[Fish Sandwich]

Okay, yeah, that interview with Koumura was right on the mark – this is very much a show about good-for-nothings. And a seriously entertaining one, at that!

It's hard to even know where to start breaking these things down with how dense they are, so I'm just going to begin by mentioning two minor things that aren't even particular to this episode, before I keep forgetting to. One, it's really cool that Ishinomori gets that special thanks credit in the opening; and two, I really love how the Geartlinger is used to pilot the robots. We were all wondering what those little extra flaps were for, and I think it's brilliant to have it be a stand to prop the gun up with. Integrating the transformation device with the mecha is nothing new, but I really appreciate how simple and easily replicated this setup is for the kids role-playing at home – just find a table at the right height and there ya' go! No fancy chairs or elaborate holsters required!

Alright, so, look, that stuff is fun and all, but I can only pretend this post is going to be about anything other than how much I love Magine for so long, so let's just get to that.

Going in, she was already the designated member of the team I actively wanted to be my favorite before the show premiered, and, as great as everyone else is, there's basically no chance of anyone pulling a Tametomo on me this year. It's practically fate. Magine is the only one of the five drawing a motif from a Sentai I've actually seen, and one I'm quite fond of at that, and as if that weren't enough, she's also specifically patterned after my favorite member of said team. And then it turned out Magine's character concept was like, adorably bashful nerdy robot girl who is also a wizard and sometimes an awesome dragon? I joked at the start of Kiramager that a fire truck mecha voiced by Kenichi Suzumura was something Toei stole straight out of my wildest dreams, but this is starting to get genuinely suspicious!

So essentially what I'm saying is that Zenkaiger only truly starts here in my eyes, and it was more than worth the wait. This is a very straightforward spotlight episode delivered rather impeccably, and through its focus on Magine, it starts to build up what's clearly going to be a central theme for the show. I guess I'd word it as "being yourself" until further notice? Again, this whole team is assembled from dysfunctional losers, and that's why it's probably pretty significant that Kaito tells Magine her fortunes can still be helpful in their own way regardless of whether or not they're correct. Because if things need to be correct to get the job done, you know, the multiverse is kinda done for with only the Zenkaigers looking out for it! It's a very charming little narrative with a well-meaning message that does a great job introducing a new member of the team, and as always, it's all grounded in unbelievably fine-tuned character interactions. Gaon may not stand a chance of becoming my favorite while Magine is around, but I also don't think I'm ever going to get tired of him completely ghosting Zyuran at every opportunity.

What's also of note is the direction, which is possibly going even harder on challenging itself to experiment than the first two episodes, even though things would ordinarily start to normalize at this point. The constant use of green screen backgrounds to make the world look appropriately iced over is more than a little glaring, and the movements don't always match up very naturally, but I honestly found it weirdly charming for reasons I can't describe very well. I guess it just seems like the kind of thing Toei will get wrong a few times now to do it right later? Like, I can feel the show learning, and I think that's what I liked about it. Considering the director in question this time is Ryuuta Tasaki, the wonky special effects are also balanced out by his usual penchant for snappy, communicative cinematography, so overall, the episode still looks quite nice. He even uses that exact low-angle looking-up establishing shot of a building with the sign in the foreground for Kaito's house at the start that I swear I've seen in like every Kamen Rider show he's worked on? Like, I'm not going back to check for particular examples from episodes by him right now, but that gave me some serious déjÃ* vu for some reason, and I think that's it.

I'm maybe getting off-track now, so I'll wrap this up. Really good episode! Kind of sad they apparently didn't build the robot suits to actually mix-and-match though! Magine is best Zenkaiger and if you say otherwise, you're obviously wrong!