Ressha Sentai Toqger Episode 10 Review: Death At Dusk

For this episode of Toqger, Tokatti is training so that he can get better at fighting as he meets a kid who loses his imagination. To top everything off then he is giving a title saying that he will die when the sun sets!

To my surprise this was actually a good episode and surprisingly it's another Tokatti focus episode, it seems the blue warriors have been getting my interest lately. Even though this was really simplistic, it knew exactly what to do with it and actually hold some nice little jokes and good twists. Literally the episode can be described in two short sentences which I just did and again this isn't a bad thing for once. When you got something simple this is when you can add jokes, twists, and action to make the episode feel fun and worth watching and that's what happens. Compared to the previous episodes of Toqger that just do things without actually explaining or giving characters development, it finally gets fixed here. This is why Toqger felt so bland for many of its episodes since it wasn't doing anything different and wasn't even expressing itself, it just felt bland. This episode though does have personality though and it's thanks to how Tokatti shows how great he is.

Tokatti meets a little boy who cannot see the train and this confused him since kids should be able to see the train. It ends up the child has a problem with his imagination because of him being a failure. First of all, this is the first time we are looking into the imagination concept with the children this time. The children can lose their imagination if something gets in their way of thinking and having the heroes help out those kids could make some good filler episodes. Children go through many problems as they go through phases in their lives, keep developing, and learn new ways of thinking. For a kids shows about imagination it's great that the heroes are helping out kids since the problem is simple and realistic and could easily help a child or two get some more confidence or get the feeling of wanting to do something then. Toqger easily could have done this many times before as I do feel this show should help with the idea of expressing one's imagination. So with all of that said how does Tokatti help out this poor boy?

I got to say this first, even when Tokatti is getting closer to his death he ends up training and helps a kid out with his problems! Tokatti keeps his hopes up by imagination of course, but there is more to it than that. This ends up helping the child with his problems since he cannot be good at baseball since his imagination failed him. What he ends up learning though is that he needs to practice to actually get good at something while one's imagination can just boosts one's self confidence and their hope. This is a great message for children as it does what I think the series should do more often. It helps express creativity and at the same time telling kids they need to keep trying. It's quite funny since I remember hating baseball when I was younger and end up quitting, but I didn't fully give up on sports because I wanted to keep trying and I ended up finding soccer. I kept at that and became a good player for my team. A message like this can even help out anyone else as if you keep trying things could get better. So Toqger, can you please have more episodes like this?

So with Tokatti's hopes high and with his training he ends up succeeding greatly! He learned the monster's power quickly and found a way to exploit it for his use. The monster could type titles that would affect real things like making the team's train fly off into space and actually kill Tokatti. I knew he was going to live of course, but with how the series has been doing things lately I thought they were just going to kill the monster before time ran out. To my surprise that didn't happen. Tokatti ends up using the buttons on the monster to type his own titles and by doing this he puts an extension on his. So in reality Tokatti did die, but thanks to what he typed up he revived himself. Tokatti even did this again during the mech fight! He was in charge for this episode and has orders around. He has Right help him out to confuse the monster while the others just did nothing... yea the teamwork wasn't much like usual still. With how Tokatti was though in this episode was fantastic as he is so far the best member of this team. I mean he avoided death, helped a child out, and still wants to train, good for him! Finally how the episode ends even has a heartwarming feeling to it since the kid can see the train as he waves to Tokatti and continues with his training. That is how you make a filler episode good; you put some nice fun and touching moments in to make it feel special.

Going on this episode helped itself by giving itself some nice action moments. When Tokatti is pressing the buttons the camera doesn't focus on it and cuts away at those moments to make his revival a surprise. I even loved seeing him train as even I was confused on what he was doing exactly. So even though I knew he was going to live, the episode hid how he was going to pretty well. Tokatti even continued to be great after his revival as he took the monster by himself. He prevented the monster from doing more typing and just kept at him with his gun and sword. Even the soundtrack helped out with this since at his revival it had a great rising dynamic to it as it then flows into the victory tune as the cannon finisher was used. I will say it was rather quick though, but it was sweet still and personally this was much better than most of the fight in the series so far. I even laughed to the cannon finisher for once! It was a nice little callback joke and had a good pay off, Toqger be more like this!

The mech fight even got a boost thanks to more set pieces being used and it being the first duo fight. Both Toq-oh and Diesel-oh fight the giant monster and again this fight helped make some personality for the series. With the fight being at night and again the music was used well to make a serious feel and yet the episode gave off funny little moments. The main train was sent in space which had some funniness to it because it was just brought up before the mech fight. Tokatti then used the monster's powers to bring the train back then, why isn't this guy the leader?! So when the two mechs fight the monster, to my surprise they actually use new camera angles and then use some of the stage props around them. Literally things actually got crushed this time, so many times the mech fights just go on so quickly you barely ever got time to see the sets.

Now there were still some problems like the monster did feel incompetent, but he knew right off the bat to try to get rid of the team so I'll give him credit there and his power was a nice one. Then there was the fact that Tokatti did take the spotlight so the overall teamwork was low. Compared to what made this episode great though, this episode is my favorite so far. First of all it actually did something more with it's concept of imagination than just being silly like usual. There is also the fact that the message in this episode was a good one and how Tokttai helped the child to get his imagination back has a great feeling to it. Finally, the episode actually was fun! There were some good jokes, good sense of heroism, and some nice action pieces. This is the first time this series will get an A because I just found this episode to be fun, surprising, and most importantly unique as Tokatti is going to be my favorite in this series. 

Next Time: The Emperor of Darkness is here!