This episode was strangely awesome to me and that takes me by surprise. I absolutely loved the Gokaiger counterpart to this episode because it was just so ridiculously ridiculous!
Well, the US Counterpart did not disappoint in that regard! We got only a few Ranger Changes this time around but neither of them disappointed!
Plus, we get a status update on Jake & Gia….well kinda.
Jake’s Soccer Skills: I loved the beginning sequences of this episode where Jake and Noah screw around with the soccer balls. Mr. Burley got hit in the head just before the theme, so that was a thing. But, what was most impressive were Jake’s ball skills and being able to drop kick them into the trashcans! I am pretty confident that these scenes were CGI, but it was still pretty cool to watch!
Original Villain Footage: Much of the Villain footage aboard the Armada is actually original footage not shot for Gokaiger. This means that the team for Super Megaforce had to recreate sets just for this episode (and perhaps future episodes). I usually look forward to original footage with the Villain sets and suits because it could imply that the production team may actually use them originally. Sadly, this was not the case with most of Samurai and Megaforce.
I loved watching the newer villain scenes and I am severely hoping for Vrak to appear on the helm of the Armada soon!
The Mighty Morphin’ Change: This morph was so much better than the first morph into the MMPR Rangers during the first-half of Super Megaforce! While, again, we do have to blame the Sentai footage for such scenes, but MMPR looked a lot more badass in this episode including the use of the Power Weapons! Yes, let’s make one thing clear; the Black Ranger has always used the Power Ax as a cannon. In Zyuranger it’s called the Howling Cannon and was once called the Cosmic Cannon in MMPR.
I just wanted to clear that up, there seemed to be confusion in some places! But this footage was much better than the first set of Zyuranger Change footage. Not only was the individual use of the Power Weapons incredibly cool, but Troy’s use of the Power Sword on Invidious was amazing!
Trash Can Scene: I was strangely intrigued by the fact that the writers and producers chose to keep this scene in. It was even more strange that they chose to dub over the Japanese woman. Surprisingly, it worked. Normally I would be totally against this sort of thing but it actually gave me flashbacks to the Rita days of MMPR where her voice didn’t match the mouth. Plus actually watching Invidious in the trash was just too much, plus his hilarious random comments. I loved it.
Jake and Levira: The hilarity that ensued with the physical interactions between Jake and Levira was amazing! It was actually what I was expecting but actually entertaining! I cannot tell you how much I laughed when Levira was attempting to protect Jake and was almost dancing with him as she swung him around her body. But, what was the most hilarious part was the fact that you could totally tell that the body double was clearly a dummy. That made it all the more funny and I cannot tell you how much I laughed at this.
I could also never get enough of hearing Levira call out “Jakey”
The Turbo Change: Surprisingly, I loved this change. I was a little weary about it because I thought the producers would be lazy enough to include much of the Carranger scenes which were super goofy. Luckily, it seemed as if they edited it perfectly for what they had.
The shift into Turbo worked, minus the fact that once again the theme song never played. I loved that the roll call utilized each Ranger and that the final attack was slightly less awkward than anticipated, even though we saw the Rangers attack with random vehicles HAHA.
Invidious and Levira: As much as I loved this episode of Gokaiger I thought that the surprising random love that Levira and Invidious shared at the end of the episode was handled very well. I am a huge sucker for randomness and the big announcement of love and the pink animated hearts actually made me like this episode more! Sadly, I did miss the “I RAABU YOU!” thing which was highly popular during Gokaiger!
However, it was cute and enough for this filler episode!
Jake and Gia: I was so happy to see that Jake and Gia were actually making headway during this episode. Several times you could see that Gia was a little miffed when Levira had a thing for Jake. Not to mention the fact that Emma kept bugging at Gia and reminding her that they have a crush! Yes, Emma. We know. We know very well!
However, It was true to form at the end that Jake wasn’t able to ask her out on date. That seems to be the central theme with Jake that he never really gets what he wants. It’s shown with the ice cream, but mostly with Gia. He was so close to asking her out! So close. So Close.
Final Thoughts
All in all this episode was pretty entertaining. I actually laughed a few times while I was watching it simply because of what was going on on the screen!
Normally, I laugh at how ridiculous the premise or dialogue is, while I was doing that as well, I was actually laughing at what should be funny.
Normally you would hear me rant about how this filler is wasting time but this filler was actually story progressing. We got a better MMPR change, a first shift into Turbo and a little story progression with Jake and Gia. Plus all of the original footage made this episode actually a decent filler.
Scores:
Story: 7/10
Action: 9/10
Monsters: 7/10
All Together: 7.6/10
