Go ninja, go ninja go! Here comes my review of Shuriken Sentai Ninninger Shinobi 4: ‘There He Is! Paonmaru!‘
In this episode, Takaharu doesn’t take team training seriously and tries to do everything himself, even if it leaves the others covered in water. Uncledad grounds him from training until he can stop being a showboater, cause yeah, you’re strong, but you’re also being an asshole, dude. Cloud and the others will continue to train because while they’re pretty good at being at team, apparently they aren’t as ‘strong’ as Takaharu.
Taka goes to eat his troubles away, as you do, at the handy, dandy, nearby oden cart. He eats way more eggs than Gaston in a day probably, because obviously you eat only the good parts of foods and lots of it. A yokai is born and Taka goes off to fight it as usual, only to get his butt handed to him until the others show up. He doesn’t really wait for them to even transform, he just goes in again and gets his fool ass sucked inside of Tsuchigumo along with a bunch of other stuff.
Inside Tsuchigumo, Taka finds the odencart along with oden bro, who surprise!, is Granddad. Taka tries pretty uselessly to get them out using a large fire attack, and Granddad suggests that they should just chill and eat some oden. He gives Takaharu a bowl, and when Taka asks about the eggs, we talked about this, Grandpa, the eggs are the only part of oden, really, he tells the kid that he ate all of them and just eat the rest of it.
Taka apparently learns through eating the importance of teamwork, as all important life lessons should be learned, honestly.
Outside, our cousins are still fighting Tsuchigumo, and inside Granddad and Takaharu team up to give the yokai a case of indigestion, causing it to spit them back up. They rally, fighting Tsuchigumo and some Hitokarage. Knocking them back, Taka goes to run off, he realizes that he’s not being a team player, comparing everyone to elements of oden and finally getting on board with this teamwork thing.
Cloud Cloud takes point, directing the Ninninger like chess pieces, their teamwork taking out Tsuchigumo. The Sealing Shuriken Takaharu had from earlier transforms into a new Ninshuriken because their Nintality leveled up!
Kyuuemon uses their sorcery to resurrect Tsuchigumo into that giant ass spider you saw in your shower that one time and the Ninninger summon their Ally Nin.
They start off strong, but end up all webbed up. Kasumi tells Takaharu to use their new Ninshuriken. A new Ally Nin, appears! A rampaging green elephant that Taka names Paonmaru. Paonmaru frees the others and takes on Tsuchigumo in its warrior form before combining with Shurikenjin to become Shurikenjin Paon.
Shurikenjin Paon’s Paon Boomerang dispatches Tsuchigumo quickly, and another Sealing Shuriken is recovered.
After the battle, we learn that maybe Takaharu didn’t really actually learn about teamwork but actually not to be so picky with food and Kyuuemon shows Gabi Raizou that Ninningers show up when Sealing Shurikens are up for grabs and he’ll play along.
FINAL REVIEW
Oh, look another Takaharu focus episode. And we’re only 4 episodes into the series. Wow.
Okay, that was really salty of me.
This is the standard Hotshot Hero Learns the Value of Teamwork episode. Though, that last scene probably negated the whole thing because at this point, are we even sure Takaharu is learning things? Probably not.
So, basically this episode was just to introduce Paonmaru and get Gabi Raizou to give a shit.
Let’s not talk about how shallow this plot was but how freaking cute Paonmaru is. Like really, rolling in on a boulder? I’m sold, really.
I’m waiting for this series to give me some meat to chew on, because it’s really hard to write an interesting review on something so lukewarm. I can only say so much about visuals before I’m beating a dead horse.
I give this episode 2.4 shurikens out of 5.
As always, I’ve been Amber/pan2dapan!
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Ninja Vanish!