I wonder if Rasputin being reduced to a soul makes him easier to be defeated by a lone Azazel, where Rasputin took both Bima and Azazel (and I feel, plot, in Rasputin stop fighting back), with all their best moves, to defeat. I know many people'd talk about how gaining more experience vastly improves one's power/fighting, but I don't really elevate experience as much as others do, which is probably a hot take, just that there's a peak in one's ability/powers I feel.

Reza was only brainwashed though. He didn't commit those out of their own volition. Though likely it's why Azazel retrains his dark theme, despite being a secondary to Bima now. I always like how Azazel doesn't turn into light-based because he's good now.

It's so good!

Yeah that was pretty nice. Especially since it was the first time we got to see a Satria use a different animal partner.

Yeah, and while logically speaking he shouldn't be held responsible(Rasputin of all people trying to chastise Reza kinda makes it clear that the audience isn't meant to hold anything against Reza), people's' feelings typically aren't 1000% logical. Regardless of details, Reza still does feel guilt over what happened, and the love of his family helps him to move forward.

Switchblade is now legally obligated to watch the BIMA franchise.

Why? Because incase you're bad with faces like I am, that's Tetsuo Kurata. Also known as Minami Kotaro AKA Kamen Riders Black and RX!

And if you think I'm not about to utterly geek out over that fact, then you clearly didn't read my posts on the Gackt episodes of the original BIMA. Because this franchise continues to floor me with the guest stars they manage to get!

Here, Kurata is credited as "Naga Legend" and is revealed to be a different type of Satria than our usual fare, and given how similar both Kurata and Gackt operate, the MO for "Legend" Satria must be as follows:

1. Show up
2. Bully the current Satria
3. Refuse to elaborate
4. Leave

And yet, it works? Like, this episode was so awesome! And Kurata is so cool in this! He's absolutely the main star and I'm here for it!

The setup for this episode is that Reza ends up getting himself caught in a trap while raiding a Vudo outpost, and it's here that he meets Kurata and his thief apprentice. One thing leads to another, and soon enough things escalate into an all out war between the Satrias and a miniature army of Vudo's' soldiers. And man of man is the action spectacular in this one.

Once the war sequence breaks out, all bets are off. You got Kurata taking on legions of Gladion soldiers. Azazel and Karax in a duel to the death. Kurata transforming into a giant dragon out of nowhere! Yeah, turns out that Naga was also the dragon that we saw at the start of "The Beginning" all that time ago. You know, the dragon that helped Ray become Bima-X to begin with? And he also imparts an interesting gift onto Reza as well...

This episode is a wild ride from start to end, and with all the budget on screen, almost comes across more as a short film rather than a just another episode of the show that it's a part of. Which is also owed to how this one is about five minutes longer than your standard BIMA-X episode. They really did go all out with this episode, probably due in part to just how excited they were to have the guest star that they did. And you know what? It certainly paid off, because I had a ton of fun with this one.

Funny how the Legend characters do have the same MO lol

Yeah this was a really fun one. I had a slight feeling of who I was looking at when we got the end of the last episode, but I wasn't sure. Upon starting 41 though and being treated with "Hello everyone, I'm Tetsuo Kurata" and I realized "Holy shit they got him?!"

Really fun episode focused on Reza with a fun guest actor and a pretty cool single episode plot of breaking out of a Vudo Outpost. Overall I enjoyed this one and it was crazy how we called back to 'The Beginning' with this episode since I wasn't expecting an actual explanation for the dragon we saw.

Finally Indonesia manages to create a good CGI in their country work (some of Indonesian people work outside of the country in producing CGI effects, due to lack of appreciation for the country's talented folks), after how generally their TV shows have horrible CGI effects. I still have doubts when first watching Bima regarding the CGI effects, like Topeng Besi breaking the fence.

Mikhail did have powers as human form too like him blocking an attack from Spider-Manster and saving Bima.

Dimas' problem is the usual him being 'privileged' that he doesn't suffer as much as the Bramasakti family, which I wonder if this'd be used to encourage creating suffering in others, like even enabling villains' heinous actions to others so that they'd 'grow'. People have justified villains for this too.

Nice to see how Randy continues to be useful for solving problems of this kind that even Dimas and Ricca can't figure out.

How unfortunate that the Iskandars were torn apart once more not long after their anticipated reunion. With this time being Rena, just like in Bima Episode 14-15, Ray and the others will surely be desperate to get her back.

Reza was also aware of everything he was doing while brainwashed, compared to the type where the victim forgets. Even though it's not his fault, he's still tormented by his memories of beating up Ray and making people suffer. But yeah, dark turning to light is such a trite cliche. I like how dark is treated fairly as an element of the original 7 Power Stones and just happens to get misused for evil, similar to Ankokuken Kurayami. Hitam probably chose Reza as he understood darkness the most.

Seriously, I do gotta wonder how the heck they manage to get the stars that they do. It's certainly impressive, that's for sure.

I'd say it's less that he's privileged and more that he's ignorant of Ray specifically. Dimas was chosen to be a Satria during time where there were other heroes, meaning he could stay back and prepare. Ray however was not afforded that luxury, and it's in learning that that Dimas begins to have a greater appreciation of both Ray and their duties as Satria.

Yeah! Despite him being a bit more of a comedic relief in BIMA-X, it's nice to see he still has the smarts that he displayed in BIMA. Remember, he's the one who deduced that Mikhail was Reza.

This two-parter is brought to us by Daisuke Ishibashi.

No idea who that is? I don't blame you, as the amount of stuff he's written in the toku sphere is pretty limited. As in, like 10 episodes total limited.

And while I'm not familiar with most of his work(really only knowing the four episodes he wrote for Kamen Rider Wizard), then he certainly has his strengths and weaknesses, yeah.

Let's get the main weakness out of the way: The dialogue. Like, it's not the worst character dialogue I've ever heard/read, but episode 43 especially is filled with very unnatural sounding and stilted conversations that kinda took me out of things alot.

The premise of these episodes is that Lady Mossa has brainwashed Rena, and is using her to both attack our heroes as well as steal the Power Stones. Funnily enough, Dimas is the only one who really puts things together as events unfold, and in kind of an odd way? He claims it's due to him sensing the emotions behind Rena, but a much easier angle, and the one I thought they were going for based on how the scene was shot, was Rena's' obvious lie about her ring. But no, that's never really brought up, weirdly enough.

And if it sounds like I'm about to tear these episodes a new one, I'm really not. Sure, they have flaws, but in the end, Ishibashi had to've done something right, because the emotional climax of it all really did work for me. From Rena's' nearly fatal injuries, to Randy rushing Lady Mossa, I was super into the soap opera aspect of it all(in Mossa's' own words). It helped that the musical score was really good too.

It's just that I feel like another pass through editing would've really helped these episodes out. They do still work; especially if you like these characters like I do, but they could've been elevated that much more, I think.

Other than Nico enduring hits from the cloned Karax later, seems that the toku monsters don't have super speed beyond human level, at least (how toku fights tend to be), so if they're skilled enough to fight and avoid attacks, they should do fine against monsters.

You know with this most recent two-parter I definitely did feel the dialogue was a bit off now that you mention it.

Honestly I legit thought Dimas was going to go on the Rena somehow buying a ring despite being kidnapped and not "she has an aura of bloodlust" which I mean, he does mention the ring discrepancy briefly when he actively confronts her about it in the first part. But it's weird that it's not the first thing he makes note of in telling the others.

That said, the emotional climax hit oh so good like holy shit. Rena's sacrificial play leading into Randy rushing down Lady Mosa while Bima-X and Torga play support? Legit had my mouth agape the entire time because holy shit, dialogue was slightly wonky, but it hit hard given we're this late into the series and we've had so much more time to spend with all these characters.