development occurs when Asuna's body is
invaded by a minusaur who wraps his saw-like tail around her heart
which makes it so any pain delivered onto him immediately transfers
into her. Worse still, and far more gross, is the threat of what will
happen once he grows to giant-size. This puts the whole team on the
clock as some rush off to try and prevent the minusaur host from
letting it grow while Koh attempts to learn a special punching
technique that will expel the beast from Asuna at the risk of
exploding her heart.
This is a solid adventure with some good emotions from the crew. The
best part is easilly when Bamba lets his concern for Asuna's welfare
become obvious, guy may have even shed a tear. The teams new friend,
Nada tries to help Koh with his training only to end up feeding the
red rangers fears of failure. It becomes very obvious here that
something is up with Nada, and that is what forms the backbone of
each episode to come.
Next up the focus shifts to Canelo and his continuing quest to find
a bride. It would seem he's finally found the woman of his dreams
though she has one demand for marriage, that he not do anything
dangerous. Nada encourages Canelo to follow his goal and leave the
superhero lifestyle behind but in the end Canelo chooses to continue
the fight against Druidons. In the process we see a beginning to some
kind of rivalry between him and Gachireus which I'll come back to
later in the article. The biggest revelation of the episode comes
near the end when Bamba and Towa are fighting Gaisorg and discover
Nada is the one who's been under the armor this whole time.
thirty is largely based on the fall-out of the revelation that Nada
and Gaisorg are one and the same. This is played out against another
Canelo storyline that... yeah... we didn't need two Canelo episodes
in a row did we? Thankfully it's sort of the b-plot as the group
tries to work out the whole Nada thing. We learn that the Gaisorg
armor slowly learns the emotional weakness of its host in order to
gain control over them. In this case once it seems like Nada might
have enough control his great need to be a Ryusoulger becomes his
undoing and he injures Koh. Otherwise this is a fairly standard tale
which is a bit disappointing given that it features a guest role from
Nao Nagasawa of Hurricanger fame.
We continue to move on with the team deciding how to deal with Nada
which is further complicated by a flying musical minusaur that makes
people focus on fun to the determent of all other things, they'd
rather starve than not have fun. Frankly I don't see how one can have
fun on an empty stomach but that's an argument for another time. Only
three people are left unaffected by this beast, Canelo and his sister
as they have altered hearing from living underwater, and Koh due to
the pain of his injury. The big push here is getting the newest
dinoknight, Piitan into the mix allowing for airborne giant-robot
antics. Ok episode, nothing amazing.
At last we reach the two-part story that marks the high-point for
this show, and possibly the primary narrative it may be remembered
for in the future. There is still some disagreement over whether Nada
can be saved from the Gaisorg armor or if it is even possible to do
so, a debate that is all the more relevent when an extra dangerous
minusaur enters the picture. Our heroes hope to focus on the monster
that absorbs hatred from human hearts only to concentrate and convert
it into rain that causes hatred and violence wherever it falls.
Unfortunately their battle with this critter is interrupted by
Gaisorg who is even more violent than usual.
There's so much going on of note in this episode. The direction is
mostly somber with some very slow and emotional scenes that are
played out with some excellent cinematography. Each character does
their part in the fight to free Nada, and even some of the dinokights
go off together to handle the minusaur while our main heroes tackle
this problem, but the big moment where it all comes together is
something special. Towa beats Nada enough to encourage Gaisorg to
seek a new host which is when Koh offers himself to the armor and
absorbs all the hatred absorbed within it. The others must keep the
entire armor from overcoming their friend, spurring Nada to hold onto
a little of it himself, and have the minusaur absorb Gaisorg's hatred
sort of like an exorcism.
Everything culminates in a seminal installment of the show, one of
the best episodes of Sentai I've been blessed to see during a
currently running series. It begins with everyone together having a
good time as they play ping-pong for an afternoon away from battle.
Little do they know another Druidon named Uden has appeared. He's the
quest and deadly sort who quickly makes his prescience known by
defeating and capturing both Towa and Canelo. His trick is to capture
warriors inside a pocket dimension where copies of himself attack
them. Anyone stranded in this situation is essentially doomed as the
copies can kill them but fighting back only allows Uden to absorbs
their fighting moves and lifeforce.
Eventually the core team are all captured, leaving their new man
Nada to try and save the day. At first he enjoys the theatrics of
posing and doing the role-call but it becomes clear is his up against
a much stronger opponent. The fight is rough and dirty but Nada
provides an opening for Koh to escape though the effort costs him his
life. He dies having saved the friends who gave his life new meaning
and focus but before passing he entrust his soul to Koh as a new
powerful armor that allows the red ranger to destroy Uden and free
the rest of the team.
The final scene is an absolute beauty with Ui revealing a video Nada
had filmed as a goodbye. He had planned to leave for training rather
than slow the team down but he wanted each of them to know how
skilled unique each of them was while thanking them for changing his
life. It's a great big gut-punch of a scene with these actors pulling
their weight.
Heroes:
By
this point in the series it's only natural to see how much the
performances have improved across the board and that two-part with
the salvation and death of Nada make it all the more clear this show
has some real talent in its roster, namely Ichika Osaki (Asuna) and
Tatsuya Kishida (Bamba) who are knocking their parts out of the park
lately. Osaki has also become quite the ace at those tear-jerking
scenes. Even Hayate Ichinose (Koh) who has generally been towards the
pack of the pack makes some excellent gains here which is becoming
all the more important as the series has been paying more attention
to him. The core five heroes have proven to be a solid group and I
can't wait to see where they go now that the severity of their battle
has been made more obvious. On that note I want to see a wider
variety of character focused episodes and some different pairings
before the eventual endgame rush occurs.
One
issue I do have is Canelo. While his initial introduction was rather
entertaining he has quickly begun to suffer from a common problem
among sixth rangers which is a lack of reason for being around. He
provides very little to the overall story and though his theme of
finding a bride should tie into the greater theme of connecting souls
it often plays out as a simple gag on constant repeat. The writers
are obviously trying to push him into the spotlight whenever
possible, even going so far as to pair him off in battle with
Gachireus in one fight after another. When you consider these two
have no real beef with each-other that feud becomes empty
window-dressing.
Then
we have the matter of Oto. Honestly she's sort of fun to have around
with how she plays off of characters like Melto but once again the
question must be asked, what is the point of her being around? When
the show began Ui was the person who discovered the Ryusoul tribe and
brought them into her home, she earned their friendship and has
served as a helper in the past but it seems like she's getting phased
out in favor of Oto who has less thematic ties to the greater whole
of this series.
Villains:
Much
in the same way that the heroes seem to have excess members that
aren't pulling their weight, the villains need to trim some weight
before long. Wyzul is tremendously fun and has proven to be a threat
multiple times over. Kreon has become something more than the generic
mascot baddie he was early on. And that Uden guy, despite only being
in one episode, was one nasty piece of work. He was the sort of quiet
and vicious villain that doesn't appear often enough in modern
Sentai.
The
problem here is Gachireus. The guy's a poor threat who needs to go.
His personality is only occasionally fun, there's zero depth to him,
he's just a strong guy who's evil purely for the sake of being evil.
As mentioned previously his newfound rivalry with Canelo came out of
the blue has provided nothing of dramatic worth. I know another
Druidon General is on the way so can we please give this dude the
boot?
Action:
The
fight scenes seem to have evened out of late with the series finding
a groove in how much gimmicky toys to mix in with proper
martial-arts. Giant-Robot sequences are still ranking among the best
the franchise has to offer. Nothing hiuge to report in this
department though major props are due to the crazy looking cloud set
used for flying robot fights.
Overall:
While
I haven't always been able to recommend this show wholeheartedly to
everyone out there the double-feature of episodes 32 and 33 is
something for the history books. The Nada story-arc, though short and
rushed in some areas, delivered on the themes of human connection in
a way that's rare for this franchise, to say nothing of imitators. If
you have the means and the interest this is an ideal way to discover
how excellent tokusatsu programming can be.
Moving
forward it's hard not to wonder how this arc will effect the
remainder of the series. From this point there are maybe twenty
episodes left to go and no clear direction for what needs to be
accomplished. There are more Druidon generals out there for certain,
which only adds to the argument that some of them need to be trimmed
out, but that's about it. Anything is possible from this point onward
and I can't help be be a little excited when I consider how Sentai
usually takes this point in each show to optimize toy sales rather
than push emotional content. With that I will redouble efforts to get
on top of things and keep you all in the know on whether this show
builds to something wonderful or wastes this remarkable dramatic
push.
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