[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 31 - “SPACE SHERIFF GAVAN APPEARS!”



I don’t care about Gavan! I only care about Yoko and Shelly having a goofy friendship adventure in a dimension that runs on Showa rules!

Just an exceptionally fun episode, mostly because of the fantastic chemistry between Shelly and Yoko. I like the troublesome earnestness of Shelly, and how that plays off of the polite but exhausted Yoko. That duo is just my favorite thing on maybe the series to date, and I wish I could explain better why that was. I just… I love how wacky they are together. The scene of the two of them eating a bunch of desserts and then Shelly trying to pay with a massive diamond? I wish that was an entire show. Give me 50 episodes of these two toku ladies being good friends and occasionally being menaced by Space Criminals, and I will be happy.

The rest of the episode, it’s honestly all as solid as that, which was surprising. I groaned pretty loud when I saw that we were in a Gavan story (I did not like that guy’s part in the Sentai/Rider crossover movie!), but this thing worked all the way across for me. Thought I’d just have tiny morsels of RabbitBird to enjoy, but instead I got a rapidly escalating monster adventure that also included a new Metaroid! And a Megazord! Despite Messiah being defeated last episode! Developments!

A little strange to jump out of last episode’s massive conclusion into an extended Legacy Hero crossover event, but I guess I’m game if it keeps being super fun to watch. Yoko and Shelly! That’s all I need!



IT’S TIME FOR Space Sheriff Gavan!

Boy, is it ever. I think half of the dialogue was folks saying “Space Sheriff Gavan–?!” I liked him in this, thankfully, because he’s in too much of the show for me to just ignore him. I like how Geki is a real modern hero – smug, hot-headed, smirking in the face of death – but Gavan is all shot-for-shot Showa stuff. The little break to show us the Electroplating!!! Bonkers. The second Gavan shows up in costume, the logic of this show tilts into completely insane Showa nonsense – the Metaroid gets a dirt bike from Somewhere, the Makuu Space makes evil three times stronger in a quantifiable way – and it’s awesome to watch the Busters try to retain their sanity in the face of such absurdity. Gavan’s a toku fever dream compared to the coherence of your normal Go-Busters cause-and-effect, and the collision of those two sensibilities made for a fairly rousing climax. I will give this Gavan guy one more shot!