[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 29 - “BREAK INTO HYPERSPACE!”



Oh, this is a fun one.

It’s an incredibly action-heavy episode, concerning itself with the liminal space before our Biggest of Bads takes the stage at last as our heroes ready themselves for a pivotal confrontation in service of achieving their ultimate goals, which this show excels at. While I sort of crabbed about last episode being a superhero problem instead of a human problem, this episode worked overtime to not have me care about that distinction – or, more appropriately, it evolved a superhero problem into a human problem.

Like, this one’s great for immediately laying out not just the stakes of the episode – a three-hour window to, uh, break into hyperspace and rescue the people who’ve been trapped there for 13 years – but also the immediate obstacle to those stakes: a full-frontal assault on Go-Busters HQ by Enter, Escape, and a platoon of Bugglars. (Enter shrugs off the lack of a Metaroid by giving his en Francais version of This Time It’s Personal, but it feels more like a smart narrative decision to not lessen the tension with some goofy new Metaroid with a catchphrase. Enter read the room! He knows which episode this is!) This is a war that’s about to move to a new beachhead, and the soldiers are about to square off. There’s no convoluted plot or scheme, for better or worse; there is immediate cause and effect.

I liked it for that? There’s not a ton to dissect – you could argue that the Vagras scheme here is more fitting of Escape’s blunt force and less of Enter’s traditionally surgical approach, and I’d maybe point out how much Enter seems to bristle under a situation that is rapidly slipping through his fingers as a way of causing his decision-making to be less detached and cautious – but the simplicity of the plot makes sure that we never lose track of what’s at stake. The Busters have to delay the Vagras and escape to hyperspace, anything less dooms the survivors enslaved by Messiah. Straightforward and thrilling, which is exactly what you want for a turning point episode.

And the biggest turning point of them all, the debut of Actual Suit Messiah… I like that, too. While on the one hand it sort of works against what I like about the traditional Go-Busters aesthetic of two warring organizations with different levels of management, you are allowed to debut Actual Suit Messiah in an episode about how everyone needs to fight sometimes to save the world. If you put Commander, Nakamura, Morishita, and a half-dozen overalls into action as the last line of defense to ensure that Great Go-Buster makes it to hyperspace, you have earned Messiah not being a screaming CGI head from now on. It’s cool with me.

I thought this one was a bell-to-bell winner, with action that felt like the penultimate episode of the series. (That Enter/Red Buster fight! I can’t believe they did that with 20 episodes left in the tank!) Coherent stakes, a strong grip on tone, and a rousing finale that makes the heroes seem like they just landed in the deepest shit of their lives? Hell of a way to take this show into its next phase.



IT’S TIME FOR Escape not having time for this!

Escape could not have been more jazzed to get into her tactical long-sleeve undershirt and waltz up to Go-Busters HQ for a pitched battle with five superheroes, and I’m overjoyed that the show decided to surprise her with a final confrontation against desk jockeys and mechanics instead. Her little annoyed block of laser blasts by dismissively waving around Gock and Magock was priceless. She’s so disappointed to have to battle the background cast! It was delicious, and I enjoyed it as much as she loathed it.