[Fish Sandwich]

Avajiro Sentai, huh? With how good Donbrothers was, I'm honestly not sure I'm ready to move on to the next show, but these Dragon Fires guys definitely seem pretty interesting in their own right, based on this first episode. Pretty neat how Toei is keeping that whole direct continuity thing going too, with more returning cast members from the previous series.

...What do you mean it's still just Donbrothers? Don't let Jirou catch you saying that, all right? The guy's sense of pride can be rather... delicate, and you wouldn't like him when he's angry!

It's pretty hilarious that it took Don Torabolt so long to debut. Or, wait, maybe it isn't? If you think of his initial turn to the dark side in episode 16 as part of a gradual build towards his dangerous alter ego being fully unleashed, the pacing here might actually be perfectly normal. It's just, you know, Donbrothers is never normal, so the "gradual" buildup was Jirou going completely off the deep end immediately after joining the team, and despite gaining his tiger-themed transformation item during that, the new forms he showed off at the time were... Inu Brother and Saru Brother. And he used the sunglasses for that, instead of anything Bandai is marketing to kids right now, such as the healthy amount of Don Torabolt merchandise that's been on shelves for a month already. It's all pretty weird, but that's only typical for Donbrothers.

And indeed, this episode is typically very weird, typically very entertaining, and, typically, secretly a lot more normal than it looks like. There's a basic and solid moral lesson in here about not letting your ego get the better of you, and I appreciate that concise focus and all, but this is definitely an instance where the strength of the story is more in how much insanity they can attach to that straightforward core. You've got scenes that seemingly contribute nothing that I also wouldn't trade for the world, like Tsubasa comically bailing out of the plot completely after his token appearance. You've got the Nouto getting recruited to be in a movie. The movie -- the movie in the movie that's coming out at the end of the week, because leave it to Donbrothers to be the Sentai that works the summer film into the show in a way that doesn't involve shilling some repainted robot or whatever. You've got a major role for Kaito that tells us more than we've ever known about Kaito... which is to say it tells us only slightly more than literally nothing, with the actual meaningful character-building for him being in how he fits strictly into this series, building up a charm all his own.

It's a ton to take in, and as ever, I'm amazed how much Donbrothers can make that so legitimately engaging. Like, I honestly completely forgot after a while that this whole plot about Jirou becoming leader started because his girlfriend was visiting, and I think Inoue was actively making a joke out of how little the setup matters, because the ending makes that entire aspect be a moot point. It's the spark for the story, but the fire it lights is the kind that quickly grows beyond anyone's control. Heck, after actually becoming Don Torabolt, Jirou himself gets largely forgotten about once the robot fight starts? There's not really an arc for him with a traditional resolution here, because it's all the others who learn a lesson, and somehow, I don't even remotely feel like that's a problem. The episode still explores his character, it still has somebody learning something, and heck, it even has the most clever use for Don Momotaro Alter yet, so how can you complain?

(Oh, and as an unrelated aside, I'm becoming legitimately concerned how much of a recurring danger traffic accidents are in Donbrothers. I would not feel safe as a pedestrian in that world! It really is a good thing these heroes are cool with saving people from more than just monsters!)