Mashin Sentai Kiramager Episode 26- "Make It An Arrow Weapon!" Discussion
 

A new enemy plans to open a gigantic portal on earth, which would allow the entire Yodonheim Army to swarm the planet. The Kiramagers must find a way to stop this plot...

Miki and Natsume from Gekiranger confirmed as guest stars next episode. I mean we all knew SCRTC was Sena's sponsor but dang Toei is doubling down. :rock:

I'm giddy from the fact!
Shame no Gekirangers, but I'll still take those two!

Yep same here. I will say though that it probably wont be easy gathering back the old crew completely since Jan and Ken are probably the only active ranger actors around last I checked(the other three having retired) and Master Shafu's voice actor passed away a few years ago.

About this week's episode, it was Kiramazing how the Kiramagers are having their powers upgraded in the fight against Yodonna, the stronger Jamenshi (Evil Masked Warrior) and the stronger Yodon footsoldiers with their bows. I thought they're using bowguns. Please clarify.
As for next week's episode: The GekiRangers may have been defeated in the Super Sentai Strongest Battle of 2019, but Miki Masaki and her daughter Natsume of the 31st Super Sentai Series of 2007 returned for the 44th Super Sentai Series to prevent Sena Hayami from becoming a human bomb (Jun Yabuki/Yellow Four II of Choudenshi BioMan, anyone?), a plot instigated by Yodonna to eliminate the Kiramagers one by one. Will they diffused the bomb and save her just in time or will this be the end of the Lightning Striker?
About the Juuken Sentai GekiRanger actors and actresses, you're right. Hiroki Suzuki (Jan Kandou/GekiRed) and Soutarou Yasuda (Ken Hisatsu/GekiChopper) are the only actors left that are still active while Mina Fukui (Ran Uzaki/GekiYellow), Manpei Takagi (Retsu Fukami/GekiBlue) and Riki Miura (Gou Fukami/GekiViolet) are already retired. Ichirou Nagai (Voice of Master Sha-Fu) was already a deceased person. Yuka Hirata (Mele)? Well, we last saw her in Uchuu Sentai KyuuRanger Vs. Space Squad in 2018 (a sequel to Hero Mama League) and I don't think she'll return because her spirit was already killed by Space Ninja Demost of Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya to protect her fellow Green Chameleon Warrior Hammie/Chameleon Green from slaying.

They're even bringing back Jan-isms, that's so cute! I love it~

Pretty much a perfect Sentai power-up episode. Fresh how they went against the grain and basically said limits exist not to be broken, but outsmarted. The total opposite of Koh's catchphrase last season. Juuru using this to create a power-up that lasts a limited time felt fresh and unique. And I can't tell you how nice it is to have a full team power-up again.

Next week we get some Gekiranger cast returns! That makes me so happy as a huge fan of that show.

I didn’t expect a lot from this episode. And I got exactly what I expected. Nothing but disappointment.

Once again, they ran into all the same problems team power ups have. Coming in with no foreshadowing, having terrible designs and getting terrible debut fights (there was no reason they needed to power up to beat Bakudan Jamen. It’s worse in this case since they showed they didn’t need to power up to beat him, since Takamichi one-shots him in the end). I am glad they added the time limit, since it means Go Kiramager fortunately won’t be dominating all the fights for the rest of the season. (Looking at you Gekiranger and your overuse of certain white suits)

And talking of Gekiranger… I am excited for next week, but not by much. Gekiranger isn’t a particular favourite of mine and I have a lot of problems with it (mostly with pacing, division of screen time, characterisation and as mentioned, overuse of Super Gekiranger and GekiWolfTohja)

No one is gonna talk about Tametomo's cool outro song?

:D

The guy can sing. I know both Juru and Tametomo's actor are both in boyband groups but Tametomo has a better singing voice than Juru.

In all honesty, I remembered Juru’s more. And I forgot Juru’s after an hour or two.

Just wanted to drop in and say that I like the new villain. And causal King Oradin is awesome.

The only thing that was kinda weird in this episode IMO was how they handled the talk about the Energia stone. Like - Juuru just assumes they'll end up like the grunts before Takamichi tells them the side-effects he witnessed?

Wouldn’t it have made much more sense if they were like "Let’s use the stone!", then Takamichi adds "I don't know guys, I witnessed this weird thing about the Monstone" to which the group replies "We have no choice", then Juuru can have his outburst about not wanting to end up like the minions.

I felt that exchange was rather weird the way it happened. All the plot pieces are there but in the wrong order.

This felt like pretty much the best mid-2000's episode of Super Sentai I've seen in a while. I'm not totally sure what I even mean by that myself, so hang on while I try to explain.

The whole episode kept reminding me of Magiranger in particular. I think most of that was in the way that, just like that show, Kiramager is a series I generally consider as being lighthearted even by Sentai standards, and yet sometimes it can get super dramatic and engaging without ever getting outright intense or dark. That ability to smoothly slide the tone around a bit was one of the things that won me over about Magiranger, and I felt the plot here pulled off something really similar. The usual comedic staples of Kiramager, like the rapid-fire comedy, are mostly on vacation here in favor of letting the viewer soak in the despair of the team licking their wounds in preparation for the inevitable comeback.

Said comeback was really satisfying, of course, and one of the other things that probably triggered the Magiranger comparisons in my brain was simply the sight of the team all getting a shared power-up form. I gotta tell ya', even as someone who thinks the complaining about Reds hogging the spotlight in recent years is often overstated (I will defend Takaharu to the grave), seeing everyone all transforming together like this just feels so, so right. It should seriously just always be done this way. The new chestplates seem way less impressive on a design level than something like Shishi Red Orion at first, but the thing to keep in mind is that there's an impact to seeing the whole team together with their new gear that simply can't be beat by any individual super mode.

Arakawa also brings back the deliberately twisted morals in force for the origin of the Go Kiramagers, with Juuru's whole thing about realizing that limits are just a part of life and you should maybe not try so hard to break them, lest you end up breaking yourself instead. It's all in the context, but I adore how the story somehow makes that into a positive moral. It might be exaggerating to call it "daring", but I love when Kiramager tries to get clever like this. It also leads to the most surefire way to make me love any toku super mode – giving it a clear drawback. The simple concept of a time limit on a power-up is as tried and true as it gets, and while I fully expect them to start playing fast and loose with that in the future, I supremely appreciated the entirely real-time clock in the fight here. Added a lot of excitement to a scene that already had some super energetic and fun direction with the idea of the team sharing the bow around.

All around, this was a highly engaging episode; not necessarily the be all, end all introduction for a big new toy, but definitely an extremely competent one that doesn't leave too much to complain about. The in-the-moment stakes were great, and in the long-term, we have a cool new general character for the bad guys to spice things up, so it works as something of a midway turning point the way it ought to, as well. Really satisfied with this two-parter! I can only hope to see another episode this good soon.

https://i.imgur.com/vGZ6cBB.png

Something is gonna happen between Tametomo and Yodonna later on. Don't know what, but it will happen.

Bakudan Jamen seemed genuinely surprised when he was split into five, becoming a Sentai unto himself!

Hearing Juuru barking and getting all riled up about not going to far with the stone's ability to power-up anyone was a nice little break from his normal characterization.

I don't mind the chest armor too much, but the bow itself looks rather dinky by comparison.

At least Yodonna used that Yodon Changer again in some capacity.

P.S.: What was Juuru gonna use had Mabushina NOT cried diamonds? He clearly had the idea for the bow when he entered the base, but he couldn't have known that the table had "tears" on it. What material would he have used otherwise?