[DreamSword]

Episode 42: The Suspicious Rena

Episode 43: Bringing Back Rena

This two-parter is brought to us by Daisuke Ishibashi.

No idea who that is? I don't blame you, as the amount of stuff he's written in the toku sphere is pretty limited. As in, like 10 episodes total limited.

And while I'm not familiar with most of his work(really only knowing the four episodes he wrote for Kamen Rider Wizard), then he certainly has his strengths and weaknesses, yeah.

Let's get the main weakness out of the way: The dialogue. Like, it's not the worst character dialogue I've ever heard/read, but episode 43 especially is filled with very unnatural sounding and stilted conversations that kinda took me out of things alot.

The premise of these episodes is that Lady Mossa has brainwashed Rena, and is using her to both attack our heroes as well as steal the Power Stones. Funnily enough, Dimas is the only one who really puts things together as events unfold, and in kind of an odd way? He claims it's due to him sensing the emotions behind Rena, but a much easier angle, and the one I thought they were going for based on how the scene was shot, was Rena's' obvious lie about her ring. But no, that's never really brought up, weirdly enough.

And if it sounds like I'm about to tear these episodes a new one, I'm really not. Sure, they have flaws, but in the end, Ishibashi had to've done something right, because the emotional climax of it all really did work for me. From Rena's' nearly fatal injuries, to Randy rushing Lady Mossa, I was super into the soap opera aspect of it all(in Mossa's' own words). It helped that the musical score was really good too.

It's just that I feel like another pass through editing would've really helped these episodes out. They do still work; especially if you like these characters like I do, but they could've been elevated that much more, I think.