I will need to say this first because even though it was an alright episode it still carries a big negative. It's that Malshina is not even the final villain. I mean really this season really flies around with their villains. At first Tsuu seemed to be the big villain of this season, then season one comes back into play with Hatte, but he was being used by Malshina to do what she wanted with her world. Now we find out there was actually a secret group that wanted to take the Sentai time slot. They decided to use the delusional world to have their hero appear which would cause a change in the real world. I really didn't like this even though it did lead to some great scenes later, but it really didn't feel like a conclusion. With the new villain it's added on last second and doesn't feel right to have in the series. Did season one do something similar, yes with Hatte, but the build up was already being hinted at before the final episode. Here it comes out of the left field completely and ruins the great build up of Malshina being the big villain.
Going on with this now Malshina is already back to being a hero and her final fight was really wasted. It had a good build up with her using the reverse flags as her strength. She even prevented the team from doing their own flags then. She had a strong grip on the world and seeing a random Ultraman rip-off come in and defeat her was just really anti-climatic. Even Tsuu comes back, but he doesn't do much and becomes a hero now which is odd for the villain otaku. So many things got changed around in this final episode and again made it not feel like a true finale. The ending even ends with the heroes dying now..... so no season three then?
Are there still some good things in this episode, of course and that would probably be the humor. For season two the humor was lower compared to season one, but this episode really did bring that over the top humor back while the previous episodes were quite serious in many ways. I'm not saying a comedy show has to be purely comedy, but it's not that hard to mix it around. Episode nine was a great example of this since we had Tsuu messing with the delusional world in the beginning of the episode with having certain episodes be based on the seasons. So was there more humor in this episode, but sorry if I'm beating this with a dead horse it didn't feel like the final episode. Did I laugh, easily, but after watching the episode it did leave a sour aftertaste for me.
I remember hearing about how the first season had Ultraman references, but they were scrapped so I think Prism Ace was supposed to be that reference or references. I do like the idea of an unofficial Ultraman replacing the unofficial Sentai for the fight of the time slot because Ultraman hasn't been in the television business for a while until Ginga. They have been doing more movies recently, which I have seen one of them with Zero's reveal and I really did love that as that got me to want to find more Ultraman as I got the Ultra Seven DVD recently. I have to ask though, why did Prism Ace have to be the final villain? He wasn't even a villain since he was a new hero who just replaced Akibaranger, the real villains were the company trying to get rid of Toei's time slot. I guess they have to get rid of him though and now we can't have maid Hakase anymore.... dang.
So where did I laugh most of the time? The final fight with Prism Ace of course. The fight really got crazy here as the team got shots fired at his crotch, Super Akiba Red became a giant to fight Prism Ace, and how the team worked with that. This also would count as the first giant fight in Akibaranger since their mecha isn't really that big. Heck Prism Ace also carried some Kamen Rider references as he hand movements reminded me of Nigo's transformation pose. Then we had Akiba Red finish off Prism Ace with the help of his team throwing him up, and yes he was still a giant. Then he had a sudden transformation into Super Gold Akiba Red as he delivers the finishing slash. Even with the last minute changes, this fight was very good as it did feel like Akibaranger with everything being crazy!
Another thing this episode still does that felt like Akibaranger was the jokes towards the tropes. We had the new show replacing another, having one of the support characters be a new supporter in the new show, but then having a change of character, and the idea of the versus specials. I really did like the versus special joke because that is the only way for the Akibarangers to use their powers again since how can untransformed heroes fight along with another hero? It was a smart plan and even with the last minute changes there were still good jokes to go with them, but I really would have taken a final fight with Malshina be the final episode since this episode ends Akibaranger pretty much, unless Hatte can make a good back from the dead joke.
They even made a joke with case regarding who has the rights to the Ultraman franchise.
Overall this final episode didn't really do it's job well because of the last minute changes. There was really no connection to them to make it feel like a good finale. I still had a lot of laughs though with this episode so I wasn't completely mad with it. At least it still felt like Akibaranger, so with that this episode gets a C+. I won't review the final episode because it's just a clip show. All I will say is that I can still tell the cast did have fun with season two. Also the clip show ending made it feel like a better finale and Nobuo is right, Hatte can easily bring them back from the dead! I really do want season three!
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