[Kurona]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

I LOVED THIS EVEN MORE THAN THE LAST ONE WHAT EVEN IS THIS SHOW???

*ahem*

So, Ayumi Shimo wrote two episodes of Kiramager prior to this one, 6 and 14, both of which I had nothing but extremely nice things to say about, and the former of which is still the gold standard of the series to me for how well it mixed its absurd plot with genuine heart.

It's much the same story here, where once again, a fairly stock Sentai plot is done in a way that stands out due to being polished like a-

Well, you know. Kakihara was kind of interesting to me in Episode Zero, which was co-written by Shimo, because she kind of seemed like a lens for the show to bit of social commentary on the youth, with that sort of jaded teenager shtick that would inherently make for a nice contrast to what the show was all about. She seemed like a character with at least a little more potential left in her, and I was excited to hear she'd finally be getting featured again. This episode isn't making any particularly grand statements, which is arguably for the better, but what it does have is some truly genuine, really stellar characterization.

Befitting the theme of the episode that people have multiple sides, Kakihara displays an awful lot of seemingly conflicting traits that I felt perfectly gelled together into a pretty well written "typical" (for lack of a better word) modern adolescent. She's upfront, disingenuous, curt, honest, a liar, self-serving, self-loathing, and when you get to know her, on the whole not at all a bad person. I loved how much was going on with her, and felt that complexity added a lot to her making friends with the simple-minded Juuru over the course of the episode. She's sketched out well enough to give it more weight than just a character we don't know saying one we already like is as great as we already knew.

And of course, Juuru, for his part, continues to be just the sweetest, most adorable thing, and as great as Kiramager can be when it comes to giving others the spotlight, he's a Red I'm still more than happy to see get the focus in an episode. He's not complicated, and neither are the reasons I like him, I guess. He's nice, he thinks creatively, and he helps people out. Sounds like a good hero to me.

That spine of the episode, it's insanely strong, and of course, built on top of it is all the usual excitement you can reliably expect from this series. The Monster of the Week was fun, the action was silly yet engaging, and the mecha fight this time was so good, it featured the debut of what is totally going to go down as Kiramager's official first super combination, and that is wonderful. Sometimes I swear this show can just try whatever it wants to and find a way to make something amazing out of it.

All of this, basically!! This was a great episode and Kiramager continues to be so, so good!