*Season 2 Episode 12 & 13*
Sorry for the delay on this review, the truth is I didn’t want to write this as I was in denial. I loved Akibaranger season 1 and I wanted to love season 2 in the same way. I started off liking the first handful of episodes, but the quality seriously dropped. Not that I hated this season, but it was a real step down. I’ll discuss this later in the review, but for now I’ll do my normal summary section with bad jokes.
Malshina and the Akibas fight directly starting where the last episode left off. She gets the upper hand with her ass and tits like every good pornstar. By shooting a soda can she gets a boulder to roll into conveniently placed danger barrels which explode because danger does that. Nobuo uses ketchup to pretend he’s dying to trigger a some sort of flag, but Malshina isn’t that stupid. Hakase starts to some weird praying thingy about the galaxy and this summons Prism Ace, a clear Ultraman and Megaloman parody. He uses his lazer beams to explode Malshina. He then jumps away.
Malshina now fully bandaged up, that medical training helped her treat explosions. She confides in the unconscious Hatte Saburo who then places his hand on top of her’s as if he is listening. The Sentai cafe has turned into some sort of pretty pink maid cafe and Hakase is acting in that annoying Kawaii manner. She has a present for the Akibas, her forehead opens up showing a green gem that teleports them away to a bridge and locks their Z-cunes. KozKoz finds them and shows them an article with a blacked out Prism Ace that says his show is starting in the timeslot that use to belong to Sentai and Toei but is now owned by some foreign company. I would just like to point out this whole part of the story is referencing a case that happened with Ultraman’s company, Tsuburaya Productions, and a Thai company Chaiyo Productions who insisted they owned Ultraman. If you’re interested in this go check out the notes on Over-ti.me for episode 12.
Malshina and General Pain appear although it’s not really Pain but Hatte Saburo communicating though Pain’s body. Turns out there was a nurse acting as a spy and when they found out about the Sentai worlds they then used the poorly deafened Unofficial World to sneak into their timeslot. Then in the real world a half conscious Hatte was seduced into signing the paper work. Hakase is being used a as carry over character to help ease fans and the television network. It’s up to the Akibarangers to take back their world and the official heroes’ timeslot.
Luna confronts Hakase as she is only allowed to be the high school girl character and just as she’s part to show her special diamond, that sounds dirty, Nobuo and Yuko block it with an eye patch turning her into the normal Akiba Hakase. Since they can’t transform there is only one way around this, a VS movie written by Nobuo with a fleet of Aliens for the climax. It’s time to take that mane-faced jerk down.
Prism Ace kicks the Akibas out their robo so they shoot him the balls. Ace knock Hakase back into Kawaii mode and takes power from her head diamond thingy so he can use his beam attack to trap Luna and Yuko under rubble. He get’s all up him self because he’s a gaint god and they are just dorks in suits. Nobuo yacks about the super sentai spirit before going super and saving the others. Pain/Hatte appears along with Malshina with a show accurate Wolzaphone to grow Nobuo into a giant. Nobuo starts losing but that’s only because he is on the left side, once Nobuo is on the right side he starts winning because Japanese theatre. He goes golden because they want to make a figuart of that and Prism Ace is defeated. Hatte is recovered out of hospital. There is still the aliens attacking and accidentally Hakase launches suicide attack flags. The Akiba say goodbye to the audience before the sun burns them up.
Episode 13 was a clipshow that makes two this season where the first season had an extra episode just because it was popular and didn’t have enough time to make a full episode they knew they had 13 episodes in this season. The first episode was at least there to bring you back in and give the new story that latter became fake. This episode should have been used so episode 11 and 12 felt like more than last minute plot dumps. The ending with their ghosts was interesting, but destroyed any impact they death caused.
GRADES
Episode 12 on it’s own would have been a good v-cinema or special but as the conclusion to the whole series it just feels out of place. The plot just feels convoluted like they where writing the show with out an ending in mind when compared to the first season that felt well paced and kept the plot moving. Season 2 felt like they where pulling stuff out their butts for the last few episodes just to come up with something. The whole Ultraman company plot just feels likes something Toei executives would find funny. To me season 1 was lightning in the bottle it was something they couldn’t recreate, it was the perfect chemistry and the right time to make the show even the makers didn’t understand what was special about it. Episode 12 – 2/5 Episode 13 –1/5
