[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

It's hard to argue in too much detail about the episode's overall story not having seen it in a good while, but I remember it being a winner... you know, like basically every episode of this show.

Oh, sure, it's not like I thought this was a bad episode or anything -- it mostly just felt like it needed a little massaging to get the Hiromu stuff to land better. I certainly wouldn't argue against anyone who loved it, though. I mean, I even started to appreciate it more by the end of the write-up!

[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 5 - “THE DANGERS OF OVERHEATING!”



I really love what this show can accomplish with such a small cast. The command crew is in, like, one scene; Enter, uh, enters and splits; the delivery drivers get maybe six lines between them. This whole episode is devoted to the three Busters navigating the sides of themselves they usually hide, and that’s about it.

(The Buddyroids are here, too, but… I sort of don’t know how to think about them yet? Gorisaki might as well be Ape Deneb, which I love, while Nick is Accel Momotaros. I know that their relations to their Busters is more complex, which is the theme of this episode, but so far they’re just the fun Robot Imagin. Hard to say more about them yet than that I think they’re funny in this one, and a little sweet.)

The bulk of this episode is Yoko learning that Ryuji has been sheltering her from the battle insanity he gets when he overheats, and it’s treated less like the comedic consequences of Hiromu’s chicken phobia or Yoko’s low blood sugar collapses, and more like a rampaging lunatic who will gleefully terrorize the people he cares most about. It’s… a little dark!

And it’s to the show’s credit that they push it as far as they do. Yoko completely breaks down sobbing, and Ryuji treats the aftermath like a horrifying drunken bender. But the rest of the characters treat it like an unfortunate incident, not the irrevocable shattering of a familial bond, and I think that’s the secret to what makes this episode work. Characters like Gorisaki and Hiromu don’t downplay or minimize what happened with Ryuji – it's for sure surprising and traumatic – but they also recontextualize it as something that’s a condition that Ryuji has been suffering from for years, and he’s strained to keep it from affecting Yoko. There’s no solving it, just like Yoko’s and Hiromu’s weak points. It’s bad, and no one likes it, but it’s a part of who Ryuji is.

It’s a slightly weird message – you could 100% read it as Dad Just Likes To Have A Drink After Work So Get Off His Back – but I like the way the show tries to reframe it as less about how Ryuji’s going to make things up to Yoko, and more about how Yoko needs to be a grown-up about Ryuji’s weakness. She’s not a kid anymore, so she needs to understand that Ryuji is more than just a big brother or a rampaging monster or a Go-Buster or a wiseass – he’s all of those things, and none of them negate each other.



IT’S TIME FOR Red Buster!

…just like how Hiromu isn’t any less a badass action hero that cares about his teammates/siblings, just because he cannot be trusted not to make a social situation worse by opening his mouth, or because he freezes when he sees a cartoon chicken on a billboard and almost lets the Megazord kill two men and steal a tanker of Enetron. He’s more than those screw-ups! Those hilarious, hilarious screw-ups!

(Seriously, great episode for Hiromu being the butt of several jokes, but still detonating the Megazord and being there for Yoko when she needed someone. People are complex! It’s a theme!)

[Androzani84]

So for a bit of naming hilarity, this week’s Metaloid is named “Tireloid” despite clearly being created from a motorcycle. And in the Power Rangers adaptation of this episode, he was named “Cycletron”, but created from a pile of tires (and car tires at that). Which made me realise why these robots are called METALoids: They’re always created from something made at least partially of metal.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

So for a bit of naming hilarity, this week?s Metaloid is named ?Tireloid? despite clearly being created from a motorcycle. And in the Power Rangers adaptation of this episode, he was named ?Cycletron?, but created from a pile of tires (and car tires at that). Which made me realise why these robots are called METALoids: They?re always created from something made at least partially of metal.

Interesting! Thanks!

[Sh Ranger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 5 - ?THE DANGERS OF OVERHEATING!?

Hiromu?s chicken phobia

This is called alektorophobia BTW.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It?s a slightly weird message ? you could 100% read it as Dad Just Likes To Have A Drink After Work So Get Off His Back ? but I like the way the show tries to reframe it as less about how Ryuji?s going to make things up to Yoko, and more about how Yoko needs to be a grown-up about Ryuji?s weakness. She?s not a kid anymore, so she needs to understand that Ryuji is more than just a big brother or a rampaging monster or a Go-Buster or a wiseass ? he?s all of those things, and none of them negate each other.

This adds a new angle to Ryuji gently scolding Yoko for triggering Hiromu's weakpoint in Episode 3, as he knows firsthand just how terrible and traumatic that feels to lose control. I like how Ryuji and Yoko each learn their own morals from this experience. If Ryuji was honest about his condition from the start, Yoko would've been more prepared to deal with it. He can't afford to be the big bro all the time, as that means they can't be equals.

But I can understand why he'd want to protect Yoko from the dark truth, since she hasn't had a normal childhood and mostly only had Ryuji and Usada to rely on for the last 13 years, so it makes sense that she would get so upset about seeing Ryuji become "the monster". It's all a tragic misunderstanding and I'm glad they were able to resolve it maturely and strengthen their relationship.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

IT?S TIME FOR Red Buster!

?just like how Hiromu isn?t any less a badass action hero that cares about his teammates/siblings, just because he cannot be trusted not to make a social situation worse by opening his mouth, or because he freezes when he sees a cartoon chicken on a billboard and almost lets the Megazord kill two men and steal a tanker of Enetron. He?s more than those screw-ups! Those hilarious, hilarious screw-ups!

I can relate a lot to Hiromu for this. Dealing with people's emotions can be difficult sometimes, so I totally respect him for just saying everything clearly and honestly. Tendo Souji is also like that, including the super speed, red suit and caring about sisters.

[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 5 - "THE DANGERS OF OVERHEATING!"

I always really liked how the use of Ryuuji's overheating plays into the whole family dynamic of the show here. I think it's a very smart sorta-metaphor, where it's a fantastic concept that doesn't directly relate to anything 100%, but because of that, the broader idea it's getting at becomes a lot more clearly expressed.

It's an episode exploring a situation where a child has their idealized notion of a parental figure shattered, and I feel like it actually becomes more identifiable specifically because the exact details of the plot aren't. The viewer kinda gets to fill in the blanks and connect it to their own life however they wish, and the show gets to develop its characters on its own terms without having to agonize too much over an allegory. The end result is a smooth story that can be very relatable, but even if it's not, still offers a great look into the relationships of the show's cast.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

I can relate a lot to Hiromu for this. Dealing with people's emotions can be difficult sometimes, so I totally respect him for just saying everything clearly and honestly.

Yeah, and it's a really nice parallel to what Yoko's going through with Ryuji, where Hiromu is accidentally being kind of awful to her, but she needs to understand that it's not personal, and try and see the other version of Hiromu beneath his hilariously abrasive personality.

(I really love how much of an accidental jerk Hiromu is! It's such a fun choice for the show's nominal lead character.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

It's an episode exploring a situation where a child has their idealized notion of a parental figure shattered, and I feel like it actually becomes more identifiable specifically because the exact details of the plot aren't. The viewer kinda gets to fill in the blanks and connect it to their own life however they wish, and the show gets to develop its characters on its own terms without having to agonize too much over an allegory. The end result is a smooth story that can be very relatable, but even if it's not, still offers a great look into the relationships of the show's cast.

For sure, the overheating aspect basically has nothing to do with a bicycle monster or the Enetron truck or any of that stuff. Ryuji's loss of control is just this middle thing in the episode, which means it completely comes as the same shock to the audience as it does to Yoko.

(Also... literally every time I see that title I think it says "THE DANGERS OF OVEREATING!", and I feel like Hiromu should lay off of Yoko's candy needs.)

[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 6 - “COMBINE! GO-BUSTER OH!”



Perfect example of a stock tokusatsu story, livened up with a heavy amount of action, a steadily mounting number of insane obstacles, and a little bit of specificity, until we get a charming and relatively enjoyable episode of Go-Busters.

It’s not the deepest or most surprising story, to be honest. It’s basically One Guy On The Team Tries To Do Too Much, and that really leaves out virtually everyone except for Hiromu, since no one else in this episode needs to learn anything. This isn’t last episode, where a variety of characters had to deal with overlapping personal crises; this is just Hiromu Needs To Learn To Let Go, and it takes the whole episode to get there. (The flashbacks help explain why Ryuji doesn’t just immediately tell Hiromu what he’s doing to keep the team from succeeding, but it still feels a little unnecessarily padded.) Everyone in the cast is just trying to stay alive until Hiromu can work through his obvious self-centered/martyr belief that he’s responsible for everyone’s safety, and then they can all get back to work.

The way this thing smartly disguises the thinness of the plot is by just going Defcon 1 on everything from almost the first scene. We get a Base Under Siege plot from both an internal AND an external threat, requiring the Go-Busters to battle through their own base, eventually wringing out a victory from the simple fact that none of them died in the end. It’s a very fun episode of action and collapsing safety, but as soon as it’s over it’s like, Hey, we didn’t really accomplish much.

I mean, there’s Go-Buster Oh! That’s cool! I don’t love the design – it’s just boxes on boxes, in ways that seem less effective in combat – but the episode at least gives us the triumphant formation of the combined Buster Machine, followed by the requisite Not Facing The Explosion detonation climax shot. It feels appropriately grand, the culmination of the team acting in unison.

Except, again, it was pretty much just Hiromu. There's not a single point in this story where Yoko and/or Ryuji need to raise their game or learn an important lesson about teamwork. They were both doing their jobs well the whole time! This isn’t some Den-O Climax Form or Zi-O Trinity Form thing, where multiple characters need to figure out their stuff before they can tap into the combined power of their connection – it’s literally just the entire cast waiting for Hiromu to stop doing too much and screwing up. That’s it. That’s the lesson. The rest of the episode makes up for it with some jovial villainy (Enter! In rare form!) and tense stakes, but it’s all in service of a standard plot, minimally applied. Not a winner for me, this one, despite so many fun ingredients.



IT’S TIME FOR Snacks!

This is such a minor thing, but I noticed it last episode without being able to find a spot to touch on it, so I’m glad it came up again: The Go-Busters have their own branded snacks for Yoko? This is what Japan’s tax dollars are going to, making sure Yoko doesn’t have to get by with mass-produced biscuits and candy? I love it, it’s so stupid, it’s so great.

[Sunred]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

This is such a minor thing, but I noticed it last episode without being able to find a spot to touch on it, so I?m glad it came up again: The Go-Busters have their own branded snacks for Yoko? This is what Japan?s tax dollars are going to, making sure Yoko doesn?t have to get by with mass-produced biscuits and candy? I love it, it?s so stupid, it?s so great.

A damn shame this wasn't a thing circa 2012. What the hell, Bandai. Call Calbee and make it happen. Make it Premium Bandai if you have to.
For those not familiar, Calbee is the Japanese snack company that made Kamen Rider Chips back in the days and still a big snack company that's around.

[Androzani84]

So here we are, at the big robot debut. Personally, I prefer Ace on its own as a design. And while some people would call it unusual to debut the main robot 6 weeks in, that’s actually the pretty standard debut point if it isn’t in the first two episodes. The only ones to do it later were Dairanger (which took 8 episodes), Ohranger (7 episodes) and Donbrothers (12 episodes). Though then again, I’ve got a Mecha related piece of merch which identifies Ace as the main mech for Go-Busters, so…

Also, this is the first time we see two types of enemy Megazords together. So I have to ask which is your favourite look? Alpha (the one with the antenna and the wide neck), Beta (the one that just has a large head with one eye) or Gamma (the one with the head crest)?