[DreamSword]

Episode 3: A Bunch of Brides

You know it's an Inoue show when there's a scene of people eating copious amounts of food together.

Anyway, I don't choose that thumbnail solely because I'm immature.

Rather, I feel as though it highlights why Changerion didn't exactly catch on with alot of people. That being that the show seems very confused as to exactly its target audience is.

Sure, there's many the toyetic element and childlike high energy found in many a children's' toku, but at the same time, the show is full of alot of surprisingly adult humor and content. As such, no way are parents gonna let their kids watch this and older audiences will just pass it off as a standard toku.

It's certainly a strange beast, and I can only think that maybe they were aiming for (pre-)teens? Even the writing seems pretty random. With the hyper simplicity of the children's' show but then there's adult content--look, I'm going in circles. Point is, Changerion sends alot of mixed messages and it makes it very hard for me to grasp just what its end goal is if there even is one.

Take this very episode as a prime example. It's what is on the surface an episode straight out of Power Rangers, wherein the monster of the week is kidnapping brides to be. But then you're bombarded with other things such as Akira and Hayami being creeps to women, many of the fake brides getting catty with eachother over their looks, and of course, the D-cups joke shown right there in the screencap above.

That all aside, maybe this is just a me thing, but I also didn't find this episode all that funny or engaging? It actually made me kinda worried that Changerion is gonna eventually overstay its welcome, and made me kinda wish that I was binging it instead of doing an episode daily. And if so, then I will very much be able to see why the show was cut short the way it was. Like, this episode was certainly one that I watched and that was about the extent of my impressions of it as far as a review goes.

It just is what it is. Not awful or anything, I just wasn't really into it and more spent the time I had thinking about what the show might end up being like as an overall experience by the end.

[DreamSword]

Episode 4: Ah, Friendship; Ah, Heartless!

Exploding toilet paper monster.

Do I even need to write a review at this point? That one sentence alone should tell you basically everything you need to know about this episode.

But I guess I can't get off that easy, can I? Alright, I'll do my best to get at the meat of things here, though I will say that this is the sort of episode that you really should see for yourself to understand just how crazy it is.

Actually, a better thought, here a question for you readers out there: Have you and a friend ever been accused of a crime you didn't commit, so you break yourselves out of jail to find the real culprit, but one really persistent cop(who for some reason doesn't just call for backup) keeps getting in the way, leading to you and your friend being handcuffed together?

Then, seeing no other option, you have your friend push you down the road on a wheelbarrel, leading to you both freeing yourselves via crashing into a pole. To celebrate, you decide to bro fist, leading to the handcuffs reattaching themselves, so you then decide to head back to your place, which in turn leads to you discovering the real culprit of the original crime, who just so happens to be a guy that likes to strangle people with toilet paper?

That's essentially the entire middle chunk of the episode, all directed and filmed in as zany of a way as possible. There's some other stuff here too, like Hayami inadvertently helping a boy grow closer with his mother, but that is such a footnote when put next to a freaking toilet paper monster.

I also gotta give it to Inoue, I think this is the first toku I've ever seen where a monster causing stuff to blow up is what in turn powers up the show's' equivalent to Zords. And also one of the few I've seen in which funding is a big factor in terms of building all of this super equipment. Letting Inoue loose leads to interesting results if nothing else.

So... yeah. Another fun one, if you couldn't tell. I have no idea how this episode is gonna be topped, if ever in the show's' run though. But man would it be impressive if things only got crazier.

[DreamSword]

Episode 5: Who's the Culprit!

When a woman gets kidnapped on a bus by DarkZide, it's up to our main trio to track down and figure out who the culprit is. The prime suspects being the only other three passengers on said bus.

It's a relatively simple, but an interesting one. The group splitting up certainly offers a chance at diving deeper into the personalities and development of our main cast.

...But Changerion isn't really interested in any of that.

See, here's the thing. Despite the obvious set up for story and character development, our run time is spent instead injecting character and ironic humor into pretty much every scenario. And in the end, very little actual detective work is even done.

And while in many other stories I'd find this a bit annoying or disappointing, when it comes to Changerion specifically, I think it ultimately works out. Because I think this episode, more than any of the previous ones, signals exactly what this show is setting out to be: An adult-oriented parody of common Toku tropes of the time period.

To that end, while I did get a small chuckle or two out of the episode, the humor overall was nothing stellar to me. But hey, I at the very least didn't find any of it obnoxious, and it at the very least wasn't ruining any sort of pre-established dramatic mood or tension that the episode had built up. The episode remains tonally consistent all throughout, and if that seems like I'm giving some sort of backhanded compliment, I'm really not.

There is one interesting plot detail dropped that I found pretty cool and unique though: The reveal that DarkZide isn't actually fully aware of SAIDOC yet. Because they've all been splitting up on their own to infiltrate humanity, no one has been able to report in on how Changerion has been killing them one by one. I don't think that's an angle I've ever seen another superhero show do, much less a toku, and is one I'd love to see expanded on in a more story focused show someday.

[DreamSword]

Episode 6: I'm Sorry, Jiro

I really didn't like this one.

It's just so out of place in regards to basically everything. Both in terms of its own internal structure as well as series composition.

What it boils down to is that the episode tries really hard to be tragic, without having the atmosphere, writing, or characterization to really back it up. I mainly just found myself rolling my eyes through the whole thing.

The plot is that Akira and a DarkZide monster fall in love over a single date and because DarkZiders need to eat the life energy of humans, the two are forced to try and kill one another in the end. And if that sounds interesting to you, I recommend watching almost any other superhero show to see it done better.

I felt nothing for Jiro because she's barely a character, and I felt nothing for Akira because all throughout the episode he's just being his usual womanizing self without even a hint of anything deeper going on. The two having next to no chemistry together really doesn't help either. Couldn't even turn my brain off and enjoy the fight due to lazy choreography.

Overall the episode is a total misfire that I just couldn't get invested in. But hey, given my own disposition towards romance, maybe I'm just not he target audience for this one.

[DreamSword]

Episode 7: An Idol!! Me?

As I've said before, I'm not really a fan of idol content.

And rather than explain for the tenth time as to why, I'll just be upfront and say that, surprisingly, I found this to be one of the better episodes so far.

Sure, like with alot of things in Changerion, plenty of aspects to it haven't aged well. Many of the jokes and critiques it makes at the expense of the idol industry are ones that have been done plenty of times since this show first aired.

But yet this episode also features some of the better character humor seen in the show's' run so far(the screencap I chose is one of the few genuine laughs that Changerion has gotten out of me), and I felt that the development given to Akira and Akemi was actually pretty decently handled.

Yeah, the episode isn't breaking any new ground, and the monster fight at the end almost feels tacked on, but despite all that, overall, the episode was still a pretty fun sit and I felt it handled itself pretty well. Solid character interaction while only being mildly less crazy than the average episode. And really, I'm not sure what else I could even hope to ask for.

[DreamSword]

Episode 8: My Daughter, Pick a Man!!

Out of all the episodes so far, this one was by far the most Inoue for me.

And by that I mean that I felt that this episode had something going, only for it to fizzle out and just be kinda nothing to me by the end.

The episode centers around Eri and her relationship with her father. And there are two different and conflicting messages going on here that just muddy things throughout the episode.

At first the idea seems to be that Eri wants to take charge of her own life, which, you know, fair enough. But then at the end the episode seems to more side with the father's' doting over his daughter's' livelihood? And all because he took pictures with her as a kid?

I dunno, it just leaves a really sour taste in my mouth. Maybe this is some sort of deal with gender roles in Japan that I as an American just don't understand, but even if I ignore that, it's not like the comedic elements of this episode were any sort of highlight in order to make up for it. It's Inoue's' usual misunderstandings shtick, it's just played for laughs here.

It's a shame too, because an episode focused on Eri in and of itself is not a bad idea, given that's she's had the least focus out of the main cast so far. But unfortunately, none of the stuff that has made Changerion fun to watch was present this time around, which just sank things even further. Not the weakest episode in the show, but one that I can't see myself looking back on fondly, if I even remember it at all.

[DreamSword]

Episode 9: Hayami, Sanzen!

This actually ended up being a rather nice package all around.

Primarily this is a personality swap episode, with all the zany antics that such a premise usually entails, but it's also used as a vehicle for solid character development.

Hayami was the one who was originally supposed to Changerion, remember? So this episode explores what happens that Hayami finally gets his shot due to an accident leading to a personality swap with Akira.

Even in the prospect of swap episodes though, this one proves to be rather unique in that it's the only one I've seen where the effects of the swap fade in and out. Sure, the gags are basic, but that unique aspect alone makes up for it in my eyes.

We also get to see why exactly Hayami isn't fit for the job of Changerion. Sure, he's more than capable physically, but mentally, he's actually too good of a guy, too honorable, to the point that he can't bring himself to actually kill a DarkZide monster despite their heinous deeds. Something Akira has never had a problem doing even when he fell in love with one.

And that's also where the one big flaw of the episode comes in. This takes place after the episode where Akira and Jiro fell in love, so Akira claiming in this episode that all monsters are evil feels really out of place. Had the Jiro episode taken place after this one, that'd be one thing, but it felt out of character that this interactions takes place when it does. Or maybe Akira thinks only all male monsters are evil, or something.

That aside, it was also nice to see both men gain some new respect for eachother once everything was said and done. Sure, they try and end things on a bit of an ambiguous note, but I personally feel it's pretty obvious that Akira has warmed up to Hayami and vice-versa.

It's just kind of a nice episode to experience overall, and I dug it.

[DreamSword]

Episode 10: Not a Mackerel!

I... I don't even know what I just watched.

No, really, I'm not even sure as to what I can even say about this one other than just detailing every bit of insanity that happens.

But I don't wanna do that, because that would just give away everything that makes this easily the most cracked out episode of Changerion yet. I guarantee that you aren't ready for anything this episode has in store.

If there's one thing I got out of this(other than feeling like I was on drugs the whole time), it's that I now know why a mackerel was included as an accessory for the figure Sentinel made for Changerion.

And that's all I'm gonna say. Go watch this episode. Just... just watch it.

[DreamSword]

Episode 11: The Leftover Konjac

There is alot going on in this episode.

The A plot is about Akira getting hired to discover the whereabouts of a man's' missing girlfriend, who turns out was not actually kidnapped by DarkZide.

The B plot, however, is alot more involving and the one that I found alot more interesting, as it very heavily expands on the culture of the creatures from the Dark Dimension, and introduces us to who I assume is to be Changerion's' rival.

Seeing the monsters having difficulty in integrating in human society, to the point of needing a special consultant/therapist is a really unique angle, and made me think this show kind set the stage for alot of the things Inoue would later write about in Kamen Rider Faiz.

Funnily enough, the episode also becomes a sort of alcohol PSA, as alcoholism very much affects the monster of the week, who could've probably lead a much longer and happier life without it. But alas, many humans are cruel, and as such things spiral out of hand until Gauzer reveals himself to do cleanup. And of course, he wields a katana.

I gotta hand it to whoever directed this one too. The atmosphere was handled pretty well all throughout the episode; Managing to blend the wackiness of the A plot with the solemness of the B plot rather well. Granted the two plots coming together at the end isn't exactly the cleanest way it could've been done, but I think it worked out overall. Plus, this episode featured people splashing in water! All of the Inoue boxes have been checked at long last!

So yeah, this was a solid episode that progressed the overall plot in a neat way. Looking forward to more.

[DreamSword]

Episode 12: The Daruma Fell Over

This episode tones down the crazy, but in a good way!

And when you get right down to it, this episode is a much better version of the Jiro episode we had not too long ago.

The primary meat of the episode is about establishing the character of Gauzer and how he's a dude who's super obsessed with doing things the "proper" way as a means to showcase how much better he is than everyone else.

And in that regard shows all of negatives aspects right at the forefront. In short that he's a pretentious manipulator, and that while he and Eri do end up having feelings for one another, Gauzer is by no means a good guy nor does he ever intend to treat Eri well.

But beside that, the character interactions in this episode are top notch, and mostly from Akira. Him being able to near instantly recognize Gauzer as a fake, as well as him belittling Gauzer for fun make for some top notch stuff. Hayami and Eri are no slouches either though, with their own personalities on full display and never once going out of character.

I can see the ending of the eventual fight between Gauzer and Changerion being a bit contentious for some, but I'm overall fine with it. Eri distracting Gauzer with the Daruma callout not only hammers in how she's done with him, but ties into Gauzer's' obsessive character flaw and also shows that Akira still has alot of growing to do before he can hope to win against Gauzer in a fair fight, which is in turn consistent with the workout session at the start of the episode.

Overall, this one was a fun watch full of solid character beats, and I dug it.