[Androzani84]

Scroll 5: Master and the Bath

This episode is the first to be written by someone other than Jun’ichi Miyashita. Instead, it’s written by one Naoyuki Sakai. In terms of other writing credits, he did a few episodes of Gaoranger, plus he worked with Miyashita on Exceedraft, Janperson and Blue SWAT. If you came to this thread looking for familiar writers, then you’re in the wrong place. You’re likely to recognise at least one of this show’s 5 writers if you’re a general Toku fan. And we’re still a while away from him. With that said, let’s get down to business.

This episode starts with everyone’s favourite floaty-head Manmarva having a prophetic vision of two powerful warriors (and we’re told these prophecies are a regular occurrence, though some of them are pretty boring). Sargain assumes these warriors are the final two Dark Spears (even he acknowledges they’re short-staffed). Personally, I think it’s those guys who appeared briefly in episode 1 and have been in the credits since then.



Tau Zant then dismisses this, asking how Chuzoobo is doing with his latest plan. The latter says that it’s underway, as we see a group of Magerappas out at night (a rarity, I know) planting seeds in the ground (apparently, the plan this time is to start an unpaid, unwanted gardening business). The Hurricanegers show up to stop them, before Yosuke ends up facing this week’s ninja: Poison Flower Ninja Hanasakedonne (Since I don’t expect to spell that the same way every time, I’ll just call him Flora).



Flora beats up Yosuke for about a minute before leaving. Cut back to Ninja Base, where Oboro has had the three gather soil samples, for something she won’t tell them about. Hamster Headmaster then sends them to investigate the Miharaishi Bathhouse undercover, to which Yosuke objects and decides to attack him. After losing a fight to a f*cking hamster (embarrassing, I know), the Master orders them to the Bathhouse. We then see them doing jobs such as keeping the fires going, changing the baskets and scrubbing the floor. Yosuke is (naturally) sick of this and storms off. While Hamster Headmaster hangs up his phone call (look, just go with me on this one, okay?), Oboro explains why he sent them to the bathhouse: the Jakanja were sighted in the area surrounding the bathhouse (Oh, that makes sense). He didn’t tell the kids this because Yosuke interrupted him and that made HH impatient with his hotheadedness. (Yep, that checks out) Yosuke then bursts in to try and attack Hamster Headmaster, only to fail again and get told that he doesn’t have what it takes to be a ninja superhero if he can’t follow orders. Yosuke then goes to an arcade and proceeds to use the games to take out his anger at Hamster Headmaster (Well, it might help).

At the Centipede and in the basement of the Miharaishi Bathhouse, both Chuzoobo and Flora exposit the plan: By growing a central tree in the bathhouse, they can then grow all the seeds they planted into more trees, which will then kill all of humanity (I think there’s a step or two missing there). Nanami and Kouta then find the central tree in the basement, and get captured by Flora just as it sprouts. Thus, Hamster Headmaster summons Yosuke away from his game of Whac-A-Mole (that’s the second time I’ve referenced that in this thread) to save them.

Yosuke arrives on the scene to see Nanami and Kouta captured by Flora. He tries destroying the vines with his Dry Gun, but it fails (what do you know? Hairdryers make terrible weapons against plants). Despite being under attack by a seed that was in the dirt they had gathered earlier, Oboro sends Yosuke a new technique for his Hayatemaru (which, in the first of this sub’s quirks, translates “maru” as ball, which, while not wrong as a translation, is wrong in this context, as the thing is clearly not a ball). Using this new technique, Yosuke completely destroys the plant and frees the others. The three then do the roll call (exposing another of the sub’s quirks: translating any word used to denote presence (sanjou [has arrived], kenzan [has appeared] and suisan [on stage]) as ‘calling’), but find themselves struggling against Flora’s attacks. That same mysterious duo make a reappearance, this time gloating that they have a front row seat for the Hurricanegers’ demise (so it’s confirmed: they’re dicks). Luckily, the Hurricanegers escape using scarecrows and then destroy Flora with the Dry Gadget.

Wendinu then revives Flora as a giant, to which the Hurricanegers summon Senpuujin, ram Flora with its ‘spinning wheel’ mode (showing off its toy gimmick in the process), blasting him with the Tategami Hurricane (basically using the lion head like a beyblade) before destroying him with the Sword Slasher. The Hurricanegers celebrate, Chuzoobo fumes at his loss, Manmarva eagerly anticipates the arrival of the two warriors and the mysterious duo leave laughing (apparently, the Hurricanegers not dying, but actually winning is the funniest thing ever to them). Hamster Headmaster is finally proud of Yosuke… until he says something dumb which earns him a rodent to the face.

Next time: our two female villains try to kill our one female hero, playing out the designated girl fight in all it’s worn out glory. Also, there’s a new puppet with cutting abilities. Join me next time for Scroll 6: Scissors and Kunoichi.

Final Thoughts: Even with a different writer, the show manages to give me some consistent quality storytelling. We get some plot advancement with the two strangers appearing again and getting some dialogue. And there seems to be something going on with Hamster Headmaster (we never did see who he was calling on the phone). The subs may not be the best anymore (not that they were perfect before), but I can still understand things, in spite of the bizarre translation choices.