[Fish Sandwich]

Another week, another reliably solid episode of Kiramager to fill my heart with joy. Shiguru is easily one of the funniest characters on the show, so putting him with another big personality like Takamichi definitely makes for some strong comedic beats as he desperately tries to protect his cool image around someone so hard to predict.

The setup of Shiguru filming for some cheesy romantic TV dramedy also reminds me all over again just how much I appreciate what the Kiramagers having such defined occupations and/or hobbies, and different ones at that, adds to the series. It allows for a lot of easy, natural ways to generate stories, and by broadening the scope of the world beyond simply fighting bad guys, you also get to sketch out the characters in a lot more varied scenarios that might otherwise be hard to do without spending a lot of extra time constructing reasons for the cast to end up in a situation.

The actual central plot with Mabusheena and Takamichi is unremarkable, but a serviceable enough throughline for the episode, and I did think it was a lot of fun getting Crunchula in on the action properly, even though between his design, mannerisms, and now the fact that he's doing an evil version of Red Light Green Light, I absolutely can't stop thinking of Dr. Worm from Ryukendo when I see him. Well, I guess they don't even look that similar. I'm probably just saying that because Crunchula has an actual mouth to speak with. The point is, I feel those two would really get along, you know? They've got a pretty similar energy going on.

The mecha fights continue to be a real highlight of the series for me, too, really hitting the mark on the wacky action with oftentimes weirdly mundane monsters and weapons. I just can't hate a Sentai robot with a vacuum cleaner as part of its arsenal, and I also have to give this episode major props for lining up everyone saying "Kiramai Dynamic!" almost exactly in time to where the lyrics of the insert song say the same. Heck, maybe that wasn't even on purpose, but it's cool anyway, okay? I just really love this show! I try to go into detail about it, but it really always comes back to that simple fact at the end of the day.