Come on ride the train, it’s my review of Ressha Sentai ToQGer Station 44: ‘To Pleiades Shore‘!
Everything seems to be back to normal on the Rainbow Line, the ToQGers getting their grub on, but Akira is still uneasy. Who can blame him, though, shit went down and the keystone of their team went darkside for a second there.
Wagon’s even finding traces of it as The Conductor and Ticket come in to tell them that The President has called them all back to the Hyper Terminal.
Hikari’s got a Bad Feeling about this.
Meanwhile, at the Hall of Downed Disco, our good pals, Swedish Dark and Italian Dark discuss Zed’s fixation on light some more and him not just going ahead and consuming Grita and Right when he could through a series of flashbacks.
When they arrive, The President meets them all and blasts them with his magical oscillating fan.
Right has so much darkness blow off of him, he’s like Pigpen from Peanuts.
They all have a chit-chat after the opening credits and talk this out. Akira talks about what he saw the other day, and basically Right has a case of Zed’s Darkness. It all boils down to why Right ended up on a Darkliner when everyone went to the Rainbow Line back when this whole thing began, but before they get to the bottom of this, The Conductor calls them with a message from Grita.
Wanting to help them, she arrives at Hyper Terminal and tells them she’s going to go with them to Castle Terminal, using Schwarz’s Darkliner to smash through the wall of darkness.
Grita doesn’t want anyone else from either side to die, so she’s come up with a plan that has a peaceful outcome. Everyone’s super pumped to go with her plan, except that everyone besides Right thinks that Right should probably stay behind.
The President pops up out of literally nowhere and agrees, because they don’t know why Right has darkness and honestly, being around more darkness is dangerous.
Right tries to reason with him, that maybe if he is around Zed, they’ll be able figure it out.
Even Grita thinks he should stay because of that one time when Zed almost absorbed Right, she sensed darkness from Right, which is why she manifested and kirakira pushed Right away.
Now everyone else is set about him not going, but Right is feeling very attacked!
Literally. Akira, Hikari, and Tokatti tie him up, take away the red express, and tell him that this is for his own good as The President drags him away as the others watch.
The rest of the ToQGers solemnly transform and board their trains.
The President and the others wish them off and Right serves us some inchworm realness as Grita and the ToQGers prepare the trains to leave.
They all take off, Grita taking point as they near the junction point into Castle Terminal, the kids remembering who they’re doing this for as they head on down into the black.
After a rocky decent, they see Pleiades’ Shore below them.
Their intrusion doesn’t get past Mork and Nero and they send out the castle guardian as a welcome party.
The castle guardian rushes out to meet them. Akira volunteers to give it their regards, going Hyper (for the first time ever!) and breaking away from the group to take it on.
Build Ressha becomes Build Dai-Oh and clashes with the castle guardian, falling from the sky like a sack of taters as the others pass overhead.
Zed, over at the secret base, sees the train of trains in the sky and fires upon it, thinking Right’s onboard, right?
The blast knocks the train gang out of the sky, landing them in some ruins. Grita points the way to Castle Terminal, but unfortunately for them, the way is blocked by a murder of Crows.
Deciding that using the line change method is the best, Tokatti transforms and takes the lead, while the others protect Grita and inch along behind him.
Simultaneously, Akira’s not doing that hot against the castle guardian, his attacks being swatted away like a fly on a summer day.
Back to the others, they’re starting to make some progress and Hikari throws the red express for Tokatti’s first line change, but in the grand tradition of all reds not doing what the fuck they are told, Right intercepts the pass.
We then find out that he got away from the ever vigilant eyes of the Rainbow Line Crew and snuck onboard the red express just as they left the station.
The others start to tell him off for being a dumb and not listening to them, but Right tells them that he needs to be there because they’re finally almost home and he feels like he and Zed really need to have a chit-chat because he saw him at their clubhouse.
Suddenly, Right takes off like a bat out of hell into the dark and Kagura thinks he’s acting hella weird, but there’s no time for that because there’s still the plan.
Hikari takes over the line changes, and they sally forth, sending Grita on ahead.
Akira’s still getting his ass kicked by the castle guardian as Right rushes to the treehouse.
He remembers running away from the others as the darkness took their town.
Zed comes out to meet him, they have a vague conversation about what happened that day and Zed maybe kinda thinks that Right was the shining he saw, but to be totes sure, he should just consume him, you know, to be 100% positive.
When Zed stretches his hand out, this triggers a memory of a hand reaching out to Right and obviously, Right backs up and goes to transform.
And this is when everything goes horribly wrong.
Cut back to Castle Terminal, Nero’s getting antsy. Grita should have stormed the Hall of the Downed Disco anytime now. The room starts rumbling and Grita’s plan is revealed! She’s in the bowels of the Castle and intends to sink the whole thing back into the inky black depths of the most metal darkness.
The Toqgers take out the final Crows and get to a vantage point to see the Castle slowly rumble.
Things are looking good for Akira again as he figures his way around the castle guardian’s defense and unleashes Hyper Flying Rolling Bucket Break upon its head, destroying the creature.
As Right is engulfed in darkness, Zed most definitely knows that Right is the shining he saw that day and is confused as to how Right has darkness now.
The darkness dissipates and a glittering, dark ToQ-1 is revealed!
FINAL REVIEW
So, Right’s gone all dark on us? The suit looks super cool! It’s honestly too early still to talk about Dark ToQ-1, so check back with me in Station 45.
But let’s talk about Grita for a moment. And I know you are saying, “But, Amber, you talk about Grita every damn time she shows up!” and 1) you’re right and 2) because she’s awesome and important and 3) hush. Grita has been through so much shit this series. She’s forced into an arranged marriage, she absorbs her husband and turns hella bad, she’s then taken over by that absorbed husband, her mother frees her only to be murdered in front of her seconds later, and moments after that, the guy she was in love with all along actually does care about her, and sacrifices himself to save her.
And after all of this, Grita doesn’t take the grimdark path, like would totally be within her wheelhouse to do, no, she just wants to end all of this peacefully without anymore bloodshed on either side, to the point of working with people she’s on the opposite side of the whole time. Dang, she’s a good character.
I am so glad that Zed finally said that Right was the shining he saw back in the day, because I was personally getting a bit tired of hit being not-so-subtly hinted at for practically ever. This is a trend that I’m catching with this series, stretching out these twists for way too long. I’m not saying that twists are bad, it’s just when it takes so long to be fully revealed, it kinda takes away the twistiness of it.
Props to everyone for trying to keep Right out of trouble. Even though that blew up in your faces.
I give this episode 3.5 stolen pieces of tempura out of 5.
This is Amber/pan2dapan leaving the station!
You can find me @pan2dapan on Twitter/Tumblr/Instagram/Facebook
See you next time!