Kyoryuger Episode 21 Review: Blast Off!

For this episode we are getting to another new warrior in the Kyoryuger line up, but this time it's not another Spirit Ranger, but another active member. Debos is not backing done though as they revive their strongest monsters back from the grave.

I want to start with the biggest negative I can say about this episode, the pacing is beyond horrible! This episode really goes through a lot of scenes like a knife going through butter. The first scene was just Violet on the moon and we get a quick scene of Chaos freaking out and quickly having everyone reviving their old warriors. Next we are brought to the team as they have a chat with Violet, but that is quickly interrupted by meteors as Violet crashes. This leads to the first fight of the episode and even the monsters were in a rush as they went for the attack after their role call and didn't let the heroes do theirs. Then Red runs to check up on Violet as the team deals with a deadly attack from the villains. Violet shows up and doesn't help in the battle except slash up some grunts as he tells Red to go to a lab. Then with King back the team get the upper hand on the villains and already counter their special move. There wasn't even a transition for the team going to the lab we cut to them appearing there. We get some very quick notes from the new characters which I will get to later. Already we get to the next fight, heroes quickly get in trouble, Violet transforms, but doesn't get a debut fight and we get a comedic moment, and finally the heroes win along with a new mech reveal.

Yup he had back problems......

You see how many things I went through in that paragraph and a usual episode is like twenty-five minutes so they didn't really have any scene have any savoring value. This really brings down the episode for me because it would have been better if they slowed things down and try to extend a little on the very good scenes. Then another thing with that bad pacing is that somethings just come and go and these moments are mostly hints at development or a character trait. Again elements like those in a scene need to be showcased with a good amount of time because it really just makes it look like the series just wants to forget it and move on. So yea the pacing was just really bad and I bet if they cut some moments out or change them around with a slower pace this episode could have been a whole lot better.

With that one big negative there are still a good amount of positives to talk about in this episode. First are the very obvious Sentai references. Now even though they are obvious I still liked them because Kyoryuger did better with using old elements of a show than Go-busters did. There was a huge reference to the very old Sentai with the ball finishers because the three Debos monsters acted like Sun Vulcan. They appeared jumping into the scene with a sun in the background and their logo had the same font as Sun Vulcan's logo, how obvious could have they have gotten. Another nod was the base and releasing the mecha from the base which Go-busters did do as well. They are nice nods to the franchise and heck they even played around with the ball finisher which was funny. Like how the team make Nossan into a ball and use him to deflect the foes' ball attack, the monsters actually tricked the team and throw two separate balls for the attack and not the first one, and then the team steal the enemy ball and use it for themselves. It was really well done on how they played on a old trope like they did, I mean this was Akibaranger level of parody we got here. I'm surprised Akibaranger didn't have a joke or two on the ball attacks yet.

Now for the new character, sadly I can't say much about him since we didn't get a lot from him. I was really excited at first about an older Sentai warrior, because older people can really kick some major ass! Sadly this man is near retirement and his last mission was going to space for some reason. I can say one thing about Doctor Ulshade though he is loud, very loud! I don't find it annoying though because how he delivers his big voice is with a lot of body movement and that really makes him laughable in a good way. He is a really funny character, but I was still hoping he was getting a big fight. I mean the mood was perfect and we even got a new instrumental theme and then he couldn't move. I have a big thing against good build up going to a comedic moment because it's wasted effort then for all that good build up. i didn't even find the scene funny because I was too disappointed with how he didn't get the big fight he deserved. Then his grand daughter Yayoi who is smart beauty and that's about it. I can say she seems rather cold to people like how she was to Ian, but she seems to have an interest in our King. So the Doctor is a good character, but I was hoping he was going to be great in the action department as well.

Going on with the Doctor it's sad that he isn't going to be a complete badass old man, but I can see that his story did play out well. Well to be more exact it will probably still continue since we didn't get a full resolution for his problem yet. The Doctor is going for retirement now because he has gotten too old to be fighting which makes me wonder how long was he a Kyoryuger for? Going on he is the man who gave the guns their voices when the team transforms, but I have to wonder how does his voice come with Ucchi's devices? So with his age he does have a handicap for fighting since he hurts himself while getting overly excited. Still King was amazed when he saw Violet for the first time and that properly made him want to fight some more and to have a big reveal in front of the team. So again I can see his story being done well as I hope he doesn't become a forgotten character in the series.

Now with Debos they revived the three monsters that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. There is Nagareboushi, Virusun, and Hyougaki. I do like seeing these monsters come back because they are pretty much a team since they worked together to cause an extinction of a whole race of creatures. The two older ones also work as a good callback for the series since the ice guy was the first MOTW of the series and Virusun was the first monster to be involved with a Spirit Ranger. The episode also had a nice call back to Grey as King used his special move that he learned. So there were nice call backs to the series which only means that things are going to get big in the next couple of episodes. What's also nice is that ice and virus will be around in the next episodes making them finally feel like the bigger villains they should have been in the first place, too bad meteor guy got killed off again.

I already did talk about the action mostly because the whole ball action was a huge part of it. As I said before it was really fun to see how they varied with the use of the ball. The enemies tricked the team with using different balls, which sealed their weapons. The team then did their own tricks which got the extinction team on the ground many times. I was hoping to have more for the action department since having a debut for Violet would have been awesome, but we didn't get that..... There was his new mecha though as he gives it to King. The only thing I didn't like was how they went straight for Plezuon's humanoid form. For a debut fight it's nice to show what the mech can do in both forms, but they really went straight for Plezu-oh which was nice to look at. The fight was in space so that's a plus there, but it was pretty basic and the finisher was bland making the debut fight pretty forgettable.

Overall it's an episode that could have been improved if the pacing was better. This episode really flies by a lot of scenes and traits of them that it doesn't take time to absorb the details. There was some good presentations though like the references to the older Sentai as the action really got a plus form the varied ball moments. It's not a bad or average episode as it does have a step in the right direction as I bet the continuation will be better. I would give this episode a B-

Next Time: Debos revived?!