[DreamSword]

Episode 12: Forbidden Invocation! Thunder Ryukendo!

My biggest issue with this one is that I don't know what it's trying to say.

It seems like the ultimate lesson here is how Kenji has become too reliant on new products rather than working on his core fundamentals.

And while that does line up with a couple of previous episodes, it's ultimately undermined by everyone needing to rely on the new Thunder Key by the end anyway, with Kenji really only remembering he has to prioritize others.

It's also weird in that a majority of the episode doesn't even really focus on Kenji or even Gekiryuken. Kenji's talked about a few times, more specifically him as Ryukendo and how much the hero means to the city, but alot of the episode is moreso about the city banding together in an attempt to defend themselves.

Which, admittedly, was nice to see. How this big city acts like a closely-knit, small town community especially in a time of crisis. Even Shigeru, the nerdy kid from the second episode, gets to make a surprise return. Really it almost made me wish that both this episode and the previous one had taken an entirely different angle and focused almost entirely on the townsfolk.

In the end, it's not an ideal ending to this two-parter, but it does atleast feel appropriately "epic" for what appears to be a season finale of sorts. The scale is bigger, the atmosphere is more dire even if it is still a bit quirky, and the final battle ups the power scale to a solid degree. I just wish its final message were made a bit more clear cut.