Everybody, let’s go! It’s time for my review of Ressha Sentai ToQGer Station 43: ‘The Unopening Door‘!
In the bowels of Castle Terminal, Mork and Nero, still very much alive, regroup. Nero worries about their safety and Mork brushes him off because honestly if Zed actually wanted them ghosted, he would have done it already, he just got a headrush from all that new darkness earlier. They go up to the throne room and find their emperor hobo-ing up on the floor.
Nero gushes about Zed’s new power and Zed tells him to shut his mouth or he’ll do it for him. Mork asks if Zed is still all about that bass shine, but Zed mopes about how he’s never gonna get it, never gonna get it even though he still wants it. Mork has a theory about why he joneses so much for that sparkly stuff, but like a true scientist, she’s gotta test it out first.
Suddenly Kagura is in Pleiades’ Shore? Excited to be home, the first thing she does is book it back home, a cute little bistro her family owns. Even though they’re closed, she runs inside, her parents prepping for the day. She hugs her parents, but they don’t recognize her and shoo her out. She tries desperately to get their attention in vain.
It was only a dream! Kagura wakes up in the lounge, sitting with The Conductor, Ticket, and Akira under a kotatsu who are still sleeping. Wagon comes in and tells her sleeping out there will make her sick, when the train rattles with the force of an explosion and stops, waking the others.
Everyone rushes to the windows to see that a Shadow is responsible for the ruckus and Hikari gets the others on the horn, telling them to stop getting fit, there’s something that needs hit.
Hikari, Kagura, and Akira go out to meet Dollhouse Shadow. After exchanging pleasantries, a firing squad of Crows starts shooting at them. They dodge the barrage and transform. Akira tells the others to be careful because he’s never seen this Shadow before. It easily evades their attacks, even getting them to attack each other a couple of times before luring Kagura closer to his dollhouse, and sucking her in, pulling Hikari in too.
The others show up just a little too late, but still face off with the Shadow, it kicking Akira in the swimsuit area before leaping over a fence and absconding with the captives.
Kagura and Hikari wake up inside of a fancy house. They run through it trying to open all of the doors and windows but they’re all locked, even going so far as transforming to open one, finding out that it’s useless and the house follows Shadow Town rules about transforming.
They go back upstairs and try where they came in though. It’s unlocked! Except that Dollhouse Shadow is right outside and he’s bigger than them! He shakes the house, throwing them around, sending Kagura’s shoe flying into his face and force of the shaking knocking them unconscious.
Dollhouse Shadow then sets the Crows on building a nice tower of wood for a fire while Mork watches. She then asks Zed about the town Castle Terminal is sitting on. He doesn’t really remember, but she tells them that it was definitely Zed’s darkness that consumed the town, and that she’s pretty sure that it’s the ToQGer’s town as well.
Back on the Rainbow Line, spirits are kinda low. Mio and Tokatti wonder if the kidnapping was Zed’s plan, but Right doesn’t think so. Akira figures it probs Mork and Nero who were most definitely not killed by Zed that did it. Right resolves to get them back, but in such a way that it makes Akira’s spidey-sense go off, but he doesn’t say anything.
They’re interrupted by a special message from Dollhouse Shadow. He’s giving them 5 minutes to come get their homies or he’s gonna start a bonfire with the dollhouse as the kindling.
Right rushes off with the others trailing behind. A squad of Crows confronts him. Unfortunately for them, Right is not fucking around and fights his way through them, transforming along the way.
Kagura and Hikari wake up, and open the window again, but are forced back and the window taped shut.
Ring around the rosey, who gives a shit about a time limit, this dollhouse is going on the fire early.
The room starts to get hot as Hikari tries to figure out how to escape and the other ToQGers see the smoke coming from on top of the mountain. Hikari can see out the window just a little and sees Kagura’s normal sized shoe on the ground and has a brain blast. Now they just have to tie all of this string together…
As they tie the string, Hikari asks Kagura why she’s been acting weird that day and she tells him about her dream and her worries about their families not knowing who they were when they got home.
Smoke starts filling the room as they rush to finish tying the string to Hikari’s kendama. Hikari tells Kagura that the reason his kendama is important to him is that his grandma gave it to him. His relationship with his mom and grandma made him want to be strong enough to protect them, so suddenly being an adult didn’t bother him, because even though they may not recognize him, he’d still be able to look out for them.
As fire starts to enter the room, Hikari tells Kagura to hold onto him, they’ve only got one shot, and she tells him that she’s going to be strong like him to protect her family too.
The whole stack of wood/dollhouse explodes just as the rest of the ToQGers make it to the top of the mountain and fight off the few Crows in their way.
Distraught by the loss of their friends, they start to grieve. To Akira’s surprise, Right emits a little bit of darkness as even Zed and Mork watch from a safe distance and holy crap tense moment…
Until Hikari and Kagura appear transformed and unharmed! They explain that Hikari used his kendama to pull them out of the house just as it exploded and realized they could do it when he saw Kagura’s shoe.
Everyone is relieved and Hikari and Kagura take a little revenge of their own on Dollhouse Shadow before Right goes Hyper and uses ToQ Last Stop Crash to turn him into splinters.
As always, it’s time for Dollhouse Shadow to enter the big leagues. Super Duper ToQ Dai-Oh is summoned.
Dollhouse Shadow tries to attack, but his strikes do no good against Super Duper ToQ Dai-Oh, and he evades Super Duper ToQ Dai-Oh’s. Seeing his opportunity, he uses another model dollhouse to suck the ToQGers into, but is pulled inside with them.
Now that both of them are inside the dollhouse, the ToQGers take the offensive, sliding down the stairs to attack.
A couple of parries into the fight, Dollhouse Shadow enlists a suit of armor to fight for him, but is made quick work of with Super Duper ToQ Super Cannon.
Their sights now back onto Dollhouse Shadow, Imagination Express is unleashed upon him and he and the dollhouse are destroyed, only leaving our heroes behind.
As the ToQGer’s celebrate their victory, Mork tells Zed that Right is the reason he is so in love with shining.
Back in Super Duper ToQ Dai-Oh, Akira’s spidey-sense is screaming, because he knows what he saw, but he hopes he didn’t see what he saw.
FINAL REVIEW
Sometimes you can tell when it’s the calm before the storm. We’ve been building up some of these plots for so long, and you know the pot is going to boil over soon. That’s basically Right in this episode.
How about Hikari and Kagura in this episode? I’m tickled that they finally get some quality character development for once instead of being the usual background for Right, Tokatti, Akira, and even Mio. Granted, it’s still not as much as Right, but at least we know more about Hikari now than just being a cool-type guy who plays with a kendama and at being a detective.
I really loved how Kagura let her insecurities about being reunited with her family and how they could possibly reject her show and Hikari didn’t belittle them. How he showed her his own and it showed Kagura that she can be strong and scared.
I give this episode 3.7 boots to the head out of 5.
This is Amber/pan2dapan leaving the station!
You can find me @pan2dapan on Twitter/Tumblr/Instagram/Facebook
See you next time!