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Mashin Sentai Kiramager Episode 44- "Sleep Quietly My Friend!" Discussion
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02-22-2021, 08:13 PM
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Fish Sandwich
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
Hmm.
Hmmmmm.
This is a pretty flawless penultimate episode, honestly. Huge stakes. Heroes on the brink. Discord among the villains. Nothing but high tension as far as the eye can see. It's great stuff.
But it's maybe a bit too...
normal?
I really hate to do this to Kiramager after spending a year giving almost exclusively high praise week after week. To come in here and say I have misgivings about its final episodes despite them not even doing anything
wrong
per se, it bums me out. But the thing is, I'm picky about my conclusions – I always want them to perfectly encapsulate everything I loved about a series, and while I initially fell for Kiramager because it looked like a definitive "generic" Sentai, what truly grew my affection for it were the layers I found underneath that surface.
My big problem with this one, just as with last week, is that it's honestly hard to say I'm seeing all those layers? There are echoes of them here and there, but I think the show fumbled the resolution of Garza's plot in a way that drags the rest of this arc down. He saves Juuru here, which is about what I expected, but I was also desperately hoping they'd maybe
talk
for a while? It didn't have to be a whole lot, but just one decent conversation could've put a nice bow on a year of thematic heft from Kiramager. From a show that dedicated an inordinate amount of time to exploring ideas like the way we express ourselves through creativity, how we manage stress, and the importance of being supported by people who care about you.
So even though I already banged on about this last time, I think it still bears further emphasis that Garza,
the stressed out loner with a buried artistic side
, was THE "in" for the show to wrap all that up. They got as far as putting the story in that position, too, only to tie it up a little too cleanly by essentially totally exonerating Garza for his actions, and having him quickly make peace with his past in a redemptive death. It's well-executed, and would be great for any other villain in any other show, but I can't bring myself to believe that it's what Garza in Kiramager needed. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and reduces this final arc to a very typical power struggle between the good guys and the bad guys.
But man, it is one heck of a power struggle, isn't it?
Yeah, one other thing I can't honestly say is that I didn't enjoy this episode despite the heaps of missed potential. While it's lacking the hidden depth of writing I now expect from this show, it absolutely still has just about everything else I love in it. There are so many great little moments I struggle to count them all. There's some fantastic characterization going on with Fire, for one thing, and I love the payoff to him mumbling under his breath as though he's lost his marbles. You've got Tametomo coming up with yet another very well-conceived plan that reminds me all over again how much I love the big Plans in this show for always making me go "yeah, that's a good idea!" only to often present an equally convincing reason for them to fail, keeping the drama engaging. Even Emperor Yodon gets some fantastically vicious bad guy stuff to do, and he's barely a character to begin with!
I loved the overall atmosphere of this one throughout. It nailed the vibe it was going for of the rest of the team heading out into an impossible battle one last time to avenge a seemingly fallen friend, and that is admittedly an upside of keeping Juuru out of the proceedings for as long as they do. His return genuinely comes off like a big moment, and the episode ending on that big note of hope worked great.
Again, despite all my complaining, the
vast
majority of what Kiramager is doing is still clicking with me as much as ever. This is still a gem of a show no matter what, and if I'm lucky enough, the finale will render all this griping premature by finding its own way to wrap the series up in a nice bow. I've written some words these past two weeks I'd be very glad to find myself eating! There have been bumps in the road, and that's unfortunate, but even without the show going the direction I hoped for with Garza, I'm confident Kiramager can still dazzle me one last time.
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