[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 40 - “J STANDS IN FRONT OF THE MESSIAHROID”



He literally does!

It’s nice to get a somewhat serious episode about J and Jin’s partnership. They’ve been a comedic duo pretty much since the beginning, with really only Jin getting anything close to a serious storyline. (Even though one of Jin’s serious storylines was the fact that he doesn’t take anything seriously, so….) The partnership of Jin and Juice has been left to ridiculous physical comedy and elaborate background gags, with only subtext to speak to their bond.

Until now! This time out, we get not get the answer for why Jin isn’t leaving hyperspace, but also an example of how deeply J cares about Jin. Naturally, it’s exhibited in the most confusing and counter-intuitive way possible, because: J. Jin’s body never completely materialized in hyperspace 13 years ago, forcing him into a kind of stasis, only able to interact with the world as an avatar piggy-backing off of J’s Marker System. (I don’t… 100% know how this is possible? According to what we’ve been told previously, J wasn’t built until landing in hyperspace, right? So how was an incomplete Jin able to build anything, let alone a full Buddyroid?) So the idea of Jin being the Guess I’ll Die meme pushes J over the edge. Jin’s sent J out into the world in his stead, and J has grown to love it. He can’t believe that Jin wouldn’t fight for life with everything he has left, and if Jin isn’t willing to do it, then his Buddyroid will have to do it for him.

It’s a great message of support and encouragement, one that comes out of J’s thoughts as saving a Messiahroid, attacking the Busters, and threatening to kill Jin. It’s… not a great plan from the Stag Buster! It’s adorably misguided and briefly deadly, but it speaks to the largely silent bond of Jin and J. Just like Jin is pathologically incapable of discussing his feelings in a healthy way, the Buddyroid programmed off of his brain patterns attempts to will on his partner by assaulting their teammates and threatening to save Jin over Jin’s dead body. The two of them… they deserve each other, and I mean that in so many different ways.

Was not expecting to get a sweet episode of friendship for Jin and J! Glad to know the series had this one in the tank!



IT’S TIME FOR LESS FOCUS ON MEGAZORDS!

This is probably a weird thing to say after the recent episode of Ace having a gauntlet match against every Megazord model, and the big new addition to the cast being a Buddyzord, but the biggest change to me in the post-Messiah storytelling is that the show has sort of flipped the importance of the Metaroids and Megazords? Back in the Messiah days, the Megazords were the ones executing the actual plan of siphoning Enetron to power up the Vagras plans in hyperspace, and the Metaroid was just a Marker System to facilitate that. Defeating the Metaroid was helpful, but defeating the Megazord was crucial. Now, the Megazords are, like, a random byproduct from the creation of the Messiahroid. They just sort of pop out of hyperspace some amount of time after a Messiahroid spawns, but they aren’t really trying to accomplish anything? They’re just there, and they get defeated, and that’s sort of it. The Messiahroid has a clear objective (or doesn’t in this episode, but then that becomes the point) while the Megazord sometimes steals Enetron, but mostly just wanders around until it’s defeated. In this episode, the Megazord is defeated before the mid-episode commercial break!

I don’t know that I find the new emphasis on Messiahroids to be better or worse than the emphasis on Megazords, but it’s certainly noticeable.