Recap

The cast walk around in circles for a while, then there’s a fight.

Aqua’s Thoughts

We pick up right after Right, being the dumbass that he is, mentions he found the Tank Express when he was gathering food, but didn’t bother to pick it up. As such, our heroes walk around for much to long while they talk about how awesome Right is even though literally everything that goes wrong this episode is his fault. At least Right himself shows a certain degree of self-awareness and decides to name Tokatti the leader, probably to give the man something to angst about. Which is exactly what he starts doing — five bloody minutes into his leadership — once the team get their spandex-clad asses handed to them by General Schwartz, who shows up for the vaguest reason possible like he’s Swiper from Dora The Explorer. Of course, this snorefest leads to a hamfisted moral about how all the members of the team are the leader! … Except Right is more the leader than everyone else because he is red and has a sword and also no personality. See, we try to convince people of the fact that toku is not just dumb kiddie schlock, and this is what we get in return?

I have no idea what happened to Yasuko Kobayashi. With Kamen Rider Den-O and OOO, she wrote some of the most loveable characters in recent memory. The ToQgers, on the other hand, have about as much personality as the contents of a fish bowl. Right can’t choose between being a goody-two-shoes or a “badbutt”, Tokatti tries so hard but simply doesn’t get the lines to justify his enthusiasm, Mio and Kagura only exist to cuddle up while Right wins every battle with his fingers in his nose and Hikari is just… there. For the entire episode, the cast wanders around in circles because Right is too stupid to remember where he found the Tank Express, leading to awfully stilted dialogue, repetitive jokes and instant narcolepsy for everyone watching. Even the malicious general Schwarz looks like he’s dragging our heroes along on a leash most of the time, and his complete defeat at the hands of ToQ-Oh doesn’t exactly win him any points on the villain ranking.

It’s the sort of episode that makes you wonder how any writer could possibly have looked down at this and thought that no, sure, having their heroes run around in circles while the villain pokes them with a stick and tells them to hurry up totally sounded like a compelling idea. The fact that Yasuko Kobayashi managed to pull this off, only adds insult to the injury. It’s boring, and if there’s anything a tokusatsu show should never be, it’s boring. Even the action can’t make up for this. The fight scenes look so clumsy they make Akibaranger look like a John Woo flick, and then I haven’t even touched on the horrible sped-up footage in the robot fight yet. Aside from the occasional throwaway joke, there’s simply nothing here to keep anyone but the staunchest Super Sentai aficionados watching. Maybe the addition of more Rangers can give ToQger its much-needed fuel injection, but I think it’s about time for us to get off this train… before we throw ourselves in front of one.

Random Observations

• The new power-up doesn’t even look like a pair of knuckles. It’s just a train that splits in half.
• Gotta love how Hikari, Mio and Kagura finally manage to find the Tank Express… off-screen.
• Next week, the ToQgers will take a break from their regularly scheduled doing sod all to go ruin team up with Kamen Rider Gaim. Yaaaaaay.

Zigg’s Thoughts

Its increasingly difficult to write these posts, because there’s simply not enough going on to justify a lot of analysis. Whereas we could write for days on the themes and relationships in Gaim, ToQger is as shallow as a puddle by comparison. Stuff is happening sure, but it doesn’t seem like it’s in service of any greater goal. We use ‘filler’ a lot in our toku posts, but rarely has it seemed more apt than here.

Granted, there is at least an attempt at character development here. While I can see what they were going for, having Right so casually dismiss his role as leader is bad for dramatic purposes. It means that, once Tokatti steps into his shoes, the only way out is for him to screw up, which he proceeds to do by spending most of the episode having a whining crisis of confidence. Once again Right steps in to save the day, despite being so dumb the major plot of the episode is him trying to overcome his stupidity. There’s the same palpable lack of charisma and pacing remains a major issue, never better highlighted when Mio, Kagura and Hikari actually accomplish the goal of the episode offscreen in a desperate anti-climax.

I’m disappointed by Schwarz as well, and I feel the show uses him badly here. Granted, he kicks ass when he first shows up, but by the end he’s still being exploded, and it feels wrong that a supposed major bad guy has his rear handed to him pretty easily in his (effective) debut episode. The fights are bad too – the Tank Express is a rubbish powerup that looks completely lame when fitted while the on-foot action is competent but not really exciting or inspiring.

As you might have guessed, we’re very close to hitting the ‘drop’ button on ToQger here. Next week’s crossover romp with Gaim should be a fun distraction, but after that the show has maybe one more episode to save itself. Things aren’t looking good quite frankly.

 Random Observations

• I was infinitely more more interested in the end credits Kamen Rider Wars trailer than the episode itself. Seeing the ToQgers battling Den-Liner was pretty sweet but the highlight has to be TRAIN GABUTYRA. Sort of telling how five seconds of Kyoryuger got me more worked up than anything else.