Oh, sure, it's not like I thought this was a bad episode or anything -- it mostly just felt like it needed a little massaging to get the Hiromu stuff to land better. I certainly wouldn't argue against anyone who loved it, though. I mean, I even started to appreciate it more by the end of the write-up!

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 5 - “THE DANGERS OF OVERHEATING!”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters05a.png

I really love what this show can accomplish with such a small cast. The command crew is in, like, one scene; Enter, uh, enters and splits; the delivery drivers get maybe six lines between them. This whole episode is devoted to the three Busters navigating the sides of themselves they usually hide, and that’s about it.

(The Buddyroids are here, too, but… I sort of don’t know how to think about them yet? Gorisaki might as well be Ape Deneb, which I love, while Nick is Accel Momotaros. I know that their relations to their Busters is more complex, which is the theme of this episode, but so far they’re just the fun Robot Imagin. Hard to say more about them yet than that I think they’re funny in this one, and a little sweet.)

The bulk of this episode is Yoko learning that Ryuji has been sheltering her from the battle insanity he gets when he overheats, and it’s treated less like the comedic consequences of Hiromu’s chicken phobia or Yoko’s low blood sugar collapses, and more like a rampaging lunatic who will gleefully terrorize the people he cares most about. It’s… a little dark!

And it’s to the show’s credit that they push it as far as they do. Yoko completely breaks down sobbing, and Ryuji treats the aftermath like a horrifying drunken bender. But the rest of the characters treat it like an unfortunate incident, not the irrevocable shattering of a familial bond, and I think that’s the secret to what makes this episode work. Characters like Gorisaki and Hiromu don’t downplay or minimize what happened with Ryuji – it's for sure surprising and traumatic – but they also recontextualize it as something that’s a condition that Ryuji has been suffering from for years, and he’s strained to keep it from affecting Yoko. There’s no solving it, just like Yoko’s and Hiromu’s weak points. It’s bad, and no one likes it, but it’s a part of who Ryuji is.

It’s a slightly weird message – you could 100% read it as Dad Just Likes To Have A Drink After Work So Get Off His Back – but I like the way the show tries to reframe it as less about how Ryuji’s going to make things up to Yoko, and more about how Yoko needs to be a grown-up about Ryuji’s weakness. She’s not a kid anymore, so she needs to understand that Ryuji is more than just a big brother or a rampaging monster or a Go-Buster or a wiseass – he’s all of those things, and none of them negate each other.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters05b.png

IT’S TIME FOR Red Buster!

…just like how Hiromu isn’t any less a badass action hero that cares about his teammates/siblings, just because he cannot be trusted not to make a social situation worse by opening his mouth, or because he freezes when he sees a cartoon chicken on a billboard and almost lets the Megazord kill two men and steal a tanker of Enetron. He’s more than those screw-ups! Those hilarious, hilarious screw-ups!

(Seriously, great episode for Hiromu being the butt of several jokes, but still detonating the Megazord and being there for Yoko when she needed someone. People are complex! It’s a theme!)

So for a bit of naming hilarity, this week’s Metaloid is named “Tireloid” despite clearly being created from a motorcycle. And in the Power Rangers adaptation of this episode, he was named “Cycletron”, but created from a pile of tires (and car tires at that). Which made me realise why these robots are called METALoids: They’re always created from something made at least partially of metal.

Interesting! Thanks!

This is called alektorophobia BTW.

This adds a new angle to Ryuji gently scolding Yoko for triggering Hiromu's weakpoint in Episode 3, as he knows firsthand just how terrible and traumatic that feels to lose control. I like how Ryuji and Yoko each learn their own morals from this experience. If Ryuji was honest about his condition from the start, Yoko would've been more prepared to deal with it. He can't afford to be the big bro all the time, as that means they can't be equals.

But I can understand why he'd want to protect Yoko from the dark truth, since she hasn't had a normal childhood and mostly only had Ryuji and Usada to rely on for the last 13 years, so it makes sense that she would get so upset about seeing Ryuji become "the monster". It's all a tragic misunderstanding and I'm glad they were able to resolve it maturely and strengthen their relationship.

I can relate a lot to Hiromu for this. Dealing with people's emotions can be difficult sometimes, so I totally respect him for just saying everything clearly and honestly. Tendo Souji is also like that, including the super speed, red suit and caring about sisters.

I always really liked how the use of Ryuuji's overheating plays into the whole family dynamic of the show here. I think it's a very smart sorta-metaphor, where it's a fantastic concept that doesn't directly relate to anything 100%, but because of that, the broader idea it's getting at becomes a lot more clearly expressed.

It's an episode exploring a situation where a child has their idealized notion of a parental figure shattered, and I feel like it actually becomes more identifiable specifically because the exact details of the plot aren't. The viewer kinda gets to fill in the blanks and connect it to their own life however they wish, and the show gets to develop its characters on its own terms without having to agonize too much over an allegory. The end result is a smooth story that can be very relatable, but even if it's not, still offers a great look into the relationships of the show's cast.

Yeah, and it's a really nice parallel to what Yoko's going through with Ryuji, where Hiromu is accidentally being kind of awful to her, but she needs to understand that it's not personal, and try and see the other version of Hiromu beneath his hilariously abrasive personality.

(I really love how much of an accidental jerk Hiromu is! It's such a fun choice for the show's nominal lead character.)

For sure, the overheating aspect basically has nothing to do with a bicycle monster or the Enetron truck or any of that stuff. Ryuji's loss of control is just this middle thing in the episode, which means it completely comes as the same shock to the audience as it does to Yoko.

(Also... literally every time I see that title I think it says "THE DANGERS OF OVEREATING!", and I feel like Hiromu should lay off of Yoko's candy needs.)

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 6 - “COMBINE! GO-BUSTER OH!”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters06a.png

Perfect example of a stock tokusatsu story, livened up with a heavy amount of action, a steadily mounting number of insane obstacles, and a little bit of specificity, until we get a charming and relatively enjoyable episode of Go-Busters.

It’s not the deepest or most surprising story, to be honest. It’s basically One Guy On The Team Tries To Do Too Much, and that really leaves out virtually everyone except for Hiromu, since no one else in this episode needs to learn anything. This isn’t last episode, where a variety of characters had to deal with overlapping personal crises; this is just Hiromu Needs To Learn To Let Go, and it takes the whole episode to get there. (The flashbacks help explain why Ryuji doesn’t just immediately tell Hiromu what he’s doing to keep the team from succeeding, but it still feels a little unnecessarily padded.) Everyone in the cast is just trying to stay alive until Hiromu can work through his obvious self-centered/martyr belief that he’s responsible for everyone’s safety, and then they can all get back to work.

The way this thing smartly disguises the thinness of the plot is by just going Defcon 1 on everything from almost the first scene. We get a Base Under Siege plot from both an internal AND an external threat, requiring the Go-Busters to battle through their own base, eventually wringing out a victory from the simple fact that none of them died in the end. It’s a very fun episode of action and collapsing safety, but as soon as it’s over it’s like, Hey, we didn’t really accomplish much.

I mean, there’s Go-Buster Oh! That’s cool! I don’t love the design – it’s just boxes on boxes, in ways that seem less effective in combat – but the episode at least gives us the triumphant formation of the combined Buster Machine, followed by the requisite Not Facing The Explosion detonation climax shot. It feels appropriately grand, the culmination of the team acting in unison.

Except, again, it was pretty much just Hiromu. There's not a single point in this story where Yoko and/or Ryuji need to raise their game or learn an important lesson about teamwork. They were both doing their jobs well the whole time! This isn’t some Den-O Climax Form or Zi-O Trinity Form thing, where multiple characters need to figure out their stuff before they can tap into the combined power of their connection – it’s literally just the entire cast waiting for Hiromu to stop doing too much and screwing up. That’s it. That’s the lesson. The rest of the episode makes up for it with some jovial villainy (Enter! In rare form!) and tense stakes, but it’s all in service of a standard plot, minimally applied. Not a winner for me, this one, despite so many fun ingredients.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters06b.png

IT’S TIME FOR Snacks!

This is such a minor thing, but I noticed it last episode without being able to find a spot to touch on it, so I’m glad it came up again: The Go-Busters have their own branded snacks for Yoko? This is what Japan’s tax dollars are going to, making sure Yoko doesn’t have to get by with mass-produced biscuits and candy? I love it, it’s so stupid, it’s so great.

A damn shame this wasn't a thing circa 2012. What the hell, Bandai. Call Calbee and make it happen. Make it Premium Bandai if you have to. :lolol
For those not familiar, Calbee is the Japanese snack company that made Kamen Rider Chips back in the days and still a big snack company that's around.

So here we are, at the big robot debut. Personally, I prefer Ace on its own as a design. And while some people would call it unusual to debut the main robot 6 weeks in, that’s actually the pretty standard debut point if it isn’t in the first two episodes. The only ones to do it later were Dairanger (which took 8 episodes), Ohranger (7 episodes) and Donbrothers (12 episodes). Though then again, I’ve got a Mecha related piece of merch which identifies Ace as the main mech for Go-Busters, so…

Also, this is the first time we see two types of enemy Megazords together. So I have to ask which is your favourite look? Alpha (the one with the antenna and the wide neck), Beta (the one that just has a large head with one eye) or Gamma (the one with the head crest)?

Even though Gobuster Oh is only a 3-part Gattai, it already looks more like a clusterfudge (the unofficial term for any Gattai that looks kind of messy) than most Q2 Gattais. The DX merchandise looks even worse, like, Gobuster Ace's legs are too big to fit properly in to the GT-02 legs, so the silhouette looks off. Remember how I mentioned about Gobusters' poor sales in the Double thread? Well, the overly complicated mecha was a problem, as many kids apparently struggled to perform the Gattai, having to figure out what to do with all those dismantled parts. It doesn't feel intuitive at all. The placement of certain parts doesn't make much sense either, like, why is GT-02's head upside down? Is it actually a bat now? This is a pretty stupid design.

Fortunately, when the show was adapted to PR, it was Hasbro's first time after purchasing the merchandise rights from Bandai and man, Hasbro made the proportions a lot more accurate. I heard that Hasbro's previous CEO was a big PR fan, so this is an example of the respect he gave to the franchise, but sadly the new CEO seems to be incompetent. Beast Morphers itself was still being produced by Saban Brands and personally, I thought it was kind of lame, especially compared to a show as awesome as Gobusters, but nevertheless, I have to praise the former management of Hasbro for the improvement in merchandise quality that continued in to Dino Fury.

Huh, it's not September yet. :p

Hmm, out of the 3 types we've seen so far, I guess I'll have to go with Gamma, as I recall one of my favorite Vaglass Megazord designs was a Gamma (I'll be sure to point it out when it appears).

What about you?

Maybe for the 15th anniversary!

Beta, I think? It looks a little more like a giant robot from another dimension, rather than just an upscaled monster-of-the-week. I like that the proportions are different than the Megaroids.

I honestly have a tough time time appreciating Zords normally, and something as awkward and cludged together as this guy... not helping matters for me!

To answer my own question, I like the Gamma model, but the Alpha is a close second. Not really crazy on Beta, due to the lack of a defined head.

I?be never really cared for Gobuster Oh, either. Ace is incredibly solid on its own but adding the other two just covers it with a ton of cludge that makes it look like a huge mess. It also runs into the same problem that always makes helicopters my least favorite vehicle for Transformers: the blades always have to go somewhere and it?s very hard to do that in a way that isn?t intrusive.

If Toei remember this show exists. The 10th anniversary got nothing. :(

The only nice thing I can say about it is that it's not a generic limb-swapper.

That's how I'd rank them as well. Alpha left a decent impression with Burner Zord.

I think each Zord having their own Henkei gimmick is a pretty cool idea, albeit one that Gobuster Oh has to suffer for.

Speaking of helicopters, I've got one planned for my OG Sentai and I simply opted to turn the blades in to.... Blades. Nitoryu style.

While I don't mind both, this. Ace is just well-designed.

Perhaps it's all the more reason you should give other shows a chance as well, including Showa stuff. I'm aware you've seen random tidbits and I agree that Go-Buster Oh can be a cluttery mess but not all of them are like that. For instance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0jIEFWfHyA

It was 2022 so COVID was probably still something to consider. They did have a mini reunion at a film festival around that time iirc. The GogoV and some of the Gaoranger cast got together for it as well, and I believe Sakai who was Gao Black was the one who came up with the panels during the film festival as well as act as the host.

I'm really not sure why it needs to be anything more than that? If there's a good way to add depth or specificity or whatever to this plot, I certainly don't think it's by adding in lessons for Ryuuji and Yoko to learn about teamwork.

The way I see it, this episode as is is already extremely good about making its take on the combined robot debut as unique to this show as possible. You've got the competence of its villains making an unusual amount of trouble for so early on, because of that, you've got the organizational nature of the setting placed at the absolute forefront, and in the middle of all that chaos, you've got the Buster who's been doing things by himself for 13 years learning to understand that it's not only okay, but necessary to lean on his team in the episode that debuts the best possible physical representation of that lesson.

The pattern Go-Buster Oh uses, where the main component is already a fully-fledged giant robot on its own, is actually quite rare for Sentai, and I think this episode leveraged that for drama pretty spectacularly. A huge part of Hiromu's character is his borderline cocky level of self-confidence, and no part of the show has enabled that until now quite like having him always being the dude in the machine literally called Ace that gets to go and blow up the giant monster every week with its huge sword. The mecha action is very much his comfort zone, to the point it's like 90% of what Red Buster did in the premiere, even. Five episodes is plenty of time for both him and the viewer to get comfy with that routine, so I really think the show had every reason imaginable to contextualize Go-Buster Oh's debut in the way it did. One of the opponents Go-Buster Oh gets to stomp over is literally the exact Gamma type that gave Ace the fight of its life two episodes ago, just in case the episode wasn't being smart enough about all of this already.

Obviously it sounds nice in theory for there to be some more going on with the other heroes to flesh out the story, but I honestly think in this specific case, it'd just end up pulling the focus away from the unique elements of the show to give you a story that, even if it were "better", would just end up being way less Go-Busters and way more stock. Like, be careful what you wish for, I guess?

I don't know. I like this show a bunch so obviously I'm inclined to take its side on pretty much anything. Back in the day, I actually used to be right there with everyone thinking Go-Buster Oh is a bit messy (mostly because I worship Ace), but now, I mean, I'm tempted to do a whole second rant just to try and set the record straight after all the straight slander I'm reading in here. :lol

Please stop making extra work for me!

I guess -- and I hope you can appreciate this criticism -- my disappointment lies in how regularly this show finds interesting ways to include all three Busters into whatever topic the show wants to discuss, and the fact this one is The Hiromu Show (as far as character growth goes) is sort of a bummer for me. It's only the 6th episode, but I guess I'm just used to a higher standard of quality in storytelling. There's nothing wrong with doing a single character spotlight in principle, but the way this show loops everyone in on a theme (like in Mission 5) proves that they know how to do more.

Oh man, would you hate Kyoryuger.

I definitely remember not having a good time when those characters randomly showed up in a spring crossover movie, so: maybe!

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 7- “ACE NEEDS REPAIRING?!”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters07a.png

Oh, I liked this one a lot. It’s a great, Go-Busters specific superhero story with nicely defined stakes, a couple thrilling action sequences, and some morals that you couldn’t do without this show’s premise and aesthetics.

This whole episode’s about the difference between a team and an organization, and I love that. It’s not just Koyama learning a lesson about how the real way to make up for a mistake is to stick around and fix it, rather than quitting as a failure. It’s not just Hiromu learning a lesson about not taking non-Busters for granted. It’s an episode with both of those things happening under the umbrella of the characters learning that the Go-Busters organization needs both of them – and dozens of other people, including maybe candymakers and packaging designers – in order to successfully combat the Vagras.

It’s that last part that really made this one sing for me. It’s clear pretty early on that Hiromu is kind of treating Koyama like shit, despite Hiromu not being nearly as flawless as he thinks. (Like: last episode!!! He screwed everything up 20 times in a row last episode!!!) And, you know, Koyama seems like the kind of hero-worshiping mechanic who would beg to be fired after making a crucial mistake on his idol’s Buster Machine. But the bigger story here is how all of that comes from both guys thinking there’s a rigid hierarchy between costumed heroes and jumpsuits extras, but this isn’t that kind of show; it doesn’t want to be that kind of show. Sure, the Busters are the tip of the spear when it comes to combatting the Vagras, but there are dozens of hands pointing that spear back at the base. Hiromu taking everything on his shoulders last time is like the prelude to this episode’s story of him forgetting that no one is dispensable.

My favorite thing about this show is how it’s so much bigger than the heroes. Those shots in the end credits where it’s all of the various workers dancing alongside the Busters, you know? The Busters are the ones out in the field because they are specially empowered to do it, but they’re no more special than anyone else for that. Hiromu’s job and Koyama’s job are just two of many jobs within the Go-Busters organization, and they’re all important. I love how this one keeps hammering that point home, where even the cross-cut climax is between the two operational Buster Machines fighting Megazords, and Koyama finishing his repairs. Every worker matters.

And then after that exceptional message that no one’s too exceptional to not respect another worker, we get cute little stories about how to deal with our failures. It’s very funny to me that Hiromu’s nearly-weekly paralyzing episodes are completely forgotten by him so he can continue to live in a smug cloud of non-stop winning, and his inevitable comeuppance is way more heartwarming than I’d’ve thought. (It’s genuinely great!) Meanwhile, Koyama gets to see that failing is the first step to redemption, but quitting robs you of that journey. Plus, failing hurts the team, but helping someone recover from failure helps the team, so we’re back into these two stories acting in narrative symbiosis. It’s all very sweet.

Again, I really liked this one a lot. It’s a cute little story about people learning to value their co-workers, no matter what their titles might be. Plus, some very cool action, at a variety of scales! Hard to complain about any of that.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters07b.png

IT’S TIME FOR Go-Buster Oh!

I think I liked this guy a bit better this time? There’s a symmetry to the design that I think maybe overcomes some of the Boxes On Boxes of it all, and I think its golden mustache is a fun look. I don’t know, it’s hard for me to say exactly why this time out I warmed to it – the colors all flow together nicely question mark? – but I think a lot of it was just how much I enjoyed the episode leading up the repaired Ace arriving on the scene for the combination. A good episode makes this suit more appealing to me, I guess.

So I did some digging on how much the other two writers on this show contributed, and this so the first episode not written by Kobayashi. Instead, we brig on ANOTHER creative from OOO (there’s a reason it took ten years to get an epilogue), in the form of newbie staff writer Nobuhiro Mouri. Aside from 6 episodes of this show, he went on to serve the same role in Ninninger that he did with Zi-O (Shimoyama’s secondary writer), before actually becoming head writer for a series (namely, Kyuranger). I imagine he’s slightly more passionate about Sentai, since it’s said he was a fan of Dairanger in college.

As for the episode… beyond having a train themed monster (and I mostly remember that for the Power Rangers equivalent episode, wherein they had to use a steam locomotive as the object infected to create him, since there isn’t a thriving underground in New Zealand like in Japan), this episode was a bit of a blur.

It's a great episode, and I didn't even touch on how awesome the fight was against the Railroid. (The synchronized finish!!!) I'd recommend giving it a quick watch, if you've got time.

I remember randomly picking this episode a few times over the years when in the mood to rewatch an episode of Go-Busters, and in part because of that, it's one I've ended up becoming quite fond of myself. It's one of those times where a guest writer comes onto one of these shows, and they just sort of get it, right away? Which I don't think always happens so smoothly, and Go-Busters was one of those shows actively shooting for a subtly different style than normal. But Mouri comes out swinging here with an episode that's already great on a conceptual level (it's just a good idea for a story in this show for a ton of reasons, like Die laid out), and then executes on it in a way that lives up to that potential.

Both the Busters sub-writers would become a lot more notable to me in later years, so it was neat to start looking back eventually and actively realizing a lot of what I loved about this show actually came from more than just Kobayashi. Fits the message about how everyone on the team matters, I suppose!

man die if you think kyoryuger is bad just wait until you get to kamen rider faiz

i hear the drama in that one is really forced

My favorite decision is that Koyama's just an incredibly earnest dude who wants to do a good job because the Busters are awesome. You never turn on him, even as he's begging Commander to fire him. There's no, like, twist to him, either. He's a good dude who didn't see his own value, and that's about it.

Fun fact. Koyama's actor Bishin Kawasumi got into the acting business with the motivation of "I want to become a Kamen Rider." He's more of a stage actor with a small handful of tv and movie roles, but I do hope he becomes one in the future. Dude's still 31 and it's never too late to henshin, especially after Geats.

Oh, absolutely. At 31, he's rounding into Wind/Destream/Evol/Cronus territory, and I can't imagine Reiwa's going to slow down on Kamen Rider dads anytime soon. I believe in his chances!

So I watched the episode, and I figured out that Mouri has his own niche when it comes to episodes of Go-Busters, as does the show’s secondary writer (who I’ll play coy with the identity of until you get to his first episode. You’ve definitely encountered him in Rider). But I’ll wait until his second episode to discuss it.

And I liked how DenshaLoid actually had a more motif-appropriate scheme for draining Enertron (sapping it from the train lines) than just “barge into a tower”. Definitely not sure why I forgot this now.

That was cute! It kept the episode feeling visually different, which was appreciated.

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 8 - “PROTECT THE MACHINE BLUEPRINTS!”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters08a.png

All jobs suck to some degree. Some of them suck a lot – there are any number of jobs that people do to survive, not because they’re the culmination of a long-held dream. But even the jobs that are the expression of a childhood wish, or that to the outside might seem like the best thing in the world… those can sort of suck, too.

I run a comics shop, and I’ve worked in comics retail since I was a kid. (Off-the-books afterschool work at a comics shop for store credit was pretty routine in the 90s!) To many, many people, that’s a dream job. Tons of adults have worked shit jobs for decades, just to be able to eventually open their own comics shop. The thing is, it’s still a job. People have this fantasy that it’s just reading comics all day, and talking to people about stories, but it’s so much more monotonous work besides that. It’s placing orders with vendors, unpacking shipments, cleaning up messes, logging in inventory, responding to emails, hauling boxes, and – since it’s also retail – eating a seemingly endless amount of shit in the name of customer service. It’s grueling, both emotionally and physically. (This is, of course, not counting the persistent low-level anxiety of trying to keep any business afloat in 2024.) It’s easy to lose sight of how lucky I am to be doing something I’ve always loved, and that dozens of my customers would kill to do, because the reality of it can be frustrating and depressing.

And that’s basically Kazuya’s story here. He’s a guy who wanted to be an engineer, eventually became an engineer, and realized that it’s just as annoying in many ways as any other job. He has to take orders, follow instructions, and generally feel like a tiny cog in a giant machine – fitting, since his job is designing Buster Machines. This was his dream as a kid, him and Ryuji both, but now it’s just some pointless corporate boredom.

It’s even Ryuji’s story, from the start of the episode. Ryuji’s a goddamn costumed superhero, but he still has to get up at the crack of dawn to train, since he’s the oldest Buster on the team, and he needs to be able to keep up with Hiromu’s all-star status and Yoko’s youthful enthusiasm. Even Ryuji’s job is sort of a hassle, and he’s a Sentai hero. Every job! They all sort of suck!

But this is a show that’s about preparing kids for the workforce, and while it’s important to be brutally honest in pointing out that getting their eventual dream job is not going to be relentless joy, it’s also important to say that a lot of that joy can still be found if you have the proper perspective. Kazuya isn’t making blue-sky sketches of his dream robot, but he’s still a crucial member of a design team that’s visualizing the next stage of giant robot technology, for use by legit superheroes. Ryuji may be doing a job he never really wanted, but he’s still surrounded by friends, doing something that matters. No job is perfect, or will always feel worth doing, but it doesn’t mean they’re never worth doing.

This was a surprisingly mature episode, which is maybe appropriate for a Ryuji spotlight. It’s all about a sort of professional malaise, and I think anyone lucky enough to work in their dream industry will recognize some of themselves in Kazuya, while anyone unlucky enough to have to work outside of their dream industry in order to make ends meet will recognize some of themselves in Ryuji. A bit more downcast than the typical rousing Go-Busters installment, but no less thoughtful for it.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters08b.png

IT’S TIME FOR Gorisaki!

Cute episode for Ryuji’s soft-spoken, endlessly worried Buddyroid partner. I like the reminder that Gorisaki and Ryuji only got partnered up when Ryuji was already a teen, as opposed to Hiromu and Yoko getting their Buddyroids as younger kids, so the bond between them is a little more tenuous in Gorisaki’s mind. It’s adorable to see this big blue monkey robot fret about whether Ryuji likes working with him or not!

To get into some voice acting trivia, hearing Gorisaki talk is always a fun yet weird experience for me knowing that's Japan's Optimus Prime being a mechanical simian who babies his partner ranger like a timid father figure (which, by the way, Optimus Primal in Japan, like the English dub, is done by a different voice actor in Japan as well named Takehito Koyasu, another prolific voice actor who is known for being Dio Brando in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure). I guess this is what some Transformers fans feel when they watch Eeyore talk. :lolol

I don't think I appreciated Ryuuji's character quite as much as Hiromu or Yoko watching through Go-Busters the first time, but I've really come to love how much the show makes him unique by deliberately putting him off kind of to the side of the other two in so many ways. It's immediately apparent through his age, with the whole responsible big brother thing, but the show just keeps going from there.

The difference in his dynamic with Gorisaki compared to the others is something that's always great to see highlighted, because it gives such a strong sense of these characters as real people who have actually lived those 13 years (the Buddyroids all tell you a lot about their partners just from how they interact), and this episode here, starting to build that idea that Ryuuji maybe has a goal in life above being a superhero, it's yet another way he's characterized that's fundamentally different from the other two.

The three of them all share that same promise, but it means something a bit different to each of them, and that sort of nuance is a big part of what makes this show so endlessly compelling to me.

Neat! Thanks!

I love how distinct all three Buddyroids are in the way they protect their charges: Nick is the motorcycle that takes Hiromu into action, so he's more of a direct partner, and sort of complicit in Hiromu's typical nonsense; Usada and Gorisaki are left back at base, so they act more as concerned parents -- Gorisaki as the hand-wringing, nervous parent, and Usada as the figurative and literal helicopter parent, which is my favorite joke. Usada and Gorisaki are used to interacting with Yoko and Ryuji in only protective ways, which is why they only go into battle when their kids are safely ensconced with them in Buster Machines. Very fun details on this show!

Good to know that you also enjoy the ED theme. I recall you took a long time to finally come around on Saber's. But yeah, episodes like this one really show how Gobusters are more than just the 3 cool-looking guys on the field. Even if they don't always see it, they rely heavily on their support team to keep them and their gear operational. It's not just the Buddyroids and Nakamura and the others at the base either, even mechanics like Koyama are important. They're all Gobusters in spirit. It's a good moral for Hiromu, since his rudeness isn't accidental here but actually uncalled for. I like that he learned to see the worth in others and accept that everybody can screw up sometimes.

Mouri is the ultimate secondary writer. Not only does he frequently nail the theme and characters of whatever show he's writing, he adds his own spin on them to show us new angles as well. Reminds me of when this was brought up in one of those Zi-O BTS shorts for the OOO arc and I'm like, yeah, it's better this way! He's not infallible, of course, but he's a pretty safe bet.

I plan to talk more about Gorisaki later when his focus episode comes up, but for now, I totally agree that the difference in how the Buddyroids interact with their partners is an intriguing part of the show. While Abaranger, Go-Onger and Kiramager have their own partners who they talk to as well, only Gobusters goes in to detail about what exactly that connection means to each of them.

It's continuously interesting to me that Hiromu isn't just Accidentally Blunt or whatever, he's sort of a prick. He definitely thinks he's the best part of the Go-Busters, and he has a massive blind spot when it comes to his weaknesses or mistakes. (Again: the story where Hiromu has zero tolerance for other people's mistakes comes an episode after Hiromu fails 20 times in a row!!!) He genuinely thinks that Koyama's single mistake is a huge failing of his character, and he looks down on him for it. It makes for a more interesting arc in the episode than Hiromu just realizing that he came off a little mean to a random guy.

Another episode I don’t remember that well, but I remember enough for two bits of trivia.

Drillloid is one of two monsters of the week from ago-Busters to get an action figure in the Power Rangers toyline (which means that somebody likes him, even if he isn’t a fan favourite).

The hook of the plot is the plans for a new Buster Machine. Meaning either we’ve got a new Go-Buster in the cards, or Hiromu’s getting another mech. Either way, be prepared for a 99.8% chance of a bulkier Mecha combination, or a 99.9% chance of cross compatibility with the main three.

I sort of assume there's just going to be an additional Buster Machine? I can't imagine this show's going to stick with only three Buster Machines.

That touch of narcissism is one of Hiromu's less desirable qualities for sure. However, I think it's due to his strong sense of responsibility and pride in his performance as Redbuster that he's willing to admit his mistake and make it right. He doesn't really want to be mean, but having to save the world, find his parents and stay alive for his big sis puts a lot of pressure on him, so those feelings can get misdirected at others. Especially since he literally just learned that he needs to have faith in his teammates and now this episode is about him being let down by a teammate. Hiromu's seriousness is admirable, but he can overdo it sometimes.

Yeah, it's not the Showa Era anymore, after all. You can probably imagine that Gobuster Oh is going to look comparatively tidy at the end of all this.

Congrats on your 2600th post!

Oh, for sure, I don't want to make it sound like I find it disqualifying or anything. I actually think it's sort of refreshing to get a lead hero (or "lead hero") who has this much work to do on himself. He's excellent at destroying the Vagras, and kind of innately bad at almost everything else. (Casually insulting to everyone around him, relentlessly assured of his own greatness, and borderline incapable of telling his friends how much he cares about and respects them.) That gives him something to work towards, and it's the best thing about Hiromu for me.

Hiromu at the time was also something I felt the creative staff were trying to be different so to speak. Aside from Captain Marvelous from Gokaiger, Takeru from Shinkenger, and Satoru from Boukenger, a good majority of the 2000s red rangers were upbeat or loud in the name of hotbloodedness or nekketsu, the Japanese term, for a lack of better words. While I have no qualms about red rangers who fall under that category, it was refreshing to see a red ranger like Hiromu for a change. Off topic, this talk of Hiromu has me craving fried chicken.