Jumping into Gobus 22 as I remember 21's vague plot, and it wasn't particularly important either. Honestly I remember most of Gobus plot beats from the first half because there wasn't a lot to it honestly.

DAT COLD SORE

Was Go-Busters a sinking ship by this point? Everything about this episode seems meta for what happened with the show. If it wasn't failing by this point, I guess this episode was sorta prophetic. And also a nice sentiment to people who have enjoyed the show so far, like moi, despite the haters.

With that aside, this episode made me kinda sad, seeing the GORGEOUS Escape (fan service? Who cares? I WOULD) running along walls giggling to herself as she kisses her machine wolf pistols or the epic giant robot that LOOKS like a giant robot fighting in Hyperspace - this is just an insanely cool show and I would have loved to see Power Rangers attempt it.

Cold sore?

Yep. I think we all knew that there was some retooling in the pipelines by this point.

Yeah look.

Can't wait to see where the show goes from here. Escape is a great addition to the show!

Gobus 23. Wait the themes changed?

So Enter's speciality is Megazords? What about all the Metaroids he made up until this point? Escape's metaroids don't seem to be doing any better. Honestly this episode reminded a lot of the early Kyoryuger episodes as the show started to go south. The only difference is Gobus has Escape, yummy yummy Escape.

Enter makes the new models. The Delta which you've already seen and the Epsilon which shows in the movie/really serious battles during the series.

Oh right.

I dunno whether it's just because it's been a few months since I last watched the show but I found the whole villain dynamic a little baffling. I sorta know the 'what' but not really the 'why'.

The 20s get really, really good as we rush to what would have been the series finale.

Then it all comes crashing down in that terrible Gavan tie-in 2-parter.

M
E
G
A
MEGA

Mega Silver's return (Mega Silver did show up a few episodes back, but it was just because the plot needed the character of the week to arrive somewhere and he was the only character with a motorcycle).
If the episode with Kenta's love interest was miscommunication done competently, then this episode was miscommunication done terribly. Kenta and Miku jump to a conclusion on Yusaka's heath, confront Yusaka about it, and he doesn't correct them? The stupid ass excuse of "I didn't want to seem lame" at the end doesn't justify it, either.

Anyway, with Mega Silver comes more BS. Here, the rangers can't get close to the Mantis Nezire because he can see at 5 angles, so he can always keep them at bay, but Mega Silver (Directly noted to be weaker because of the suit being modified at the time) is able to rush at the monster with no issue? Then, during the later fight, Mega Silver is able to score a hit on him from a blind spot that he spent the entire first fight boating that he didn't have?

God...

Oh well. Up next is the Mega Winger, meaning it's another Mega Silver episode.

Gobus 24. DAT DAY FOR NIGHT.

Sigh, so the new direction for Gobus is for it to become another generic goofy sentai? RUINED IT! The only real positive to come out of this is it seems the creators really don't want to change and seem to be arguing with the producers through the show.

What this episode lacked though, it more than made up for in the action. Yoko and Ryuuji's double team special buster was both a visual treat, but also really cool and the kind of unspoken character development that toku can do pretty uniquely through the action.

Meanwhile Ace is the best mech design in this show, and one of the best sentai mechs ever, so seeing Hiromu get to pilot it without it having to combine with anything else was really enjoyable. About the only combination I like in this show (ironically perhaps) is when all the robos come together as one, well all the robos so far. No other base design, or combination, does anything for me.

I have 10-ish episodes left in both Magi and Gokai which means that my "It's getting close to the end and I don't want it to end so I'm watching like one episode every couple days" has started. It took me like a month to watch the last 6 episodes of Fourze.

After this I'm gonna start Boukenger and Maskman. Maybe I'll watch Operation Overdrive with Bouken...

Nope. While the attitude lightens a bit, Go-Busters remains serious all the way through.

M
E
G
A
MEGA

More Megaranger.
Mega Silver gets his Keitaizer taken by business exec. Yusaka gets captured because no morpher. Monster demands mecha for his life. Rangers choose the latter. Everything falls in line for a happy ending.
I know the business exec is supposed to be the antagonist, but I do so desperately wish shows that try to pull this kind of plot would look at the argument from his side.
While taking Mega Silver's morpher was rock stupid and he had a piss poor argument, when the monster returned and demanded the Mega Voyager or Silver will die, the Megarangers choose the same thing every show that does this plot do. It's really annoying.
Monster: "Give me [Item necessary for our side to succeed] or your friend will die!"
Heroes: "...We have no choice!"

It's so dumb, and the business exec even points out that if Mega Voyager was destroyed, they wouldn't be able to protect the planet, but nope. The Megarangers choose one friend over everyone else's lives. Every show that pulls this plot plays it exactly like that. Everyone in the room (And the one's whose life is at risk) tries to stop the heroes, but the heroes go anyway because, all of a sudden, they decide that the life one is more important.

I guess I just take Mr. Spock's famous line too seriously, but it honestly does make the most sense...
Basically, what I'm saying is, that, whenever a show pulls this "Friends life for vital item" plot, my only reaction is-
http://i.imgur.com/VE4ZVCb.png

Oh, and the Mega Winger showed up, too.

Thank Christ.

Oooh, Psycho Rangers! Finally!
That trailer left more of an impact than this episode all together :lol

Gobus 25. The last few episodes of Gobus have left a bit to be desired, but this was a glorious return to form. The perfect celebration of the half way mark.

Escape is super hot, but it's all becoming a little too forced for my tastes. I find a woman becomes incredibly less appealing when a show can't stop going on about it, just look at poor Amy. It's a shame too, because the fights with her really are fantastic. I guess as she's not a suit, she has much freer range of movement, and as she isn't a suit they feel they need to accentuate the way she moves that much more to compensate. It really does work for great effect, in a sea of stumpy arms, and frozen expressions fights that feel like they jumped straight out of GARO are welcome. Shame this is one reinvention from Gobus, amongst many, which were lost in Kyoryuger.

Honestly the action was amazing in general. The way the Busters are so good individually, but also brilliant as a team. When Ryuuji literally used his overheating "weakness" to get a boost in the battle, catching bullets in mid air and throwing around his super strength. Seeing Ace get another trip out. SO AWESOME.

Anyway, this shows attention to detail is wonderful, it's rare to watch a show so careful and in control. I guess Saban didn't adapt this because they know they'd never hold it together as well.

My personal theory is that knew they could never replace the greatness that is Enter :lol.

Neziranger! Just as cool as I hoped. Wrecking shit so badly. That's how you play up a threat! *Glares at Girell*

There was no mecha fight, and I'm glad. There wasn't a MoTW for the rangers to defeat. It was the Nezirangers kicking so much ass that they needed to leave mid fight so they could get shoe polish specially formulated for buttocks. If there was a sour point, it'd be that the late 90's special effects were painfully obvious, but otherwise, I loved this episode.

This was a complete curb stomping, and I'm not usually one to love those, since, when done by the hero, it makes either the heroes who lost to the villain look like chumps or makes the viewer question why the villain was ever a threat; and when done by a villain, it's often handled poorly, with the heroes forgetting they have a specific weapon or ability, or the heroes just going full on idiot mode for a minute.
It was handled well here, and it was great. I can't wait for the next episode!

...What? It's the episode where the little girl learns Red's identity? Oh, come on! In Space even did this episode >.>

Gobus 26. They changed the music again?

This was pretty silly but its silliness was mostly well handled. Moments like the Commander with the mop for example. Plus that Eraser Metaroid/Megazord really fucked shit up, so it sorta balanced out. Also that manual gattai was pretty fucking awesome.

Megaranger!

Uneventful episode, but there was one thing that I liked, and that was Nezi Red's screaming and flailing over why he can't kill Mega Red, despite literally standing on top of a beaten Mega Red. I don't know why I enjoyed that particular scene, but that one track mindset actually makes for an interesting villain.
"What do you mean? It makes them more dull. They only want one goal, and nothing else."
It's a simple character turned more complex just by thinking about them.
A character like Guirel, for example, wants to advance and rule, and he'll plot, lie, and betray anyone to achieve that goal. In a sense, it makes him predictable (From the audiences' view) because you know his plans will always have some sort of fine print to further his own goals.
Nezi Red wants to kill Mega Red. It's a goal that doesn't have wall after wall to achieve. However, what makes it more interesting is that he's clearly sentient. He's not a drone, and this episode proved it with his screaming over his forced retreat preventing him from getting the kill.
A simple story arc could be Mega Red pretending to die, but not by Nezi Red's hands. It could give something of an identity crisis to the character.

Oh well. As it stands, what makes them interesting as characters is what we're not told about them. The mystery over everything else. And since they were introduced so late into the game, while they weight of their threat is felt, they're not powerful as characters alone.

I know. It's much a case of "What could have been."
I just like to speculate on what we're not told. Their actions and reactions. The bits of character we see.

Gobus 27.

I gotta say, I love the Gobus fight scenes. Kyoryuger reminds me a lot of Disney - I mean sure there was the blood and stuff and some decent unmorphed fight scenes - but the majority of the action was made up of special effects. Great effects, it was all extremely fun but you don't realise what you miss, until you start watching a show like this.

Gobus is full of martial arts, the kind of comicbook realist martial arts where every move is gorgeous, and polished, and unnecessarily complex as people go flying through the air and through walls. I love the way people run up walls, swing through the air. Like I say there is nothing wrong with the way Kyoryuger did it, but Gobus feels so much more intense as it feels so much more physical.

Between all the flashy special effectsfests, the best fights in the show are when Ryuuji throws down his weapon and faces off against either Enter or Escape. And hell, the mech stuff doesn't immediately ruin everything either!

Gobus 27.

I gotta say, I love the Gobus fight scenes. Kyoryuger reminds me a lot of Disney - I mean sure there was the blood and stuff and some decent unmorphed fight scenes - but the majority of the action was made up of special effects. Great effects, it was all extremely fun but you don't realise what you miss, until you start watching a show like this.

Gobus is full of martial arts, the kind of comicbook realist martial arts where every move is gorgeous, and polished, and unnecessarily complex as people go flying through the air and through walls. I love the way people run up walls, swing through the air. Like I say there is nothing wrong with the way Kyoryuger did it, but Gobus feels so much more intense as it feels so much more physical.

Between all the flashy special effectsfests, the best fights in the show are when Ryuuji throws down his weapon and faces off against either Enter or Escape. And hell, the mech stuff doesn't immediately ruin everything either!

Gobus 28.

So the music continues to change. If anything though I haven't found any drastic changes to individual aspects of the show - like someone said Hiromu feels like a totally different character - he does? I haven't noticed that, I've just noticed that Go-Busters has gotten a whole lot sillier and a lot less focused. Honestly, I've not particularly enjoyed this show at all since I've come back to it. The action and production values have been solid but it feels much more homogenised in the most marketable (see: worst) sentai tropes.

What made the first fifteen or so episodes of Gobus enjoyable for me is how much it didn't feel like sentai. It largely avoided the goofy juvenile smash yourself over the head with a pan humour that sentai normally goes for, and every episode had strong and solid world building and character focus. Y'know, it was sentai which was actually well paced. But apparently being a GOOD SHOW is not what sentai fans want, so off we go back to the usual sentai formula of "look at the pretty colours while you dribble in your lap."

I mean take this episode centred around what would go on to be the ToQ gimmick with a monster who talks like DJ Sagura. It also provides an explanation for the chicken thing, in a move that is even sillier than the weakness in the first place, which was utterly ridiculous to begin with. Hopefully with the way this episode ended, it's going to pick up again next episode as the 20s have so far been a painful slog. But if it continues like this then...meh.

Gobus 29. This is what I am TALKIN ABOUT! After so many bad or meh episodes, it's nice to have something epic like this.

Minus Enter's horrible haircut, paintballing gear and hilariously fake looking sword his clash with Hiromu was damn epic. It's nice to see what he's like, when he's serious and I loved how the fight included unmasked Hiromu and an Auto Vajin moment for Nick. And that was only the introduction for the epic, as the Buster's entrance into hyper space was absolutely GLORIOUS.

Only let downs were Messiah's form....which looked awful and the realisation that Escape is about three foot tall and completely bell bottomed.

I was really looking forward to Ayame Misaki in Go-Busters, but I was just a wee bit disappointed after her badassery in Cutie Honey the Live.

She is gorgeous, and I really really like Escape, but it was just odd that after all the forcedness of her sex appeal in the show, they framed her next to the Buglars in such a way to expose just how small and weirdly shaped she is :lol

She is in Cutie Honey? Along with Miki Hara? Oh man I need to see that...

Cutie Honey the Live has its many flaws, but it's delightfully cheesy and it has Ayame and Mikie. Funnily enough, Ayame Misaki's character is Miki in CHtL. It also has my (thus far) favorite Toku villain of all time. Not Kohei Murakami, though he gives Kusaka a run for his money in being messed up.

Edit: She is gorgeous. I cannot argue that. :D

*goes to find a batch torrent*

KRDL has it, if you can't find an active torrent.

Omnom!

Yeah, I had forgotten about the episodes in Go Busters where they swap the usual ending for Hiromu, Ryuji and Yoko's actor sung songs.

And as for the second theme song, while I agree that the first one sounds better, I do like the new song on it's own. It emphasizes Beet and Stag joining the team and being important members, as opposed to sentai's usual habit of any rangers not in the first episode being unimportant outside of their personal arcs.

The proper term is character songs, and technically it's them and their respective Buddyroid singing. :p
I wish Jin and J's song got used for an ending...

Thanks, I didn't know that was the term for it. And I'm with ya in wishing they had used Jin and J's song.

I actually quite like it when actors sing songs for their characters. It's why I'm so fond of the songs from Den-O, Kiva and OOO.

Using character songs as the fight themes is cool, but I feel like they're better left out of the action. I mean, the one time Sentai had a character theme used for a ranger's theme was AbareKiller, and that.... eh...
Decade's endings were all sung by cast members too, all two of them.

That would have been perfection!

I don't know what to say to you right now, but it probably isn't good.

I probably deserve it, btw they pulled the song from youtube. :P

Going through Gokaiger again because I love it so freaking much and every time is just as awesome as the first.

It got me thinking though, what's everyone's position on Basco's position as a Bonus Hero? I sort of consider him as a Bonus Hero, but has it ever been confirmed? Sure, he never becomes good, but there's definitely some evidence to support he's a bonus, he has his own Mobirates, he can transform, he has his own version of the Gokai Saber and Gun, he can use Final Wave (while transformed) and he uses the Gokaiger's "gimmick" in his own way. Is that enough to consider him within the ranks of the other Bonus Hero?