[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Their basic designs are generally quite cool, all come with pretty distinct silhouettes, the show lays out their unique traits super clearly so they don't feel interchangeable, and then on top of that, you get the whole shtick where instead of a bigger version of the monster of the week, they're simply big robots loaded up with custom equipment themed after the monster, allowing for the same variety in the action while also helping the show to save some money making wholly new suits.

I really appreciate their uniformity, yeah. It helps reinforce that the Go-Busters are up against an army, not just a new wacky villain each week. Having a clear hierarchy and recognizable attributes sells that this is a larger-scale conflict than whether or not the team can detonate, like, a Forkzord. (So glad the Forkzord came back!!!)

[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 39 - “THE UNSTOPPABLE FISTS OF MESSIAH!”



Or, y’know, The One Where A Kid Beats Up Ryuji.

I mean, I’m basically just teasing. This was a cute episode about how fighting for your dreams is more important than fighting other people, and real strength comes from being honest with what you want out of life. Ryuji’s the one Go-Buster with a clear dream post-Vagras, so it works out great to have him try and get Kenta to come to terms with how beating up his own dad is not the solution to his problems, but to instead be willing to stand up for his dream of becoming an engineer. It’s a heartwarming episode, truly.

But it’s also the one where a kid beats the holy Enetron out of Ryuji, and I don’t think this episode would be anywhere near as effective as it was if Kenta’s actor couldn’t deliver the martial arts goods. This was an action-heavy episode, and it needed a guest star who could convincingly defeat not just a dozen possessed bystanders, but also the Blue Buster. And this kid did it! He’s as good as any member of the stunt team, and the slow-mo shots of him demolishing Ryuji were almost as joyful to watch as last episode’s showdown in the squared circle. There’s precious little in this episode that isn’t Kenta kicking people’s asses, come to think of it: a little bit with Enter saving Escape, the obligatory Megazord fight, and that’s really all. When you got a kid like Kenta coming in for an episode, I guess you just get out of his way?



IT’S TIME FOR TATAKAE!

It’s a Kobayashi joint, so we gotta have someone screaming TATAKAE sooner or later. Was I expecting it to be a tiny boy with the voice of Messiah? No. Was I happy that it was a tiny boy with the voice of Messiah? Yes!

[Androzani84]

There are two things I remember about this episode.

1. The kid playing Kenta didn’t take long to get typecast as all hell, since Hurricaneger 10 Years After (#shamelessplug) featured him in pretty much the same role. The only difference is that he got to be one of the heroes for the final battle.

2. The voice of Karateloid, Hiroyuki Muraoka, is also a suit actor, meaning that he portrays the role physically as well as vocally.

[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 39 - “THE UNSTOPPABLE FISTS OF MESSIAH!”

When you can pull a frame like this out of it, it honestly surprises even myself that this is probably one of the episodes of this show that sticks in my head the least?

Maybe it's a consequence of how long it took me to really start liking Ryuuji; maybe it's just a little too by-the-book hero tokusatsu in its story of Helping Some Kid... I don't really know! But even having watched the entire show twice, several years apart, I can't for the life of me think of even a single particular memory associated with this one to reminisce about, which I don't think has happened much in this thread?

Kinda crazy, because as Die's description attests to, there's definitely at least one thing in this episode worth remembering!

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

1. The kid playing Kenta didn?t take long to get typecast as all hell, since Hurricaneger 10 Years After (#shamelessplug) featured him in pretty much the same role. The only difference is that he got to be one of the heroes for the final battle.

Makes sense! This kid was great!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

But even having watched the entire show twice, several years apart, I can't for the life of me think of even a single particular memory associated with this one to reminisce about, which I don't think has happened much in this thread?

There's also the flashback where Kenta's dad angrily tells him to stop wanting to be an engineer and get back to karate, which eventually gets recontextualized away from horrifying emotional abuse into troubling tough love, which ends up being largely a lateral move story-wise, but I'd rather stay positive! Kenta beats up Ryuji and both actors sell the hell out of it!

[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 40 - “J STANDS IN FRONT OF THE MESSIAHROID”



He literally does!

It’s nice to get a somewhat serious episode about J and Jin’s partnership. They’ve been a comedic duo pretty much since the beginning, with really only Jin getting anything close to a serious storyline. (Even though one of Jin’s serious storylines was the fact that he doesn’t take anything seriously, so….) The partnership of Jin and Juice has been left to ridiculous physical comedy and elaborate background gags, with only subtext to speak to their bond.

Until now! This time out, we get not get the answer for why Jin isn’t leaving hyperspace, but also an example of how deeply J cares about Jin. Naturally, it’s exhibited in the most confusing and counter-intuitive way possible, because: J. Jin’s body never completely materialized in hyperspace 13 years ago, forcing him into a kind of stasis, only able to interact with the world as an avatar piggy-backing off of J’s Marker System. (I don’t… 100% know how this is possible? According to what we’ve been told previously, J wasn’t built until landing in hyperspace, right? So how was an incomplete Jin able to build anything, let alone a full Buddyroid?) So the idea of Jin being the Guess I’ll Die meme pushes J over the edge. Jin’s sent J out into the world in his stead, and J has grown to love it. He can’t believe that Jin wouldn’t fight for life with everything he has left, and if Jin isn’t willing to do it, then his Buddyroid will have to do it for him.

It’s a great message of support and encouragement, one that comes out of J’s thoughts as saving a Messiahroid, attacking the Busters, and threatening to kill Jin. It’s… not a great plan from the Stag Buster! It’s adorably misguided and briefly deadly, but it speaks to the largely silent bond of Jin and J. Just like Jin is pathologically incapable of discussing his feelings in a healthy way, the Buddyroid programmed off of his brain patterns attempts to will on his partner by assaulting their teammates and threatening to save Jin over Jin’s dead body. The two of them… they deserve each other, and I mean that in so many different ways.

Was not expecting to get a sweet episode of friendship for Jin and J! Glad to know the series had this one in the tank!



IT’S TIME FOR LESS FOCUS ON MEGAZORDS!

This is probably a weird thing to say after the recent episode of Ace having a gauntlet match against every Megazord model, and the big new addition to the cast being a Buddyzord, but the biggest change to me in the post-Messiah storytelling is that the show has sort of flipped the importance of the Metaroids and Megazords? Back in the Messiah days, the Megazords were the ones executing the actual plan of siphoning Enetron to power up the Vagras plans in hyperspace, and the Metaroid was just a Marker System to facilitate that. Defeating the Metaroid was helpful, but defeating the Megazord was crucial. Now, the Megazords are, like, a random byproduct from the creation of the Messiahroid. They just sort of pop out of hyperspace some amount of time after a Messiahroid spawns, but they aren’t really trying to accomplish anything? They’re just there, and they get defeated, and that’s sort of it. The Messiahroid has a clear objective (or doesn’t in this episode, but then that becomes the point) while the Megazord sometimes steals Enetron, but mostly just wanders around until it’s defeated. In this episode, the Megazord is defeated before the mid-episode commercial break!

I don’t know that I find the new emphasis on Messiahroids to be better or worse than the emphasis on Megazords, but it’s certainly noticeable.

[Androzani84]

So I assume Paraboloid 2.0’s experiment was to see if older models could be upgraded? I don’t think the episode says anything about what the Messiah Card was trying to achieve this time.

But it does lead to what’s probably the best suit in the show, in the form of Enter Unite. Given that unlike Escape, he was plenty powerful without a suit actor form to let someone else do the fighting, one wonders how unstoppable he is now.

(And for a bit of clever design work, the suit look is based on a prince, and he called Messiah “Majeste” (French for “king”). And what happens to the prince when the king dies?

[Sh Ranger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 40 - ?J STANDS IN FRONT OF THE MESSIAHROID?

It?s a great message of support and encouragement, one that comes out of J?s thoughts as saving a Messiahroid, attacking the Busters, and threatening to kill Jin. It?s? not a great plan from the Stag Buster! It?s adorably misguided and briefly deadly, but it speaks to the largely silent bond of Jin and J. Just like Jin is pathologically incapable of discussing his feelings in a healthy way, the Buddyroid programmed off of his brain patterns attempts to will on his partner by assaulting their teammates and threatening to save Jin over Jin?s dead body. The two of them? they deserve each other, and I mean that in so many different ways.

The show wouldn't be complete without the last human-Buddyroid pair getting a focus episode. I think this highlights even further why J is such a cool guy, he just loves being alive and has a simple dream of seeing the winter snow with his friends. Beetles have such short lifespans after all, so J lives like he's a beetle, drinking as much as he wants.

While the core 3 now have the luxury of looking towards their futures, Jin is afraid deep down that he might not have one, as he might have to sacrifice himself for the sake of everybody else. It's the opposite of selfish, so of course the self-proclaimed egoist J would scold him for that. Jin hasn't been fair to J, expecting him to deal with it since Jin is the one with his life at stake, not acknowledging that J would suffer from losing him. The problem with J's argument though is that Jin's life isn't in danger right now, so J has to learn to focus on saving the lives that need him the most. It's a depressing moral, but not a wrong one. When J stands in front of Jin, he's also being a shield, so this trait basically shows you J's sense of heroism. His ego won't accept the idea of people weaker than him getting hurt.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

So I assume Paraboloid 2.0?s experiment was to see if older models could be upgraded? I don?t think the episode says anything about what the Messiah Card was trying to achieve this time.

Maybe? Enter immediately writes it off as a worthless accident, and the Messiahroid's mission is... just collecting stuff into itself? Like Enter says, it isn't helping them collect data on humanity, so it's not worth pursuing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

When J stands in front of Jin, he's also being a shield, so this trait basically shows you J's sense of heroism. His ego won't accept the idea of people weaker than him getting hurt.

This is a nice way of looking at it!

[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 41 - “PINK BUSTER, THIEF FATALE!”



Why not spend an episode on giving Hiromu a principled thief partner who falls in love with him? It doesn’t further the series story in any visible way – Enter and Escape are absent, we’re not doing anything with Jin’s revelation from last time, the Megazords continue to exist with no clear purpose – but it’s a cute story that gives Hiromu some new notes to play.

It’s neat to see Hiromu spar with a potential love interest, because this show generally shies away from human antagonists. We might get an episode where a tiny boy wallops the crap out of Ryuji, but even he’s just possessed by Messiah. There aren’t a ton of stories that put the Busters in opposition with another person, and that makes those episodes a little more interesting to talk about for their deviation from the template. (Like… the one where Ryuji has to get the scientist’s teen daughter out of the maze? And she’s not even really an antagonist, just sort of a brat.) Pink Buster is a different kind of puzzle to solve, and it forces Hiromu out of his comfort zone of Attacking and Being A Surly Jerk.

Well… maybe not the second one? Reika’s a smooth criminal, and her combination of subterfuge and Sunday Morning Japanese Television-level feminine wiles (basically encroaching on Hiromu’s personal space until he falls apart from bashfulness) is a fun counter to Hiromu’s mission-oriented focus. Hiromu tries to talk her into doing the right thing, but what he eventually figures out – all on his own! – is that Reika was already doing the right thing, just in her own way. It’s an episode that’s thankfully less about Hiromu dictating morality to another person, and more about Hiromu learning to respect someone who has a different view on morality than him.

Besides that, we’re 100% in Lupin territory, as mandated by the 1979 “Every Toku Show Must Do A Gentleman Or Gentlewoman Thief Story” Accords. The Lupinroid (Over-Time has it as Louperoid, and that’s ridiculous to me) is doing a very fun nonviolent scheme of stealing people’s greed, while the Pink Buster leaves a calling card and only steals from people who deserve it. Nothing that really happens is a surprise if you’ve ever seen a single Lupin-indebted toku story, but it’s a standard nowadays for a reason – they’re just fun to watch? The Pink Buster’s acrobatics are cool to see in conflict with the Go-Busters combat maneuvers, crescendoing with the elegant dance of Pink and Red demolishing a squad of Bugglars. It’s what every toku Lupin story is leading up to, and this one doesn’t disappoint.

I wasn’t disappointed by this one at all, regardless of several obvious drawbacks. (Besides the stated ones in the first paragraph, you can toss in Yellow and Blue spending the episode on the sidelines.) It’s a charming little action/romance for the least charismatic Buster, and that’s enough for me tonight.



IT’S TIME FOR Pink Buster!

She’s great, Reika. Gorgeous, obviously, but I like how she both plays Hiromu and then can’t help trying to impress him. She’s a Robin Hood-style thief, and she doesn’t mind getting Hiromu flustered just for fun. The two of them had great chemistry, and I sincerely hope the Pink Buster makes a return appearance.