[DreamSword]

Episode 8: Demon Hidden in the Water!

A very emotional episode that I really dug.

Rin the desk lady takes center stage here, as the vast majority of the episode has to do with her backstory and how her relationship with her brother affected her.

While we don't get anything super extensive on her brother's' personal life, we do learn what type of person he was via comparisons to Kenji as well as learning where his passions lied, and how he fought to protect what he held dear.

Combine that with some really strong atmosphere and Rin's' own reflections on her inaction, and I was incredibly invested in everything going on with this one. Rin joined SHOT to carry on her brother's' dream of protecting smiles(Kuuga in the making!), even if she's not exactly a combatant.

The episode itself is really pretty to look at too; featuring alot of outdoors locales and, fitting enough, water. Multiple types of it too. Lakesides, swamps, even a flowing riverbank. It makes for an especially heinous scheme of the villains too; Pollution, which of course ties into the underlying environmental angle that the episode also features.

Oh, and the newest Beast King, Aqua Shark, also gets introduced in the episode's' climax. Makes for a pretty cool surf board, and is the only animal companion so far that Kenji manages to tame immediately. Which really works, as it shows the Shark empathized with Kenji's' fierce emotions at the time like what Leon and Kong did. Just a slight shame we didn't get a unique finisher out of it. But hey, Ryukendo freezing the lake was cool.

Overall a standout episode, and definitely my favorite so far.