Come on, vámonos! It’s time for my review of Ressha Sentai ToQGer Station 42: ‘Words For You‘!
Everyone’s docked at the Hyper Express Terminal and it’s cleaning day over on the Rainbow Line. It’s all gross after Zed crashed their party, even leaving the ToQGer’s clothes all dusty.
Ticket complains that the kids should be helping out, but The Conductor let them go because they’re all a little fucked up because of what happened lately and need to have some fun because they’re still children, in case we’ve all forgotten.
It’s more of a wake than a party with the ToQGers. They have all the trappings of a serious rager. Karaoke. Snacks. Balloons. But they’re just sitting around moping until Akira bursts inHe’s been put in charge of fun for the party, he even put on eyeliner and glitter, you know how hard glitter is to get off, it’s not called the herpes of make-up for nothing, so let’s get to singing because even though the junction point is still active, there is so much darkness blocking the town that you would be destroyed trying to get to it, so you might as well have some fun until we can come up with a plan or something.
The kids are having no part of this, even with Akira’s quick-change Elvis-ish costume, stopping him from performing his theme song because they have to try to get through the junction.
They all rush to leave, but Akira stops them. Right wants to do something pretty risky and probably fatal and Akira tells them how dangerous it is and that he’s not going to let them. The others express their desire to go anyway, but Mio, the voice of reason as always, agrees with Akira. It’s taken this long to find Pleiades’ Shore, how about we not do something idiotic and fuck all of that up?
Right agrees with her, and a relieved Akira suggests that they all go back to the party and get their sing on. As he passes Mio, he thanks her for taking his side because he’s pretty sure he couldn’t have taken the others and would have gotten his little orange ass beat.
As everyone starts to walk back, Tokatti lingers and notices that Mio actually wanted to go to the junction, but because she’s a freakin Mother Teresa, she did what was best for everyone. Tokatti is knocked out of his train of thought by Wagon’s bangin booty as she calls them back to the lounge for a change of party plans.
When they’re back in the lounge, she hands them cute stationary and she and The Conductor tell them that they should intensely write how they feel to their loved ones in letters! Mio asks how they’re going to reach their families, Wagon tells her IMAGINATION and Ticket tells them to just frickin write.
Akira goes off on a mission Wagon gives to him while the rest of the team settles in to write. Unfortunately, they’ve all got a mad case of writer’s block.
Everyone remembers something about the night the lights went out in Georgia Pleiades’ Shore and it brings everyone even further down. Wagon hopes food will help them feel better and they’ll get to writing.
Mio remembers making lunch for her dad and gets bummed out about it until she notices that Kagura has started to cry, so she sets her own feelings aside and comforts her.
Tokatti, noticing Mio sacrificing herself again and, remembering their lunches from a field trip they took, runs off to do something about it.
Right finally decides what to write to his family – becoming a ToQGer and how they’re gonna save the town. The others follow suit and we get a recap of how they became ToQGers, their journey so far, meeting Akira, and learning to use the power of IMAGINATION.
Checking in with Zed, yep, he’s still moping around. Then he does this weird thing with his darkness and suddenly some comes off of Right. Weird.
Mio gets a call from Tokatti asking her to meet him outside. He’s standing on the riverbank holding a bag. What’s in the bag, man? Oh, it’s just some onigiri because he remembered that she told him her dad made them for her.
Tokatti tells her that her letter is to her dad telling him not to worry about her and that she should think of herself more because keeping all her feelings bottled up is bad m’kay. She tells him how much she misses her pops and they sit together while she eats the onigiri and cries.
Right makes sure he tells his family about the trains, the choo choo, ride it, woo woo!
Akira checks back in to tell them that the junction is about to disappear and Wagon tells everyone to hurry and finish their letters as Mio and Tokatti come back inside.
They finish and meet up with Akira. Wagon’s plan was to use the Post Express to shoot their letters into the junction point, making it to their respective ohana.
Out of the blue, Grandpa Express (which is my new fave name for Diesel forever) shows up with The Conductor and his surprise- A performance by Ise Daiki The Rainbow Line Maintenance Team!
They begin performing the second verse of the theme and the ToQGers gather around Renketsu Bazooka and fire Rainbow Rush: Postal Service into the junction as it closes.
The post scatters into sparkling pieces and falls onto Pleiades’ Shore, which Zed happens to see.
The junction point disappears and they all resolve to make to make imagination reality.
They go back to watch the performance and everyone is surprised by AKIRA’S AMAZING HARMONICA SOLO! He literally harmonicas circles around Ise Daiki and we get a glimpse of how much everyone’s changed over the course of the year.
The ToQGers and Wagon get stage to join in the song, someone sets off a party cannon and Grandpa Express takes off into the sunset.
We’re not done yet, nope. This wouldn’t be a New Year’s episode if we didn’t get everyone in traditional Japanese garb. They take some time to visit a shrine to wish for good luck.
Mio apologizes to Tokatti for her keeping him from writing much to his family, but he’s fine with it since his parents are probably absent hippies. Mio asks him if he’s sure he’s not pulling a her and he denies it, telling her sometimes taking care of yourself means taking care of others. Someone watches Mister Rogers.
Mio thinks about Grita and Schwarz and wonders aloud if that’s like love. They both flip out and others catch up with them to finish up at the shrine so they can get back and get some grub.
Final Review
Another recap episode. Basically. This series is pretty clever at recapping while at the same time giving us new information.
It’s nice to see Mio get more character development and have her background fleshed out. And with her being the daughter of a heavily-hinted at single parent, her mother hen-ing of the others is routine for her. It also seems as though they might be hinting at a blossoming romance between Tokatti and Mio, but I hope that his actions are just being concerned about his friend and not something with an ulterior motive on his part. I am getting attached to the idea that Tokatti is super observant about his friends and isn’t afraid to step in when he feels that they need him to.
There wasn’t a monster this episode, which was a nice reprieve for viewers and the characters after the Christmas trilogy, the letters being a salve for how hurt emotionally the ToQGers were.
The appearance of Ise Daiki and the band was a fun surprise, especially when Akira and the others joined in.
There was a lot to enjoy in this episode. Akira in costumes again. Akira’s mad harmonica skills. Ise Daiki. Everyone in kimono.
I give this episode 4.9 EPIC HARMONICA SOLOS out of 5.
This is Amber/pan2dapan leaving the station!
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See you next time!