Recap

Souji’s estranged mother suddenly appears to take custody of him. Meanwhile, Endolf attacks the remaining Kyoryugers with his new lackey, Dogold.

Zigg’s Thoughts

It’s another sort of middling episode this week, which by Kyoryuger‘s high standards positively counts as a slump. I probably wouldn’t actually go that for, but this week’s adventure did seem a little messy and confused. Let’s try and tackle the two main plot threads separately.

First let’s take a look at Souji and his parents. On papaer this seems a pretty strong setup – there’s lots of comedic potential in a pushy Japanese mother showing up to basically kidnap a team member and indeed this is probably the strongest part. The MiBs, the limo getaway, it’s all nicely over the top and raises a smile. Problem is, pretty much everything following that is sort of dry and predictable. It follows a pretty standard path of comedy hijinks, emotional remembrance and then tentative, grudging reunion. I just have a little bit of trouble caring is all. This is where the flipside of playing almost everything for laughs comes in – I don’t really have a strong attachment to Souji as a character because he hasn’t had much actual development. Instead, they’ve mostly burnt that time on hilarious pratfalls, which were great but means there’s not really much incentive to care about individual members. His continued attempts to master the Torinity Strazor just seem like the obligatory ‘have emotional realisation get powerup’ routine and the entire thing just sort of played out for me. It’s not bad but neither was I pumping my fist and shouting ‘hell yeh!’. It just sort of is.

The other thread is of course Dogold’s resentment towards, and then subsequent capitulation to, his new master Endolf. This entire thing just rang utterly false to me – sure, have Endolf parade Dogold around like a jerk, that’s totally in character. But to have Dogold willingly capitulate to his new ‘master’. That stinks, and it stinks so bad in fact that I’m leaning heavily towards it being a fake-out. Given Dogold unexpectedly survives this episode (normally growing gigantic is the last step before your inevitable explosion-based demise) I think there’s more to come from him, and I’d be amazed if that more doesn’t manifest as a backstab at a critical moment.

Then there’s the appearance of the two mysterious cloaked Deboss which is…puzzling. They obviously have something to hide, but what exactly? They hardly look like traditional Debo monsters either, and my guess is they have to be manifestations of some sort, though of what I’m uncertain. My hope is that they aren’t just used as huge deus ex machinas, always a risk when new baddies are introduced this late on. At least there’s a compelling mystery to tide us over to next week. While this was a weak outing for the show, as ever they give us just enough to still make it fun.

Random Observations

• Seeing live action Torin (played by a chap who I assume is his voice actor) is a treat, as is his flamboyant getup that resembles his colours. Still, part of me is sad they didn’t just do the ‘let’s put the actor in a suit and the costume head on him’ thing that’s made for big laughs before.
• Likewise, Souji’s fashion getup is funny but could have been waaaaaay more over the top.
• Using bullets to spin the Gaburevolvers is dumb but great. The following display of marksmanship however is egregiously awful even by the non-existent standards of sentai mooks.
• It’d been pretty obvious for a while now, but this episode basically confirms Aigaron is now part of the ‘sympathetic villains’ group that Luckiero and Candelia were already inhabiting. It seems as if they’ve dropped his ‘dark side’ subplot entirely, although I do hope it gets addressed in some form.
• Dancing heroes of the week – everyone who tried dancing in ultra-fancy new year’s getup.