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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Kyoryuger Episode 15 Review: Robo Madness

For this episode of Kyoryuger we get a Nossan episode! As he meets an old friend that now works with robotics, but he isn't a very happy fellow as he gets over the top angry all the time. Will this anger be used by the Debos and how will our heroes save the day this time?
The first issue I want to bring up with this episode is how brief everything felt. I mean really some moments in this episode are just thrown in and thrown back out. In the beginning there was a little moment with Ucchi and Dogold and then onto the opening credits. Even many fights felt way too quick which I will get to later. I know this was a Nossan episode, but there is a thing called build up. If we knew Dogold was going to be in this episode and Ucchi was going to be with Nossan. Why not build up a fight between the two, but no we get a quick clash. Now for anyone who wants to think I am being hypocritical since I enjoyed the first encounter with Wizard and Wiseman. The thing is that was their first time meeting and it easily establishes that Wiseman still has a huge upper hand against Wizard. Here we already know the relation between the two and this was really the first fight the two had after Gold's appearance. It didn't showcase anything other than that Dogold needs to constantly get new bodies all the time. So it was just a quick moment so that they could have a good transition to the opening credits, which is disappointing for these two rival characters.
While somethings were short and quick, others took way too long. The best example was with Nossan confronting Dogold and Lucky when they were working with the robot. I mean my goodness it felt very slow at this part. Now I will say the plan was good, but Dogold didn't execute it very well. The thing I liked about him was how he took initiative and didn't wait for things to happen he made them happen. Heck when he first saw Nossan he was planning on striking him down with lightning. With this scene he stood around most of the time. I know when he got himself around the robot he still had the wires, but Nossan was very close to him. He soon does pull him away from the scientist after the whole flashback, but then he takes forever to strike him down. It would be nice if there was a reason, but there isn't. The scientist had enough time to talk and then shut down the robot which then made Dogold unable to move properly. I guess you could say he was waiting for the robot to fully charge up, but he has claws and a sword I think those alone can do enough.
Then going on with the villains the plan was quite genius. They put in a emotional chip in the robot that reacts to the maker's anger and with that Dogold could use a body that will never run out. It's a robot and as long as the man is still angry it can work with high performance. Again though how it was executed in this episode made it very obvious. I mentioned before that Dogold complains about having body issues and about the emotional chip in the robot. It was so obvious when I first saw the robot that it was going to be used for something. I mean the huge orange part stands out way too much with the overall white design. Even at that the robot looked way too goofy so at that point I knew it wasn't going to fight that much. The robot was not made for fighting so that makes sense. It still has strength though so it did have a short struggle with Nossan. So it was used well I will say except for the part of it being obvious.


 Reminding me the creator for the robot is named, Nakazato was a fine character, but I will say his actor was well over the top. I have a feeling that could have been the point when he was being angry. Then when it came to other parts I knew he was just trying too hard. The first scene with him was him complaining about how his officials aren't helping with the technology. He flails his arms around and even kicked a box even though it seemed more like he pushed the box with his foot more than anything. I should know I had moments when I had to kick something nearby when I worked. I will say he got the face correct, sadly though he repeats the same arm movements a lot and it really becomes more funny than anything. Still a character who lost his true meaning because of being overworked or not getting what he needed does make sense. The only thing that needed fixing was his actor.
The overall message in the episode was strong I will say that. It was about how people need to work hard to help others. I will say it does work well overall, but it really comes up near the big fight of this episode. It comes when Nossan tells his old friend that he needs to stop being so angry about making his robot. He talks about the past, but that wasn't it. I was happy with this since I was thinking that would be it, but no Nossan makes a huge connection to this. He was going to be a much bigger man until he picked up his brother in-law's job. The thing here though is that he is doing what he wants, to help others. Then one more thing is that for a Nossan episode there weren't as many puns. I guess this was more of a serious episode for him so I can take that.

Going on with Nossan a constant thing in his episodes is his sister, Yuuko and it seems she is getting some common sense for once. She is starting to suspect that some of the people Nossan hangs around with are part of the Sentai. With this issue, Nossan didn't want the team to help him out, but one person could. This was of course Ucchi since he never met her before. Then when he leaves her, he traps her behind a bunch of boxes...... that's not suspicious at all! So yea she is heavily ignored in this episode which is another disappointment since she had to do a lot with the past Nossan focused episodes. I am happy to see that she is getting some sense about who the Sentai is, but again if she is starting to think who they are wouldn't she be assuming they aren't bad people then. I mean her brother is hanging out with them a lot then why doesn't she assume Nossan isn't a part of them. Ugh this just hurts my head. I really still don't like how Yuuko thinks negatively about the heroes since she was saved by Nossan when he was transformed before!
Now for the action and I am not mentioning the Dogold and Gold fight since it was so short nothing really important happened. The first big fight was when the robot when out of control and attacked Nossan. This leads up to the Debos stepping in and we get the two Chaos monsters from before. There was no MOTW for this episode. I know there are episodes like this for Sentai, but that usually means that we get a fight from one of the main villains. We still do with Dogold, not much and it wasn't heavily focused on him either. There was one thing different though, the two got new weapons..... YEA! So with these new bigger weapons they actually stand a chance against the team. Even though we clearly seen them wipe the floor with these monster before. Also another thing that was obvious was having two since you knew Dogold would just use one for a body. Also it wasn't much and we don't cut back to it when Nossan gets away. What we got was a new battery, Archenolon. It makes a gravitational field that will slow down anyone in range. It's an interesting attack, but King used it so that only Nossan could get away since he could pull himself away thanks to his strength. Still I would like to see how long it lasted because we never cut back to that moment. Which could have given us something to laugh about.
Now onto the bigger fight and they play the opening theme again! I know what they are trying to do, but for these type of episodes I would think the action insert would do better. Or at least Nossan's character song since that got released recently so why haven't the series used it yet? I know I am late to review this episode, but doesn't a CD collection usually showcase a song that was used in the series? With Go-busters they had their character songs for the ending credits at some times so at least they got released with it being in the series. It's just the impact the opening theme has gets lessened when it is for a filler episode. The opening theme helps when it's near a big moment in the series like when Ucchi officially joined the team. Oh well to continue on the whole fight mostly focuses on Nossan and Ucchi even though one of those characters still barely got any screen time. There wasn't even a big finisher from the two since Dogold just pours the water on the Chaos monster and calls it quits. So yea even this fight wasn't much because it's just brief.
The mecha fight at least was impressive I will say thanks to some switching around with the mechs. First we got to see Kyoryujin Macho again and the team have a little struggle with their foe. That weapon actually helps out more than I would think. Luckily Gold appears with Pteraiden-oh and takes Ankydon and uses it for his mech. The team then go back to Kyoryujin and use the sword. I really like seeing that Gold's mech can do combinations as well it will help a lot in the variety for these fights. Sadly all we really got from this is Gold's mech spinning around with a hammer to destroy the weapon. Even though it was quick it was nice to see that a fight with a repeated monster can still feel fresh thanks to switching the mechs around with the two main mechas.
This episode sounds like it could have done well because the message is strong and Dogold's plan is a smart one. There were just many directing issues I see here as some scenes could have lasted longer or not even be in at all. For an episode that hinted for some more Ucchi focus there wasn't a lot of it and the rest of the team except Nossan is heavily ignored. Even Yuuko got the boot in this episode as she got trapped behind boxes. Nossan was great, but he wasn't punny as usual. I can still take this though as there was a good connection for his story. Still his old friend could have been done better mostly with his actor as he gives a forced job. I would give this episode a C cause along with the fact that wasn't a cool MOTW to keep my interest like episode 14 had.
Next Time: Dino Claws!

2 comments:

  1. Little fact:
    Actor who played Nossan's friend was in Kamen Rider Hibiki as Ibuki.

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    Replies
    1. Wow what happened to him, he didn't do that bad in that series. I guess angry is not a good emotion for him.

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