Mission 21
The episode starts out in the EMC where the air conditioning has broken and overheated-Ryuuji is active. I could immediately see from this scene that this would be this year’s full-on-comedic episode…and I had no problem with that. I’m not sure how I feel about overheated-Ryuuji being a serious problem in one episode, but here it’s used in a comedic ‘skit’. I did however; enjoy this ‘comedy skit’.
The next scene features Gorisaki and Jin. Oh, and J is in the background playing around on a children’s play area and talking to a statue-thing (which was just SO good). Jin informs Gorisaki that if Ryuuji continues to overheat, he may die. Gorisaki being Gorisaki, runs away screaming before Jin can reveal that his previous statement was just a joke. Amazing. Also, all of this happens before the opening credits which is quite an achievement.
We’re soon introduced to Dumbbellroid, one of the strangest MOTDs I’ve ever seen. He makes people dance and exercise until…what? Death, I suppose? Yoko and Hiromu are even dragged into this dancing which amused me a little. Then, half way through the dancing, Dumbbellroid informs them that regular breaks are needed, and he just leaves. There are no doubts to whether this is the comedic episode or not.
The Busters decide that it’s best for Ryuuji to leave the team, believing that he might die. To do this, they convince Ryuuji that he’s too old to be a Buster, complete with a montage featuring older-versions of the Busters. I love how for Yoko, they just gave her longer hair, and somehow it worked. It was such a great moment, but I couldn’t help but think ‘…what the hell am I watching!?’. Of course, the perfect replacement for Ryuuji is Morishita, that guy who sits at a console…and that’s about it. He doesn’t ever morph though, it’s just for appearances.
Eventually; Jin, J, Yoko and Hiromu face and Ryuuji overhears that he might die if he overheats. In dramatic fashion with slo-mo running and morphing motions, Ryuuji faces Dumbbellroid and destroys him single-handedly. At that point, everyone finds out that this was all sparked by Jin’s joke. Cue the Megazords!
I personally love comedic filler episodes as much as the dramatic-add-to-the-plot ones and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I give this a 5/5.
Mission 22
I like that this episode dives right in to what we all know is coming – Escape. Messiah’s new recruit and a rival to Enter I suppose. It’s about time they had an additional main villain and it’s been a while since we’ve had a human-looking female villain (the last one was Kegaleshia in Go-Onger!). I like how she’s sort of an updated version of Enter; instead of goggles, she has sunglasses; instead of a laptop, she has a suspiciously-similar-to-an-iPad device… Later in the episode, Escape is featured in a fight against Red Buster. Her fighting style is awesome, from waving her guns around to flying around. I love it.
The EMC receive an email demanding for a large amount of Enetron to be delivered to a certain building where an escape game is behind held. They immediately recognize this as a prank, but just to be safe; Hiromu and Yoko go undercover with Hiromu adopting a stereotypical detective disguise…complete with a plastic pipe. It is soon revealed that this email was actually sent by a boy, Shouta, who believes that he is capable of providing support to the Go-Busters because of his computer skills. Usually, I really don’t like it when kids are part of the main plot in episodes since they’re usually annoying and/or can’t act, but I didn’t mind Shouta…so that’s good. The actual story between Hiromu and Shouta however, I just wasn’t interested really. It wasn’t necessarily bad, I just wasn’t into it. I wish I could provide more insight into why, but I’m just not quite sure what it was.
For the Megazord battle, the subdimension hologram reappears! I only thought that would be a one-time thing, but I guess not. I’m really interested to see what comes of this holographic subdimension in future episodes, since it’s obvious that they’re building up to something.
I give this episode a 3/5 – while I wasn’t into the main plot of this episode, I did really enjoy Escape’s debut.