Let’s that take that midnight train to my review of Ressha Sentai ToQGer Station 45: ‘The Home You Left‘!
Continuing off from the end of the last episode, the Dark Side of the Force is strong with Right and he transforms into Dark ToQ-1, the blackest and most glittery of the ToQGers.
Zed gets pissy about Right not being sparkly anymore and fights him.
Meanwhile, Grita gets the gears rolling on Castle Terminal. Mork and Nero go to stop her, but are met by Hyper ToQ 6-gou in the doorway. Not fucking around, he grabs them and jumps out of the window.
Pleiades’ Shore emerges with a rainbow from underneath and slowly the darkness is lifted and the town resumes the Star Festival like they haven’t been in a shadow dimension for a year. Right’s mother wonders where he went to, but forgets who he his almost instantly.
The sun rises, birds are singing, and the ToQGers are walking through the forest, a serene scene until Right and Zed crash through it.
The gang are wondering why Right is black when Akira, Mork, and Nero show up behind them.
Zed and Right grunt some before both resorting to using darkness kamehameha waves at each other. Right fires a Kaioken times 10, but Mork jumps in, barely deflecting the blast. She summons a Darkliner and the three make a hasty retreat.
Drained, Right passes out and untransforms. The others jump in to help him but Akira shoos them away because darkness and carries him back.
Flashback to that day again, as the darkness settles over the town, Right runs away from the others and as he reaches back to his friends, we see hand grab him, then they are all spirited away and this is basically how Right ended up on a Darkliner and the others on the Rainbow Line.
Speaking of the Rainbow Line, The President lays it out that Zed and Right infected each other that day and Right has had darkness growing inside of him like athlete’s foot and now that darkness is a fully grown fungus that has manifested itself in the form of Black ToQ-1.
Apparently that shining jibba jabba that Zed’s been talkin this whole time has actually been about Right’s imagination. This is most likely the reason a lot of things happened but The President isn’t 100% on everything.
The Gruesome Twosome and their King come back to Castle Terminal. Once there, Zed goes straight to Grita. They talk about what she’s doing. She tells him that she wanted to take him back to the deep darkness and that she felt sorry for him.
Hikari, Mio, Kagura, and Tokatti go to the beach. They talk about how even though the town is back and everything seems okay, it still feels unreal. They worry about Right and Hikari points out that since they’re still grown up, they can’t go home anyway. Kagura points out that at least their loved ones are okay, so the others take solace in that.
Right watches them from the lounge, wondering if everything is actually okay. The President assures him that it will be, but as long as they’re ToQGers, no one in town will remember them. He goes to leave but Right stops him and asks if there’s anyway the others can go back to being kids.
Grita explains that she feels sorry for Zed because he’s not able to steal, create, and nurture his own shine. He figures that she’s probably right and, because he couldn’t take her shine is why he wanted her so much. He shifts into his Shadow form and deciding to embrace his darkness, cuts Grita down.
Mork and Nero hear Grita’s scream in the throne room before Zed comes back in, telling them to take the castle to the surface world because he’s gonna cover it in darkness. They express their elation for Zed’s decision and they rally the troops and raise the castle.
Back at the beach, Right joins his friends. He asks them for their passes, telling them it’s part of a plan The President’s got. They give them to him, Hikari a bit reluctantly, beginning to question Right when Akira runs up, telling them that Castle Terminal is surfacing. Grita failed.
Right takes Hikari’s pass as they’re all distracted. Ticket announces the train’s departure, Right runs away from them, turning around to tell them that they can become kids again! With tears in his eyes he runs from them all the way back to the Rainbow Line, getting on and the doors closing behind him.
The others bang on the doors trying to get him to let them on, Right gives their passes to Wagon and says his goodbyes to them. He wants them to be kids again, play at the Secret Base, be with their families because he can’t go back.
The train pulls away and The Conductor ignores everyone’s pleas for them to stop. Wagon puts their passes into the furnace, breaking the magic and reverting Hikari, Tokatti, Kagura, and Mio into children as they chase the train, sobbing. Right watches as the train leaves the station, crying as well, remembering when they made up the rules for the Secret Base.
Akira catches up to the kids and holds them back until they forget. They stop crying suddenly, wondering who this dude holding them is.
Right solemnly goes back into the lounge, imagining seeing his friends sitting at the booth calling to him.
Escorting them back to the town proper, Akira watches the kids run ahead of him, saying their goodbyes to each other before going their separate ways and wonders if this is really for the best.
The Conductor offers Right a chance to go see his family while they wait for Akira, but he deters the question by snatching Ticket off The Conductor’s hand. Not letting this deter them, they tell Right that it won’t be a problem if he just watches.
Right puts Ticket back and refuses to go. He gets into his cockpit and thinks about his family, going on without him. He vows to never let the darkness get to them again, even though he knows that he wrote them promising he’d be back home soon.
He goes on without Akira to Castle Terminal, Mork, Nero and a legion of Crows waiting to meet him..
Akira is at the Secret Base when The Conductor calls to tell him that Right left without him, that lying liarpants.
Right takes on all the Crows alone, except now he can’t imagine victory. At home, his mother pricks her finger on a plant, which is bad luck, I guess.
Zed sits alone in the throne room talking about how he’s going to goth up the whole world. Right transforms into Dark ToQ 1 and relies on that kamehameha darkness wave again.
FINAL REVIEW
I was expecting more…evil with Dark ToQ 1, to be honest. Hear me out, the set up and the build made me feel like Dark ToQ 1 was going to be more of a big deal? Yes, yes, Right’s been infected by darkness, etc., but it would have been interesting to see him veer off the rails and go rogue. Though there are still a couple of episodes left for this to happen, it’s pretty unlikely.
Right’s actions concerning his friends in this episode I think have been the greatest character development for him in this entire series. In my opinion, Right has been one of the weaker links in the main cast, his head in the clouds and just leading everyone on along. It’s good to see how he reacts to having to sacrifice things he wants the most so his friends can go back to their lives and families.
Grita. Yes, Grita again. Damnit, what has been the one thing I’ve been harping on about since I started reviewing this show? That’s right, I hope Grita survives. Yeah, well, fuck you Zed. (But now that I’ve said this, Grita will come back and prove me wrong and that’s everything I want.)
I give this episode 3.9 black glittery spandex suits out of 5.
This is Amber/pan2dapan leaving the station!
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See you next time!