[Fish Sandwich]

Kakuranger 46-47:

46 is another one that gets by on having a creative and fun premise. It's sort of a "greatest hits" collection of elements I loved about some of Hirohisa Soda's other episodes. The plot centers on the Kakurangers getting trapped in a comic book by the Youkai, giving the episode a setting where any bizarre thing can happen like with the Christmas episode. You've got a guest star little kid character who's actually quite likable as in 34. And you've a collection of weird human antagonists in addition to the monster just like 41. No individual element is as good as it was in those episodes I just mentioned, but putting them all together still resulted in a very enjoyable episode. It's nominally another Saizou spotlight, too, and while he's a fun character to watch get physically abused and psychologically tortured in increasingly absurd ways, Sasuke kind of steals the show. He does his trademark dramatic finger pointing like twice as much as usual, which is some real bang for your buck, and he finds an awesome solution to get everyone back to reality at the climax.

47 is Susumu Takaku's last episode of the series, and, as per usual, it's entirely adequate. It does do a fair bit to stand out though. In particular, it's got a great villain. Kasha has a pretty intimidating design that still works in the campy modern touches. A pyromaniac dressed up like a firefighter is just plain good irony. What's even better is that he is one sick f***. His whole plan here is to stuff children into fireworks simply because he thinks it'll be pretty, and because Daimaou said it might mildly amuse him. The story as a whole has a fairly grim tone, which contrasts nicely with how silly the last two were. Still far from the show's best, but hey, it's got a bad guy that's fun to root against, and Sasuke makes a killer dramatic entrance in the climax, as though he wasn't getting enough awesome moments lately to begin with.