*Season 2 Episode 8*
Nobuo wastes time complaining how he didn’t recognize Pain sooner, a geeky guy dressed like a sentai villain of course it wouldn’t be him. Stopping Pain seems simple, they’ll just have to find him in the real world. Pain’s new monsterkin is ready, a reworking of last week’s but less Hurricanger and more Gekiranger now, with an added penis, the fist beast of time Mutou Mushiten. The Akibas go snooping around, but the staff at the Karaoke club won’t give out Pain’s info. But a customer there, looking like Ryu from Street Fighter, tells them he saw a guy in white make-up down at the curry place. The curry shop owner tell them they just missed Pain, but draw the baros lol logo and says he drive a van with that mark. They easily find the van because plot and ask a maid giving out leaflets about it. She says that it belongs to a cranky-looking older guy, with a baseball cap and a jacket with a cherry on it. He said that he was going to Suidobashi over his phone. Thank you, Maid, for remembering all that.
There is a weird guy playing hopscotch in an alley. They see the hearts he is trying to give away they know he is with Baros LOL. It’s Mushiten, so it’s grand delusion time. Pain jumps in to the delusion just as Malshina was going to trigger a flag of defeat, he left his bath for this wrench, but Malshina doesn’t appreciate his help. Akiba fight Mushiten, who uses various attacks from Sentai bad guys. Malshina wants to finish them off. Malshina is ruining Mushiten’s, focus so Pain lets him attack her, then Pain uses a figure case to imprison her in ice. Something falls out his outfit and Luna grabs it. Pain wants to defeat all the official Sentai teams and reign as king. The Akibas retreat before getting defeated. At the café, Luna tells the others of the coupon Pain dropped for the Tokyo DomeSauna.
It’s time to go undercover. Nobuo follows the suspect into the Sauna but he has a towel over his face and Nobuo doesn’t last long enough in the heat to confirm his identity. Luna tries to get info out of him, but not even a broom works. Yuko tries pretending to be the masseuse and he tells her that the scars he has are from his battles with superheroes. That is enough detail for them. So, they follow him on the street and Nobuo grabs him, but is quickly taken down. It was actually veteran suit actor, Mr Okamoto Yoshinori. Nobuo realizes that all the moves Mushiten was using were from villians Okamoto played. It seems Okamoto was in Pain’s van getting paid, it was quite a lot so he gave Pain the coupon. Pain hired him for motion capture to get all the villains moves. He has dedicated his life to the art of losing beautifully, he leaves and Mushiten appears.
While Nobuo is fighting Mushiten, Yuko and Luna set-up a sunset set. He didn’t just get Okamoto’s moves, but also his dedication to losing beautifully. They use the Penultimate powers they got this season to form the Penultimate Bazooka to blow up Mushiten. After telling Okamoto what happened, he give them Pain’s business card. We see that Man in hospital and he starts watching Boukenger
GRADE
This was enough strong episode that is slowly getting the plot moving, but I’m still waiting on the big twist and hope they don’t just continue the show to sell Figuarts. I love the returning suits actors, it’s great the show brings back people like them, musicians, and narrators because they always seem to be forgotten in make shows great. I hope Malshina getting frozen is part of the story and not just to get her out the way, as that would seem a little bit lazy. Great jokes and easily understood references for people not familiar with older Sentais. 4/5