[DreamSword]

Episode 46: The Fourth Target

The ending ruined it for me.

Like, at first, I was all for this episode where, surprisingly, Dr. Worm is actually the lead character. With the plot being about him trying to honor Rock Crimson.

And along the way, there are some events that really didn't sit too right with me, but I was willing to overlook them on account of the direction that I was hoping the episode would go.

But then in the end, despite all evidence pointing towards Dr. Worm having a turnaround, he instead goes back to the very people who betrayed him and have done nothing but treat him like dirt for the entire show. It's an incredibly frustrating reinforcement of the status quo and soured the whole experience.

Now, rather than Bloody and Gold acting paranoid over nothing being the point, they're justified in that it's what results in Worm returning to their side and them getting away with all the trouble they caused. Even dumber when they arrive and demand that Worm speak, all while the Caster Warriors are in earshot. And no one, not even Kenji, stops to think that something might be up.

Heck, Worm's' internal logic doesn't even check out here, as he himself notes during the funeral how admirable Kenji's' heart actually is. And, you know, Bloody outright tried to, ya know, kill him? The ending takes what could've been a really great story about just how strong the love of genuine friendship can be and instead makes it about self-preservation to the point of idiocy. And I don't think that was the intent either.

Did not jive with this one at all. No thanks.

[Enchilada645]

I took the ending a different way.

While I agree, not the best, I think it was mostly the brief shot of Gren Ghost we got before Worm realized what he needed to do. In that, yes he does care, but he needs to put up a front to appease Bloody and Lady Gold so that he can complete his life's calling which is to revive Gren Ghost... at least that's how I saw it anyway.

Could've probably been handled a bit better though, yeah.

[DreamSword]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enchilada645

I took the ending a different way.

While I agree, not the best, I think it was mostly the brief shot of Gren Ghost we got before Worm realized what he needed to do. In that, yes he does care, but he needs to put up a front to appease Bloody and Lady Gold so that he can complete his life's calling which is to revive Gren Ghost... at least that's how I saw it anyway.

Could've probably been handled a bit better though, yeah.

Honestly, I hope your interpretation is correct, because it's the much better outcome.

[DreamSword]

Episode 47: The Mysterious Dragon Warrior

Man, I can't believe Bima Legend made it into this show!

I'm kidding of course, but Master Ryukendo there does take alot of similar cues. Including the caped design.

This episode is all about reinforcing the friendship between Kenji and Gekiryuken via Gekiryuken temporarily getting his old body back. And what at first starts as a wacky antics episode soon turns into something more serious and lore heavy.

The big takeaway being that we finally get full context on Gekiryuken's' amnesia from forever ago. Essentially, he and the other two previous Caster Warriors combined their spirits with those of the Dragons of Light, thus becoming the Dragon Cores the current generation now uses.

And MY big takeaway from that being that this means that, with the old trio being the dragons, that means that they were also getting snippy with eachother in the bathroom episode of Ryukendo. And that's just hilarious. Though this lore also does make me wonder where Goryugun's' love of percentages and computers came from. Oh well.

It's assumedly also out prelude to Ryukendo's' endgame, what with Gren Ghost being on the cusp of reviving and the Canon of Light now being fully translated. And with five(technically six) episodes left to go, it definitely makes me wonder what direction the show will go in.

[Enchilada645]

This was a cool way to bring back the old Ryukendo suit and Gekiryuken, albeit slightly modified. Bronze honestly is not a color I thought could go with blue but Ryukendo proved me wrong lol.

But yeah, overall real good solid focus on Kenji and Gekiryuken, we get a bit more of the Akebono folks (they have their own baseball team and meetups that Kenji's a part of, that's cool) and of course we get a rather foreboding tone shift as we basically hit our endgame. At least I assume anyway given how things went.

[DreamSword]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enchilada645

(they have their own baseball team and meetups that Kenji's a part of, that's cool)

Makes me wonder who the heck they even play against. I hope there's a Futo baseball team that they square off with.

[DreamSword]

Episode 48: Ultimate Armament! Ultimate Ryukendo!

It's the final battle! Kinda.

It certainly has all the tellings of one. What if the enemy base touching down in the human world, and Bloody and Gold meeting their ends.

But by the end we're left with a couple of loose ends that prevent the story from ending in any sort of definitive way. We never see what becomes of Dr. Worm or Mechani-Moon, and Gren Ghost isn't quite dead yet.

As for the events of the episode itself, they're overall fun. It's alot of action beats as one should expect for a raid on the enemy fortress. And each fight that the Caster Warriors find themselves in has some cool detail or other that helps them to stand out.

The best one for me by far being Magna Ryugunoh's' final bout with Lady Gold, wherein he discovers the key weakness of his opponent: Her earring. It's the sort of neat detail that I had never actually noticed before, and when Fudo pointed it out I was pleasantly surprised. I also found myself appreciating how Koichi's' quest for vengeance never actually stopped being one, and he got it in the end.

Now it's not a perfect episode. There were a couple moments that made me scratch my head some, like Ryugunoh's' major leap in logic on figuring out that the generals had the Ultimate Keys in them, and how they're somehow the key to regeneration despite that contradicting everything we ever saw with Rock Crimson. But, it's whatever. The episode was still overall fun, and it's capsized off with a finisher from Ultimate Ryukendo that's so over the top that it kinda flips around to being genuinely cool.

So, I liked this. Quite the way of starting off the endgame.

[Enchilada645]

A pretty bombastic episode if I do say so myself.

It's pretty much a big action setpiece, but it's a fun one. We get each of the remaining Generals fighting in their own ways, some fun counterattacking from our heroes, and a proper debut of Ultimate Ryukendo this time around.

Despite that all though, the scene I ended up enjoying the most was Koichi finishing off Bloody. The way he just stabs his weapon into Bloody's mouth and those hit sparks just fly, oof. Then Bloody screaming at the end before he's cut off abruptly because he explodes, real good stuff.

[DreamSword]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enchilada645

Despite that all though, the scene I ended up enjoying the most was Koichi finishing off Bloody. The way he just stabs his weapon into Bloody's mouth and those hit sparks just fly, oof. Then Bloody screaming at the end before he's cut off abruptly because he explodes, real good stuff.

That one felt pretty personal, hahaha.

[Androzani84]

Late reply, but surprisingly, the guy playing Master Ryukendo isn’t played by a veteran from a previous Toku show. He’s just a guy they cast.