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Avataro Sentai Donbrothers Episode 23- "Dog Becomes Dog!" Discussion
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08-07-2022, 02:15 PM
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Fish Sandwich
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
When the episode ended with Tsubasa digging his face right back into that bowl of dog food, I thought it was a brilliant note to leave the episode on. When it ended with that little girl going right back to petting his head, I genuinely started
clapping.
I mean, it's only the last 30 seconds or so of the episode, and it's such a perfectly executed scene, on so many levels, that I could probably talk about
only that
, and still have plenty to dig into, if only I felt like I understood this show's brilliance/madness well enough to explain it in that level of detail. But like, broadly speaking, you know,
it's funny
, first of all. It's the kind of humiliating scenario that suits Tsubasa almost as much as the way he just rolls with that misfortune, and I guess the cherry on top -- why that very last bit made me applaud the episode -- is that, *because* this kind of nonsense is always happening to the poor guy, I appreciated that little girl throwing the dog a bone (figuratively speaking!) instead of just running away screaming or whatever. I'm sure they mostly did it that way because it's more unexpected and thus more hilarious, but the result is also way less cynical and way more sweet, and I thought it was nice, I guess. Plus, you know, we're half a year in and Don't Boo! Donbrothers still makes the ending of
any
episode infinitely better.
Oh man, I really did have a lot to say about just the last scene, huh? I'm kinda working backwards here, but needless to say, I rather enjoyed the material with Tsubasa in this episode. It's sort of the standard routine for the guy at this point -- he suffers a whole ton, and the viewers get to learn some stuff while he continues to learn nothing -- but I don't know, it's always so human and engaging that I don't care how repetitive it might be. Plus, these episodes don't actually come around that often. And like, it might
not
be repetitive, too! Obviously the broad strokes stay the same, but there's always some unique hook or another.
This time around, that hook might be less in any of the plotting, and more in the way the episode challenged itself visually, with the decision to require constant screentime for Inu Brother. As unimpressive as the CG always is, I've always been impressed by how Donbrothers commits to having him and Kiji Brother in the show as regular characters to begin with. Because it really can't be as easy as just having a guy in a suit, right? You might argue the results are underwhelming, but I appreciate the work that must go into having this silly cartoon dog appear the same way any other hero does each week. So naturally, I think a lot of the fun this week is just in seeing how they had to work around those limitations in any given shot, with a lot more creative and frequent use of the actual physical versions of the character than usual. I recall making this defense super early on, too, but my opinion hasn't changed a bit since: verisimilitude is totally irrelevant here. Inu Brother is
fun
, and I care about that way more than how "believable" he looks. And hey, if you still haven't totally gotten used to the effects, then just think of it as one more constant misfortune for Tsubasa to endure!
The other big visual challenge this week is ToraDoraGonJin, which I don't think needs any reframing on my part to seem impressive. Again, pretty daring to have a big CG Robotaro showcase in an episode that already has so much extra Inu Brother, but man, all that stuff ended up looking fantastic. The actual big robot fight is an
amazing
wrestling match, with hecka dynamic lighting, solid wirework, and a sense of agility that cannot have been easy to do wearing a boxy robot suit. Easily some top tier mecha action from Donbrothers. As I was watching it, I kind of took this mental note in my head, like if I ever need to explain to someone what a cool Sentai robot fight looks like, this will be a perfect example to point to. Really, the fact that I'm mentioning a fight scene at all kinda says everything, because I basically
never
remember to actually talk about these things in the Donbrothers threads.
Mostly because I'd usually be busy talking about things like Jirou's continuing journey on the path to becoming a true hero. Still working backwards this time! I found myself really getting into how Jirou was portrayed here. Bringing him back to his... humble(?) roots out in the country kinda refocused his character for me, I think. You really get reminded here there's a genuine sweetness to this doofy guy chasing his childish dream, and put in that context especially, I'm loving this whole idea of Jirou's big issue right now essentially being that he doesn't know how to make friends. It's a pretty genius move by Inoue. Your typical sixth Ranger type, nowadays, they almost always
do
just become another part of the group, oftentimes even feeling like the dynamic was incomplete without them, but Jirou exists kind of sideways from all the other heroes on this show, and literally making that his storyline in-universe feels very natural.
What's way less natural is how completely randomly Jirou splits into his two selves for the sake of the toy-shilling, but if you think that something I
didn't
like about the episode, you guessed wrong! That's *exactly* the sort of craziness I love seeing happen. Again, it's impressive enough we set up the idea of Jirou wanting a Robotaro form to begin with, so the abruptness of him having this weird Kamen Rider Revice moment of accepting his own inner demon (or whatever Torabolt even is!) just feels like the price being paid for that. As long as you can just roll with what's happening, it's a nice scene, and again, it leads to some truly spectacular action.
(Oh, and speaking of the halfway-there attempts to push the merch more traditionally, gotta love how we're seeing a renewed emphasis on the Avatar Change gimmick... with the older teams that share generic noises in the Don Blaster, instead of the post-Gokaiger ones that were supposed to be the kinda "main" feature. This isn't a complaint either, though! Donbrothers just wouldn't be Donbrothers if it were doing these things the "normal" way!)
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