Kyoryuger Episode 37 Review: Pointless Swapping

After a big episode of Torin's reveal of being Kyoryu Silver, we get straight to the filler! In this episode we see that Souji wants to learn Torin's Trinity Straizer attack, meanwhile three remnants plan to take down the Kyoryugers by using the power of switching.

This episode goes on with the mind swapping trope from Sentai, the most recent example I can think of is from Gokaiger when Luka and Don switched places. Personally that is my favorite of the trope since the actors did great to express their quirks even though they are different people. My first big complaint here is that the series barely focuses on that aspect. Most of the swapping takes place with the team in their suits so it's already not as good. There is a scene or two with the team reacting to their bodies being swapped, but it's so short and with the execution here I didn't have fun with it. The major reason why is that, the people even changed their voices so it's just a bad dub over. If the actors are already doing the expressions of other characters then let them do impressions of each other.

Now one aspect I did find funny was with the monsters which are returning monsters and one is a very recent one. The sports monster already comes back along with two monsters that interacted with Lucky. These three pull of a great school motif with how they fight, how they leave, how they planned out their actions, and even how they died. The pillow monster is the young student and then we got the other two being strict teachers and seeing this does remind me of episode fourteen since I did like the comedy there as well. Now surprisingly these three work really well together, even much better than the main villains work together which is really sad. These three MOTW's thought of plans that work much better than most of the main villains plans.

 The monster's plan is to switch the team up by swapping their souls around. This causes distress between the team as they don't know how to fight as a whole other person. Personally I can see this being used for a whole different type of an episode like each member having to live as a completely different person. Imagine King in Amy's body and then living at the her house, actually that would be pretty much the same.... Well imagine other switches then like Nossan and Ian that was a good switch or maybe Ucchi and Ian since they had an episode focusing on how Ucchi was hating Ian's womanizing ways. This concept should have been played differently since that would actually make some comedy, here the swapping is so pointless in the comedic viewpoint on top of the main plot that is completely pointless in general.

Now as I said before the three monsters actually thought their plans out. Now there was a mess up when they switched with Ucchi and Souji since they are both swordsmen. Now that was a nice method there, the two swordsmen had no trouble when they got switched and pulled out a strong counter. Also seeing the two transform with a different style was a nice thing to see. Then with how the two used their swords to fit their own techniques was really cool. It seems that this should have been the main focus and I can see this in an earlier episode too, maybe around when Ucchi was new on the team. The two would have bonded quickly as they quickly work together with no problems. The monsters quickly think of switching them all over again and this caused more distress for the team and I can see why they switched the voices now since they did more than one swap around. Now I may see why the did this, but wouldn't the characters main quirks be the ques for the audience to know who is who since each member has a quirk that defines their character.

Wow I am talking a lot more about this than I would have thought of. Moving on, there were two more aspects of the switching I did like. First was the roll call got switched around which is always a pretty funny gag, but again I would have liked to hear each member doing an impression of each other. Then the monsters thought of a way to get Torin's body. Torin is a Debos and he cannot switch bodies with a human because of this, I would like to know exactly why since a soul is a soul and if Debos monsters have an afterlife wouldn't that match with the idea of the afterlife for people.... Alright I'm thinking too much into this. To counter this though, the monsters swap Torin's body with one of their own. The school monster takes Torin's body and is now Kyoryu Silver. Now this doesn't work out as planned, but these three really thought ahead with this so I easily give them credit for that. This episode made me like the pillow monster which I originally hated in it's episode and thanks to how it changed clothes made him stand out more.

Now onto the main plot point of this episode which is just Souji trying to learn a new technique.... First of all I will say I like the idea of Torin making Souji his student at the end of the episode as I hope this can build a stronger bond between the two and actually make Souji more of a character since he's been getting ignored and some really bad development lately. How it happens though is very weak though. First is how Torin was warning Souji to not use the move since it will hurt his body and Torin can do this move since he is a Debos. Why is having a Debos body that important to do some sword slashes? Is there some magical power that a Debos body has over a human body? There is really no explanation for this so it's just put in to give Souji an obstacle for no reason. Then the reason for why Torin will teach Souji the attack is because Ucchi tells him that Souji is determined and won't give up. When Ucchi was in Souji's body he feels some of his pain from when Souji was imitating the move. Again the actual execution for how the events play out are rather weak and it doesn't really give any development to anybody, but I do hope it can improve and actually be a focus point for Torin and Souji.

There is one thing in this episode that makes me a little afraid which is that Chaos is going into resting since Debos is doing something to him, I guess. Dogold is put in charge for the mean time and now the monster making machine is not working as properly so less monsters will be made. This is mostly a budget excuse as I should have seen this coming since the previous episode had monsters return. Maybe blowing the budget on a useless upgrade form and pointless cannon finishers wasn't a smart idea after all, what a surprise! Also the main villains had absolutely nothing to do in this episode since Lucky didn't want to bother with the monsters since the two strict teachers are too scary for him to face. Imagine if the main villains got involved, I mean if Dogold got in Torin's body I think this would be a different situation, or would it be Endolf?

I will say the action at least had some freshness to it since the heroes had to adjust to new bodies and they had some good plans themselves. Again Souji and Ucchi changing was a good idea and was executed pretty well. Then in the second fight the team switched around their Armed On weapons so that they can get the weapons they are most used to. Sadly this part fails and the monsters start to win with using Torin's body. Luckily, Souji saves the day with King's body.... Yes this is actually Souji, but it still bugs me that even if it's not King, his body steals the spotlight. Now one part of the fight I didn't like is that the three monsters barely did anything that big except for the body swapping so they really could have been replaced with other monsters and use a different motif to fit them. Then the mech fight is just a poor excuse just to show the new cannon finisher again, heck even the team fight was just used that useless team battery attack, but with Silver this time.

This episode could have been good if the overall execution was much better. Souji's character development is weak and the same for Torin. The comedy aspect is very low since there are not many scenes devoted to the team just getting used to each other's bodies and being more focused on the action aspect. For the action aspect it's slightly above average since they had good ideas and pulled some of them off, but in the end the action got very boring when things went back to normal. The three monsters were fun and pretty smart with their plans as this was my favorite part, but even this part of the episode was only above average at best. Overall I would give the episode a C- as it really should have done a whole lot more to make this stand out with the many other mind swapping episodes.

Next Time: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!