[Fish Sandwich]

Ninnin Rewatch! 31 + 32

Episode 31 is another one about Nagi, and even though it isn't quite a two-parter, it directly foreshadows the resolution to 32, with the whole lesson Nagi learns here being that, instead of merely keeping up with the other Ninningers by copying them, he needs to do his own thing and stay one step ahead.

Speaking of which, I totally adore episode 32. Possibly the best single episode of the whole show? Coming off of last week's cliffhanger there's a very well done sense of this being the darkerst hour for the team. After how badly they got their s*** kicked in even using Ha-Oh Shurikenjin there's basically nothing they can do besides get stronger fast. I may have my gripes with Gekiatsu Dai-Oh for ruining a lot of what I loved about Ninninger's mecha action, but even the first time around I loved its function in the story. The whole premise of the show is that everyone on the team is trying to live up to Yoshitaka's legacy and succeed him as the Last Ninja, and this is the big turning point, where after some accidentally dead on advice from Takaharu (because of course), they all realize the only way they'll ever surpass him is to stop asking What Would Yoshitaka Do? all the time and start doing things their own way, leading them to create a fancy new robot with a fancy new method. This is another time where I pull out the term ~character-driven~ that's inadvertently become my catchphrase with Ninninger. I can't help but feel it actually has a perfectly solid, even quite good, long-term story arc, as long as you can accept that it has little to do with the plot, strange as that sounds.