[Locke]

Although the implementation/execution of the ToQ pass = money thing left a lot to be desired - how'd he return the items if he left the pass behind? - I at least appreciated the effort.

It may be a largely irrelevant point for children, but as an adult living in a money controlled world, there are quite a few toku shows where I'm amazingly jealous that they seem to have infinite amounts of money they can just seemingly summon out of thin air with sheer quantity of STUFF they seem to have every episode.

Mio continues to grow as my favourite member of the team, proving herself now in pretty much every episode that she's the glue that holds the team together. Both of our girls have thus far been well used, which is surprising for sentai.

Although this show is goofier than perhaps I'd like it's much more intelligent in its use of self aware humour than Kyoryuger ever was. So there were some really fun moments.

And although this was probably the weakest villain so far (in a LOT of ways) I pretty much love every fight scene in this show, not because of the gimmick or anything like that just because I LOVE the theme. Someone smoking a cigarette in an arm chair could look epic with that theme playing over the top.

And to give the show credit, the way Kagura drags the weapons around and Takotti pushes up his tracks and stuff are really fun little details for when they're transformed.

It's ironic that for a show that puts so much effort into the world building, characterisation etc it's surprising just how much the mech portion in this show SUCKS even by sentai standards. I was really really excited for enemy mechs, but then that is what we got. After Gobus and Kyoryuger and even to an extent ToQ-Oh, was it THAT HARD to even make them look like robots? The Crows driving are more interesting than the generic footsoldier looking suit they used for the DarkLiner Robos. It didn't break the episode for me as I don't really care for the mech stuff, and usually the mech stuff in this show is pretty throwaway as it is, but the pain of a wasted opportunity always stings a lot. It really stings. *wipes away tear*

Overall, I'm going with good simply because I KNOW this show can do better even if this episode was pretty great overall. And at least I know that after last weeks episode, this show can also be a lot worse while still being really enjoyable. It's a fantastic start to the show, with a few minor hiccups, and I'm honestly very excited for more. Is it possible I could be enjoying the current sentai more than the current Rider?!