Recap: The team discover one of the Guardian Stones they need belongs to an acquaintance of Amy’s who’s putting it up as a prize at his birthday party.

Zigg‘s Thoughts: This is exactly the kind of dumb, shallow and yet fun episode Kyoryuger has excelled at so far and it again proves the case here as the team deliver a silly romp that wastes little time in setting up a simple plot contrivance and then ladles on some decent, no strings attached entertainment.

In terms of the overall plot, the important stuff here happens at the beginning, as the team lay out exactly what these mysterious stones are and why they need them. The mechanical contrivance of having a set of shiny items to collect is pretty transparent, but there are worse  ways to spin out your plot and hopefully this quest will provide a sense of structure to the second half of the show, a time when a lot of toku tends to flail slightly. The fact that Ian’s stone doesn’t have any sort of fossil is interesting – my guess is that this would be the one belonging to Bragigas himself, but it’s a good mystery to string us along with and a nice reminder of the Ian/Aigaron plotline that continues to bubble under.

Otherwise, this is pure campy joy. Amy’s friend is perfectly cast, sneery and stuck up enough to be immediately hateable, but only in a pantomime villain sort of way. He never crosses into true jerk territory, which makes his (inevitable) redemption at the end much more believable and palatable. The team get to dress up in dumb costumes, which we’ve established by now is a sure fire way to get a great episode out of them. The closest we get to plot relevance is in the fight, where Dogold establishes he’s able to go toe to toe with Carnival mode and also that he can now use Endorf’s weapons (and presumably his abilities). It’s good that they’re further pushing him as the biggest threat to the team, but since he’s driven off anyway that’s more just something to aid future continuity than a meaningful development right now.

Bit of a short roundup this week then, but what is there to say? Kyoryuger continues to roll on, delivering laughs, thrills and samba a plenty. Still a pleasure for every minute.

Random Observations

• Luckiero’s confusion and subsequent monster mashing provides some good laughs. After Tessai’s wig last week, it’s another example of how to turn a production necessity (in this case costume reuse) into a joke that helps make the show more entertaining.
• The completely random assortment of background costumes is one of the funniest parts of this episode.
• Dancing heroes of the week – The colour-coded team dancing in front of the giant T-Rex sculpt.