[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 21 - “FAREWELL, BLUE BUSTER!”



Absolutely ridiculous, totally unbelievable, and probably a series highlight.

Like, I’d be shocked if this doesn’t make my Top 3 by the end of the series. It’s basically an HBV played slightly more straight, with a tad more coherence to the rules of the show and the verisimilitude of the viewing experience. Nothing in here outright breaks canon, or winks at the audience. (There is nothing in here that begs for the events of Akibaranger to be made an official Sentai product, for example.) It’s a real episode, played at HBV volume.

And it’s amazing. There’s a general emotional through-line in here about how much Ryuji means to the team – Commander tries super hard at the end to make this all seem like a testament to Ryuji’s value to his friends and co-workers – but it’s barely applicable. This is a story where Gorisaki mistakenly thinks Ryuji’s going to die, so the entire staff (sans Commander) makes Ryuji think he’s too old to be a Go-Buster -slash- everyone hates him and thinks he’s holding the team back and can be easily replaced by the first black-haired guy within Hiromu’s reach. It’s hilariously cruel to Ryuji, in the name of everyone caring so goddamn much about Ryuji that they're desperate to save his life, but it eventually gives him a gigantic series of heroic victories to make it clear that Ryuji is more than just Old Man Buster. We are not in a story where Ryuji overcomes anything, really; the joke is that Ryuji’s selfless dedication to the team this time out is hysterically unnecessary and satirical in its application. This episode is a parody of episodes where heroes die, right down to its definitive statement of a title.

I thought this was relentlessly funny, from the HVAC Shutdown Confirmed opening sequence, to J trying to fight a grasshopper-themed piece of playground equipment, to everyone inexplicably assuming that Hiromu’s plan would tactfully preserve Ryuji’s dignity, to Jin inexplicably assuming that J could be trusted to follow simple directions to defuse a problematic situation, to Ryuji showing up for his last fateful transformation while multiple characters shrink from telling him he’s not dying at all, to Ryuji single-handedly defeating the Dumbbellroid via wrestling moves (a powerbomb!), to Ryuji single-handedly defeating the Megazord, to Ryuji getting both Jin and J in a double-headlock so they never get ideas in their heads ever again. Relentlessly funny episode, and one of the very best this show has to offer.



IT’S TIME FOR Jin and J!

This whole thing would fall apart without an impetus that seems plausible, and the combination of Jin making an incredibly bad joke and J completely not understanding where an apology should go is the chef’s kiss of this whole fever dream of toku brilliance. If this plot had started with any other character – Nakamura – you’d never buy that she could get it wrong or play it as a joke. If you tried to dodge a clarification by giving the job of explanation to any other character – Nick – you’d never buy that he’d tell the wrong people/objects. This incredibly dumb plot only becomes possible with Jin and J, and god bless them for enabling this perfect episode.