Saturday, June 21, 2014

Ressha Sentai Toqger Episode Seven Review: Actual Imagination!

For this episode of Toqger we actually get a sense of imagination from this series. Sadly that is really the only good part to this cliche ridden episode as Hikari gets mad because Kagura broke his toy, oh no!
So there is barely anything all that good in this episode as it's heavily predictable and there is barely any humor to back it up. Now there was a saving grace, but I will get to that later. The whole thing with Hikari being mad about his toy being broken, I so knew he would think he went too far. Then for character movement the only thing I can say is that there is more shipping fuel and it has to be a really bad fan fiction reason because that is at least better than nothing. Literally there was no actual reason for these two to be closer friends or it is because of fights and apologies. Maybe it's because Hikari actually did open up towards another character about his feelings and in general he was more expressive in this episode, proof is in the picture up above. So with the actual chemistry not feeling the best how were the characters in this lab experiment.
First of all I have to say at first Kagura felt like she was having no movement with her character because she was just stuck in her imagination. She does some ninja role play and this makes me wants to watch Kakuranger. The thing is that there was barely any ninja role play for the rest of the episode and in a way they were actually teasing it. It's like there was some comedic build up for once. It's something I was not expecting and it's thanks to how Kagura was used in this episode. In the end her powers were used and in control and that is something I really loved. I will get into more detail about those moments, but first of all I'm giving credit to Kagura because she gave some creativity to the episode. Also her powers have been in control and in good use, character progression! I am just so happy that after seven episodes there is another moment of character progression making it two times so far. Kagura if you stay like this you can be bearable!
Hikari then as I said he did show more emotion in this episode and did open up to Kagura. It seems the show is actually not doing that bad of a job with dual focus episodes. I remember many of the Right focus episodes where I just hated it, but the Tokkai and Mio episode was nice and the character use in this episode was good as well. So having Hikari starting to open up was good. The whole cold act was starting to get annoying. Either way he is already reminding me of Souji from Kyoryuger, but in that one episode it felt a slight better than most of Souji's progression because that character barely ever moved. Sadly there is a black sheep in the whole thing.
The predictability of the whole thing really made things terrible though. These two characters have problems with each other, the monster of the week handicaps the other three members, and now these two have to work together. Sadly the whole pacing of this cliche episode really went off that track near the end as I did see Hikari apologizing to Kagura coming. This just felt boring for the majority of the episode which is sad because things could have been done better. Maybe Kagura could have kept things a secret from everyone as everyone just wonders what the hell is wrong with her as she cannot confront Hikari. It would at the very least give some sense of thought to what could have happened. Then they easily could have hinted it with Kagura playing ninja in the middle of a fight or something like that. Overall just try to change the usual formulas, this can make the series a bit more redeeming then.
There were still nice surprises in this episode like how the MOTW got the three other members with his stamps and made them lazy. At first he only had one stamp hand and then he grew another one and got Tokkai. Reminding me of that, it was funny when Right got hit by the stamp, the four were acting more like a team without him. Other than that the only other surprise was how Hikari and Kagura fought the stamp monster. So far this is my favorite part of the series, as Hikari and Kagura use Kendama tricks to defeat the monster. Kagura imagined herself to be a rock pretty much as she held onto the railing that extended out from Hikari's ax. He was bouncing her around and tricking the monster as he moved her towards and away at perfect timing. The best part was when the monster came for the attack, the two switched their color resshas and then switched their weapons thanks to the transformation switch. This then made Hikari the attacking member as Kagura held onto the ax. This was literally one of the most imaginative things I have seen from the series and in Sentai for a while, hopefully the series can keep that up.
Then that's really all I got to say about this episode. It's heavily bare as there are many little things that we have seen in the series already so I don't even want to talk about them. The amount of content in this episode is much lower and yes there was Wagon, but I don't even want to get on with that. I have talked about how Kyoryuger played it safe and that just made me angry, but Wagon makes me mad that I drew blood from my fingers and nails as I was scratching them on my wooden chair. I can safely say this, Wagon is the worst comedic relief I have seen in Sentai so far. So other than that there were good surprises in this episode, but they come so late. The rest of the episode is very bland and the amount of content is even low. This episode reminds me of episode sixteen of Kyoryuger as the saving grace comes way too late even if it was awesome. With that the episode gets a D+
Next Time: More Support Resshas...

3 comments:

  1. So far, format of the show goes like this:
    New Support Resshas -> Filler -> New Support Resshas -> Filler.... latter-rinse-repeat I guess
    There's nothing with the per-say, but in terms of storytelling, it's pretty fair IMO, for a few episodes.
    Let's hope it gets better by episode 10 and beyond, where we should get more progression of the show.

    Awwww no love for Wagon?
    I honestly don't think she's that BAD of a character; she does serve her roles fine.
    She's just kind of... there... which is what supporting character supposed to do.
    I think you're too early to judge her character at this point, where we still have 40+ more episodes to go.
    I like the suit design BTW.

    Kendama trick is pretty unique IMO, it's a lot better than Nossan-ball last year (WTF were they smoking when they come up with that?).

    Kagura
    This next segment that I want to discuss is very subjective and it has nothing to do with this episode.
    I noticed that you haven't been a fan of sentai or positive after Gokaiger.
    I think the problem here is that you're setting the expectation too high, either you loved Gokaiger a lot or expecting more of the same thing, etc.
    I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong; you have right to praise/criticize the series.
    What I'm trying to say is that Toei doesn't necessarily make sentai that you satisfied; they always make different varieties of the series, whether they are good/bad, depend on how you see.
    Not every series can be part of your taste.
    Try to understand and somewhat appreciate (if possible) for what's Toei's doing right now regarding their variety in tones/shift of franchise (even though their ratings has been slipping drastically every since Gekiranger, but that's another topic).
    You can't just set up expectation too high/low every time, and try what Toei is accomplishing.
    (BTW, I'm not trying to say "it's just a kid show", just to remind you).
    If you can't.... then I recommend (not demand) that you should stop reviewing series if you feel so stressful; heck you are already doing lot of things beside sentai/tokusatsu these day anyway (e.g. video games)

    That's all I have to say. Feel free to agree/disagree with my statement.
    I'm wishing you good health and looking forward to see another review.

    P.S. I love your pacman icon on "about me". Nice choice! Pacman rules.

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  2. I think the problem with the new Sentai is that things are just becoming a toy commercial and not a good show. Go-busters wasn't that, it was just a bad series in my opinion as it tried too much. Kyoryuger and Toqger are playing it safe and mostly let the toys be the money maker. I know these shows always sell toys and merch, but again Gokaiger was the opposite of that even with the many keys. Then for how things are for the other franchise, Kamen Rider easily took more risks and Gaim is easily that. Even Fourze was an interesting change for the franchise as it was more comedic and upbeat than series before it.

    With Wagon that is completely different story, I can be a snob of comedy. If it fails it can anger me at many times. Comedy is all over the place and I know the many different types as I've seen many films, series, and games with those different styles. Wagon has terrible comedy, but she just has the things I hate in a huge personal sense. She acts like a teenage girl obsessed with social media and that is something that just makes me want to uproar. Also her design is just creepy in my opinion and they try to make it look sexy and that just creeps me out. I can have an issue with over sexualization as well. Now would Toqger and Kyoryuger be fine for kids, of course they play it safe for that reason even with the questionable things in Toq. It's just I have seen story in kids shows that have done better and can be more than just a kids show.

    In the end, there will always be different opinions and I understand that. All I am doing is sharing my opinions about entertainment because I love it that much.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the reply.
      If you have time in future, maybe you can post a blog topic on "Current State of Sentai/Tokusatsu" or something, where you can discuss more in detail of that topic.

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