I like that, sure, but I really appreciate that it's not just the start Now It's Personal motivation. Fighting to save their parents from the hyperspace clutches of the Vagras is the hopeful byproduct of keeping everyone else by doing their jobs. It's a personal facet of a wider motivation, and that works for me.

Hiromu and Yoko's dynamic was something that got me really invested in this show, so that aspect of this episode always sticks in my head above all else. Mind you, I've got plenty I could say about how Ryuuji factors into this team too, but, especially watching the show the first time, it was definitely the way the relationship between the younger two Busters played out that really impressed me early on with what a palpable sense of connection the show was able to create so quickly between these characters by leveraging that whole tragic backstory.

Ordinarily, when Die focuses on one particular thing in a post like that, I prefer to single out something else to hopefully like, enrich the discussion, I guess, but in this case, I, too can't really make myself steer too far off the subject of how layered and interesting I felt the main characters were right away.

I've been silently poking my head in frequently enough to notice this thread was going to be a thing, fortunately. I've been preoccupied with other things lately, but this was something I knew I didn't want to miss out on.

I didn't get around to mentioning on Mission 2, but I cannot tell you how grateful I am that the tragic backstory uniting the three Busters was revealed in the second episode. This isn't some Den-O-style thing where the mystery of That Fateful Day gets teased out on a (to me!) unconscionably long timeline, this is the show giving you the tools to better understand the characters right up front. I mean, it's Kobayashi, so there's going to be some hidden wrinkles somewhere down the line -- and I wouldn't want there not to be! -- but the basic information I need to appreciate this cast was dispensed with quickly and beautifully. It definitely helped!

(Also, boy, Kobayashi loves that brother/sister dynamic, huh?)

(Also also, I really loved how Ryuji steps back to let the kids sort their stuff out, rather than him forcing the issue. I probably mentioned it, but I really loved it.)

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 4 - “OF RESOLVE AND THE MISSION”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters04a.png

Hey, let’s talk about Zords for a minute.

(This episode mostly didn’t work for me narratively – it’s this weird melange of Red’s reckless dedication to rescuing the people trapped in hyperspace, Blue and Yellow flipping from That’s Not Good to He Was Right All Along a little too quickly for my tastes, and some ambivalent upper management stuff. It… I really didn’t feel like rooting for anyone at the end? It’s a tough one for me.)

I greatly prefer human-scale conflict in tokusatsu. I like to see stunt performs flipping around, dodging explosions, and generally looking like insanely cool superpeople. The farther a Kamen Rider show would get away from that – generally with neighborhood-sized CG monstrosities – the more I’d tune out. I can’t count the number of shocking climaxes I’ve forgotten thanks to everything switching to muddled, rubbery CG at the end. It’s just not my thing, and I think I’m okay saying that after watching a couple dozen different Kamen Rider series that’ve used it in varying amounts.

But Zords! Zords are a different thing.

I can’t really think of a Kamen Rider show that used a Zord regularly. (And, look: I’m just gonna call them Zords. If there’s a more technical Sentai term for them, I don’t know it, and you already know what I mean when I say “Zord”. Don’t act like this is confusing!) King Arthur from Saber? Maybe? I don’t remember if that was a suit or an effect; either way, it barely shows up. Zords are a Sentai thing, like riding motorcycles – it’d just be tacky if Kamen Rider ripped them off.

The Zords here aren’t completely new to me, as a storytelling tool. I never watched Power Rangers, beyond the last live-action movie, but I’ve seen some random Sentai episodes, so I get the Final Act Big Robot Fight template. I don’t know that I’ve ever enjoyed it in a Sentai show before, but I respect it as part of the process. Like, I don’t let it bother me, is the nicest thing I can say about it.

Now that I’m actually watching a whole series, though, I’m trying to really engage with that element of the story, the Zord Battle. I thought this one was a pretty good one, mostly for how it prioritized the physical combat of CB-01 and the Megazord, along with a slightly tactical approach to things, rather than just brute forcing things in a short sequence. It has some of the same moves that the Blue/Yellow/Cutteroid battle has, but with a slightly slower, more methodical pace.

The biggest change for me, though, is how the Zord battle… like, it’s all about passion, you know? The human-scaled fights can be overcome by flashy tricks and outflanking and power-ups, but each one of the Zord battles so far is all about the conviction of Red triumphing over the obstacle in front of him. He just has to want it more than his opponent, and he’s got a chance at victory.

Which, you know, I can see why this is the episode with the most integral Zord fight! This one’s all about the power of conviction, and how what can look foolhardy or reckless is really just dedication and resolve and OH GOD DAMN IT now I like this episode. Stupid Go-Busters!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters04b.png

IT’S TIME FOR Commander!

The whole support crew really shone in this one, but Commander went above and beyond. I like how contentious things are with him at the end of this episode, even though they’re all pulling in the same direction. He’s not there to be their surrogate dad or hapless patsy or goofy exposition dispenser – he’s there to execute the mission, and the Busters are just a weapon in his arsenal. He will give them all the support necessary to win, but those victories are only in service of his objectives. There’s a nice parallel between him and Red in this one, even if I ended things wondering what exactly Ryuji’s problem was. (Is Ryuji not clear on chain of command? He’s the one who always seemed to get that there was a military hierarchy at play!)

Well, there is this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbuEg2v9Arg

The closest they have to a giant robot are a bird-shaped flying thing and a flying bulldog-looking thing. :lolol
And they have a hot air balloon...

Funnily enough, from what I read, the Commander wasn’t really a popular character until the guy playing him citizen’s arrested an upskirt pervert. But given the same actor supposedly got caught in a scandal a few years back (details are fairly sketchy on both stories), one wonders what the perception is of him now.

Anyway, I’m only half able to recall what this episode was, and I’m guessing the Megazord battle (never really liked them applying that term to the bad guy robots. It sounded more like an insult to Power Rangers than a cute homage, especially when the good robots are consistently called “Buster Machines”. Thankfully, the Power Rangers adaptation of this series completely renamed the enemy robots Gigadrones) is the one that ends with Ace merely destroying the enemy’s Metaloid accoutrements, but leaving the robot intact.

Ah, but it's Showa, and therefore disqualified from my interest. But I appreciate the thought!

Crazy! I like him, though.

While Ryuji is a cool professional, he's still a big bro as well, so of course he'd have a problem with Kurorin treating Hiromu as expendable like that. It's also a sign of Ryuji having a passionate side when he feels like something is morally wrong. Hiromu shows good leadership here by intercepting his punch though, he understands that it's not like Kurorin is the only one using them to get what he wants, as the Gobusters are using him to get what they want as well, so he makes it clear in a determined way that they're going to use each other. This is another unconventional thing about Gobusters, that they're not best buds with their mentor like you'd often see in other Sentai.

Sure, but I guess my confusion was that Ryuji literally just learned this lesson with Hiromu -- the parallel between Hiromu and the Commander is sort of the entire point of the end of the episode. Ryuji and Yoko had this epiphany midway through the episode that conviction can be conveyed in different ways through different people, and the Commander is basically just telling them that he's fine going to great lengths to defeat the Vargas and get back the people they lost, just like Hiromu. It feels a little hypocritical for Ryuji to draw a line here?

The robot fight in this one is an eternal series highlight for me. All of it is fantastic with how it emphasizes that real-robot flavor of these big machines as machines, with Hiromu having to work around the damage Ace is taking and all that, but it's that whole cross-counter ending that truly makes it stick out as one of those definitive moments from Go-Busters for me.

I lack the words to really get at it properly, but that whole sequence with the saw blade stopping *this* close to chopping up our heroes, and the way the lighting in the cockpit changes from that dangerous red to an uneasy pitch black before the daylight finally pours through the gaping hole left when the saw falls out onto the ground... like, it's beautifully put together, for one thing, but also, just narratively, the mood of that moment after the fight, where it's more relief than celebration, it's a very *this show* thing in my mind.

Also love that beat with Hiromu trying to play it cool as usual before falling over and actually making that little effort to admit some vulnerability for once. It's hard to argue in too much detail about the episode's overall story not having seen it in a good while, but I remember it being a winner... you know, like basically every episode of this show. :p