At the very least, there's a pretty strong connection between the toy commercial stuff and the narrative, in the sense that it's a ton of mecha action in a story about the two dudes with a passion for mechanical engineering, debuting the robot of the one dude who designed his himself, while also making his opponent a cheap villainous knockoff of his design. Thus allowing Jin to sort of demonstrate that personal engineer pride by triumphing over it in battle. This is Go-Busters we're talking about, after all -- connecting the mecha stuff with the overall plots as much as possible was a conscious focus.

Anyway, good episode for Ryuuji again, even if, like back in episode 8, I didn't appreciate what he offers the show as much at first. His dynamic with Jin is fun for reasons that are mostly opposite to Hiromu. Obviously their personalities are still quite different, but Jin and Ryuuji share an interest and even some history together in a way that once again gives interactions between this particular combo clear avenues for unique drama.

Plus, Jin even brings out the best in Kuroki while he's at it! Having someone around who treats Kuroki as a work buddy rather than The Commander really lets him start feeling more human in a way that feels very appropriate for this show. Again, Jin and J, man! Once upon a time, I could've imagined this show without them, but like, after seeing all that they add, I'd never want to bother.


Well, I suppose Go-Buster Beet's immense strength could be described as herculean in nature... :p

Perhaps. :lolol

I'm still okay with it! I think the specific setup here -- Enter stealing Jin's Enetron to pay Jin back for stealing the Vagras' Enetron -- makes it feel more personal and less some scheme the Busters happened upon. Enter really wants to mess with Jin and J here, and that's a little different than normal.

Also, I love Forkroid! The Over-Time subs have him saying he's going to fork the Busters up, and that's delightful.

And speaking of making things personal -- I really enjoyed how clearly annoyed Jin is at how Ryuji has squandered his potential in the name of being a nice guy and a good brother. Jin's story with Ryuji has a level of regret and anger to it that his story with Hiromu pointedly didn't. Jin's got an investment in Ryuji -- literally, in that he's going to be making regular withdrawals from Ryuji's bank account.

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 18 - “A JOINT OPERATION AT 3000 METERS”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters18a.png

If the last three episodes were about Jin (and, to a lesser extent, J) testing the Busters to figure out if they could be of use in the battle against the Vagras, this episode is about the Busters trying to decide if Jin (and, to a lesser extent, J) is going to be able to work with them to defeat the Vagras. We’re out of the Can We Trust Jin (And, To A Lesser Extent, J) woods, and the attendant questions of identity and history and motivation, and onto the brass tacks of whether or not the efficient, militarized Go-Busters can work alongside a golden asshole and a silver dick to get literally anything done.

I think you can call this one a success, both in-universe and out? The Drillroid and Alpha Megazord are dispatched, and it’s down entirely to the cooperation of all five Busters. It kicks off in a way that seems guaranteed for failure, and utterly predictable – Jin shows up with his I’ll Take It From Here energy, kidnapping Hiromu (hilarious), browbeating Ryuji (effective), and leaving J behind to team with Yoko to take down the Metaroid (delightful). But then it slowly but surely pivots into a story that exposes Jin as willing to go along on someone else’s ride, and J as willing to think of someone outside of himself.

Let’s start with Jin first! While it’s funny to start off with Jin once again just doing his own plan, it’s already starting to wear thin, and I think the show gets that. We don’t want to be in a series where cool guy Jin shows up to take over every scene, while Kurorin blusters impotently back at base. There needs to be a sense of equality here, which is what the three Busters managed previously. So the story slowly layers in Jin’s trust in Ryuji to keep them all safe, since it’s what Ryuji’s best at, and lets Hiromu tweak Jin’s plan when the facts on the ground start to change. As soon as Hiromu says he has a plan, Jin’s all in on it, no questions asked. It’s a spirit of teamwork that feels like a natural outgrowth of the shit Jin put everyone through over the last three episodes, and it makes it seem like he needs the team to believe in him, as much as he needs to know if the team’s worth believing in.

On the other side of the episode, we have a terrific outing for J and Yoko. It’s mostly just Yoko playing the straight woman to J’s baffling lack of clarification and constant indifference to anything happening outside of his own head, which is fantastic, but it resolves itself into a nice lesson of letting people be weird and not judging them. If it never quite reaches the same level of character-driven success as the Jin story, well… I mean, J isn’t as deep a character, and I think “poignant comic relief” is maybe all we should really ask for from a Super Buddyroid.

Really strong episode for moving us out of the New Character Smell of Beet Buster and Stag Buster, and into a series that feels like all five Busters are operating at the same level of investment from the production team.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters18b.png

IT’S TIME FOR Drillroid!

Again, I love a monster that is just trying to do its job, and can’t understand why it’s getting hassled by Sentai heroes. Drillroid’s sheepish apologies and I’m Just A Simple Drill catchphrase made me honestly feel a little bad for him, as the Busters just start whupping on him as he’s wandering confused around a power plant. Hard to evoke sympathy as a drill-covered Metaroid, but this guy managed it!

The one with… a really weird translation choice on OT’s part. Basically, in the first half of the episode, there’s a scene where Yoko tries translating “Beet J Stag” into Japanese, resulting in “Kabuto J Kuwagata”. But OT, in all their infinite wisdom, decided that it didn’t make sense for her to speak Japanese (?) and changed it to her translating it into Latin, despite Latin not even being taught in the majority of schools in the west, let along the east. And Yoko is definitely not the type of person who’d go out of her way to learn a dead language.

Aside from that note, it’s a Mouri episode, we get all 5 Buster Machines operating without combining, a rarity post the first few episodes (individual mecha fights in Sentai are a lot like Kamen Riders on their bikes: mostly confined to early episodes) and the rare case of a monster suit being recycled as a different monster with the same motif.

No Enter, either, but that sort of works in this episode. With five characters across two divergent plots, there's probably no room for the standard scene of Enter getting yelled at by Messiah, and then swanning around before activating a Metaroid. We gotta go right into the action! The Megazord's already here!

These sort of blue-collar monsters of the week are one of my favorite things in Super Sentai. (Or any toku show that does something similar, for that matter.) I adore that middle-ground they occupy where they're perfectly happy to pull some villainous scheme on behalf of whatever evil mastermind, but they themselves are doing the work with no particular malice. It's like, even the mooks have gotta make ends meet somehow, you know?

Anyway, perhaps because I take the writing quality of this series for granted, the thing that sticks the most in my memory about this episode is what's right there in the title. Just seeing Go-Buster Ace in some deep cave instead of the usual city set is such a break from the norm that it left a strong impression on me for the visual variety alone.

...To the point I forgot this is also the one where Yoko and J get to hang out, even though I remember that quite a bit too, especially because it was probably when I started warming up to J. 10/10 combo right there! (Of course, every combo in this show is a 10/10 combo, but still.) :p

It was a very cool visual, yeah, and I also appreciated how much effort needed to go into defeating the Megazord this time out. It wasn't just figuring out how to overpower it in the city like usual, it was a puzzle they had to solve to even confront it, and then a strategy need to be devised on the fly once the battle actually started. Fun story!

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 19 - “MY COMBINATION! BUSTER HERCULES”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters19a.png

I don’t want to make a big deal about this episode’s title, because I don’t think it’s some massive problem, but it’s alarming and frustrating that anyone in the production team could look at this stellar, emotional episode about Nick and Hiromu and go The Whole Episode Is About The New Buster Machine Combination In The Final 90 Seconds Actually. I get that these shows exist by the grace of toy companies, but it honestly feels a little insulting to treat a strongly-written episode like this as merely the runway that allows for some new toy design to be promoted to a nation’s children. I don’t like it!

I did like this episode, though; quite a bit. It’s not the most complicated story of all time – Nick feels like he isn’t special enough to be Hiromu’s partner, mostly in light of the new Super Buddyroid that everyone’s losing their minds over – but it’s so evocatively told, and leverages so much of the weird relationship between Hiromu and Nick, that I am okay with a simple story that hits the bullseye.

This was a nice compliment to the recent Jin Is So Cool quartet, focusing instead on how J’s combat abilities and heroic demeanor can make the other Non-Super Buddyroids feel diminished by comparison. While Usada and Gorisaki have clearly defined roles on the team outside of their integration with Buster Machines (although Usada’s designation as a sorter of data feels a little invented on the spot), Nick’s just… the Bike Guy. He’s a partner for Hiromu, but not in the close way that Gorisaki and Usada are with their Busters. Nick’s just, like, how Hiromu gets to work. He’s not a teammate, he’s a chauffeur.

Nick’s crisis gives us an absolutely unforgettable montage of him trying out different specialties – chef, painter, model? – before accidentally landing on the thing he’s always been good at: raising kids. Usada’s still in the middle of helping Yoko become an adult, and Gorisaki was way too late to be more than a butler to Ryuji, but Nick’s been a formative influence in Hiromu’s life since he was 7. While Nick looks at himself as surplus to requirements, the only reason the Go-Busters are as effective as they are is because Nick showed Hiromu how to pursue a goal and see it through. Nick’s value is, and always has been, his ability to get people to believe in themselves. (Arguably something he’s too good at, considering how Hiromu turned out!)

We get a pretty fantastic pep-talk from Hiromu to wrap things up, which is always a treat, considering how perennially ill-suited Hiromu is at making anyone feel better through dialogue. His point here is a good one, which is that it’s hard for Hiromu to believe in himself if Nick – the one he learned resolve and strength from – can’t believe in himself, so get it together and be that source of strength that everyone depends on. It’s a fun way of honoring the bond between Hiromu and Nick, re-establishing Nick’s spot in the Buddyroid hierarchy, and reminding the audience that helping other people become their best selves is maybe cooler than jumping into battle as a silver superhero. (I… am not sure about that last one, but this episode has me in a good mood, so I’ll let the show have it.)

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters19b.png

IT’S TIME FOR Red Buster!

You cannot have a successful Nick spotlight episode without Hiromu being his most abrasive and difficult, and boy did this episode not disappoint on that front. He instantly finds Nick’s quest for meaning to be less interesting than the coffee he just grabbed from the kitchenette. He meets Nick’s self-doubt with a stone-faced scolding. His climactic pep-talk basically amounts to I Can’t Be As Awesome As Usual Without You Getting Your Shit Together. And then he calls back the Bike Guy thing at the end just to needle Nick! I love it! I love how much of a dick Hiromu is to everyone he cares about!

So here we are, at another episode of Shimoyama’s. And like I pointed out last time, he resolutely refuses to focus on the main Busters, or the “steal Energy” plots, instead having the focus of the episode and the evil plan of the week be Nick. And it’s a pretty fun episode on top of it, if I remember correctly (it’s been a while).

And I have to say, I love Buster Heracles having a whole second face hidden under Go-Buster Beet’s. Definitely helps it stand out more than “Go-Buster Beet with a new arm” (and to add a bit of toyline foreshadowing, SJ-05 has the same joint engineering as RH-03)

It was a pretty fun episode!

Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't use a screencap of Beetbuster carrying Redbuster like a mannequin.

J being simple to understand like a beetle is probably part of why Yoko admires him. His confidence and independence are both traits that Yoko wants to improve in herself and he's not noisy like Usada. His dual existence as a Gobuster and Buddyroid kind of limits his interactions with anybody besides his partner and fellow Buddyroids, so I enjoy seeing him and Yoko team up here, two youngest Gobusters accustomed to being bossed around by their partners, given the freedom to execute a mission their own way for once. J's like a cool hip uncle, but at the end, Yoko still loves her father Usada the most. I think the best part about J, other than being humorous as hell, is how he inadvertently brings out the desires of others.

The implication that Yoko is dumb at everything except Latin is humorous to think about. People were harsh on TV-N, but this is proof that OT have also made some derpy choices.

Subterranean mecha fight scenes are a novelty for sure. Also reveals some lore about Enertron, that there's a motherlode of them Kryptonite-looking crystals underground waiting to be excavated. How mysterious.

While Nick may lack sense of direction, his moral compass is accurate. He's the heart of the Buddyroids, a trait common in some other Red Rangers and Kobayashi's Rider protagonists, using his strong belief to nurture his friends' values while failing to see the value in himself. Of course it's futile to rely on Hiromu for volunteering unprompted praise, but it's clear in his blunt honesty that he appreciates Nick's help, even if that's mostly transportation now that Hiromu is an adult. J probably didn't even mean "bike guy" in a diminishing way, just clearly stating something cool that only Nick can do for the team.

I like Buster Heracles. SJ-05 merely becoming some weapons and a chestpiece for Gobuster Beet is a lot cleaner than Gobuster Oh, although it's a little weird how the name is just Buster Heracles, rather than Gobuster Heracles which would've been consistent. Anyway, the Heracles part is of course referring to the beetle. When the three horns cross, the golden and silver soldier Buster Heracles is born!

Thought about it! I think that whole segment is just better as a moving image, though, and a single screencap doesn't sell the obviously fake nature of the mannequin.

Maybe, but also: Nick totally is the Bike Guy on the team, and I say that as someone who enjoys what Nick brings to the team and show. He turns into a bike! It's in the credits! It's something no one else on the team can do! He is the Bike Guy!

The show that I would think of back in 2012 whenever I saw Jin and J:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNGgiJq236Q

I've always found it a little interesting that Go-Busters episode titles run the gamut all the way from nicely poetic ones to stuff like this where it's just "Exciting New Toy! In Stores This Week!?" Broadly, most of them just kind of describe what the mission part of that week's Mission is, which makes sense, but there's nothing consistent enough about them to really have any particular formula. Although usually, the ones just named after a robot are at least a little more about the robot than I think this one was. Like, no wonder Nick is so self-conscious when even the name of the story about him is actually about J!

Neat! Thanks!

J stepped in front of Shimoyama just as he was naming this episode.

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 20 - “5-WAY FUSION! GREAT GO-BUSTER!”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters20a.png

I gotta leave in, like, 30 minutes, so let’s pretend this post has a Megazord countdown attached to it and spring into action!

Much like last time, I mostly didn’t care about the grand debut of a new toy. Great Go-Buster has all the problems of Go-Buster Oh that I’ve grown to tolerate, but now with the added flaws of being far too bulky to actually move its limbs effectively. Regardless of your thoughts on the suit's appearance, I think we can all agree that making a suit more cumbersome on the performer wearing it is probably a negative.

Beyond that, I just thought the main Hiromu story had more on it than the background plot of Jin and the Go-Busters building a new toy? Taking a minute to make the threat of hyperspace more present (*wink*) on Hiromu is a nice way of escalating a tension that previously existed as more of an idea. We knew his parents were trapped in hyperspace, but this is the first episode to really define the physical toll it might be taking on them, in addition to the psychological toll of separation. Making Hiromu grapple with that while trying to be the unflappable hero is a fun story to tell near the midpoint of the series.

And the show deals with it well! It’s another story where Hiromu has to learn to stop trying to take everything on by himself and let others help him – the Buster Machine Combination Story specialty – but the little sequence of Hiromu directly confronting what he’s missing made this one eventually work for me. It’s got that specificity that I think can elevate the more trope-y elements (again, very similar to the Go-Buster Oh lesson!) and create something that feels unique enough for the character.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters20b.png

IT’S TIME FOR a movie!

I assume it’s just a coincidence, but I feel like Enter’s comments about the joy of cinema are at least a little bit shaped by the then-upcoming Go-Busters film…

This is probably the episode of Go-Busters I think about more than any other.

There are some other strong contenders out there, but in terms of just, the sheer volume of specific scenes and moments and all that, that I can recall as if I watched the episode yesterday, I can't think of any episodes that pull ahead, if there are even any that could tie in that race.

It's a smartly considered story all around, doing all that good work on a series-structure level by digging into hyperspace more and all that, while also telling a really touching and well-executed standalone story in its own right.

And again, on so many levels, it sticks in my head.

There's the more superficial cool stuff like how Great Go-Buster is assembled in the hangar, instead of combining in the field, so you get that great sense of scale seeing the team riding the lift up to board it and all that, selling the imposing scale of the combination. (It's not the kind of suit that needs to move to look like it can mess a monster up!)

There's how Filmroid is voiced by Kenicihi Suzumura, who's always been the Japanese voice actor I'm most happy to see in anything for any reason. Plus, moving out of the superficial stuff, there's how that vocal performance aids that whole court jester vibe he's got that ends up making him really easy to hate when he ends up torturing Hiromu emotionally in a way that's a lot more vile than the typical Metaroid antics.

And then, crucially, there's all that stuff about Hiromu being trapped by that fantasy, and all the other things that go along with it to elevate it. It'd be good drama anyway. But when the episode highlights how easily Ryuuji and Yoko don't fall for it, what that says about Hiromu makes it even better. When it's chiefly Yoko who gets to reach out to Hiromu, what that says about those particular two characters and how far we've come from those first couple episode makes it even better. When you get that perfectly shot moment of the smoke clearing, revealing Red Buster defending his family with his arm dramatically outstretched in the most heroic fashion possible, it's even better. And when this show about imperfection has Red Buster making the choice to give up that vision of his ideal world to return to the flawed reality he'd give anything to protect, well, it's about as Go-Busters as an episode of Go-Busters could ever be.

So yeah, needless to say, this one is a favorite for me. Just to further emphasize how much, back when Kamen Rider Zi-O was airing the Quiz two-parter with Hiromu's actor, and I did the whole obvious joke where the pictures I chose for those episode threads were just Red Buster screencaps, guess what episode I grabbed the one for the back half from? Doesn't matter if it's 2019, 2024, or whenever else; This one will always be on my mind.

So fun fact, the Metaloid of the week is literally Ryutaros. He has the same VA and suit actor. This mostly came about because said voice actor is part of the group performing the ED (3 of the other 6 members appeared prior as Tubaloid, Soujikiloid and Parabolaloid).

And aside from that trivia, we have the debut of our Ultimate Formation for the series.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BHxAYzSo...jVcKem0cO8hAgI

To clarify how progression of Robot combinations works in comparison to Rider form progressions: Sentai robots start off with a main robot, sometimes with a few support Mecha that form weapons or alternate limbs. Then comes the super formation, in which a second robot comes in to combine with the first one. And finally, the ultimate formation, which is a combination of all the important Mecha from the season. In cases where the ultimate debuts in the summer episodes (which happens fairly often, despite what a few people would try to tell you about King-Ohger last year), another robot will show up in the 30s that can take the place of one component in the main or ultimate formations.

Me when I first saw it: THOSE EYES

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

I appreciate you having so much to say about this one, since I definitely did not have the time to say much about it! I don't know that a lot of the trivia or Buster Machine would've been improved in my mind by having more time to talk about it, but I really enjoyed the Hiromu Fantasy stuff, and I probably could've gone into more detail about why.

...which I still can't do, since I'm a half-hour late from going to bed, and I gotta get to work in the morning. Time management! It's my weak point!

I appreciate the clarification!

I can see it!

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 21 - “FAREWELL, BLUE BUSTER!”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters21a.png

Absolutely ridiculous, totally unbelievable, and probably a series highlight.

Like, I’d be shocked if this doesn’t make my Top 3 by the end of the series. It’s basically an HBV played slightly more straight, with a tad more coherence to the rules of the show and the verisimilitude of the viewing experience. Nothing in here outright breaks canon, or winks at the audience. (There is nothing in here that begs for the events of Akibaranger to be made an official Sentai product, for example.) It’s a real episode, played at HBV volume.

And it’s amazing. There’s a general emotional through-line in here about how much Ryuji means to the team – Commander tries super hard at the end to make this all seem like a testament to Ryuji’s value to his friends and co-workers – but it’s barely applicable. This is a story where Gorisaki mistakenly thinks Ryuji’s going to die, so the entire staff (sans Commander) makes Ryuji think he’s too old to be a Go-Buster -slash- everyone hates him and thinks he’s holding the team back and can be easily replaced by the first black-haired guy within Hiromu’s reach. It’s hilariously cruel to Ryuji, in the name of everyone caring so goddamn much about Ryuji that they're desperate to save his life, but it eventually gives him a gigantic series of heroic victories to make it clear that Ryuji is more than just Old Man Buster. We are not in a story where Ryuji overcomes anything, really; the joke is that Ryuji’s selfless dedication to the team this time out is hysterically unnecessary and satirical in its application. This episode is a parody of episodes where heroes die, right down to its definitive statement of a title.

I thought this was relentlessly funny, from the HVAC Shutdown Confirmed opening sequence, to J trying to fight a grasshopper-themed piece of playground equipment, to everyone inexplicably assuming that Hiromu’s plan would tactfully preserve Ryuji’s dignity, to Jin inexplicably assuming that J could be trusted to follow simple directions to defuse a problematic situation, to Ryuji showing up for his last fateful transformation while multiple characters shrink from telling him he’s not dying at all, to Ryuji single-handedly defeating the Dumbbellroid via wrestling moves (a powerbomb!), to Ryuji single-handedly defeating the Megazord, to Ryuji getting both Jin and J in a double-headlock so they never get ideas in their heads ever again. Relentlessly funny episode, and one of the very best this show has to offer.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters21b.png

IT’S TIME FOR Jin and J!

This whole thing would fall apart without an impetus that seems plausible, and the combination of Jin making an incredibly bad joke and J completely not understanding where an apology should go is the chef’s kiss of this whole fever dream of toku brilliance. If this plot had started with any other character – Nakamura – you’d never buy that she could get it wrong or play it as a joke. If you tried to dodge a clarification by giving the job of explanation to any other character – Nick – you’d never buy that he’d tell the wrong people/objects. This incredibly dumb plot only becomes possible with Jin and J, and god bless them for enabling this perfect episode.

The DX version is so clustery that it doesn't even look humanoid. Certainly not the kind of clusterfudge that I'd want to display on my mantlepiece. Oh well, since it's so complicated that it has to be performed manually in the hangar, at least we won't have to look at it too often. This time the Oh part is removed from the name, despite Gobuster Oh being the base of the Gattai.

They basically tried to send Ryuji to NASA: An in-joke among Showa Sentai fans when a main character is suddenly required somewhere else (like NASA) or killed, prompting a new character to replace that Ranger. Gobusters takes some inspiration from Showa Sentai, like Goranger's agent theme. Morishita didn't receive the Gobuster program though, so Ryuji is the only one who can become Bluebuster. As a Kobayashi show, it's also expected that somebody will have a crippling illness or injury, after Kitaoka, Yuto and Date, so it's pretty amusing in a meta way that she subverts her own serious dramatic trope for comedic effect instead.

One of the best parts is Commander immediately putting it all together once Nakamura and Morishita say that the initial diagnosis came from Jin. Of course it was Jin!!!

This is another one like 7 that I already enjoyed the first time, but later became more attached to after randomly giving it a rewatch one day.

"I'm with Banana as we speak" is definitely one of the all-time great J moments, for sure, so the fact that gag is but a single one of the many jokes this thing is packed with should make it pretty clear just how funny an episode this is.

J is in rare form in this one, for sure. Him and Jin both have an episode that only briefly had me wondering how the two of them managed to escape from hyperspace without accidentally, like, switching brains or turning inside out.

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 22 - “THE BEAUTIFUL AVATAR, ESCAPE”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters22a.png

I guess my big -slash- only problem with this episode is that it feels slightly out of character for Hiromu to be the one giving Shouta the pep talk about not worrying what others think of you and just focus on your own strengths. Like, I’m not saying it’s out of character for Hiromu to be able to articulate that – he’s 100% the guy on the team that doesn’t care what people make of him – but he’s not the guy to give that speech to a stranger in a way that doesn’t result in said stranger feeling maligned and potentially litigious. If you asked me to rank the Go-Busters cast members who could effectively give a child a pep talk, it’d go:

-Ryuji
-Nakamura
-Nick
-Jin
-Morishita
-Yoko
-Gorisaki
-Commander
-Usada
-Enter
-J
-Several Metaroids
-Messiah, if you caught him on a good day
-Hiromu

Hiromu’s got a lot of strengths! Non-confrontational pep talks ain’t one of them!

Besides that, I liked this episode all right. I like getting a chance to see the Go-Busters interact with kids, because that’s a Kamen Rider staple that this show has largely avoided. (Once or twice, but in a real big deal way.) There’s a much different energy when the heroes are forced to embody a gentler heroism around kids, and I like that a lot. It feels more nuanced than the usual battle against evil.

And the battle against evil is joined this time out by Escape (not Exit?!?!), who plays to her strengths by attacking an escape room and keeping everyone from escaping. She is trying to make sure you don’t forget her name! Outside her branded scheming, I thought she was fun upgrade to Enter – guns instead of blades, a tablet instead of a laptop, Messiah is her dad instead of her king, etc. (The guns are named after Gog and Magog, to keep Escape’s debut an appropriately apocalyptic escalation of hostilities.) She gets a fantastic fight sequence against the Busters, which Enter hasn’t gotten in a good long while. She’s a lot more sinister than Enter, despite her lilting laugh and flirty demeanor; she’s a killer, instead of a mad scientist. Pretty fun debut for her!

So, yeah, I thought this was a fun episode. Would’ve liked it more, but that Hiromu speech… too upbeat! Too generous! He never even partially told this kid that everyone probably made fun of him before!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters22b.png

IT’S TIME FOR kids!

I liked the three kids in this one! They have a fun little story about doing an escape room. They just had good energy! I’m tired! Good night!

So we’re in the “summer slump” period of Sentai, wherein not much happens because the writers know viewership goes down and write the episodes accordingly. Though introducing a new villain is a staple of these episodes, it generally comes towards the end of the period, or just before it, compared to the “in the middle” introduction here.

So basically, the next few episodes are in the “thoroughly ok/what happened in this” category for me, so don’t expect anything in-depth in terms of discussion.

I will point out like Fourze’s upcoming movie character Inga Blink, Escape is played by an actress who was in Inoue’s “Cutie Honey: the Live” a few years ago.

I recommend an ice cold can of enetron. :lolol

I thought this one had a cute premise -- Hiromu and Yoko go undercover at an escape room -- but the episode spends maybe one and a half scenes on that before it's a straight-up superhero adventure. I'd've liked to see more of the undercover stuff!

I will remember that for next time!

I think it's a little unfair to Hiromu to claim that's he's OOC here, when we've never actually seen him interact with kids until now. Tendo's grandmother once said: "Children are treasures. The greatest sin in this world is to damage those treasures." It's common for this archetype to have a softer side for kids. Helps that Hiromu also has a playful side, as Yoko calls him out for showing up to the escape room in his "undercover" detective outfit. Hiromu is serious about fighting Vaglass, as they stole part of his childhood and he's determined to protect the happiness of those kids, so I believe that even he can be sensitive when he feels like it. He doesn't want Shouta to have a miserable childhood by trying too hard to be cool.

Escape especially wants you to not forget her guns' names, as she always introduces Gog and Magog before herself. She's my favorite Avatar villain for sure, due to all the reasons you just mentioned and also her appearance. Enter is interesting to watch for his evil schemes, but Escape is more exciting to watch for her skill in fights. She clearly has a lot of fun while everybody else is only trying to do their job, kind of like "Desast girl with guns", I guess.

Would be a good refreshment with a Gobusters wafer candy as a snack.

I mean, in fairness, I only said "slightly" out of character. Hiromu isn't laughing uproariously at his own shortcomings, or telling Yoko that her parents are dead -- he's just a little more open and accessible than we've really seen him before, specifically in the way that he's helping Shouta figure out his shortcomings in an empathetic and measured manner. I don't think Hiromu hates kids or anything, but his default is to say something inappropriately harsh but accurate, and then walk it back a couple scenes later with a little more nuance. This episode sort of skipped over that first step, and it felt weirdly rushed.

Her and Enter are named after a keyboard, so no, not Exit. Actually, although it's explicitly written with a "V" sound even in kana, I've heard it suggested "Vagras" is essentially "bug" and "virus" slapped together, since the bad guys are malicious computer programs?

Anyway, Escape is another great character I was openly hostile towards initially, because I guess that was just my go-to move whenever a new main character appeared in this show. But much like all the other characters I wasn't super keen on immediately, it started to become clear over time just how much the show as a whole benefits from having her. She's got a very different energy from Enter, so he in particular gains a ton from having someone new to bounce off of in a way he can't with his boss, or with his enemies.

Also! I'd argue Nakamura might deserve to be at the top of that list! I feel like with Ryuuji there's the risk the kid will call him ojisan or something else that makes him self-conscious about his age, and I mean, at that point, his effectiveness would shoot waaaaaay down. Though Hiromu would still be lower, of course. :p

The thing I like best about Escape is how we're continuing to get the hyperspace side of things sketched in without a ton of exposition, and with ample tension. Like, Enter's our main non-CG-headed bad guy, and he was shocked to see Escape here! Having Enter start to piece together some of what's going on with Messiah is fun for the audience, instead of holding our hand or involving the heroes too early. I like how she's building out that side of the narrative!

A damn shame enetron never became the Ecto Cooler of Super Sentai. :lolol

I'm still bummed that characters named Sys Lock and Print Screen never showed up.

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 23 - “INHERITORS OF THE WILL”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters23a.png

It’s nice to finally learn something concrete about what Yoko’s vanished mom was like. We’re about halfway through the series, and the closest we’ve come to learning anything about the disappeared parents of Yoko and Hiromu are the original 13 Years Ago flashback, and then the one fantasy sequence for Hiromu. Yoko… like, I didn’t even know her mom was a single parent! That feels like new information, and it probably shouldn’t be!

Getting an episode where Jin can’t say he banged Yoko’s mom because this is a show designed to sell toys to Japanese children is a pretty fun way of adding more detail to Yoko’s defining trauma and singular motivation. It’s not just Yoko suddenly deciding to tell a story about her mom after six months of a TV show, because Yoko was too young to have any stories before her mom disappeared. It takes Jin to try and make Yoko’s mom feel vital enough as a concept to care if Yoko rescues her, and the clear attraction Jin has for Yoko’s mom makes his relationship with Yoko all the more dramatic.

(I’m just going to call her Yokaasan, to make things easier on me. If the show wanted me to call her something else, they could’ve used her name at any point in this episode!)

Making Jin an accidentally worried dad to Yoko is a neat twist on his mentor-y status with Hiromu and Ryuji. It’s a little patronizing to see Jin get overprotective for the one girl Buster, especially once the story really gets cooking, but it’s both understandable – he can’t bear the thought of letting Yokaasan down by not keeping Yoko safe – and exactly what the episode ends up being about. It’s not really a story about haunting lost loves or secret hyperspace disintegrations or ulterior motives or attraction (actually wait it is about attraction in a way), it’s a story where Jin needs to learn that the women he cares for don’t need him protecting them; the thing that he admires about these women is their strength, so he shouldn't stand in the way of that. It’s a great lesson in general, and it’s specifically great to see it in a toku show. These franchises are sometimes not great about treating the lady characters as capable and powerful!

The rest of the episode, the non-Jin/Yoko stuff, it was fine. It’s a lot of goofy physical comedy that never quite grabbed me, and felt a little padded out. I like the idea of Go-Busters and Buddyroids being taken out of action in a comedic way so that Yoko and Jin can bond, but the reality got a little same-y. They fall over a lot! That’s the gag! It was fine.

Mostly, though, I was here for Jin and Yoko. I like any story that treats Yoko as more than just a kid sister, and marking her 17th birthday with her telling a paternalistic Jin that not only does she not need his protection, but she’s more than capable of protecting him? That’s a hell of a birthday present.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/sen...busters23b.png

IT’S TIME FOR Enter and Escape!

I think the new separation of duties is a nice way of evolving the routine of this show, while playing to each character’s strengths. Enter gets to do his Big Picture plotting, while Escape gets to run and gun with the Busters. It’s win/win! Unless you’re Enter, and you have to deal with Escape’s gun-crazy antics and Messiah-enabling recklessness! Then maybe it’s lose/lose!

According to the episode’s credits, Mrs. Yoko was named Kei. Not the most memorable name.

Anyway, I mostly remember this one for the “anti-magnetic armour” they create to counter the Metaloid. Especially since that was supposed to protect against the Subdimension somehow.

Also, we’re in the rare period where the ED gets replaced with a different character song every week. To clarify, every Sentai since Carranger has had the main cast sing, and everyone since Abaranger has had them sing individual “image songs” (with the exceptions being Goseiger, Gokaiger and Zyuohger. And Go-Onger, Kyoryuger, Ninninger and Kyuranger limited them to the actors who are good singers). And Go-Busters had the fairly unique move of having all of them being duets. Yoko’s and Usada’s… was alright, but I prefer Hiromu’s and Nick’s in terms of featured songs, and in terms of overall songs, Enter’s and Escape’s.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=DbSs_8FB...Hovh0LSrI2IUPm

And for some casting trivia, the kid playing Yoko in the flashbacks grew up to play Aoi in Kamen Rider Black Sun, who hilariously enough goes in pretty much the opposite direction character wise to Yoko.

Oh, snap! That was her?!

The one I still remember to this day is Rio's and Retsu's from Gekiranger.

Jin's compulsion to protect his loved ones at his own expense finally reveals his weakpoint as well, that everytime he sacrifices himself damages the integrity of the real Jin in Hyperspace. So Kobayashi found a way to play her favorite trope after all. Fortunately, Jin doesn't have to sacrifice himself this time, as Yoko protects him instead. Similar to Ryuji in Episode 5, Jin learns that Yoko isn't a 3 year-old kid anymore and he needs to treat her as an equal. Especially since Jin and J are still the new guys, so they have to conform to the way the core 3 do things if they want to be part of the team, or else they really would just be getting in the way. I like how this time Yoko takes a more active part in the moral, proving to Jin that she's just as reliable and brave as her mother, perhaps even more.

Yeah, this plot device was pretty stupid. Serious decline from the typical high standard of comedy I expect from this show.

For me, it's Crystal Signal by Mabusheena. I think there's a lot of these that I haven't heard before though, so this is based on what I remember.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ddZmutR0Bg