[FreshToku]

No better place than this episode for me to get this out there, but I've thought this since the very first time the pirates explained their backstory. I never liked this plot point and was always kinda dreading it coming up? I don't like that the two little talking mascots characters are actually two regular people who have a terrible place cursed on them, and their family's only goal is to restore them to normal.

Unless I go out of my way to push that out of my mind, it adds a weird undercurrent to every scene Ricky and Cuttaner have throughout the show of just floating around and being cute or funny. Not to mentoin I really like the whole gimmick they have being Twokaiser's form changes and turning into Twokai-Oh, and so I prefer thinking of all that as just how they work, as opposed to them making the best of their 'curse'.

I realise this would just kill the entire plot thread, but I kinda hope that when the Goldtweakers inevitably come back for the finale, they'll have just changed their minds about the whole thing. (Or perhaps, it'll be a classic Ben Grimm thing where they give up the chance to become human at the last second to help out their friends! :O)

Also while I'm on the topic of Ricky and Cutanner, they've always fallen into the background even though I always thought it would have been fairly easy for that to not be the case. A lot of the personality of the Kikanoids that comes through in individual episodes is just them showcasing their personalities in mech fights or their numerous improvised lines in scenes. Ricky and Cutanner certainly have those too in spots, but always to a waaaay limited degree in comparison. Really could have helped if they got to banter while in Ohren or Shinken form, or if during mech fights they actually conversed with Zox and commented on what was going on like everyone else does.

Anyhow, as for this episode, it was fun and good as always. I totally bought into the drama and intesity of all the framing with Zox's fight against SD World, despite the enemy looking like... that. The moment of his family coming through for him might be a standard sort of resolution, but it's a really good and heartwarming one.

Although just one nitpick, but you're already having a big all-cg fight this episode, so why not bring in Super TwokaiOh while they're at it, the mech that's all of the Goldtweakers merging with their ship at once?!