Episode
31:
(巨獣が立つ時) When the Mega Beast Stands
Airdate: Sunday,
September 25, 2016
Synopsis:
The Zyuohgers must track down and recruit the Cube
Whale to their cause before Bungrey captures him and before Genis’ new GIFT
destroys the city.
Review:
First
Impressions
As you can tell
from the long lapse in updates, it took me a while to watch this episode. It’s
not I thought the last episode was bad, because I didn’t, I just lost a bit of my
excitement about the show after my reflections upon episode 30. Life got busy
and sort of let myself fall behind.
Put-ups
The scene when
the Cube Whale finally comes to the Rangers aid gave me chills. It wasn’t a
particularly spectacular scene on its own, or one that was something new and
unique to Sentai series but I just really liked it. There’s something about
Masaki Nakao’s delivery of his rousing heroic speeches that just makes me melt
as a Tokusatsu fan.
I liked the
conversation with Sela and Misao. A great character moment (well…mostly, more
on that later).
Building
intrique with Genis and his lot.
A Bungrey fight
that didn’t end with a recycled memory monster! Granted, it was an upgrade of a previous foe.
I loved the
location of the Cube Whale fight. As a sucker for “Earth Porn,” I thought it
was beautiful.
Put-downs
The Cube Whale’s Spout Trident/Javelin/whatever looked comically
unwieldly as Yamato was maneuvering it to beat back Bungrey.
Genis
apparently being unware of Quval’s dealings with Bungrey didn’t sit right with
me. Especially Quval’s nervousness at Genis finding him out. My read of Genis
is that he would find it entertaining and wouldn’t see Quval’s meddling as a
real threat.
Final
thoughts
I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. I was a
bit worried that the episodes following the Gokaiger team-up would be total
duds and I am happy to be wrong. I still have my reservations about the
relative lack of developments in the story thus far (while I am mostly
spoiler-free, it does look like there is some interesting stuff coming up).
I was really
happy with the scene we got between Misao and Sela discussing his feelings of
uselessness. I am happy that Sela was the one he had the talk with. The only
other character who it could kind of work with would be Tusk, but even then he
lacks the (reluctant) warmth that Sela has. It was what Misao needed – someone to
seriously talk to him and address his insecurities without mocking or
dismissing it (as Leo has the tendency to do).
As much as
I find Misao’s tendency to mope a bit grating at times (especially as it gets
exaggerated a bit for the sake of comedy), there is a lot in his sensitivity
that I can relate to. So I can appreciate his character a lot more than I often
admit. That being said, the stated cause of his recent bout of the mopes didn’t
quite ring true to me. He felt useless because he didn’t know about Zyuland? I
didn’t see anything in the episode to reflect that was something that bothered
him. He seemed more upset that his powers weren’t as flashy as the Gokaigers’
than anything related to Zyuland. He also wasn’t useless at all in those
episodes.
I was also
happy to see some focus back on Genis and his crew too. I haven’t enjoyed
Bungrey as much as I was hoping I would has he hasn’t shown himself to be the
spoiler to Genis and become a bit of a spotlight hog. As I had mentioned above,
I was somewhat surprised to see Genis apparently unaware of Quval’s dealings
with Bungrey. He seems to be aware of most other goings-on with Bungrey, so I
find it somewhat also implausible that he wouldn’t be aware of that too. Also, I
don’t know how much he would care. He seems to be more interested in what makes
his conquests amusing and is so confident in his strength that he wouldn’t even
remotely see Quval’s machinations as a threat. He got over the Cube Whale
rather quickly once he got its date, so it’s not that Quval’s dealing with
Bungrey actually cost him anything.
Another
thing I noticed, again, in this episode is the amount or great location shots
used in this series. The nature locations used in this series are not ones that
I recall seeing in Sentai before. The relative remote locations (or at least
what appear to be) of these shoots, coupled with the amount of aerial shots of
them, tell me that a good amount of the budget goes into these filming
locations. That and with what I imagine the Gokaiger team-up cost, tell me that
the Bungrey memory monsters and episode 27 clip-show were done as ways to keep
the budget balanced/on schedule. Which is something I am okay with – I love the
Earth Porn and it really adds to the overall feel of the series. A series
centered around animals, nature and protecting Earth should have great nature
shots.
Final
Grade: A
