[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

It's really not healthy! The fact that Hiromu in the climax here would rather burn himself alive than ask somebody to help is not something I should be encouraging, but dude, when it makes for television this entertaining, I just can't find it in me to be too hard on the guy!

It's sort of crucial for this episode that Hiromu's plan is so theatrical and epic that you kind of can't be too mad at him for choosing immolation over teamwork. Like, Hiromu's plan sort of makes sense, for a Red Buster value of making sense -- if he can bluff Enter, then the Card is negated; if Enter calls his bluff, Hiromu's killed and the Card is destroyed, paving the way for the rest of the team to defeat Enter. It's a plan that devalues Hiromu's life outside of being a Go-Buster as a given, of course, but it's still a decent enough strategy? If it wasn't so cool, I think every viewer midway through the episode would be like Or You Could Ask For Help, and that would be skipping ahead!

[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 49 - “RESOLVE AND DECISIONS”



I like how this one ended up being a rebuttal to last episode’s Hiromu story, crystalizing that the strength of the Go-Busters is in how they support one another, so any individual flaw becomes offset by everyone else’s teamwork. Hiromu’s transformation into Enter’s lifeline is a huge problem if Hiromu fights him one-on-one, but Hiromu doesn’t have to fight Enter one-on-one; he’s never been alone. The team is there to save him, or if necessary, kill him. It’s not a problem for him to solve with his own two hands.

This could all feel a bit redundant, in regards to Hiromu's continuing story of avoiding burdening -slash- communicating with his family, if not for the heightened stakes of the last few episodes. Like, yeah, Hiromu was probably being reasonable when he didn’t want to make his friends and family responsible for executing him. I don’t think that’s selfish of him to not want to put on them! It’s an okay thing to try and spare them of that! But in the end, Hiromu’s life is more than just his to cash in – he’s part of a team, and the team wins or loses as a unit.

A lot of this is less interesting to me than the Christmas episodes, if I’m being honest. (Again, this was sort of dealt with just a few episodes ago against Messiah!) The Christmas episodes felt like such a joyous culmination of everything the team learned over the last 13 years, crescendoing with a defeat of their ancestral enemy on the anniversary of their parents’ deaths. This is… kind of doing a lot of the same stuff? Hiromu and the gang save two kids that are hilariously similar to Tiny Yoko and Tiny Hiromu, making the flashback to 13 years ago almost insultingly unnecessary. (It’s so on the nose!) Enter’s abducting scientists by the truckload, just like their parents were lost to Messiah. The resolution to all of this requires a trip to hyperspace, just like their parents did 13 years ago. And so on.

Like, I appreciate a symmetrical resolution as much as the next adult who spends too much time critiquing television shows designed to sell toys to children, but this was all a little too diagrammatic for me. It feels mechanical instead of precise, where the gears grind up nuance in favor of reference. The Christmas episodes felt like the hand of fate giving the Go-Busters a chance to make things right (so Christmassy!), while this one just felt… preordained? Inevitable? Less fun, in any event.

I don’t hate this ending, if that’s what this all sounds like. (I can see why you’d get that impression. That last paragraph! Yikes!) I enjoyed this episode in a lot of the ways I liked the last one – the feeling of a dozen episodes’ worth of threads finally coming together in unexpected and compelling ways, while a charismatic villain inches closer to omnipotence. That’s fun! This whole thing feels like a natural end to the year’s story. I just… I think it’s a less fun version than the previous natural end to the year’s story?



IT’S TIME FOR Enter Buster!

I don’t know if this suit’s got a name or whatever, but I love it. It’s perfect. My favorite suit of the entire series, right here at the end. It’s such a great feral version of Hiromu’s suit: the fangs over the eyes, the maroon color scheme, the jagged edges, the little bolts everywhere. (The little Vagras emblem where the GB teleporter usually is!) I love how it’s Red Buster but vicious, a perfect encapsulation of Messiah and Buster. Gorgeous suit, perfectly timed.

[Sunred]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I don?t know if this suit?s got a name or whatever, but I love it. It?s perfect. My favorite suit of the entire series, right here at the end. It?s such a great feral version of Hiromu?s suit: the fangs over the eyes, the maroon color scheme, the jagged edges, the little bolts everywhere. (The little Vagras emblem where the GB teleporter usually is!) I love how it?s Red Buster but vicious, a perfect encapsulation of Messiah and Buster. Gorgeous suit, perfectly timed.

Yes, it's called Dark Buster. And yeah, you're not alone when you say it's your favorite because the suit has been and still is considered popular.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunred

Yes, it's called Dark Buster. And yeah, you're not alone when you say it's your favorite because the suit has been and still is considered popular.

I believe it!

[Sh Ranger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 49 - ?RESOLVE AND DECISIONS?

This could all feel a bit redundant, in regards to Hiromu's continuing story of avoiding burdening -slash- communicating with his family, if not for the heightened stakes of the last few episodes. Like, yeah, Hiromu was probably being reasonable when he didn?t want to make his friends and family responsible for executing him. I don?t think that?s selfish of him to not want to put on them! It?s an okay thing to try and spare them of that! But in the end, Hiromu?s life is more than just his to cash in ? he?s part of a team, and the team wins or loses as a unit.

The scene that sticks out for me is Jin using a tower of blocks as a metaphor for Hiromu's DNA structure with the Messiah Card block in the middle and everybody's like, "yeah, let's just remove it", before Jin dramatically knocks it over. If anybody knows best about the danger of transporting human data, it's Jin and the fact that even he can't figure out a solution to Hiromu's malware shows how dire the situation is. Hiromu is strong, but if you try and take him apart, we're reminded that humans are fragile.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

IT?S TIME FOR Enter Buster!

I don?t know if this suit?s got a name or whatever, but I love it. It?s perfect. My favorite suit of the entire series, right here at the end.

Personally, I prefer the classic Redbuster.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Personally, I prefer the classic Redbuster.

I would not fight you on that. This show doesn't hurt for amazing costumes!

[Androzani84]

All I’ve got to say is… after the early appearance in vs Gokaiger, Megazord Omega makes its canon debut. I’m not sure I ever really came up with an opinion of this episode beyond the visual of an Enertron tower turning into a Vaglass tree being well done.

[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 49 - “RESOLVE AND DECISIONS”

...




IT’S TIME FOR Enter Buster!

Fun fact -- this is actually the suit that got me to watch Go-Busters!

I think I might've mentioned some of this towards the start of the thread, but back in 2012, I had gotten way into Kamen Rider already and was always sort of vaguely looking to branch out to Super Sentai. Despite following Gokaiger more-or-less as it aired, I wasn't totally feeling it, and, despite loving everything about Go-Busters conceptually, and enjoying the first few episodes when they were the only few episodes, I ended up putting the show on the back burner. I believe part of this was that actually downloading stuff from Over-Time was a hassle for me back then or something? I don't totally remember, but the important point is that I always was interested in picking it back up... it's just that I became way too comfortable leaving it for later. None of the stuff I was seeing from a distance ever did quite enough to pull me back in... right up until I was going to Over-Time's site to grab the latest episode of Wizard, and saw that their picture for the release post of episode 49 of this show was just a no-context picture of Dark Buster.

That was seriously all it took, after most of a year.

I was instantly fascinated by whatever this cool looking evil Red Buster guy was supposed to be, and just like that, I *had* to find out what the deal was. No way I could keep ignoring a show with something this awesome somewhere in it. I'm a sucker for almost any cool evil version of a hero, but the specific genre of this one, where it's explicitly the monster version, rather than just being purple and black or something, *really* spoke to me. I almost certainly don't need to explain how effectively this design comes together to anyone, so I won't bother. Of course, it turned out the suit didn't exactly make a ton of appearances, but that didn't upset me too much when I got 48 prior episodes that were generally super enjoyable and even featured a different monster suit for Enter that's quite cool in its own right and fits his character perfectly. (Which is probably why it still gets to be in the show.)

There's part of me that still loves this suit so much I wish it *had* been a part of the series in a larger capacity, but A) Power Rangers has since sort of vicariously granted that wish, and B) Dark Buster's appearance definitely comes at the right time in the story we got, and thanks to it giving me that final push to get around to it, I ended up really liking that story.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

All I?ve got to say is? after the early appearance in vs Gokaiger, Megazord Omega makes its canon debut..

I always wish I had more to say about the Megazords, but... I really don't? I genuinely don't even remember which one this is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

There's part of me that still loves this suit so much I wish it *had* been a part of the series in a larger capacity, but A) Power Rangers has since sort of vicariously granted that wish, and B) Dark Buster's appearance definitely comes at the right time in the story we got, and thanks to it giving me that final push to get around to it, I ended up really liking that story.

Yeah, it's the perfect suit, but a lot of that perfection comes from how the last 48 episodes of story build up to its debut. Not in the sense of When Are We Going To Get To The Dark Buster Factory -- which is, uh, sort of what you got back in 2013 -- but more that you need so much of Enter and his plan to get the story behind this thing across, and to make it clear how colossally screwed the Busters are when it appears.

[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS FINAL MISSION - “ETERNAL BONDS”



Jin’s sacrifice… I don’t know. I don’t know!

I mean, I get it. Jin’s the guy that got dragged into hyperspace against his will 13 years ago to save the world, and now he’s the guy begging to let himself be sacrificed to save the world. Similarly, the Busters are once again having to make the hard call to put the safety of the world above their own desires, specifically to make sure no one has to go through what they did as kids, so they have to let Jin do this. It’s not Hiromu recklessly risking his own life, it’s Jin making sure that everyone is involved with this decision. (That puts him one up on Hiromu’s dad!) It’s a team decision, which is crucial for this show’s treatise on teamwork.

But.

It’s a worse story for me, compared to the Christmas episodes. That one has a character’s sacrifice obviated by his friends refusal to participate in it, forcing him to let them shoulder his burden, rather than the other way around. That one’s a sweeter story for being about the value of a life, rather than the value of a death. This one’s a story of how hard decisions become easier to deal with when you make them as a group – the support of others as a unit, rather than being able to lean on others for support. I just… I sort of like that less.

However.

This one… it’s sort of beautiful, though, in its centering of grief, and on letting someone go. The idea that everyone you love will be around forever… that’s what this show is sort of pushing against, just from its basic premise. The previous two big Messiah stories were about the Busters finally letting their parents go, and then about understanding that their lives are a gift, so maybe it’s only right for the third one to be about letting their friends decide what to do with that gift. It’s a nicely completed circle.

Still.

It creates this weird tension in the episode for me, where Jin’s noble sacrifice seems perpendicular to the larger story of how our imperfections require us to depend on others, and that dependence creates a power bigger than any one person and/or Avatar – but then that bond couldn’t keep Jin from deleting himself to save Hiromu. It’s support and caring for each other and community but now there’s one less of them. It feels like a messier story, and not in a way I liked.

Except.

I did like this one. Quite a bit, actually. Jin’s scene of begging the team to let him lay down his life to save the world was exquisite, nailing the tricky relationships Jin had with the whole cast in just a few precisely applied lines. (And tears! Tears from the cast! Tears from me when Jin brought up Yoko’s mom!) The battle against Enter at the end was the perfect Smug Hero vibes, the cast chuckling at how every one of Enter’s schemes had just been negated without him realizing it. The unified Volcanick Attack! Epic! It’s a robust episode of victory, with a single sour note of failure.

I’ll probably care less about the Jin stuff in a little bit. It’s got its reasons to be there, and I find it harder to articulate why it should’ve been excluded than why it deserves to stay in. But, man. Felt like they needed a different option for this episode.



IT’S TIME FOR Specialest Buster!

Seriously, that Volcanick All Busters Attack, man. So great, the embodiment of teamwork and family defeating isolation and selfishness. What a way to finally end the threat of the Vagras.