[Fish Sandwich]

EPISODE 44: "Crisis"

Ichijou and Yuusuke start this one out discussing how much the Grongi have been increasing in power, and Yuusuke says he's determined to become even stronger to stop them. Sounds like pretty serious stuff, right? But the thing is, this opening scene is actually just them going for a casual morning jog while relaxing music plays. Once again, I find this a very interesting way to handle things. There's nothing at all dour about the mood here. In fact, it's the exact opposite, to the point that Yuusuke is even comically tripping on the ground. You could have these characters be so beaten down by this point, but they just refuse to break, and that's really the spirit of the whole show right there.

Things are going less swell for Enokida, however. She's staying up all night again, and getting chewed out over the phone by her mother about not being home right now, because it's one of the days of the school year parents get to accompany their children, and Enokida promised she'd make it. She insists she still will... right after this meeting she has to go to first. She gets there just in time to miss Yuusuke introducing himself to chief Matsukura, complete with presenting him one of his business cards, which are now properly updated to reflect his status as the man with 2000 skills. The meeting begins pretty seriously. Dim lighting and blurry projector photos of monsters. Talk of the ultimate darkness and #0's incredible power. All that, plus Enokida clinically explaining the new types of bullets they've created based on Tsubaki's research on #0's victims, one of which acts as a tracking device, and the other of which will be able to prevent the Grongi from using their regenerative abilities, the latter of which are still being tested. Basically, your typical police scene in this show, except for the part at the end where an overly enthusiastic Yuusuke gets everybody to start laughing. Even here, things aren't without their moments of levity.

Out in the city, a big screen on the side of a building is playing a news report about the mysterious string of power shortages that have been going on over the past month. This is observed by the woman with the rose tattoo, who remarks to another Grongi that it seems he's obtained a new power. This is Go-Gadoru-Ba, who's clearly marked as another rival sort of character to Kuuga, given his rhinoceros beetle motif. In fact, he's so dedicated to mirroring Kuuga, that, in case you've missed the implication here, he apparently really was going around juicing up on electricity for a month before starting his "game" to beat Kuuga at his own shtick. It's really, really hard for that not to seem silly when I try to picture it. Gadoru has been around for a while now, and it seems he has a stronger sense of, uh, let's go with "fair play", than the usual Grongi. He has the air of a dignified hunter, keeping his composure at all times, and making it a point to only use his new power against the Linto's warriors, rather than picking on random civilians. I put "fair play" in quotes because it's obvious he mostly just wants the excitement of a good fight more than anything. He plans to make it all the way to the top of the food chain, after all. From the distance, a voice that sounds both youthful and innocent simply replies "I'll be waiting." This is Daguva's first proper line in the show, and the contrast between that downright playful inflection and his horrific actions will only become more pronounced from here.

At the university, Jean is making a mess of things gathering up research materials to take to Enokida, which leads to Sakurako stumbling upon the business card Yuusuke gave to Jean when they met, back when he was merely the man with 1964 skills. That number is actually handwritten above a crossed-out 1900, much the same way Yuusuke gave Enokida one with 1999 replaced with 2000 back when they met in episode 7. That's a really small touch I love kind of disproportionately. I mean, it's beyond minor, but the attention to detail to say that Yuusuke didn't always have the luxury of printing new sets of cards evey single time he acquired a new skill, and would hastily adjust whatever his current stock was is super neat to me for some reason?



It's not even the point of this scene. It's about emphasizing how long Yuusuke has been on his quest to make people smile, and it does a great job of that. Yuusuke enters the room, and when Sakurako shows him the card, he immediately remembers it's the one he gave to Jean based on the number alone. Naturally, he also remembers Sakurako's perfectly. You know, between this and the body count thing, maybe memorizing numbers is one of his skills? This actually makes a lot of sense now that I think about it. At any rate, it's more than obvious at this point how deeply Yuusuke cares about other people, and that's why he's asked Sakurako to see if she can find him any hints as to how to become stronger, like a new form for Kuuga. The only ones mentioned in the inscriptions are his basic four, and the "fearsome warrior", which is probably out of the question. He does have the Rising forms, that are real tough, but then, he can only hold those for 30 seconds at a time. In true Kuuga fashion, that last bit is only outright stated for the first time here. Jean pitches the idea that simply finding a way to make free use of the golden power would do the trick, an idea Yuusuke takes to immediately. Like, to the point he's legitimately planning to just go have Tsubaki bust out the defibrillator again. Sakurako finds this distressing, and Jean even apologizes for his bad habit of saying the wrong things at the wrong time (at least he's self-aware!), but Yuusuke is unwavering. His plan may be overdoing it, but if it means protecting smiles, he's ready to overdo things as much as he can, the same way his friends do.

Speaking of, Enokida ends up having to turn around on her way to Sayuru's school on account of the police needing those new nerve-disruptor bullets finished ASAP. Gadoru is out on the town, and his search for Linto warriors has lead him to start slaughtering cops, who turn out not to be the challenge he was really looking for. Not that this stops him from killing them, of course. Kuuga is on the case too, making a sweet entrance where he quickly assesses the situation, leaping off his bike, grabbing the gun of a fallen officer from the ground, and then leaping onto a nearby cop car to get a vantage point from which to shoot Gadoru with Pegasus Form in an attempt to prevent him from finishing off the surviving cops. It's a seriously awesome little sequence to end the episode on.



THUMBS UP COUNTING CORNER

No crazy group photos this time, and yet there's still an insane amount of thumb action.








Total thumbs up count: 89+6 = 95

EPISODE 45: "Archenemy"

Kuuga's efforts manage to draw Gadoru's attention away from the police, but not much more. His old finishing moves are thoroughly useless at this point, and Gadoru is all too happy to show him how it's really done. His eyes turn a green color, and he gets himself a big crossbow that pretty much immediately has Kuuga on the ropes. After evasion with Dragon Form proves unhelpful, Yuusuke grabs a random beam of wood to use as a sword, and goes after him with Titan Form. Gadoru is barely fazed by this. When Kuuga manages to knock the bow out of his hands, Gadoru reveals the next of his knockoff forms, grabbing the Titan Sword out of his own guts to turn it into his own. There's really nothing Yuusuke can do to touch the guy at this point, and he once again takes a beating straight through Titan Form's armor, which gets huge gashes on the torso and part of one of the shoulders sliced right off. Just when it seems like Kuuga will finally manage to turn things around with a Rising Mighty Kick, the hopelessness of the battle becomes truly apparent. Gadoru not only completely absorbs the attack without flinching, he reveals his forms also include an off-brand Rising mode, which leads to Kuuga basically being on the receiving end of a Rider Kick. Or more like a Grongi Kick, in this case, I guess. Kuuga winds up knocked back to Growing Form, where he actually looks ready to still fight for a second! He definitely isn't!



This is another excellent fight when it comes to building the threat of the antagonist. I mean, I've seen the series once already, and I don't even think Kuuga can bounce back from this one. He tried all his favorite strategies in a row, and none of them did a thing! There does manage to be some good news in all of this. Yuusuke got trounced so thoroughly that Gadoru doesn't even care to finish the job and walks off, giving Yuusuke a chance to recover at the hospital. Ichijou also managed to get a shot with the marking bullets in on Ra-Dorudo-Gu, who reveals his condor-based monster form for the first time here after the bullet shatters the abacus he uses to count the kills of each Grongi during their "games". He too leaves the scene after assuming getting shoved over a ledge will be enough to deal with Ichijou, but of course a super-cop like him climbs right back up.

With Kuuga out of commission for the time being, it's now more crucial than ever to get those nerve-disruptor bullets working, which means Enokida has some explaining to do to her family again. Her mother throws how little she's there for Sayuru in her face, and tells her that thanks to this latest broken promise, he's skipped school entirely, and locked himself in Enokida's room. Enokida's obviously in an unenviable position here, because there really isn't anything she can say beyond the usual. She'll be there as soon as she can, but making sure the mass murdering monsters get stopped kinda has to take priority, and that means she needs to be there to do her job. No matter how much frustrating that is for Sayuru, or for herself.

In the meantime, Ichijou is tracking down Dorudo's signal to the sports arena he's currently hanging out at with the rose-tattooed woman and Gadoru. Gadoru gets the bad news that with the abacus broken, he has to restart his "game" from scratch. He takes the news well. You know, keeps an even temper, doesn't raise his voice. Even says he's fine with doing it all again. Yes, indeed, he's even very, very calm when telling Dorudo he has to die now. This means more Grongi infighting, which is always such a treat. Right out of the gate, my money's on Gadoru though. Dorudo's hilariously saggy bird face kinda makes him look like the Grongi all the other Grongi steal lunch money from. I mean, his whole job was to do math. He's obviously the nerd of the group. Of course, looks can be deceiving, so who knows? His skills with his tonfa might turn out to be a good match for Gadoru's imitation Dragon Rod.



Although Ichijou is already at the arena without them, Enokida manages to get the new bullets good to go. Her initial elation gets cut short the second she remembers she had to let down her son to make this happen. She's later seen moping outside the research institute, clearly unsure of how to even face Sayuru. Hopefully Jean can do something to cheer her up now that he's there too. While I'm mentioning side characters, I also want to bring up the Pole Pole scenes for this episode. There's not really anything in them to really take time digesting, but a very pregnant Keiko makes an appearance, and it's still so cool to me how all these characters keep coming back, so I wanted to mention that.

Sakurako comes to the hospital where Yuusuke is recovering to ask on Yuusuke's behalf for Tsubaki to give him a good shock or two again. Even though she's not totally on board with the idea herself, she has a lot of faith in Yuusuke, and if he thinks that becoming stronger is something he needs to be happy, she's all for that. Tsubaki seems to be considering overdoing what he can for a moment, but regardless of what he would've decided, the issue gets forced when Yuusuke's heart flatlines. Again.

THUMBS UP COUNTING CORNER

Things are kept much more reasonable here.




Total thumbs up count: 95+2 = 97

EPISODE 46: "Indomitable"

Yuusuke isn't dead!



The show doesn't waste any time pretending this isn't the case, either. The very first shot of this episode is dedicated to showing you Yuusuke's very much beating heart after Tsubaki fixed him up, mostly offscreen. Even during the cliffhanger last time, it was treated like more of a moderate inconvenience than anything. In fact, Tsubaki goes as far as to suggest that Yuusuke somehow forced his own heart to stop, just so Tsubaki would hit him with some more of that sweet, sweet electricity. Which seems like a weirdly chessmaster kind of move for Yuusuke, so I assume Tsubaki means this was some sort of subconscious thing. Or he just doesn't know what he's talking about. Take your pick, I guess, but I'm pretty sure it's the former. Tsubaki is generally really good at his job, after all.

On the subject of people who are good at their jobs, we can't forget about Enokida, who's starting to break under the pressure of her life. She opens up to Jean about what's been going on with Sayuru, and admits she's still sitting around at the institute because at this point she honestly doesn't know what to do anymore. She keeps trying to find time for everything to avoid hurting anyone, but that keeps failing to work, and now she's sitting around being sad about it instead of going to see Sayuru now that she's free. It's goes into straight up self-loathing territory, with Enokida dismissing herself as a failure of a mother.

Jean has been lending an ear this whole time without saying much, because that's always been his nature. Just two episodes ago, he basically apologized for accidentally contributing to a discussion. He's always preferred to stay in the background, be friendly, and not rock the boat too much. That's why he's never pushed Enokida too hard about her parenting, even though he cares so much. Until now. Hearing Enokida talk about herself like this prompts Jean to finally stand up (like, he literally stands up) and say the most forceful thing he's ever said: has Sayuru ever told Enokida she's a bad mother? Because, as it turns out, Jean's parents were never around when he was a kid, and no matter how lonely he felt, he never thought any less of them for it. This explains why Jean has always had such a vested interest in Enokida's situation, and some of his dialogue in those first episodes where it came up makes so much more sense with this knowledge. Jean's really intent on getting Enokida to realize she isn't the problem. Her life may be hectic and hard to manage, but in his opinion, all Enokida needs to do is what she can. As long as she can stay smiling, and keep pushing herself to work hard for the benefit of all mankind the way she does, then that'll lead to Sayuru smiling too in the end. Jean's impassioned defense completely reinvigorates Enokida, who goes to grab a certain something before getting a ride home from Jean.

Yuusuke is feeling pretty invigorated himself, after waking up in the hospital. Tsubaki's surprised when Yuusuke knows right away he had the defibrillator busted out on him again (Tsubaki not expecting that confirming he didn't mean Yuusuke literally willed himself to death on purpose, I guess), but Yuusuke's just so full of energy he knows it couldn't have been anything else. He's pretty confident that with all the energy he's loaded with now, he should be able to sustain the golden power for a lot longer, which will be a big help, since Yuusuke wants to work hard for the sake of everyone else who's working hard. The scene at Pole Pole this time kind of blends this drama with the Enokida drama by having Minori talk about how their father, when he was alive, was also never around, a natural result of being a war photographer. There aren't any deep revelations here, but I like how the show caught how Yuusuke's existing backstory could kind of fit in here thematically, with Minori pointing out how they'd always get letters from him that would always end with him wishing for the day when everyone can smile. It's obvious, especially from Minori's tone, that both of them really looked up to their dad, despite barely seeing him, and that reinforces what Jean is saying, as well as how deeply baked into Yuusuke the idea of protecting other people's happiness is.

Ichijou has headed inside the arena just in time to catch the night's main event. Gadoru and Dorudo are continuing to throw down on surprisingly even footing, with Dorudo managing to get way more good hits in then I would've ever expected from the guy. Ichijou's smart enough not to stick around watching long enough to get caught though, and retreats to a nice safe distance, meeting up with Sugita and Sakurai, and picking up the completed nerve-disruptor bullets when they get delivered. That means it's time to take the fight back inside, but Dorudo flying off means splitting into two teams. Sugita and Sakurai head off to catch Dorudo, while Ichijou is the one to head back inside to go after Gadoru. When he finds him again, he fires a few of the bullets off, and Gadoru... falls flat on the ground. The bullets don't just work, they work great. Sakurai and Sugita even manage to outright kill Dorudo, winning the police their first ever proper victory against a Grongi. It took them 46 episodes to do it, but they did it, no Rider belts required! The woman with the rose tattoo is, once again, mostly just impressed, cryptically remarking this time that the Linto as a whole will become like the Grongi. Kinda kills the mood a bit. As does Gadoru turning out to have been playing dead, which is a cheap move. It just goes to show you, these competitive types only care about fairness as long as they still win.

Yuusuke arrives to finish up the job, transforming straight to Rising Mighty, able to freely use its power exactly like he was hoping for. The fight heads to a nearby forest Ichijou has made sure is cleared out for the explosion (I choose to believe all the squirrels and birds were evacuated too), where Yuusuke unlocks a brand new power. Now, keep in mind, Bandai at this point was already selling merchandise of that four-horned version of Kuuga I'm feigning ignorance of for a couple months at this point. Ever since around its first hallucinatory appearance during the fight with Jaraji, pretty much. And I have to imagine it was a little frustrating for them those visions were the only appearances it was making. What was definitely frustrating for them, was tuning into this very episode, and seeing a brand new form for Kuuga they'd never heard of before. This is the debut of Kuuga's Amazing Mighty Form, a black and gold spin on the default form with doubled up Rising anklets. You think it'd be a cheap repaint deal Bandai forced on the show, right? As a matter of fact, it's quite the opposite. The show's staff thought this whole idea up and executed it all on their own without ever thinking to mention it to Bandai, and as such, no merchandise of this form was actually available while the show was on the air. How could it be? They only found out about the dang thing when there was like a month left to go. Making toys takes time! When Yuusuke finishes Gadoru off, and takes a second to observe himself, he realizes the implications of the color, and in a cruel twist on Dragon and Pegausus' debuts, remarks with trepidation that he's turned black. It's a cool, solemn moment, that I don't want to undercut, but just be aware that for Bandai, it was probably more like "he turned black?!"



After this twist, things pick back up with Jean driving Enokida back to her home on his motorcycle, because of course Jean has a motorcycle. With his encouragement, she heads in to straighten things out with Sayuru. The decision she comes to here is really interesting. The whole purpose of this plotline feels almost like a rebuke of how similar ones in other stories can often be handled. Enokida isn't a bad parent. She's a talented, hard worker with an important job, and she absolutely cares about her child on top of that. She keeps making these promises to Sayuru because she genuinely would like to be able to keep them. But that's what she realizes here her problem is. She can't keep them, and the solution isn't to stop working to go be a "real" mother. It's just to be straight with Sayuru. To tell him that with the Unidentified Lifeforms around, she has to work harder than ever, and while there's no getting around that, she's every bit as dedicated to being his mother. It's a really touching scene, with the kind of drama that, again, you really just do not find in a tokusatsu show that isn't Kuuga, and their following reconciliation, finally bonding over that book Jean gave Enokida all those episodes ago, it's such a great payoff.

It's a really uplifting ending for the most part, but then, there's only a few episodes left, and with all the Grongi that were participating in the "game" dead, the final scene reminds us that this means Daguva is done waiting around. It's the final stretch now, the storm is coming, and it won't be pretty.

THUMBS UP COUNTING CORNER

And with only a few episodes left, the count finally hits the triple digits!






Total thumbs up count: 97+4 = 101