Let’s hop on this wild ride for the last time with my double review of Ressha Sentai ToQGer: Stations 46 and 47: ‘The Final Destination‘ and ‘That Which Shines‘!
Picking up where we left off in Station 45, Right makes quick work of the Crows, while Wagon, Ticket, and The Conductor worry about how much darkness he has.
Right calls out a challenge to Zed, who sits on his throne in the tippy-top of Castle Terminal. Mork and Nero try to step to him, but are like brutally rebuffed.
As he advances to the Castle, Right suddenly loses strength and is forced to his knees. He tries to get up, but his body is not handling the darkness so well. Mork and Nero attack him.
He knocks them back again, throwing Rail Slasher at Zed, barely missing his head. Zed mocks him and throws it back at him harder, throwing him back. Like a bad record, Mork and Nero go to deliver the final blow, when Hyper ToQ 6 shows up in the nick of time to deflect.
Akira distracts the nobles and spirits Right away to the safety of the Rainbow Line. Right wants to go back out and fight, but they make him stay and rest. He tells them about the darkness growing inside of him and that time is running out and that the town is going to fall back into darkness if they don’t hurry.
Akira tells him to chill out bruh, they’re going back, but he has to rest. Right asks if everyone made it home safely, and is glad to hear that they did.
Meanwhile the ToQ Babies are heading home from school. They talk about watching the stars from the clubhouse and start singing their jam as they pass Right’s family walking home.
Like a Taylor Swift song, it gets into Right’s younger brother’s ear and he starts sing it. His mother asks if anyone’s sang that song at home, but no one remembers and Mom decides to shake it off shake it off for now to get ready for the star festival.
The song carries us back to the Rainbow Line, where Akira is playing it on his hillbilly jamstick. Right imagines all of his friends on the train and realizes how empty and big the lounge is without his squad. Akira sits down next to him.
He makes Right pinky swear to not leave him behind this time, damnit, there is no double standard here, buckaroo.
Mork and Nero go back to the throne room where Mork is just ecstatic to see that it is filled with darkness, let me tell you, just jazzed. She asks about when he’s going to unleash it upon the world and Zed is like you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. This obviously gets Nero psyched up and he vows revenge on the Rainbow Line, not wasting any time to get in his Darkliner and take off.
Right’s feeling better after stuffing his face, so he and Akira decide to head out to Castle Terminal. But not before the Rainbow Line crew comes in and
declares they’re coming too. And because of Right, they’re not afraid of the darkness anymore and who doesn’t love a road trip, right? They head ’em up and move ’em on out.
ToQGer Junior is having a grand ol’ time at the secret base and Mio offers everyone a piece of chocolate. After giving everyone a piece, she has one left for some reason. They shrug it off and eat their candy.
At the temple, Right’s mom sees a boy run past her and has a fuzzy flashback of Right. That inkling she had earlier just keeps getting bigger…
Our heroes race toward Castle Terminal, but are ambushed by Nero and a group of Darkliners. Akira volunteers to take him on, both trains transforming into their fighting modes and going at it.
Right makes it back to Castle Terminal and Zed comes out to meet him, making Mork stay inside the castle. He wants her to stay inside for who knows what.
Zed attempts to taunt Right about the loss of his shine, but Right brushes it off and flips it back on him because honestly, it’s better to fight fire with fire.
Tactics are changed and Zed tells Right that Grita was shining until the end, which, just as planned, sets Right off and they power up and fight. Zed has the upper hand here, Right is filled with darkness and can’t imagine victory.
Akira is still battling Nero, and not doing that hot until he summons Police and Shield Express, which seem to have an effect.
Right is getting trounced, but Wagon, Ticket, and The Conductor charge Zed with the train head-on, knocking him back, but he ultimately tosses them aside like bones at a wing eating contest. They lament that they can’t help more without the other ToQGers, but they’re kids and don’t remember shit.
Wagon reveals that it’s not impossible for the others to return to adulthood. It was too sad for them to actually forget, so they buried their memories and Akira hid a clue at the treehouse for them.
This explains why the younger ToQGer had been feeling like a chair with three legs. They find the clue, a set of pictures of them as adults. They remember Right and being ToQGers! They want to get back to their pal, but last episode that Wagon burnt their passes, they realize that their original passes were just their KISS Army Secret Base membership cards.
As we cut back and forth to Right and Akira still simultaneously getting their asses kicked six ways to Sunday, The kids use the pictures as their new tickets back on the Rainbow Line and to their friends.
They finish and imagine joining their friends and the Rainbow Line shows up to get them. As the train stops, they all regain their adult forms, board the train, and take off!
Zed has Right on the ropes and tells him that he’s got something wicked awesome to show him…Castle Terminal can become a monster and hey look it can also coat everything in darkness.
The ToQgers rush the darkness, crashing their way through as Akira is finally able to beat Nero’s Super Darkliner Robo.
Pleiades’ Shore is again plunged into darkness and Akira stumbles out of his fallen train. Outside, he goes to the edge of the darkness thunderdome and puts an ear to the rails to hear for the Rainbow Line trains. Hearing nothing he panics.
Right wakes up in pitch darkness. Zed approaches him to rub that salt into his wounds one last time before leaving Right to wallow in defeat in that darkness he succumbed to.
Meanwhile, Mork’s excitement about the transformed Castle Terminal is at about an eleven.
Going straight into our final episode, Right’s still wallowing in the darkness. Hearing a whistle and turning to look behind him, he sees that his friends have come to get him.
Picking him up and dragging him inside of the train, Right is pretty shocked to see his friends, especially since the last time he saw them, they were about 9 years old.
They were able to make it back because of their makeshift tickets. Even though they got to go home, it wasn’t worth it if they couldn’t remember anything, so they all sacrificed their childhoods to get their friend and memories back and no, Right, you don’t get to make that decision for everyone else.
Akira searches frantically for a sign that the others are still okay. Finally finding one, he is confronted by Nero. Akira declares that the Rainbow Line is
where he’ll live (OMG OMG OMG) and transforms, charging Nero.
Back in the lounge, the gang sits around in the dark brainstorming on what to do now that they’ve got Right back. A light catches Right’s attention and he looks out to see what it is, the others joining.
It’s a lantern from the Star Festival. One that Right’s family made in particular because they felt like someone was missing, but couldn’t figure out who, so they made a lantern for them anyway. All of that twinkle, twinkle nonsense clued her in.
Their feelings of wanting to see their missing person cause all of the lanterns lining the steps of the temple to light, expanding past the temple, into the sky, and up to the ToQgers, its light being the shining Zed saw, for reals this time though.
The lights race up higher and become rails for the Rainbow Line, re-energizing the train and giving it a way back out of the Shadow Town. Outside, Akira is knocked down by Nero, and as he’s about to strike again, the rails they’re fighting on glow. Akira rolls out of the way just as the train bursts out of the darkness, striking Nero like that school bus struck Regina George.
Behind it, the darkness dissolves, the town resuming their celebration. The Rainbow Line soars high up into the sky, over a rainbow, before joining with the Support Expresses, to charge right at the Castle Terminal monster.
With their imagination power soaring, they ram into the monster several times, utterly destroying it, Mork barely getting Zed out of there, because he was just too thunderstuck by all of that shining to move the fuck out of the way.
They are joined on the ground by Nero, and the ToQGers come to face them. Right realizes that trying to fight darkness with darkness just wasn’t right and that they’re going to prove that imaginations will always be more powerful than darkness.
After transforming, it’s time for the final battle. Making quick work of a group of Crows, they split up, Mork and Nero, bringing them to the edge of defeat.
Using the Coupling Bazooka in conjunction with the Beacon Breaker, the ToQGers fire Beacon Rainbow Rush at Zed, almost destroying him.
In a Hail Mary move, Mork and Nero, nearly dead themselves, offer their darkness to Zed. He grouses about them starting to shine before absorbing them, the combined darkness so powerful it knocks everyone out of their transformations.
Except for Right. He and Zed square off, Zed clearly more powerful than him, knocking him to the ground.
The others realize they can also give their powers to Right, so they give him their Expresses with the power of imagination. Right line changes through each one, especially for the first time with Akira’s power before using the Hyper Express, and in a shining wave of light becoming ToQ-1 Rainbow, his final form.
Dual wielding the Rail Slasher and the Beacon Breaker, ToQ-1 Rainbow easily overpowers Zed, the limited Rainbow energy dissipating after a big blow. Both sparking, Right presses the Daikaiten Cannon into Zed’s chest and with the others’ help, fires the cannon, throwing everyone back and knocking Right unconscious.
Zed starts to get up, much to everyone’s dismay. He sees a rainbow, starting to say something except he falls forward and dissolves into a burst of darkness that blows around threateningly before a Darkliner arrives absorbing it all.
It’s Grita! She’s alive! She’s come to retrieve Zed and take him back into the darkness for good. She takes his hand and they go through a portal back to the deepest, blackest, most metal darkness.
Right stirs, breaking everyone out of that moment of stunned silence and proclaims that he’s hungry, which is the sign for everything is all good!
All cleaned up and probably fed, our intrepid five stands on the beach looking out at the ocean. Akira comes up behind them and asks if they’re going home. Tokatti points out that they’re still adults and Right figures that if Akira’s still going to tend the rails, they might as well all keep the party going.
As they head back to the train, The President of the Rainbow Line comes out to meet them so he can tell them goodbye.
Confused, they ask why and The President tells them to not rush to conclusions and that they should keep imagining possibilities. The Conductor, Ticket, and Wagon add that they’re always near and to not forget them.
Suddenly they hear voices coming up the hill, turning around to see who it is, they find that their families have all come to greet them! And they actually recognize them! It’s all because of the letters they wrote and that their families have great imaginations too!
Everyone is welcomed by their families warmly…except Right. His family’s not there. Since the whole darkness thing, he reckons that they’d never remember him, so he goes to leave with Akira when his younger siblings call out to him, running up the hill, his mother and grandfather behind them.
They have a tearful reunion, expressing how proud of Right they are. When Right hugs his mother, he reverts back into a child, the others following suit.
The Rainbow Line starts to depart Pleiades’ Shore and its former inhabitants, them running after it, saying their goodbyes to each other and promising to meet again soon.
Everyone resumes their lives happily, and the episode ends with the ToQ Babies going to the Secret Base where they’re joined by their grown-up selves and Akira to say their final goodbye to this season!
FINAL REVIEW
Oh, ToQGer, it’s been a fun ride, full of rainbows and IMAGINATION also sexy robots.
These episodes finally do it. They finally wrap up the last couple of loose ends that have been lingering for almost too long.
I touched on Right’s growth in the last review, but it got better. Like, when you keep in mind that Right is an elementary student in a child’s body, the amount of sacrifice he was willing to commit to for his friends is astounding.
But let’s not forget how the others weren’t willing to take their childhoods in lieu of their memories in a funny Gift of the Magi sort of way. It’s refreshing for a Red to get called out on their martyr complexes by their friends in a sentai. Right was ready to go out into that gentle night and his friends were not having it and I feel like in the center of the final battle, this was what theme stood out for me.
Talking about villains, OMG Grita. Everyone can ride my case all they want, Grita is the standout villain/not villain this season, I will fight you on this. Yeah, the other Nobles were incredibly designed and most of their stories were interesting, but she grabbed my attention during the wedding arc and had me in her corner for the rest of the series, even though in the beginning of the series, I did not care for her.
Amidst all the sunshine and rainbows, we have to talk about Zed. Even though his whole moaning and groaning and lusting for shining got really fucking old, I still feel like we still don’t know his whole story, but there’s always the V-Cinema, right?
For me, ToQGer was a funny little show, comedic, a kinda stilted and strange in places, but it’s characters had heart, wit, and a lot of imagination. It was a fun ride, but all journeys have to come to an end.
I give Stations 46-47 4.6 cute sheep blankies out of 5.
Ressha Sentai ToQGer Final Score: 4.4 rainbows of imagination out of 5.
This is Amber/pan2dapan leaving the station!
You can find me @pan2dapan on Twitter/Tumblr/Instagram/Facebook
See you next time for ninjas!