It is a pretty cool design, yeah! And it's such a slap in the face to J!!! (What a phenomenal payoff to that setup in the beginning of the episode.)

Feels like dramatic sequences always happen on the cliff. For sure, it's a strong emotional climax with Yellowbuster having to fight Berserk Bluebuster who made her cry the first time. But Yoko's not that scared crying kid anymore, she's endured much worse than this and now it's her turn to repay the favor to her big bro for taking care of her for so many years, as she's strong enough to take care of herself and save Ryuji from himself, showing how the two of them are equals. It's a sweet conclusion to their development arc. In contrast, the Beast Morphers version of this episode was terrible, due to ending on a notoriously problematic message!

Is Escape really back though? Like, Our Escape? Her personality is totally different now, like she's loyal to Enter instead of Messiah. Remember that Messiah assimilated Escape's data in to his Megazord form and the source of that data had been destroyed in Episode 30, hence the importance of the Avatars' origin. Enter has the Messiah Cards to revive him, but not Escape. Not Our Escape anyway.

On another note, I'll be rewatching along with Gobusters VS Gokaiger, as I have a lot of opinions on that movie. So look forward to that!

Depends on the execution, I guess. Manmarva's return was definitely bad, as it threw away the conclusion of his rivalry with Kabutoraiger and made him a rampaging mindless monster to be destroyed. Ninja Storm made his final form a MOTW instead, which feels like an improvement. How humiliating. At least Madwrecks got his personality back eventually.

True, this isn't the previous version of Escape, but it's not like this episode's revival of the Escape/Ryuji feud was completely out of character for her. It's... pretty much her whole character? (Ryuji even points out that everything she's doing is recycled from her debut.) I don't know that she had enough of an arc or evolution for me to see much difference, beyond the Papa Escape stuff.

Sure, the surface-level thrill-seeking part of her is still there, but the emphasis on that is what makes her seem uncanny to Ryuji. It's like watching a caricature of Escape, right? The sincere emotions and beliefs that she fought and died in vain for are nowhere to be seen now. It shows how little Enter understands about the meaning of emotions, that he was only able to make a version of Escape based on his image of her, without any of the deeper parts that made her unique and close to human.

Maybe! I... feel like we are seeing different amounts of character to Escape, but that's totally cool. (I definitely think her new devotion to Enter is pretty much 1:1 to her old devotion to Messiah.) I'm glad she made such a strong impression on you!

With Die having both understood the strong series structure level stuff of this story's place towards the end of the show and also readily acknowledging the subjective nature of how he felt about the way it chose to go about that story, I find myself with shockingly little to say about this one, despite remembering it well enough. I could argue for the depth of Escape as a character or something, but no wait that's been covered too! (Admittedly, I was apathetic enough towards Escape the first time watching the show that this development probably bounced right off me too back in the day.)

I guess the only thing left at a time like this is to resort to pointing out completely inconsequential trivia.

The cliff from the climax was still in my head after all these years, but skimming back through the episode, I was a little shocked at how many filming locations were giving me deja vu, even by the typical standards of Toei tokusatsu. Not only am I pretty sure I remember that cliff, I'm pretty sure remember that bridge, too! I feel like usually in these shows it's like one "hey I know that place" per one episode, but here, not only does all that stuff feel familiar, there's even one more place that shows up in a brief cutaway at the start of the episode that I don't think shows up nearly as often as those other places?

Here's this episode of Go-Busters:

https://i.imgur.com/GNnVhjH.jpg

And here's episode 31 of Kamen Rider Kuuga:

https://i.imgur.com/T7RC72F.jpg

See, usually the reuse of filming locations in these shows is a matter of where it's easy to film a nice fight scene, but in this case, for a brief scene of two characters sitting around, they went a place that apparently didn't change much in the decade between 2000 and 2012 -- some cafe on Toei's lot. A suitably quick trip for such a quick bit of filming.

I presume director Katsuya Watanabe made sure those windows are blotted out the way they are so you can't see the stage numbers on the buildings in the background, something I can assume safely, because I once read Nobuhiro Suzumura say he had to do the same thing when he directed that episode of Kuuga.

(I think it says something about how deep I've gotten into Kuuga trivia over the years that I was instantly more certain of where I had seen those chairs before without looking it up than I am about that bridge, even though I've definitely seen the bridge in way more shows. It's honestly a bit scary that this ended up being the easiest thing from this episode to talk about for me.)

...this was a pretty big twist! Was not what I was expecting to hear about this episode! But thanks for the info!

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS VS KAIZOKU SENTAI GOKAIGER: THE MOVIE

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...sgokaigera.png

Nnnnnnnot for me, on a bunch of different levels.

The main one is how much this film is – by necessity and audience preference! – a gigantic celebration of a pile of different Sentai shows I’ve never watched, and have very little interest in watching. (Kyoryuger! No thanks!) Beyond the Gokaiger of it all, and the Special Preview Sentai, there’s a million GokaiChanges and Megazord GokaiChanges, referencing an additional 34 series of Sentai. It’s all celebratory and nostalgic for most fans, I’m sure, but it was all just noise to me. Didn’t care, beyond the most surface-level bright colors and explosions stuff. It was like watching a trailer for a film I had no interest in. (I swear, if I’ve got to watch that goddamn Wicked trailer in front of one more movie…!) I liked it fine as a rousing conclusion to a big crossover movie, but I didn’t really care which robot was blowing up which other robot.

(I will confess to really loving the use of Shinkenger to ferry a message across several centuries. That was super clever, and had me rooting for this film for about eight minutes.)

And then there’s the Gokaiger of it all… I don’t like Marvelous? I am unbelievably tired of films having a Marvelous plot that’s all about pretending to be a bad guy so he can defeat different bad guys! (I know this one came first, but I still really hate it as a plot.) It’s a needlessly confusing start to this story, where the entire Gokaiger team gets their Pirates Of The Caribbean makeover before trying to murder the Go-Busters, all for a scheme that… gives the villains exactly what they wanted in the first place, plus murdering Nick, Gorisaki, and Usada for good measure. Your returning Sentai heroes, everybody! It’s aggravating as a premise, and it innately makes me resent the Gokaigers showing up. (Gai continues to be a dog-brained nuisance, but he’s not exactly a focal point of this film.) I don’t know their villains, and I don’t like their main guy, and I don’t get most of their references, and I can’t invest in their half of the narrative.

(I also love that their ship/Zord was destroyed, so Bird Robot was just like I Went Back In Time And Grabbed It so it could be there for the finale, and like… grabbed it from when?! Is there a past Gokaiger team that doesn’t have their ship anymore? It is the most regrettable form of discourse to crab about causality in a toku story, but this is a pretty big deal for their backstory in the film! Losing their ship to the bad guys is directly referenced as a major problem!)

But the Go-Busters stuff is still pretty good, if massively telegraphed. (Like, I’m surprised Nick didn’t just say What Would You Do If We Died Twenty-Five And A Half Minutes From Now during the first Go-Busters scene of the film.) I am a sucker for any story that centers the Buster/Buddyroid relationship, and this one was a pretty fun version of it. It’s as much about the emotional impact that the Buddyroids have on the Busters, as it about the lessons the Busters have learned from the Buddyroids that made them the heroes they are. Convoluted sentence – apropos for this dumb film – so lemme take another run at it: I liked that the loss of the Buddyroids wasn’t just about losing friends and/or partners, it was about honoring the people who taught the Busters how to be heroes. They keep fighting to honor the sacrifice of the Buddyroids, and Hiromu’s ability to get on-side with Marvelous is completely down to Nick’s worldview. The idea of earning trust by trusting others… pretty great message for a crossover film between a government Sentai group and a bunch of space pirates who got three of your friends killed for no good reason!

That thread, all of the Busters stuff that concludes with them using their vaccine program to reanimate the Buddyroids, I liked it. It’s solid. But everything else! All of the dumb Gokaigers stuff and trips down memory lanes! Not for me!

IT’S TIME FOR the Toei Edo set!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...sgokaigerb.png

Man, if there’s a way for a movie to toss in a brief trip back to Japan in the 18th Century, you can bet Toei’s gonna grab it. You could probably do an entire fanfic series of every Rider or Sentai who spent twenty or so minutes in one square block of Japan in 1770-whatever teaming up, but only if you’re okay with a cast in the hundreds. This is the nostalgia I care about, not the Magiranger Zord or whatever. (Cute Beet Buster gag, though.)

Androzani84 also watched Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters vs Gokaiger

So the TLDR of what I thought is that I liked the movie despite not being keen on either of the two shows (having the best writer from both shows penning the movie will do that to you) and I am a huge history nerd.

To get down to business, I’ll continue my lectures on Sentai formula by talking VS movies. They tend to be set at an earlier chronological point than when they came out (the earliest this can take place is after 40, the latest is before 42), the plot tends to consist of “new villain from the previous show’s villain group teams up with the current villain group, both Sentai respond, get into a conflict of some kind, before putting it aside for a big team-up fight (where traditionally they get paired off based on colours, similar roles or prior interaction within the story, but that doesn’t happen here), they defeat the villains with their finishers, mecha battle begins, villain proves too overwhelming, they come up with a new combination or attack to combine their powers and win”. This messes with the formula by having both a new Gokaiger monster alongside the new villain (he’s here because the VA for another Gokaiger monster that used the same suit also voices J) and a new model of Megazord (dubbed “Megazord Omega” by the concept art) in the giant battle.

Also, this was the period where the new Sentai would make a cameo to finish off a villain that they couldn’t devote time to having the featured Sentai defeating without dragging the film out (the era ended with Kyuranger vs Space Squad, which started the trend of VS movies coming out after the new Sentai had been out for a while, negating the need for such a cameo, though the Final Live Tours continued them). And like Rider’s brand of pre-series cameos, there’s some weirdness since they’re going off an outline for the first episode, namely the role call being done live like Go-Busters’ own (the one in the show is pre-recorded) and the fact that, as KyoryuRed states “this Sentai sucks at gathering together” (which is true for all of 1 episode, before Red realises that the problem is that they don’t know each other in their daily lives and over the next 3 episodes, introduces them to each other to solve the problem).

But now, it’s time for the return of an old favourite…

Ridewatch Playlist: Whaddya mean these are Ranger Keys? They’re basically the same thing! Mix

So Go-Busters is considered by Bandai one of the more disappointing in terms of sales (which is why very few Sentai attempt to ape elements from it), but most of the eventual 9.6M ? profit was because they had a second toyline that was basically Gokaiger 2. Including a new version of their transformation item the Mobilates that removed the sound for Kamen Rider OOO, added a sound for Go-Busters and, for the purposes of this feature, replaces a rather confusing “VS Mode” with an “Encyclopaedia Mode”, which describes the Sentai. So here’s all the Ranger Keys I had when I made the video (I literally got the Gaoranger Keys two days ago)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TlnlspSp...XduV5eMzSOEENJ

Denziman… are the warriors fighting with the science of planet Denzi.

I’ll level with you, most of the choices here are the theme songs, and they’re named after the show, so I’ll just be sharing links for most of this. https://youtube.com/watch?v=UkET1BhJ...jY5beB4b9efYLQ

Sun Vulcan… are the warriors fighting with the power of land, sea and sky.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7DFB3GOF..._A1rTLvOz6P-cB

Goggle Five… are the warriors fighting with gymnastics techniques. (Which is not an accurate description, but it’s all people who’ve never seen the show remember about it)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nmxrCPtJ...TaPslRZoyeyU0t

Dynaman… are young scientists fighting against evil.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wyZikzW4...GXre3LdI7ojeLc

Flashman… are the warriors fighting with the power of Prisms.

I didn’t need to include this one, but I really wanted to share this video. https://youtube.com/watch?v=xUSAft6D...PSGLkqtedrNfzk

Fiveman… are 5 siblings who are also schoolteachers.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=iWk-UNfN...h7x8pcTVSNwzVF

Timeranger… are the warriors fighting enemies from the future.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cymdIrOG...UhoFEQqEo9Qhtw

Gouraiger… are the warriors fighting with Ikazuchi-style Ninja Arts.

This breaks from the theme, since these are a sub group to Hurricaneger, so they get their insert song instead https://youtube.com/watch?v=XhBTLVIuKIs

Shurikenger… is the ultimate ninja using the Hayate and Ikazuchi style Ninja Arts.

And he’s the Sixth Ranger for Hurricaneger, so he gets the same treatment https://youtube.com/watch?v=l6BgQxiPiNg

Magiranger… are siblings who fight together with the power of magic.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tc5yM7ng18w

Boukenger… are the adventurers fighting to protect what’s precious.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=rz6nVr3Gl5I

Gekiranger… are the warriors fighting with the Geki-beast Fist.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7vKjcdjQKP0

Go-Onger… are the pure warriors fighting with a full tank and their partners, the Engines.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_61DW7urVx0

Shinkenger… are the Samurai using Origami and the power of words.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LQjX2xa2U20

Gokaiger… are the space pirates fighting against the Space Empire Zangyack.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=2tnMAinsTYQ

Go-Busters… are the new heroes fighting with their friends, the Buddyroids.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0DaT2ayrZXw

And I also, courtesy of a second toy from that line that lets you roleplay as past Sentai Robots using the Ranger Keys (though the videos aren’t mine, given that while I do own the toy, I don’t trust myself to film it competently), have a second lineup for the robots in the Mecha battle. This time, it’s the insert songs for said robots.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=T2gZyDyJ...sHdPFmY_SI-eDI

Flash King is Tank Commando, Jet Seeker and Jet Delta combined into a giant robot. Its finishing move is the Super Cosmo Flash, performed with the Cosmo Sword. https://youtube.com/watch?v=mke_R_mA...TKslSNO5p_tDsM

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8DtirtQ1...7k0QtjuxogxK1e

DaiZyuJin is 5 Guardian Beasts transformed into a giant god. Its finishing move is performed with the Dinosword God Horn. Super Legendary Lightning Howl Slash! https://youtube.com/watch?v=q5X3S1Q_...WMI-lLW3-fq15T

DairenOh is the 5 Qi Legend Beasts 5-Star combining into a giant warrior. Its finishing move gathers all of its power into the Great King Sword. Great King Sword: Gale Drop!* https://youtube.com/watch?v=1W-PDFuv...u9fPRuUHKXeKBZ

(Note: the Dairanger mecha featured here is RyuseiOh, the red Qi Legend Beast, in its Warrior Transformation. Its finishing move, performed with its staff, is the Great Windmill Slash.)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=bl0gXFpa...IX5vfjwUAev6wd

GaoKing is the giant king of spirits formed from the Hundred Beasts Combination of 5 Power Animals. Its finishing move uses the spirits of the Power Animals to Shake the Earth! Super Animal Heart! https://youtube.com/watch?v=SJJVEXrdE20

MagiKing is the 5 MagiMajin Magic Combined into the King of Majins. Its finishing moves with the King Caliber are Magic Slash and Phantom Illusion. https://youtube.com/watch?v=SHmiokaz...xzpcdKrSZKRLd3

DaiBouken is 5 GoGo Vehicles GoGo Combined into a giant robot. Its weapons, the GoPicker and GoScooper, combine into the GoGo Sword. https://youtube.com/watch?v=k3a6O0VF...TCF0nUaVvimvc1

GekiTouja is the Beast-fist combination of Geki Beasts into a giant fighter. Its finishers performed by spinning its body are The Great Firm Firm Leg and the Great Firm Firm Fist. (There isn’t an insert song for this one. No, I don’t know why)

GokaiOh is the Pirate Combination of 5 Gokai Machines into a giant robot. This amazing robot fights with the Greater Powers of the Historic Super Sentai. https://youtube.com/watch?v=w0Pyu4WH...Gll48U1FsbVZc_

Go-Buster Ace is Buster Machine CB-01 Cheetah, and can transform into a Megazord. GT-02, RH-03, BC-04 and SJ-05 combine with it to form Great Go-Buster. https://youtube.com/watch?v=8jre52IQ...-eOTBfH3u2TM1g

This reminds me a lot of how I felt watching the last episodes of Go-Busters originally. Again, this is back in the days where fansubs had no TTFC or anything like that to get clean raws from, so Over-Time's release of the later episodes of this show included ads for the next show in line, and let me tell you, those commercials did the exact opposite of getting me hyped! Here I am trying to deal with the complicated feelings of reaching the end of a 50 episode show I had been enjoying this much, and suddenly Shigeru Chiba starts screaming at me about dinosaurs at max volume, as if Toei's transparent attempt to boost Sentai's popularity by rehashing an already successful gimmick was really going to work.

Well, not only did it end up working, it ended up working on me, because when I eventually gave Kyoryuger a chance, it actually clicked with me pretty much immediately, and played a much greater role in getting me invested in Super Sentai as a whole than Go-Busters actually did. Really special show, that Kyoryuger.

Anyways, I say all this in part to point out that, despite watching all of Gokaiger before Go-Busters, I probably wasn't too far off from where Die was in my initial reaction to this movie. The other part is that I simply don't have much else to say. Even now, after a lot of experience with these crossovers, it's rare a Sentai VS film leaves any lasting impression on me, and this isn't one of those few standouts. I barely even remember the experience of watching it, honestly. So this isn't a film I can readily pull some hidden depth out of to make an argument in its favor, but I will say, I definitely learned to love all three of the shows it's pulling from, with time.

Thank you so much for the info!

Good to know! I can't say my brief interactions with, uh, King (? Yup, Wiki says it's King) have been especially positive -- mostly him randomly showing up in already overstuffed/incoherent/Gavan films to do a little soft-shoe routine to samba music, and I can't say I welcomed the intrusion. But! That's more a reflection on my habitual disinterest in Sentai (and dance routines) than it is a criticism of the actual TV show, so please take my dismissal in the semi-ridiculous way it was intended. I imagine Kyoryuger has a lot of positive attributes, but it ain't anything I'm aching to discover personally.

Don't blame ya. When Red introduces himself as a Sentai, that turns out to be surprisingly accurate. However, while I started out being optimistic about their show, I ended up disliking it a lot, so my opinion is basically the opposite of Fish's.

I didn't like the execution of the Gokai Change gimmick, but I love the Megazord Change gimmick for 3 reasons. Firstly, the Legendary Megazord Keys are created from the Phantom Ranger Keys, so the powers aren't being stolen, only duplicated. Secondly, no need to re-gender assign the suits to the match the suit actors. Thirdly, the fight was awesome! I guess since you admittedly don't care too much for mecha fights, you wouldn't appreciate it, but it totally worked for me!

I presume this is your first time seeing Shiba Kaoru, since she hadn't been introduced yet during the time of the Decade crossover. She's a cool character. Honestly, I was more excited about her return than the Gokaigers!

Yeah, my love for this VS movie doesn't really have anything to do with the VS part at all. I'm not particularly fond of most of the Gokaigers either, especially since Bandai refuse to let their damn merchandise die, but I doubt even their average fans would deny that they're pretty antiheroic. They are pirates after all, whether we like it or not. Anyway, at least these guys have the courtesy to share the focus with their fellow VS Sentai, unlike a certain successor.... (good luck)

These dramatic heartwrenching Buddyroid scenes though, this is what got me the most invested in the movie! Like I said, nothing to do with VS, it's pure honest Gobusters drama that still punches me in the feelings even on what's probably the fourth time I've watched this now. I mentioned from the start of the show that the Buddyroids are a major part of what makes Gobusters so meaningful, so a movie that sacrifices them in the same way that the heroes' families were sacrificed and seeing them suffer that loss all over again and yet they're determined to keep fighting, to make their partners proud of them.... It's the worst tragedy yet. But what's special about this is how, while they lost their families, they actually manage to get their true happy ending here, using the power of their emotions to will the Buddyroids back to life! Do we even need to talk about the Gokaigers, like, who cares about that when we've got a peak Gobusters story right here!

And it puts Yoko and J together once more, which is always an enjoyable pair to watch.

In case it wasn't clear enough how much I loved this VS, here's my current Top 10 Heisei VS Ranking:

1) Gobusters VS Gokaiger
2) Dekaranger VS Abaranger
3) Gekiranger VS Boukenger
4) Ryusoulger VS Lupinranger VS Patranger
5) Shinkenger VS Go-Onger
6) Gavan VS Dekaranger
7) Hurricanger VS Gaoranger
8) Gaoranger VS Super Sentai
9) Ohranger VS Kakuranger
10) Kyuranger VS Space Squad

Pretty much! It's especially weird how little the Gokaigers intersect with this story, considering it's basically the emotional core of the film? The Gokaigers losing their ship, being defeated by the villains... that stuff's all in flashback, and the ship just comes back mid-movie without them doing anything to earn it! The actual stakes of the film are 100% borne by the Busters, and they're the only ones who resolve them? Weird!

But it also proves what Hiromu said to Marvelous earlier, that whether they're the official 36th Sentai or not, they will always show up when the world needs to be protected. When the Buddyroids are toasted, the Gokaigers see the distress and they're prepared to handle the rest of the fight on their own, but the Gobusters prove that's not necessary and that determination to fight to protect the world even when they're suffering is ultimately what earns their respect. If the Gokaigers had just bailed them out, it would've diminished the power of their spirit. Marvelous said it himself, they don't intend to protect the world, as it already has a Sentai for that mission, so them entrusting the Gobusters with the important part feels like that's exactly the point.

No, I just meant, like... what is at risk for the Gokaigers in this film? Beyond "stopping the villains" and "saving the world" -- pretty basic mandates for Sentai -- I'm not sure what skin the Gokaigers have in the game, compared to the established stakes for the Go-Busters. The losses they suffer are both backstory-only and sort of trumped up for their scheme, and they don't suffer any debilitating or thematic setbacks as the film progresses. The Go-Busters are in a heart-rending story of loss and connection, while the Gokaigers are having a fun pirate adventure. I don't feel like the disparity does the Gokaigers part of this movie any favors?

Oh, well, that's basically something Gokaiger lacked even in their own show. Neither "stopping the villains" nor "saving the world" were high on their to-do list until much later, they just happened to be on bad terms with Zangyack, so saving the world was a side effect of defeating them.

Sure, but at least in the (terrible) Super Hero Taisen, where Marvelous runs basically this entire scheme by himself, the Gokaigers have to deal with Marvelous's "betrayal" and the fact that he appeared to have murdered half of their team. There's legitimate stakes for them throughout the film, like it or not. Very weird that this one gives them less to do emotionally, when they're in the title.

Of course! I knew you were playing up the bit there. (The self-aware choice of screencap at the start was not lost on me!) I brought up that personal anecdote mostly because it's a vivid memory of watching this show for me, more than to make any particular point. It's just funny for me to think back to a time where I was certain I would definitely never like those dancing dino dudes, in light of how quickly I ended up liking them.

In retrospect, I think it was less that I honestly suspected Kyoryuger wouldn't be fun, and more that it's the rare occasion I felt sort of upset about a new toku show "replacing" the one I was currently having such a great time with. Shows how much I love Go-Busters, I guess.

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 47 - “RESETS AND BACKUPS”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters47a.png

I don’t generally love the series-long villain schemes of toku shows. It’s not the parts of these shows I find the most joy in. Themes, character arcs, comedic subplots, melancholy beats… that’s what I love to talk about, and think about, and remember. The overarching schemes of would-be despots and genocidal tyrants, they aren’t so much my thing.

So imagine my surprise when I loved everything about the Enter scenes in this episode.

A lot of it is in the performance. Enter’s been a bright spot for this whole series, mostly in how the actor navigates his role as emissary for a screaming digital interdimensional skull god. There was always a playfulness to go along with the obsequiousness and malice, giving you the sense that Enter was aware of how ludicrous his master was, while just sort of shrugging with an It’s A Living smirk. Since his return as Papa Enter/New Messiah, there’s been a chilling serenity to his performance – the register has turned down from Flamboyant to Regal, befitting his new role. It makes the opening sequence of exposition – detailing what Enter’s been up to since Mission 33, and what he’s planning to do now – into something more captivating than a connecting-the-dots speech would normally be. He’s revealing his masterstroke to the Busters not out of a sense of gloating, but because they’ve all been involved in this process for months, so it’s only right that they should know what they’ve helped build.

And then, added to that around the edges, we get that old Messiah insanity creeping in – the uncontrollable anger, the frustration with Escape’s devotion, the way the Go-Busters can suddenly get under his skin by dismissing his power. The contrast of the Messiah madness with the Enter equanimity creates a captivating tension to what would otherwise just be the setup for the series final finale. It’s so fun to watch, and it made me care about a part of this show that I was not expecting to enjoy.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters47b.png

IT’S TIME FOR Chicken!

But there’s also the plot of this particular episode, and I also thought that was a blast. Pivoting directly from Enter Is All-Powerful And Has Neutralized Hiromu right into Hiromu getting traumatized through chicken training is a pretty, pretty good switch-up. Using that as the jumping off point to create a second episode in a row about the massive character growth these kids have achieved over the past year in recognizing and managing their flaws through their teamwork and friendship was a delightful choice. (If Mission 48 has a middle section where Hiromu and Ryuji open up a candy shop for Yoko, I will not be shocked.) The idea that Hiromu’s trauma is partially about his inability to ask other people for help is brilliant, and the solution of everyone kicking the crap out of him is inspired. Used as a mirror to Enter’s self-proclaimed evolution, it’s a nice little story to tell as we ramp up for the final finale.

My highlight for this episode was the fact that someone programmed Lioh to say “Sakurada Hiromu Chicken reaction detected!”. Which gets even funnier when you realise that not only is it a sound the actual toy has, but it has similar lines for the other two (though they aren’t as funny out of context).

And continuing the theme of its smaller counterpart, KuwagataZord is my favourite Megazord design purely for how hilariously doofy the beetle horns look on the Beta body. And since the basis turned out NOT to be J’s pet, I’d like to imagine it was Momoi Taro’s Kabuto Gii-chan, for some added cruelty related to that Donbrothers episode.

And Enter can now do the Volcanick Attack. I couldn’t quite tell what the flashback to him giving Hiromu the 13th Card was to (I’m assuming it was early in the second act), but it does create a few disturbing implications as to what else he copied from his arch enemy.

Enter has always been one of the best parts of the show, but final arc Enter? Now that guy, he takes it to a whole new level. There was always the implication, from very early on, that Enter could easily become a much more devious and frighteningly competent villain if he weren't answering to Messiah, so having him formally decide to just be Messiah really lets the show finally run wild with the character.

There's obviously a lot of strong thematic aspects to the stuff he's doing right now, and how it contrasts with the heroes, which is also great, but even before any of that, I love this episode for that big cliffhanger reveal and how effectively it boxes the protagonists in. It's like Enter has basically weaponized the status quo of a show like this by making sure that a win for the good guys is still a win for him anyway. Exactly the sort of brilliance I'd expect from the guy.

Looking back now it's a damn shame Go-Busters never guest-starred Hidenori Tokuyama who played Yaguruma/Kickhopper in Kamen Rider Kabuto in an episode. Because after Kabuto, Tokuyama went on to play a ranger in the 2008 sentai show who piloted a sentient chicken helicopter. Truly a missed golden opportunity. :lolol

Li-Oh is the most irreplaceable member of the team! It can do everything!

It's a good twist, but my favorite thing is how it's also the most diabolical culmination possible for the ongoing story of how best to combine humanity and technology to create a better future. Some of my favorite villain plots are where the villain thematically wants what the heroes want, just in the worst way imaginable.

We live in the worst timeline!

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 48 - “THE TRAP IS SPRUNG”

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It’s a real plot-heavy episode of Go-Busters, which shouldn’t be a surprise – we only have two more episodes left in the series, and last episode’s bombshell cliffhanger needs a lot of space to be unpacked – but still took me back a little bit in how relentlessly it focused things on the two characters most impacted by Enter’s schemes: Hiromu and Escape.

Let’s handle Escape first, because it’s the part I was least into. As noted previously, I don’t think much of Escape’s various passions and pitfalls? A lot of it is the actor (I just don’t think she’s very compelling, past the initial allure of her being hot and dangerous), but some of it is how little her progression over the second half of the series amounted to much, narratively. She pretty much went from Serving Messiah to Serving Messiah And Also Hating Enter, you know? Ryuji can wring his hands over the unfair fate of Escape, but even he has to admit in this one that at her best she was still a devoted gun-toting minion of a screaming digital interdimensional skull god, whose last moments of autonomy were spent trying to provide Messiah with the raw materials to conquer Earth once and for all. While it’s shitty of Enter to keep reprogramming her, it’s not like she had a lot to offer either the story or the world before this?

But it’s Hiromu who gets the meat of this episode, even if that meat is less appetizing to me than usual. Hiromu ends this one where he started, but with the added result of knowing that the usual planning of the EMC and heroic sacrifices of the Go-Busters (the Red one, anyway) won’t help solve this problem. It’s a story that sort of touches on the major Hiromu beats – Hiromu’s pathological inability to start by asking for help, mainly and continuously – while closing off any and all possible solutions to the problem of Enter forcefully and non-consensually putting himself inside Hiromu’s body. (... no, I can hear it now.) There’s a bulk of this episode that’s less about the consequences of a trap being sprung, and more about how the trap can’t be unsprung, and it… I don’t know, there were some fun fight scenes, but this was an episode of ticking off possibilities, instead of telling me a lot about the characters.

There’s the potential for some very neat looks at Enter and Hiromu coming up, as this episode ends with Enter becoming a more literal and accurate copy of Hiromu (I just really like the idea of Enter becoming more perfect as villain, and how that thematically contrasts with this show's view on flaws being a part of every person), but I thought this one felt like half to a third of a story. Solid action, and pitch-perfect tension, but it didn’t really give me a whole story to chew on.

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IT’S TIME FOR Yellow Buster!

Not a great episode for the non-Hiromu Busters (Ryuji gets some stuff in the Escape parts, but it’s mostly rehashing last episode), but I like that it’s Yoko who first tries to connect with Hiromu, mostly because she’s the other Go-Buster besides him that is completely ill-suited to a technologically complex plan of teleportation and gene sequencing. She, like Hiromu, would rather this be a problem that she could directly confront, but her version of that confrontation is reaching out to Hiromu and trying to be there for him. Unsuccessfully, sure, but it’s still a nice scene.

Honestly, I don’t think the show ever figured out what it wanted to do with Escape. She was introduced as the brawn to Enter’s brains, but then Enter went and proved he could be both at once after Messiah’s death. And as I pointed out in my episode 36 review, he did it better. And given her one defining character trait is “devoted to Messiah”, this episode feels like a send off to a far more complex and sympathetic character than the end result.

But on another note, her two new suits aren’t named here, but the Jp Wikipedia names the smaller form as Escape Life Form and the giant sized version as Escape Lambda. While the latter does fit the Greek alphabet name theme of the other Megazord, it seems a weird rename with the context.

Next time: the end results of Enter’s “Morphin”.

I think what hurts for Ryuji is that Escape had her choice, regardless of how poorly misplaced, taken away from her, when it was Ryuji declaring his own choice to fight his way in Episode 25 that earned Escape's respect for him as a worthy rival. Even if Escape didn't have a lot of different sides to her, she was always a proud and honorable fighter with a purpose she believed in, but Enter reduced her with each iteration until she was too berserk to even get to enjoy the fight. Ryuji understands the pain of loving something and being unable to pursue it, but at least he still has his dream of becoming an engineer ahead of him, while Escape has been denied the only thing she had left. Sadly, the last gesture Ryuji could do for her was put her to rest and that's the tragedy of Escape, that she knew exactly what she wanted to do but was never allowed to die on her own terms. Ryuji's and Escape's rivalry is a story about two people struggling to follow their purpose when the world gets in the way and that's why I appreciate it.

Sure, I mean... this is a story beat that's about Ryuji's empathy and humanity, and that's why it works even a little. I got nothing bad to say about Ryuji being horrified that even an enemy is reduced to a plaything for Enter.

I just... Escape, you know? If she'd had an arc that showed the potential for change, or had made a genuine connection with a single non-Messiah character (because Messiah is barely a character to begin with), or had a moment across a few dozen episodes that even approached the complexity of a throwaway Humagear story from Zero-One, I'd feel something more about Escape's dying desperation to make a Papa (any Papa!) happy. But we sort of never had that here, at least to my tastes, and so Ryuji's anger and horror feels like it's being applied to a treasured playlist on Spotify or something.

Obviously in the larger scheme of the story, the decisions Hiromu makes in this one are not meant to be seen as ideal, but man, as someone who's probably at least as big a fan of Red Buster as Enter is, I gotta tell ya' -- it's real hard to not just unironically love Hiromu going full macho action hero and deciding to settle things with Enter personally? Nick even hits all the classic loyal partner beats to earn the right to tag along, and the end result is like this epic teleporting sword fight that starts plummeting over the side of a building and ends with a desperate life-or-death gamble that puts the resolve and guile of hero and villain alike to the ultimate test?

It's really not healthy! The fact that Hiromu in the climax here would rather burn himself alive than ask somebody to help is not something I should be encouraging, but dude, when it makes for television this entertaining, I just can't find it in me to be too hard on the guy!

More seriously, I mean, of course I do quite like all that "larger scheme" stuff going on here too, and that's even a big reason why this fight sticks with me so much, but just for the spectacle alone, this is an episode I'm fond of.

It's sort of crucial for this episode that Hiromu's plan is so theatrical and epic that you kind of can't be too mad at him for choosing immolation over teamwork. Like, Hiromu's plan sort of makes sense, for a Red Buster value of making sense -- if he can bluff Enter, then the Card is negated; if Enter calls his bluff, Hiromu's killed and the Card is destroyed, paving the way for the rest of the team to defeat Enter. It's a plan that devalues Hiromu's life outside of being a Go-Buster as a given, of course, but it's still a decent enough strategy? If it wasn't so cool, I think every viewer midway through the episode would be like Or You Could Ask For Help, and that would be skipping ahead!

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 49 - “RESOLVE AND DECISIONS”

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I like how this one ended up being a rebuttal to last episode’s Hiromu story, crystalizing that the strength of the Go-Busters is in how they support one another, so any individual flaw becomes offset by everyone else’s teamwork. Hiromu’s transformation into Enter’s lifeline is a huge problem if Hiromu fights him one-on-one, but Hiromu doesn’t have to fight Enter one-on-one; he’s never been alone. The team is there to save him, or if necessary, kill him. It’s not a problem for him to solve with his own two hands.

This could all feel a bit redundant, in regards to Hiromu's continuing story of avoiding burdening -slash- communicating with his family, if not for the heightened stakes of the last few episodes. Like, yeah, Hiromu was probably being reasonable when he didn’t want to make his friends and family responsible for executing him. I don’t think that’s selfish of him to not want to put on them! It’s an okay thing to try and spare them of that! But in the end, Hiromu’s life is more than just his to cash in – he’s part of a team, and the team wins or loses as a unit.

A lot of this is less interesting to me than the Christmas episodes, if I’m being honest. (Again, this was sort of dealt with just a few episodes ago against Messiah!) The Christmas episodes felt like such a joyous culmination of everything the team learned over the last 13 years, crescendoing with a defeat of their ancestral enemy on the anniversary of their parents’ deaths. This is… kind of doing a lot of the same stuff? Hiromu and the gang save two kids that are hilariously similar to Tiny Yoko and Tiny Hiromu, making the flashback to 13 years ago almost insultingly unnecessary. (It’s so on the nose!) Enter’s abducting scientists by the truckload, just like their parents were lost to Messiah. The resolution to all of this requires a trip to hyperspace, just like their parents did 13 years ago. And so on.

Like, I appreciate a symmetrical resolution as much as the next adult who spends too much time critiquing television shows designed to sell toys to children, but this was all a little too diagrammatic for me. It feels mechanical instead of precise, where the gears grind up nuance in favor of reference. The Christmas episodes felt like the hand of fate giving the Go-Busters a chance to make things right (so Christmassy!), while this one just felt… preordained? Inevitable? Less fun, in any event.

I don’t hate this ending, if that’s what this all sounds like. (I can see why you’d get that impression. That last paragraph! Yikes!) I enjoyed this episode in a lot of the ways I liked the last one – the feeling of a dozen episodes’ worth of threads finally coming together in unexpected and compelling ways, while a charismatic villain inches closer to omnipotence. That’s fun! This whole thing feels like a natural end to the year’s story. I just… I think it’s a less fun version than the previous natural end to the year’s story?

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IT’S TIME FOR Enter Buster!

I don’t know if this suit’s got a name or whatever, but I love it. It’s perfect. My favorite suit of the entire series, right here at the end. It’s such a great feral version of Hiromu’s suit: the fangs over the eyes, the maroon color scheme, the jagged edges, the little bolts everywhere. (The little Vagras emblem where the GB teleporter usually is!) I love how it’s Red Buster but vicious, a perfect encapsulation of Messiah and Buster. Gorgeous suit, perfectly timed.

Yes, it's called Dark Buster. And yeah, you're not alone when you say it's your favorite because the suit has been and still is considered popular.

I believe it!

The scene that sticks out for me is Jin using a tower of blocks as a metaphor for Hiromu's DNA structure with the Messiah Card block in the middle and everybody's like, "yeah, let's just remove it", before Jin dramatically knocks it over. If anybody knows best about the danger of transporting human data, it's Jin and the fact that even he can't figure out a solution to Hiromu's malware shows how dire the situation is. Hiromu is strong, but if you try and take him apart, we're reminded that humans are fragile.

Personally, I prefer the classic Redbuster.

I would not fight you on that. This show doesn't hurt for amazing costumes!

All I’ve got to say is… after the early appearance in vs Gokaiger, Megazord Omega makes its canon debut. I’m not sure I ever really came up with an opinion of this episode beyond the visual of an Enertron tower turning into a Vaglass tree being well done.

Fun fact -- this is actually the suit that got me to watch Go-Busters!

I think I might've mentioned some of this towards the start of the thread, but back in 2012, I had gotten way into Kamen Rider already and was always sort of vaguely looking to branch out to Super Sentai. Despite following Gokaiger more-or-less as it aired, I wasn't totally feeling it, and, despite loving everything about Go-Busters conceptually, and enjoying the first few episodes when they were the only few episodes, I ended up putting the show on the back burner. I believe part of this was that actually downloading stuff from Over-Time was a hassle for me back then or something? I don't totally remember, but the important point is that I always was interested in picking it back up... it's just that I became way too comfortable leaving it for later. None of the stuff I was seeing from a distance ever did quite enough to pull me back in... right up until I was going to Over-Time's site to grab the latest episode of Wizard, and saw that their picture for the release post of episode 49 of this show was just a no-context picture of Dark Buster.

That was seriously all it took, after most of a year.

I was instantly fascinated by whatever this cool looking evil Red Buster guy was supposed to be, and just like that, I *had* to find out what the deal was. No way I could keep ignoring a show with something this awesome somewhere in it. I'm a sucker for almost any cool evil version of a hero, but the specific genre of this one, where it's explicitly the monster version, rather than just being purple and black or something, *really* spoke to me. I almost certainly don't need to explain how effectively this design comes together to anyone, so I won't bother. Of course, it turned out the suit didn't exactly make a ton of appearances, but that didn't upset me too much when I got 48 prior episodes that were generally super enjoyable and even featured a different monster suit for Enter that's quite cool in its own right and fits his character perfectly. (Which is probably why it still gets to be in the show.)

There's part of me that still loves this suit so much I wish it *had* been a part of the series in a larger capacity, but A) Power Rangers has since sort of vicariously granted that wish, and B) Dark Buster's appearance definitely comes at the right time in the story we got, and thanks to it giving me that final push to get around to it, I ended up really liking that story.

I always wish I had more to say about the Megazords, but... I really don't? I genuinely don't even remember which one this is.

Yeah, it's the perfect suit, but a lot of that perfection comes from how the last 48 episodes of story build up to its debut. Not in the sense of When Are We Going To Get To The Dark Buster Factory -- which is, uh, sort of what you got back in 2013 -- but more that you need so much of Enter and his plan to get the story behind this thing across, and to make it clear how colossally screwed the Busters are when it appears.

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS FINAL MISSION - “ETERNAL BONDS”

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Jin’s sacrifice… I don’t know. I don’t know!

I mean, I get it. Jin’s the guy that got dragged into hyperspace against his will 13 years ago to save the world, and now he’s the guy begging to let himself be sacrificed to save the world. Similarly, the Busters are once again having to make the hard call to put the safety of the world above their own desires, specifically to make sure no one has to go through what they did as kids, so they have to let Jin do this. It’s not Hiromu recklessly risking his own life, it’s Jin making sure that everyone is involved with this decision. (That puts him one up on Hiromu’s dad!) It’s a team decision, which is crucial for this show’s treatise on teamwork.

But.

It’s a worse story for me, compared to the Christmas episodes. That one has a character’s sacrifice obviated by his friends refusal to participate in it, forcing him to let them shoulder his burden, rather than the other way around. That one’s a sweeter story for being about the value of a life, rather than the value of a death. This one’s a story of how hard decisions become easier to deal with when you make them as a group – the support of others as a unit, rather than being able to lean on others for support. I just… I sort of like that less.

However.

This one… it’s sort of beautiful, though, in its centering of grief, and on letting someone go. The idea that everyone you love will be around forever… that’s what this show is sort of pushing against, just from its basic premise. The previous two big Messiah stories were about the Busters finally letting their parents go, and then about understanding that their lives are a gift, so maybe it’s only right for the third one to be about letting their friends decide what to do with that gift. It’s a nicely completed circle.

Still.

It creates this weird tension in the episode for me, where Jin’s noble sacrifice seems perpendicular to the larger story of how our imperfections require us to depend on others, and that dependence creates a power bigger than any one person and/or Avatar – but then that bond couldn’t keep Jin from deleting himself to save Hiromu. It’s support and caring for each other and community but now there’s one less of them. It feels like a messier story, and not in a way I liked.

Except.

I did like this one. Quite a bit, actually. Jin’s scene of begging the team to let him lay down his life to save the world was exquisite, nailing the tricky relationships Jin had with the whole cast in just a few precisely applied lines. (And tears! Tears from the cast! Tears from me when Jin brought up Yoko’s mom!) The battle against Enter at the end was the perfect Smug Hero vibes, the cast chuckling at how every one of Enter’s schemes had just been negated without him realizing it. The unified Volcanick Attack! Epic! It’s a robust episode of victory, with a single sour note of failure.

I’ll probably care less about the Jin stuff in a little bit. It’s got its reasons to be there, and I find it harder to articulate why it should’ve been excluded than why it deserves to stay in. But, man. Felt like they needed a different option for this episode.

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IT’S TIME FOR Specialest Buster!

Seriously, that Volcanick All Busters Attack, man. So great, the embodiment of teamwork and family defeating isolation and selfishness. What a way to finally end the threat of the Vagras.