For once in a while I was actually liking the humor in this episode. The whole beginning with Ucchi being defenseless around women was great. Then it moves onto with him full with anger and attacking Ian with his sword. What makes it all better is the faces he delivers. You get the pure face to a face that would make someone feel afraid. I know one thing for sure I don't want a samurai hunting me down. Now he doesn't stay angry for too long, but I just love seeing Ucchi like this. I can even agree with his anger since you got a samurai seeing a man being a flirt, of course the samurai is going to hate that. Even I am not a fan of Ian's playboy methods even though he does fail more often. I may not be taken man, but I can't stand playboys at all. I could go off about this, but for now lets go onto with Ian.
Again this is an Ian episode where I can start to like him some more. Now in the beginning we were seeing the bad side of Ian, but that was through other viewpoints. I really did like this style in the beginning since I kept agreeing with Ucchi on the current issues. Then things got turned around which I did see coming of course, still seeing Ian just run off with a girl would make anyone think of the wrong idea. Even though Ian got his redemption in the end, he was a complete idiot in the beginning. He had two girls mess with Ucchi for a prank and how could that go wrong. He deserved that lightning bolt! Why would you mess with a samurai and then this even ruins their teamwork which isn't good because the new battery won't then, oh no! Now how does Ian redeem himself?
Ian's playboy methods actually help people more than one would think. The way the series talks about it, it makes it feel that Ian doesn't get relationships. The whole girlfriend word is just applied to this, but Ian is just around to make people happy. He helps people when they are lonely which is easily shown by his past where he lost his friend. Look there is a connection with this development! This actually feels like development! Also what Ian was doing was that he made a promise to the girl, Erika and he had to keep that promise. The hard part is that she came so last second he didn't have enough time to plan this. Ian got everything done though and when rescuing both Erika and Ucchi he made it rain flowers. The promise he made to Erika was that whenever they met he would make flowers surround her. It's a nice gesture and seems rather gentlemanly which is odd to say about Ian. So Ian got more likable thanks to how Ian maybe a hopeless romantic, but he does well with friendship.
Another aspect of Ian that I loved in this episode that he shown off his smarts again. Ian has a good amount of mixtures for the Sentai tropes and how they are presented in him are well done. He has the playboy trope, smart trope, and yet the airhead trope as well. The reason why he can be an airhead is that he does things unintentionally and that makes people jump to conclusions. When he focuses though he can be really smart as he shown in this episode. It actually connects to another episode as Ian had to find Ucchi and Erika as they are trapped in a dimension. He gave Erika one of his batteries and that made Parasgun find the two and thus Ian saving the day. So yet again Ian proves that he has more than one would think and I really think he should be the real leader. Ever since he became the leader during the Endolf reveal arc he seems more reliable.
Then here is a rather big change for once, King is not hogging any of the spotlight. In the previous episodes he did something that stole the show in one way or another. Here it was mostly about Ucchi and Ian and I'm so very happy to see that. It makes it feel like I'm watching a Sentai and not the Daigo show. Carnival mode does show up in this episode, but Daigo doesn't really come into the scenes unless it was at the fights. So the good thing is that he was still apart of the show and yet not stealing the screen time as well. Too bad this episode couldn't have done with the other members...
One aspect that seemed rather pointless was with the villains. There wasn't really a plan to get any emotions, Lucky just wanted to use and help Aigarion with a problem. Aigarion has feelings for Candy, but he needs to prove on how strong he is. Lucky overhears and thus he can order him around while helping him. Lucky takes pictures of Aigarion in the fight to make him look good. I really have to say this knight can keep it up as he can hold his own against the team pretty well. There was even a moment where his rage was going to appear again, sadly he fights that urge because Candy would be afraid of him then.... dammit. I was hoping he would go crazy and defeat Carnival, that would make me so happy. In the end he gets blasted by King and that's it. We don't see him again and the only time we see Lucky again is to make the monster big. These little moments just ate screen time as this could have been replaced for more Ian versus Ucchi scenes or just scenes with the other members.
The MOTW for this episode was an Autumn themed monster and it looked pretty good. It's power is a little odd, but it applies to his theme and does help him in battle. He can make people lazy as this gives him a moment to attack. He even has other attacks which I have no idea what they are. I guess I could not know something about Japanese culture. The team though have the same questions as me though as they wondered why the monster was Autumn themed. He was fun monster though as he had attacks I didn't see coming both in his land and mech fights.
Erika was nothing special of a character since she was just there is cause a problem. She did this in two ways, Ucchi went crazy and she had an amber stone. I wasn't expecting an amber stone to pop up like that because it was even hinted at. It makes sense why they targeted her in the first place, but with the whole get Candy plan it felt like it came out of nowhere. I guess I can give credit for surprising me and for once this amber stone episode feels good. Still the character Erika was pretty bland and boring, just like most of Ian's girls.
The action was pretty good mostly thanks to the MOTW being creative like the last one. He held some surprises and the show did well with that. Also without highly using King some of the fights had some freshness. I wasn't happy with how Aigiarion got treated in the end, but at least he still shows some good potential. There was a new battery that works alongside with the last new battery which makes me wonder why the first one exists. It's just an extension of the first team themed battery and the only reason they had Yayoi is that to make the attack look even. So it's pretty much my same complaints with the last battery as it just makes me wonder it's existence. The mech fight was short, but it did have a nice sweet taste to it. First of all we had Pteraiden-oh fight once more and by himself! Ian and Ucchi took on the monster as they took him down with what they had. It was a nice and simple mech fight and I'm glad to see it here because the recent mech fights have been trying to shine, but not actually do anything with it. Being simplistic is very good if it's done right and this mech fight was done simply right.
Overall this episode is good even with some pointless moments sprinkled in. It benefits from some good development from both Ian and Ucchi, King did hog anything this time, and most of the comedy made me laugh which was mostly with Ucchi. I could deal without a useless battery, Yayoi being there for no reason, a bland minor character, and Aigarion being poorly treated. It's still pretty well done though as I will give this episode a B-
Next Time: Bragigas has arrived!
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