[Fish Sandwich]

This felt like pretty much the best mid-2000's episode of Super Sentai I've seen in a while. I'm not totally sure what I even mean by that myself, so hang on while I try to explain.

The whole episode kept reminding me of Magiranger in particular. I think most of that was in the way that, just like that show, Kiramager is a series I generally consider as being lighthearted even by Sentai standards, and yet sometimes it can get super dramatic and engaging without ever getting outright intense or dark. That ability to smoothly slide the tone around a bit was one of the things that won me over about Magiranger, and I felt the plot here pulled off something really similar. The usual comedic staples of Kiramager, like the rapid-fire comedy, are mostly on vacation here in favor of letting the viewer soak in the despair of the team licking their wounds in preparation for the inevitable comeback.

Said comeback was really satisfying, of course, and one of the other things that probably triggered the Magiranger comparisons in my brain was simply the sight of the team all getting a shared power-up form. I gotta tell ya', even as someone who thinks the complaining about Reds hogging the spotlight in recent years is often overstated (I will defend Takaharu to the grave), seeing everyone all transforming together like this just feels so, so right. It should seriously just always be done this way. The new chestplates seem way less impressive on a design level than something like Shishi Red Orion at first, but the thing to keep in mind is that there's an impact to seeing the whole team together with their new gear that simply can't be beat by any individual super mode.

Arakawa also brings back the deliberately twisted morals in force for the origin of the Go Kiramagers, with Juuru's whole thing about realizing that limits are just a part of life and you should maybe not try so hard to break them, lest you end up breaking yourself instead. It's all in the context, but I adore how the story somehow makes that into a positive moral. It might be exaggerating to call it "daring", but I love when Kiramager tries to get clever like this. It also leads to the most surefire way to make me love any toku super mode – giving it a clear drawback. The simple concept of a time limit on a power-up is as tried and true as it gets, and while I fully expect them to start playing fast and loose with that in the future, I supremely appreciated the entirely real-time clock in the fight here. Added a lot of excitement to a scene that already had some super energetic and fun direction with the idea of the team sharing the bow around.

All around, this was a highly engaging episode; not necessarily the be all, end all introduction for a big new toy, but definitely an extremely competent one that doesn't leave too much to complain about. The in-the-moment stakes were great, and in the long-term, we have a cool new general character for the bad guys to spice things up, so it works as something of a midway turning point the way it ought to, as well. Really satisfied with this two-parter! I can only hope to see another episode this good soon.