[Fish Sandwich]

Nearly half a year later, this is still maybe my favorite bit of direction in the entire series? The whole way Magine joins the group, it's so brilliant. Because the whole plot is about everything being frozen, right? So the ground is all slippery, so she sleds on over to the rest of the characters, and that means that even though it's this moment of immense determination and courage for Magine, it doesn't look that way at all. She's just passively being carried into the scene, all curled up, which makes it look almost like she's really scared to be doing this, because she probably still is, and it really makes the whole point of her character arc in this episode come across so beautifully. It's the perfect heroic entrance for Zenkaiger, a show where heroism is at once classic and straightforward, yet totally offbeat and unorthodox.

...I know the picture for this one should really be Secchan with that sash, but I'm not going to pass up an unexpected opportunity to finally single out a moment from episode 3 I still find myself thinking about a lot, especially when it means getting to talk about Magine more.

Secchan is pretty cool too though, for what it's worth! I went on a whole spiel about how great he is not too long ago, when Super Zenkaiser debuted, and for this episode, it's much the same story. He's putting up with a lot, and against all odds, he's coming out on top, all for the good of the team. While still making time to give exposition. This is a bird who's got your back to a surprising degree, and it remains as impressive as ever to see him juggling support for both the Zenkaigers and the audience with such... well, I don't know if "grace" is really the right word to describe Secchan, but still, he's good at what he does, is the point! The monster even plans to take advantage of his incredible descriptive powers, but Secchan was smart enough to already be working his own plan the whole time. What a guy! I'd throw a party for him too!

So yeah, as a more explicit spotlight episode for Secchan, this was fantastic, and as a clever spin on a recap episode... I mean, it's basically a Zenkaiger version of the whole Time Vent thing from Kamen Rider Ryuki, and I am all over that. I find this setup really fun, and this show puts its own spin on it by weaving all those old clips around a story about a monster of the week that's really, really trying, creating this weird tragicomedy where the primary villain of the episode comes off as this sort of underdog you sort of want to see finally given the time of day (so to speak!) by the bosses. But then Secchan is even more of an underdog here, so there's also that whole angle going on, and it's just a really fun time all around!

The credited writer here is none other than Saburou Hatte (or Yatsude or whatever it's not that important), the long-standing pseudonym for Toei's producers, and I don't know if that means Shirakura handled this one directly or whatever, but it turned out great, regardless. I'm not even that bummed out about Koumura only having a supervisory role on an episode again, because if she only skips out on special occasions like this, that's mostly just a smart way to get some time to recharge? I mean, this whole episode is basically one big reminder of how many entertaining scripts she's already pumped out this year; wanting a break is pretty understandable!