Ressha Sentai Toqger Episode 5 Review: Hungry For Entertainment

For this episode of Toqger the team found out that they cannot connect to a Shadow Line because of the influence. Thanks to a new Ressha though they found a way into the Hunger Station as a monster is eating all of the people's food.

I have to say this really felt like one of the blandest episodes of Sentai in a while. By bland I mean there isn't anything all that special in this episode. It follows the formula and just moves on with that. Now I'm not saying this is a terrible episode because of that, but it could have easily used more thickness to make this episode actually feel memorable. Literally all this episode was the team heading into the Shadow Station, heroes fight the monster, focus character does somethings to help, and mech fight. Now there are many Sentai episodes like this, but it's usually what the focus character does or the MOTW that can make an episode special and stand out. This episode doesn't do that and as I said before just because it's bland doesn't mean it's bad, remembering it will be hard though.

So reviewing this episode is going to be somewhat hard because there isn't much to talk about. I will say this will be one of the shortest reviews in a long time. Literally there is little to talk about in this episode. All there was is, Right being a glutton, the monster being a glutton, and the action. Alright so let’s get onto the villains plans for this episode. The monster is eating all the food and making people suffer with hunger. It's interesting to see hunger being a negative emotion, but when it goes this far it does make sense. People cannot support themselves and stay strong without food. Literally there is a scene where the monster is stealing milk from a baby's bottle. If Toqger went for a darker side of things there probably would have been cannibalism or people acting like animals to find food. Actually it would be a little funny to see a comedic side of people acting like animals for food. Sadly, the episode doesn't do this as we need to concentrate on Right's gluttony.

I will say Right wasn't annoying like he was in previous episodes and there were times when he wasn't helping at all, so Right wasn't right for once. Right actually thought more than the people who have been splitting their food for who knows how long. Right looks out for food and my goodness I was screaming at those four people because they are near a lake or river, GET SOME FISH! Right does that as he found fish from a stream and got bamboo shoots to eat raw. Then there was a little mean side to Right as he hates the idea of a monster stealing food. Now I was thinking he was doing this for the people who were starving, but it seemed more like he was mad that the people couldn't have the pleasure of eating. This is seen by how he treats the monster by taunting him with food while being tied up. I will say that was a little funny, but easily makes me think differently about Right being a hero. Then in the end this doesn't really expand his character all that much as I already knew he loves to eat, so nothing new really.

For the other team then they were just in the background pretty much. During the big fight, Right was just taking the other colors by himself while they just deal with it. I will say this got me thinking about Dinosaur Jesus, Daigo. I mean really the leader was hogging the spotlight and didn't even give his team much importance to this episode as well. Doesn't matter though because this episode wasn't all that important anyways, so jokes on you Right! At least he was getting creative with how he fought with the different weapons so there's that I guess.

The monster of this episode was fun at the least because he had a good design even though he still looked silly. It's a good design that makes the monster look silly as he just a trash can you shoves food into his mouth. The sad part is that there are no interesting attacks for the guy. Would it have been great to see the monster spit things back up for attacks? Also it would have made things interesting if the monster spit food back up and made people eat it even though it tastes terrible, making the people feel worse than hungry. The people would have to eat it though because it's all they have. Sadly all this monster has is claws to help him fight which doesn't do much anyways... So yea a whole lot could have been done with this monster as he was pretty much more of a punching bag than anything.

So the action for this episode was entertaining at least. Right switching around the colors was a little fun to see how he used the weapons. He shoved the ax down the monsters throat and bashed his head in with the hammer. At first I thought he was going to get all the weapons and shove them down the monster and somehow do an attack with that. It would actually be stupid, but fun if somehow inside the monster the weapons form together for the blaster and Right just throws the bullet train into the creature and then it just bursts right through him. Again for a series about imagination there isn't much creativity to this show. The mech fight was boring though as it's the opposite of the Shield Ressha fight. The Car Ressha gets used, but unlike the previous fight there were some new things being shown along with the shield. The Car Ressha is just used as an extended fist and it's more of a punch fight and straight to the finisher. Most of the music for the fight is wasted on the mech being formed. At least there was a new finisher that had little cars fly around and some did go into the monster, but overall it was a boring mech fight.

Again this episode is just bland and there are more things that can make this episode bad, but at the same time the blandness does save this episode. There isn't much to make me mad like episode two and three had as it was just a little ride. Then there were little interesting things like Schwarz spying on the team to find out if anything new happens. The only important thing this episode had was at the end as there are more Resshas to find, I smell a fetch quest! This episode gets a C- because it's bland, but there can be some little fun moments like how Right acted in this episode. Sadly the overall teamwork is low, the monster was weak, and the actual character development is pretty much nothing.

Next Time: More Resshas... Again!