Search This Blog

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Ressha Sentai Toqger Episode 12 Review: Imagination Deus Ex Machina

For this episode of Toqger everyone, but Right has lost their imagination and cannot see the train anymore. Can Right save his friends so that they can all board the train and make Zed's experiment a failure.
First of all this episode doesn't show our red warrior like a god! This was a focus episode for Right and at first I thought he just ignored the hypnosis because his imagination was stronger and all that, but luckily that didn't happen. Emperor Zed wanted to test Right and see if he can do anything to make his friends back to normal. Now I will say there was a deus ex machina moment in the episode which I will cover later, but it wasn't because of just Right. Right struggled through this and him just interacting with his friends didn't snap them out. Sure the actual reason for why his teammates come back is confusing and just falls into the stereotypical area. At the very least it didn’t paint their leader as a deity. Now was this episode good... no.
I am still having trouble to really find things to talk about in this episode and even just following how the episode plays out doesn't even help me out. The series still has this bland taste to it as most of the episodes play out like one would expect. I mean really this path wasn't anything special. The problem occurs, exposition from the villain, Right trying to talk to his friends, sudden deus ex machina, and fighting occurs. The series is not really doing anything different as the main hero's story is just gaining back their memories while it seems the villains are going through more character development. I'm not saying the villain's development is good, but I can tell there is movement at the least.
So I will discuss on how Right saves his friends because I'm really trying to get what happened there. Right starts to figure out that the passes he made for his secret base ended up connecting the team. So all he does is look at the card and I guess his imagination made the cards appears for everyone else. Then the final rule of the secret base was to always help. I guess that was the kicker in their memories? The part I don't get though is that don't the heroes already remember this? I mean even when the heroes were hypnotized they still remembered about the secret base and the rules. Why would just seeing the card again make their imaginations come back? Again the writing was going straight into a wall so this had to happen, but this really just lead to pointless suspense. This is something that happens in this series a lot! Maybe the connection is that when they were kids making those rules those were the times they had their imagination at the highest potential. Again this was nothing, but a deus ex machina as the series almost ran into a wall with this plot.
Everything before the heroes coming back then was just plain boring. I wasn't mad or anything, but sometimes being bored is worse. Again with Kyoryuger and Go-busters, I didn't like the shows and yet I can say they are worth analyzing. Kyoryuger was a battle for me as it went back and forth as I do feel the series did have great potential if certain formulas were changed. Go-busters was a mess when it started to constantly change around themes and motifs and yet that is more interesting to look into. I'm not saying Toqger is worse than said series just because it's boring, but I can say I would rather watch the previous series because at least thinking about them feels worth it in the end. So what else happens, oh Zed spices up the evil base with spotlights and a disco ball because he loves those sparkles! Even the monster with the cool design ended up being nothing special since he was just the loyal bodyguard and ended up dying because of personal pride. Reminding me of villains I guess I should cover that thing then...
Well I can at least Zed is doing things because of his obsession though. I'm with Baron on this, if Zed didn't have this sparkles obsession we would probably have some dead heroes right now. I know villains do this from time to time, but some can get away with it because they really think out their plans. I mean imagine if Right did get hit by the dark light and was hypnotized the series pretty much would have been over. Zed just toys around though and again this is the big bad of the series... so yea I do not like Zed all that much right now. I mean even a plan that could at least progress some of the plot like the whole amnesia story with the Toqgers ends up doing nothing! Then there was Gritta as she is thinking of killing Zed so that she cannot be his bride. I think her original plan of just running away worked out better though as she only got caught because she went to Zed directly. Even Schwarz just comes out of nowhere when he was sent to find Gritta. Now Schwarz is starting to figure out that Gritta could be admiring him because he found his old handkerchief on her, man he is blind. Also Zed sees the sparkles in Gritta so he starts liking her and kisses her on the cheek, this is creepy!
Just have this burned into your minds.
All that is left is the action as even that was nothing special. The heroes reunite and fight the MOTW with the usual flair. I will say there was one big flaw when Right literally swung at nothing. It wasn't even off screen or anything like that. Right literally threw a grunt down a hill and yet he still swung in that direction after blocking another grunt's sword. I guess the grunt was supposed to be there and just didn't get there in time, was this just a one cut method or something, take more than one cut if there is going to be a flaw like that. Then they switch colors again and use the finisher that barely ever makes sense, but hey it's all about imagination! Even the mech fight was really stupid because Right just has the idea of combining all the trains together because it seems their imagination is at the highest potential! So we already get a clustered mech and it looks awful like many clustered mechs. It's just Toq-oh with a new head piece and the three other trains just slapped onto it. There are even pieces that just extended from the chest as they look so fragile. The new helmet looks silly too, nothing with this mech looks right! I'm amazed the poor suit actor can move in that thing. So the reveal of this mech is just clashing swords, one cannon attack, and the big finisher. Again I'm amazed the thing can move as I was just expecting the cannons to be firing the whole time. The finisher is then a complete copy of one of Go-ongers' finishers, but with trains.
There isn't really much else to say about this episode as these episode reviews are turning more into rants. It's the only way I can find to actually talk about this series though because what is given to me is bare to nothing. The heroes' development is really low and even if the villains are getting more it's not any good and not that much larger. The fights were the same old except for the clustered mech which was just a mess to watch. This episode gets a D- as the main villain is really doing nothing all that new for the series and so far I think his presence is making the series worse right now.
Next Time: Diesel and fire... why doesn't that sound right?

No comments:

Post a Comment