Recap: The Kyoryugers experiment with a new Beast Battery developed by Yayoi. Unfortunately, it turns Daigo bestial, just as new enemy Endolf goes on the offensive.

Aqua‘s thoughts: I did not enjoy this episode all that much for a multitude of reasons. First of all, it felt a bit disjointed, with characters popping in out of nowhere and disappearing just as randomly, random lingering plot threads being picked back up and then thrown away again and a bunch of interesting plot points being somewhat haphazardly alluded to. Yayoi’s welcome return is overshadowed a bit by the fact that she’s not allowed to play along with the big kids, and the efforts the writers put into shafting her out of all the fight scenes — despite the team being one man short — are simply baffling. Yayoi’s worrying about Daigo, and her feeling guilty over her first screw-up as the team’s tech support could have made for some interesting development, yet any depth her character could have had is cut short by her being stuffed in the secondary character role at any cost.

In stead, the episode focuses of Ian and his rivalry with Aigaron. With Daigo out, Ian, who is apparently “his right hand and the smart one of the team” despite never really giving any evidence of either, is democratically elected as the new leader of the team in stead of, say, Utsusemimaru, a better qualified person in pretty much every way. Nevertheless, Ian shows some great prowess as the team’s leader, actually employing some tactics and commanding his teammates in stead of just doing everything himself like Daigo does. Despite his expertise and newfound modesty in his feud with Aigaron — Explain to me how revenge without resentment works, though — Ian does not manage to rip the Knight of Sorrow a new one. A mysterious, yet quite disturbing curse seems to be giving the latter a convenient power-up, and it serves as yet another reminder that the Deboss army is starting to take their job a bit more seriously after their leader’s resurrection.

The biggest evidence of this new, slightly more professional work ethic in the Deboss army is Endolf, an interesting villain with a cool design and voice, who seems to be taking his job a lot more personal than his colleagues. Despite his laid-back behaviour — a bit odd for someone who is supposed to be an embodiment of all hate — Endolf feels like a true threat to the Kyoryugers, which sets him apart from jokers like Luckyero. His hell-bent determination to increase his own hatred for the heroes adds a darker edge to the character and his rash tactics prove that he is not just another addition to an army of clowns. Then again, it remains to be seen if he will actually stick around for the long run, a concept that Kyoryuger seems to fear even more than the idea of girls being strong. With yet another sweet power-up for Daigo scheduled for next week’s episode, it remains to be seen if this upgrade will not come at the expense of the Deboss army’s saving grace.

Zigg‘s Thoughts: A curiously underwhelming episode of Kyoryuger that on its surface has all the elements to be a cracker but just sort of glides on by. It’s difficult to put your finger on exactly what’s wrong with it, but it doesn’t necessarily gel into a coherent whole.

‘Daigo turns into a dinosaur!’ is exactly the sort of supremely dumb concept I’d expect to be comedy gold in Kyoryuger but it sort of doesn’t work here, partially from the show’s desire to treat it as a sort of serious issue when instead it should have been laughed off like the utter stupidity it is. Regardless, I’m OK with Daigo being removed from the equation for a little while to give the other characters a chance to breath.

The thing is though, much of the narrative burden instead falls on Ian, who in my opinion is pretty much the least interesting of the remaining party. His playboy schtick is old and severely restricted by the fact that this is a kid’s TV show, and his aloof personality doesn’t make him especially likable. The fact that everyone immediately acquiesces to his leadership also seems to be something of a missed opportunity for conflict. Instead we sort of just go through a pretty standard ‘team up to beat the bad guy’ thing and while hardly offensive, it’s not super inspiring either.

Fortunately some intriguing developments on the villain front help pick everything up a bit. Endolf is interesting and different from what we’ve had before. Despite his goofy appearance his calm demeanour and silky voice reveal a much more focussed, serious villain than we’ve seen before. Couple this with Aigaron’s new, darker edge and the hints at some sort of affliction and it looks like the villains will finally get working on something truly dastardly. Great news.

Random Observations

• Keeping Yayoi out of the fights seems a weird thing to do. Maybe they just didn’t have enough stunt guys on the day?
• Painting Daigo’s mouthplate balck is a small but neat touch which does make him look a bit less human.
• Endolf has a gun which transforms into a sword, and such weapons are always AWESOME
• Dancing heroes of the week – honourable mention to Daigo-cosplay dad, but it just has to be the wedding party.