Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger Season 2 Review

So it finally came true, a second season of Akibaranger. To give a little history, Akibaranger was first hinted at being another Sentai series when Go-busters was airing. People were excited to hear about two Sentai series at the same time. Then came the first images and it was announced to be a parody series, the fan base was pretty confused and wasn't completely positive on the suit designs. Soon the series started and when it ended, people loved it. It was loved so much a second season came in the next year. So does season two continue the greatness of season one or does it miss the mark?

Now here is something that is different for a continuation of a series, this is kinda a first for a Toku show, but Akibaranger had some major changes. In the first episode, we get a flashback episode of the previous events as things are switched around. First thing is that Mitsuki was scouted by the Pentagon and not Nobuo, the scene even plays out the same just with different character positions. Also the main villain was switched as Delu Knight become the big bad and not the doctor. Also the realm of reality hasn't been broken this time and they didn't discover who the true villain of the series was. So everything ends this time with the heroes defeating Delu Knight with the help of the official heroes they got powers from before. Personally I'm not a fan of this method since I always like to see what is going to happen next. I will say this though, season two really did bring a great twist regarding the changes of events. So throughout, the ret-con was actually used well which is very surprising since a lot of ret-cons always gets so many "boos" from the fans.

No Mitsuki for season two TT_TT

So what is the story of Akibaranger now? Well it starts out a couple of months after the previous events. Mitsuki is gone because of the Pentagon and Yumeria vanished for some reason. We do find out though at the end of episode one that something isn't right. Somehow Akibaranger has become an official Sentai series! There is some bad news to this though, Dairanger doesn't even exist anymore! Nobuo decides to see what exactly is going on and the only course of action is the delusion world. He meets Ryuu Ranger, but he isn't the same anymore. He has been changed to China Red of Chinaman the rumored name for Dairanger. We find out it's actually a villain Otaku attacking the Sentai in the delusion world as he has Malshina help him out with his plans. This new villain is General Tsuu and as I said before he's an Otaku like the heroes, but he loves the villains of Super Sentai. He even makes his own monsters based on each series and sends them into the delusion world. This causes havoc in the real world as the monsters are making changes to the real world as seen with Dairanger. So now our heroes have to save their beloved Sentai series from harm, but wait, what about the other two? Well Yumeria does come back as we learn that she got married and for Akiba Blue a new female warrior takes the spot. Her name is Luna and she is hyper active and wants to become an idol. She really has no interest in Sentai, but she sees this as a possible use for her to become a better idol. So with the three unofficial heroes back they will painfully use their powers to save the day!

Pros- The beginning of season two was very good, excluding the first episode. Episode two and three really shown the new premise of season two in many great ways. First is how they will save the official Sentai is by helping them remember who they really are. Dairanger was first and holy crap it was explosive. We had the Dairanger opening theme played out by our heroes, had Red pretend to be Jin and lose to Ryuu Ranger like Jin did in episode twenty-seven, and Yellow cosplayed as Lin to save Kibaranger. It also really gave us a great impression on Tsuu who is an amazing villain. Not only does he make monsters based on series he even made a monster based on a famous stunt actor. He even made an evil Sentai warrior, how perfect is that? Also Tsuu was really funny, he's an Otaku and he gets equally happy about things like the other Otakus do. Then his bickering with Malshina was great as she knew little about Sentai and here she is being guided by a big fan. Malshina does great as well, and this time she can transform. The idea of her being a bigger super villain was well done and it got even better in the climax of the season. The best part though is that season two does play out like season one as the fourth wall breaking does return and a good amount of the humor is still there and this season got to poke fun at more than Sentai and Otakus as we got some jokes for famous movie directors and other Toku shows.

Can't forget about Super Akiba Red!

Cons- Now even though the beginning was well done, sadly the series doesn't hold up for too long with this premise. Episode five is a great example of this as the team is going to save Zyuranger who has become the Powerful Rangers. So we had a Power Ranger parody along with the Sentai parody. I was hoping to see a lot of really good jokes for this premise, but sadly it was wasted potential. I even felt this for some of the other episodes, like the robot girl, the evil sentai, and even the finale. Now the series still hit at some great points, but that was mostly thanks to Tsuu. The heroes this time felt a little under developed this time which is sad since last time they actually did branch off in season one. Also Luna I didn't really care for until episode eleven. She was just a boring character to me, she was just being Akiba Blue to help her in her idol career. Even when she had the chance to have a really good developed moment, they missed it in episode five, but at least it came in episode eleven. Then the finale.... well episode twelve throws a lot of curve balls. Really for a finale, too many new things were brought up and it just got in the way of a really good build up from episode eleven.

Overall- Even though there were somethings I am not completely happy with, the most important thing is that I was laughing most of the time. That is the most important part of a parody series is that the comedy was well done. Which it was and I can tell the cast had a lot of fun doing a second season. So even with some okay episodes and a disappointing finale there is still a lot of fun to have with the series as the new villain, Tsuu was perfectly portrayed and wasn't just a comedic character and some nice additions of weapons, mechs, and forms still leaves season two to stand out. With that I would give Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger Season Two a B+

Now let's hope we get a third season!

Akibaranger Seaon 2 Episode 12 Review: Prism Ace! (Major Spoiler Alert!!)

Well it has come to the big finish for Akibaranger as it is the final fight with Malshina, but is there more to this than we thought?

I will need to say this first because even though it was an alright episode it still carries a big negative. It's that Malshina is not even the final villain. I mean really this season really flies around with their villains. At first Tsuu seemed to be the big villain of this season, then season one comes back into play with Hatte, but he was being used by Malshina to do what she wanted with her world. Now we find out there was actually a secret group that wanted to take the Sentai time slot. They decided to use the delusional world to have their hero appear which would cause a change in the real world. I really didn't like this even though it did lead to some great scenes later, but it really didn't feel like a conclusion. With the new villain it's added on last second and doesn't feel right to have in the series. Did season one do something similar, yes with Hatte, but the build up was already being hinted at before the final episode. Here it comes out of the left field completely and ruins the great build up of Malshina being the big villain.

Going on with this now Malshina is already back to being a hero and her final fight was really wasted. It had a good build up with her using the reverse flags as her strength. She even prevented the team from doing their own flags then. She had a strong grip on the world and seeing a random Ultraman rip-off come in and defeat her was just really anti-climatic. Even Tsuu comes back, but he doesn't do much and becomes a hero now which is odd for the villain otaku. So many things got changed around in this final episode and again made it not feel like a true finale. The ending even ends with the heroes dying now..... so no season three then?

Are there still some good things in this episode, of course and that would probably be the humor. For season two the humor was lower compared to season one, but this episode really did bring that over the top humor back while the previous episodes were quite serious in many ways. I'm not saying a comedy show has to be purely comedy, but it's not that hard to mix it around. Episode nine was a great example of this since we had Tsuu messing with the delusional world in the beginning of the episode with having certain episodes be based on the seasons. So was there more humor in this episode, but sorry if I'm beating this with a dead horse it didn't feel like the final episode. Did I laugh, easily, but after watching the episode it did leave a sour aftertaste for me.

I remember hearing about how the first season had Ultraman references, but they were scrapped so I think Prism Ace was supposed to be that reference or references. I do like the idea of an unofficial Ultraman replacing the unofficial Sentai for the fight of the time slot because Ultraman hasn't been in the television business for a while until Ginga. They have been doing more movies recently, which I have seen one of them with Zero's reveal and I really did love that as that got me to want to find more Ultraman as I got the Ultra Seven DVD recently. I have to ask though, why did Prism Ace have to be the final villain? He wasn't even a villain since he was a new hero who just replaced Akibaranger, the real villains were the company trying to get rid of Toei's time slot. I guess they have to get rid of him though and now we can't have maid Hakase anymore.... dang.

So where did I laugh most of the time? The final fight with Prism Ace of course. The fight really got crazy here as the team got shots fired at his crotch, Super Akiba Red became a giant to fight Prism Ace, and how the team worked with that. This also would count as the first giant fight in Akibaranger since their mecha isn't really that big. Heck Prism Ace also carried some Kamen Rider references as he hand movements reminded me of Nigo's transformation pose. Then we had Akiba Red finish off Prism Ace with the help of his team throwing him up, and yes he was still a giant. Then he had a sudden transformation into Super Gold Akiba Red as he delivers the finishing slash. Even with the last minute changes, this fight was very good as it did feel like Akibaranger with everything being crazy!

Another thing this episode still does that felt like Akibaranger was the jokes towards the tropes. We had the new show replacing another, having one of the support characters be a new supporter in the new show, but then having a change of character, and the idea of the versus specials. I really did like the versus special joke because that is the only way for the Akibarangers to use their powers again since how can untransformed heroes fight along with another hero? It was a smart plan and even with the last minute changes there were still good jokes to go with them, but I really would have taken a final fight with Malshina be the final episode since this episode ends Akibaranger pretty much, unless Hatte can make a good back from the dead joke.

They even made a joke with case regarding who has the rights to the Ultraman franchise.

Overall this final episode didn't really do it's job well because of the last minute changes. There was really no connection to them to make it feel like a good finale. I still had a lot of laughs though with this episode so I wasn't completely mad with it. At least it still felt like Akibaranger, so with that this episode gets a C+. I won't review the final episode because it's just a clip show. All I will say is that I can still tell the cast did have fun with season two. Also the clip show ending made it feel like a better finale and Nobuo is right, Hatte can easily bring them back from the dead! I really do want season three!

Akibaranger Season 2 Episode 11 Review: Super Malshina (Major Spoiler Alert!!!!!)

It’s time for some more Akibaranger as now Tsuu is no longer the lead villain anymore. Malshina has taken his spot and is now affecting the Super Sentai series by making them the Super Malshina series?!

I have to say this episode really surprised me. First was in the last episode where Tsuu was defeated by Malshina. I mentioned how fun Tsuu was and I was hoping for Malshina to be a good replacement. Well…… she already shows how much of a great replacement she is as she is back to normal. What I mean is that she is acting like herself from season one. Still confused…. well it seems that season one did happen actually in the story. The thing is that Malshina finally got to meet the true villain of the Akibarangers, their creator! Yes Malshina found a way to Hatte the man who made other famous Sentai series. This then leads to the man in the hospital bed, it was him the whole time. It seems with the Delusion world it can connect to another world, this is where Hatte is in so basically the real world. Malshina hides as a nurse in the real world and this got her to meet the creator and she made him start season two of Akibaranger! This then leads to Tsuu who was actually a character Hatte put in as Malshina was mad about this since she lost her lead role again. With each monster and episode though she was slowly building up more knowledge so that when she attacks the real Super Sentai series she can defeat them with ease.

This may be an even bigger fourth wall breaker than the last episode. I mean not only the series crawled into the real world, but they also remember season one. Malshina actually tells the three heroes about the original events in season one like how the Pentagon was originally looking for Nobuo and not Mitsuki. We see flashbacks of the previous season and this means this isn't a ret-con then. The first season still applies to the series as Malshina never lost her true goal to find the creator and give the Akibarangers and herself the freedom they wanted. It's genius, I really mean it. Sure I wasn't happy with the whole differences, but now they all make sense now. Even the whole scorpion tattoo comes back into play as it seems to serve a different role this time, but it still notes that Hakase is going to be the main focus for a while. Here's the messed up part though, Malshina now has control over her world as she is mostly using Hatte to do what she wants.

The number one thing that switched was that the flags of defeat now changed to the flags of victory and vice versa. So when Delu Knight was talking about taking the Akibarangers to their graves and talking about a happy life after the battle helped him in the end. Nobuo realizes that things have changed thanks to Luna boasting out losing quotes, but that actually got her an attack on Delu Knight. So Nobuo does everything that a hero wouldn't do, first he says his team was useless, tells Hakase.... no Hioryo that he will marry her, and then uses his teammates as human shields. He even changed his finisher to a simple bonk on the head and all of this got him the win as Delu Knight is already defeated again.

Going on with how Malshina was screwing the heroes was that she had complete control of their world now. This is why the scorpion tattoo came back into play and the whole reason why the show had a complete turn around in the plot. She still wanted to help the Akibarangers as well since in season one they actually worked together so that they can keep their show going. Now with Malshina being the writer now she makes things different. First is the Super Malshina series which is her defeating Super Sentai teams which leads to the Sentai Cafe being a memorial for the warriors who fought Malshina. Also she even made the heroes lives follow a very linear path. Moegi had to deal with her husband since he came back for a sudden reason and Nobuo had his mother to deal with. There were even so many little details like Moegi's fan fiction being changed to Malshina fan fiction. She really drives deep with her plan and I do feel like she did go a little too far, but I guess that is what still makes her the villain.

The biggest thing I extremely loved in this episode was actually Luna for once. I complained about her a good amount of times in the past episodes because she wasn't really acting like the other two who were trying to be like heroes. This time however Luna actually steps up and becomes a better person. With the death of Super Sentai she was seeing that her friends were in despair. Also thanks to Malshina she wasn't helping them at all as she made them forcefully leave the team. Still Luna fought hard and even though she was using her role as an Akibaranger for a stepping stone she was fighting to make the people she met smile again. She was trying to save the franchise for them. This was pretty much what I wanted to happen in the Powerful Rangers episode and I couldn't be happier. She even tried to fight Delu Knight without the suit. I will still say it took a while, but now I like her as much as I do with the other team members, a big hooray for Luna!

Overall I am really really happy with this episode. Season two is actually a real continuation of the Akibaranger story, Malshina has really stepped her game up, the huge switch around, the big fourth wall breaker, and Luna being way more enjoyable just made me way too happy. I am excited to see how things will end in Akibaranger as I give this episode an A+! Also sorry about this shorter review, I kept losing my work because of bad internet connections.

Next Time: What the heck is that?

Akibaranger Season 2 Episode 10 Review: A Villain's End (Spoiler Alert!!)

Finally gotten back to Akibaranger as I have now gotten to episode ten where the Shogun is somehow stuck in the delusion world as our heroes think the Super Sentai franchise and the world is now safe, but Tsuu is still ready to let his delusions go on.

Actually the sad news is that this was probably Tsuu's last episode. I will get onto that big reveal later, but honestly I am quite disappointed that he isn't sticking around for the whole series. Tsuu was a really fun villain as he had a large amount of creative ideas thanks to his Super Sentai knowledge. The knowledge he knew though was mostly for the villains as he was a fan of the heroes' foes. I was quite impressed on how far they went to show more tropes of Sentai villains even though season one did a lot with that as well. The best example was episode nine with the whole calendar scheme and the previous episode where famous villains were rounded up into one monster. Tsuu even attacked Super Sentai series by changing Dairanger into Chinaman and making a fake evil Sentai with the Gouraigers. So I will personally miss this character and I hope the next episode can really explain what connections he had and maybe reveal his identity outside of the make-up.

Now onto how he was portrayed in this episode. It was still Tsuu all the way through even when he was stuck in delusion world. He thought he has found a way to break the walls between the two worlds and will be able to escape. To do this he makes a monster based on Akibaranger's past foes, the Chief Clerks. This brings the alpaca monster from season one. Sadly Malshina only tricked him and had him create the new monster so that she would escape from his control. Malshina then starts to shoot down Tsuu and even though I haven't watched Dynaman I am guessing his death was close to the villain he is heavily based on, General Kar. So his defeat was a big twist of the series as Malshina now has full control and has gotten her people back as even her grunts return. Then after his defeat he becomes a normal person in the real world now and the old man we were seeing before is now dying so again I am curious to see what actually happened.

Now with Malshina back in control after he very well done betrayal she also gains some more things to help her out in her battle. First is that she keeps her powers and can still be a masked villain and even though she lied about the monster being able to break reality he does do something though. The monster summons some sort of black slime that can revive a strong warrior back from the grave. With this Malshina brings back Deluknight from the dead. Now this isn't the same Deluknight now as his appearance takes a more terrifying look. He has darker shading in his armor as this does work well to make him appear to be a darker and stronger villain. On top of that Malshina as only been with Tsuu to get more Sentai knowledge from him as she gets it all from absorbing all of it in the end. So now Malshina as the Chief Clerks back, brought back Deluknight, and has acquired all the knowledge from Tsuu. She gotten a lot more dangerous so she is a good replacement for Tsuu.

This episode was mostly for the villains or I could really say a lot of the episodes really focused on the villains this time. Well with that the Alpaca does return to fight our heroes for the first time in this season. He isn't a weak cute monster though as he is an Inoue villain! Nobuo brings this up as the monster attacks itself to make a handicap which is a famous trope for his series. Also it's funny that this time he is a villain who is confident in his strength was originally a monster that couldn't even fight. Another nice joke was how Nobuo reacted to seeing him saying that he looks like a Chief Clerk should and looks like he was done by the same designer. It's a great nod to season one as we get an old villain who gets a complete change of character and is used for the plot twist for the series again.

As I said before this season really has strong moments for the villains which was in the last season of course, but the major focus was for the heroes. I mean the beginning of season two did have good character moments for our heroes, but as the series progressed their parts were done. I will say the next episode will probably have good character moments since the Super Sentai franchise is vanishing, but I would have liked more of a balance still between heroes and villains. The only type of hero scenes we had was the three relaxing and living their normal lives again because Tsuu was inactive. This was the struggling point for me because the humor was really there to keep my attention in the beginning part of the episode. I will say the better half is worth it, but Akibaranger usually keeps a good steady ride throughout the whole episode.

The final thing to talk about was the action as again this was in the better half of the episode. The MOTW did act cocky and he had that right since he juggled around Red just by kicking him around and easily slash the team up with his spatulas. Then there was the moment where our heroes acted like two female Sentai members. Where Yellow did Dekayellow, but just threw a rock..... Blue actually had the more accurate attack even though she did Abare Yellow's attack even though she is a blue warrior. I did love seeing her fly around and then going too far, thus crashing. The best part though was a new cannon finisher as all six powers become one as we get a much better cannon reveal in this season. It's a combination of the two cannons as it really does show all parts of well which is surprising since both cannons looks very different and the idea of six parts working well together is amazing. There was also the struggle portion where Deluknight came back and his swordplay as changed a little probably because he is more evil and powerful now.

Overall the second half of the episode was the really great part of this episode. The first half was okay as the most fun I had were the scenes with Tsuu in the beginning half. The later half really had a good twist and it may not be as strong as season one's big twist it still has impact since a villain has been defeated and Malshina has taken her spotlight back. I would give this episode a B.

Next Time: Malshina gladly takes her throne.

Akibaranger Season 2 Episode 9 Review: The Little Mecha That Could (Spolier Warning)

For this episode of Akibaranger we get another genius plan from the Grand Shogun as he drags our heroes into his delusional world. Tsuu is much stronger now and has many things awaiting our heroes (Sorry for the images I couldn't find any so I had to get them myself).

I know this is an unofficial series, but Tsuu is personally becoming a really good villain. His love for villains is strong and he does have a lot of knowledge of Sentai. The plan to take the Akibarangers to his delusions was pure genius because he has a lot of control. He even made the heroes have delusions on some Sentai tropes like the swimsuit, wedding, and race episodes. He did this by making fake scripts and having the Sentai die hards make up these delusions. Tsuu had Nobuo think of the swimsuit episode because well he's like that, give him some credit he's twenty-nine well thirty I would guess if I'm going by time aspects and hasn't got any love. Then he used Moegi's rotteness to think of the wedding by teasing her with a possible Hanto and Hirmo shipping ( I just got the chills from typing that). Then the final one was a race which I was confused by at first, but Tsuu plotted this perfectly.

The reason why he had the race at the end was for timing purposes. The race was part of a fake Bioman script of episode 46.5. This is because during this time it would have been winter and this means chaos for a Sentai. Actually the other two moments were for this also as Tsuu had the three go through the Sentai calandar. Swimsuit episode being in the summer, the wedding episode is in Autumn, and now they got to winter because of the race. So with winter in check a Sentai is at it's weakest at this moment because it connects to the marketing for the show. The companies can then give the team new power ups or mecha so that it will explode for toy sales. So even if the team got help from their mecha the Itashar it cannot win against the giant mecha kaiju because of this. Then things even get worse for our heroes.

It continues to get worse when Tsuu now has Malshina under his control. She is nothing, but a fighter now. Also with Winter still in effect the team can barely even fight back. She even pops up randomly and attacks the team. Malshina even has the same powers as Wolzard as Tsuu used the Cursed Reincarnation spell from Magiranger. Also now their outrageous powers don't even work in this world as Tsuu changes them to become villain powers! Doing this summons Long, Yami no Yabia, and Vancuria. Now they didn't get much of a fight with this sadly, but they do become a weapon for Malshina. It's a pretty crappy looking weapon as I can tell it's a one use only, at least the idea of villain commanders was interesting. I still think they could have used them a little more.

I love Tsuu's plan as it not only tricks the team as they are basically on rail tracks, but the amount of tropes they cover. They cover the three arch type episodes of a Sentai series, the winter marketing, and they even involve the Mecha tropes as well. The amount of referencing as well sky rocketed as they even reference a suit designer, to be more exact it was Izabuchi Yukata as he did a lot of mecha designs for Sentai. Also the giant mecha Kaiju is the same as the ones from Bioman. As I said before it's not only a genius plan, but it also brings humor and some very well brought up references.

For the humor aspect this episode did much better than some other episodes since they had followed what the show established already. I will say I am still not a fan of Luna's selfishness humor and she even made a stepping stone pun (*insert sarcastic laugh here*). Also I will Moegi's tick for this week was odd, but I will let that go because it's probably something I don't know about. What went right though was with the delusions, first the Shinkenger one was funny because the Kokoro actually came out and set up a summer design in the background. The team then stripped their clothes and were in swimsuits and this affected reality as well as the guys in the cafe were in speedos (I just got another chill). Then the wedding scene had good humor because of Nobuo's silly face and being forced to try and kiss one of the girls and then finishes it with some good old slapstick with a cake to the face. Oh then the guys in the cafe tried to kiss the two girls then which was funny seeing the aftermath then as the guys had marks and scratches on their faces. I will say Luna's actress did break out a smile when she was supposed to be disgusted. The race was so tiny then and it was funny to see it go by so fast there were even a tiny drink stand.

Now how did the Akibarangers save themselves this time? Well Hakase got them another robot as it got destroyed in the previous battle. So now this fits with the flag for victory as the new mecha always wins it's reveal fight! So here comes Itashar Boy a tiny version of the past mecha also it reference the Boy mechs from the franchise like my favorite Tetra Boy from Jetman. I loved the sight humor in this moment because we see a tiny robot punch and throw around a giant mecha Kaiju around. He even caught the monster's blade and flipped him! Then to top it off the team threw the mech at the beast and thus killing it and I cannot forget about Tsuu's reaction to this as well, priceless.

I will say this episode still didn't reveal much as of yet and we are getting to episode ten now. So far still nothing on the old man in the hospital and now all of a sudden Hakase as the Scorpion tattoo from last season again. I have a feeling that episode ten will have a lot of stuff to go through or will they save it up for eleven. Oh well at least I am still having a fun time with the series so far.

Overall this was a great episode. Tsuu had another great plan for our heroes as he them in his hands for most of the time. I even like he knew how poor the heroes were which was a weakness. Still the flag for victory will always come back for the heroes. The humor was mostly well done with nice sight gags and how it was delivered. Then the references this episode went to and how they brought the tropes up, this was easily the biggest trope moment for Akibaranger in general. I would give this episode an A.

Next Time: The alpaca again?

Akibaranger Season 2 Episode 8 Review: We Need a Villain!

For this episode of Akibaranger, Tsuu is continuing his greatness with a new genius plan of making a monster that can imitate past Sentai villain generals! Will Tsuu succeed or can the Akibarangers find a way against all the generals in one monster?

I really want to talk about the MOTW Mutou Mushiten first since even though it is a remodeling of Tentro Raiger, it's still awesome. First he is a Kenma which was the strongest ranking type of villains in Gekiranger. Then his fist is accessing many moves of past villains, but they follow a pattern. All the villains he imitates are by one certain stunt actor. I will cover that next, but going on with Mutou Mushiten. He easily screams Kenma because of his overall gold plating and he has the belt buckle symbol like other Kenma. I will say the red sleeves could have been slimmer, I know it's trying to make his arms look bigger, but cloth is not the best material for that. Also his weapons mostly looked like cosplay weapons as they all had gold on them and they all portray a certain villain. So he is mostly the cosplay monster which is pretty awesome. Now onto the stunt actor he copies, Yoshinori Okamoto!

Akibaranger did an episode heavily focused on a famous stunt actor in season one with Niibori who played a lot of Red warriors in the franchise. Okamoto is the opposite though as he plays the villains that the Reds must overcome. Then for a side note I love both of those episodes, it's great to tribute the stunt actors as they did a whole lot to make these shows great in the action department. Now I haven't seen all of Maskman and some of the other series he was in, but I do know his characters. I love stunt actors a lot and the idea of them as doing things is always much better than CGI. Also these stunts actors got damaged a lot and this episode even briefly mentions that. So again it's great to see Akibaranger give tribute to the stunt actors again, but how was Okamoto portrayed in this episode?

Yoshinori Okamoto was amazing in this episode no doubt about that at all. I really liked his appearance more than Niibori because even though he gave Mitsuki some great teaching we got to see Okamoto's ideology about being villains. He loves to be a strong villain, but his favorite part is to die with beauty. This means dying in battle in a great style making the hero looking stronger. Again this is what I mean about stunt actors being amazing, they put a lot of effort in their roles. Even if you didn't like the character in general you can still give credit to the hard work that was done. There are many amazing stunt actors out there and each one of them want to do their best with any role they got. It could even be the MOTW, but they will still do their best no matter what. It's too bad we didn't get a recent appearance from him in any of the recent Sentai series. He did do stunt work for Akaranger in Gokaiger, but we need another one of his characters.

To make this even better, Okamoto is put in the episode greatly. There is a reason how the MOTW can copy his moves which is because Tsuu had him do some motion capturing for him. Tsuu had him perform his many moves so that his monster can use these moves. This gives us a nice moment for Tsuu as he shows how much of a villain otaku he is. I mean this will be a dream for any Sentai fan to see a stunt actor perform his famous roles once more, but Tsuu loves villains with a passion. So this easily gets ten times bigger for him and now he creates a monster that tributes those moves. Even when the monster died, Tsuu saw it as a beautiful death which is exactly Okamoto does. So not only was this great man given so much love he was put into the plot of this episode very well.

Before the team met him they thought they were tracking down Tsuu. This leads to some nice funny moments as the team try to see who he is. Nobuo tries to last as long as him in a sauna, but he ended up burning up and out of energy. Luna tries to give him a bad message by using a big rock slate and a deck brush, but the man doesn't even feel it. Then Moegi tries by doing the same, but with high heels and stepping on him. So not only can this man perform great stunts, but he has a body that is strong as metal since the sound effects were metal sound effects! Nobuo even tried attacking him thinking he was Tsuu and he got a quick butt whopping from Okamoto. Again it is that nice over the top element in Akibaranger. Then we even got an appearance from Mr. Kamen Rider himself, Seiji Takaiwa who did stunt work for both Sentai and Rider, but too bad this show only knows about Sentai. So Okamoto even had funny moments in this episode, just perfect!

Alright on with the plot of this episode now. In this episode Malshina was not that involved since well she got put into an acrylic box which really looked like how Princess Iaru from Maskman. Also to go along with that moment the Maskman theme was playing since the MOTW pulled off a move done by Oyobur. Along with some more tributes in the final fight as the team use the weakness of the monster's strong desire to die with beauty. They recreate a famous fight from Changeman with Babuu and Change Dragon. This was an awesome moment as they even shown us how they used the sunset effect. Akiba Red was in Super form and he got a fake Changeman shield, his weapon is sort of similar to Changeman's sword, and he even imitated Niibori's moves. There were even camera angles that were used during that fight, too bad it wasn't perfect.

There was one moment that took me out of this awesome moment which was the reveal for the new cannon weapon for the heroes. I mean this comes out of nowhere. They just take out the weapon after a couple of slashes. It would have been better to see Red actually do the finisher with his sword and recreate the finisher from that fight. I'm surprised Red didn't do this since you would think he would love to fully recreate a scene like that since he did that in episode three. Oh well what about the new weapon, it's okay. The Penultimate Cannon is not a better weapon for me because of how obvious it was going to be. I mean the Dairen Bomber weapon so gave it away because it can probably hold something. At least with the Bazooka it had some creativity with the three weapons it had.

Now the final thing to bring up is that we get a little hint about a new character like in the last episode. There was a final scene where we are in a hospital where a weak man is watching Boukenger. I wonder what they are building up to here? Is this man connected to the heroes or to the villain? We can tell he is a Sentai fan since he was watching Boukenger which is one of my favorites. Then what will this man bring to the series I mean he is easily not in any condition for fighting, maybe it's connected to another reason why Tsuu wants to use the delusional world? Oh well this is pretty good build up right now as these scenes are being saved till the end of the episodes as I always wonder what they have to do with the series.

Overall this was an episode I so needed since many of the previous episodes didn't have the greatness that season one had. This episode easily gets there thanks to an amazing tribute to Yoshinori Okamoto as he got a lot of praise in this episode. I mean who cannot forget some of his roles they were pretty awesome. Also it's a much better look into the 80's Sentai since Gokaiger didn't do much of that sadly. I would give this episode an A things could have been perfect except for some odd moments in the episode like Luna's and the new cannon weapon.

Next Time: Machine Itashar's return?

Akibaranger Season 2 Episode 7 Review: Daily Problems (Spolier Alert!!)

It's been a while I got to look into Akibaranger. I'm very sorry for this and for future Akibaranger reviews I am not going to force myself to blast through the episodes and get to an overall series review. I am going to take my time so I can form good opinions on this season. With this episode we have the Gouraigers appear, but they aren't their normal selves.

With the Grand Shogun finding out the delusion world can affect the real world, he decides to make another Gouraiger. She is a yellow sentai warrior and it's funny that she is voiced by Nao who was Hurricane Blue.I bet there were rumors of this actually happening in the series since people would like to think adding another Gouraiger would balance the team up. It's an interesting idea and making her a different shade of yellow makes her fit in with the other two very well. I will say though some of her design choices are very different, mostly her bottom half. It's white and grey compared to the black legs the Gouraigers have. I guess this is used to for gender classification. So now we have a new evil Sentai team in the battle of delusions, and I know Tsuu is not the only one who wanted this to happen in an actual series.

The thing is though is that she is still a monster made by Tsuu so she has the power to steal people's hearts. Now not the full heart itself, but parts of it. The first demonstration is when she takes the otaku part of people's hearts away to make them actually work. Then we find out she took the justice from the Gouraigers' hearts. It's an interesting little power, but that's it for her powers then. Really her existence does cause an issue, but her powers are barely even used again. Maybe she could have been part of the anti-otaku organization, which could be true since when she appears again she is in a black suit like the guys.

You heard me right about the anti-otaku issue. In this episode the birth of the new villains actually cause a change in the calendar. Originally Malshina had these three become the new spears as there would now be ten of them. Sadly Tsuu wanted an evil Sentai, but since they were originally new spear members their names added more days to the calendar. Alright time for a little explanation, the Seven Spears from Hurricanger were based on the days of the week. So you can already see why adding members added three more days to a week. This is not the only problem though as now Sentai can only get to thirty-six episodes! That means we never get Dekaranger's thirty-seventh episode, my favorite NOOOOO! Along with that there are new anti-otaku laws in the three days. The first one is throwing away otaku trash, the second day is banning toku songs, and the final day is no cosplay.

I love how ridiculous this episode got, it's like they finally got to let it go this time unlike some of the past episodes. I mean we had men in black suits chase down Moegi and then the same ones appear to chase Tsuu, how the hell does that work? I really would like to know how this all happened though, I mean all we know was that three days were added. I want to think Tentro Raiger would be a part of this, but we don't get any type of explanation. Also I think they could have gone a slightly bit more crazy, but the actors would have to commit to some large roles. Like the officers just go and strip down cosplayers, it would be crazy and didn't have to happen to Moegi, but some random civilians and heck if Tsuu got that treatment that would have brought up a great laugh.

Going on with Tsuu he finally got into the delusion world! After being chased by the officers he finds himself in the same building as the Akibarangers. This is when Tento Raiger appears and the team take her on and use their devices. This gives him the idea of using his to connect to the delusion world. So he appears before Malshina and our heroes as all of them are surprised to see him. So now we are seeing that he is learning things about the delusion world and he was even thinking that the Akibarangers were real people who went into the delusion world before he actually met them. So this does make previous thought right, he was simply having fun being a Sentai villain. He didn't know that things were happening in real life and thus was just having a blast. Things are different though and he already as an idea to make the evil Sentai team real by having them defeat the Hurricangers in the real world. He just learned this recently and he thought of a plan like this, I hope he has more plans like these.

Another part I was really liking for the villains was that Malshina did do her research for once. She learned about the Hurricangers enemy, the Jakanja. Thus she decides to name Tentro Raiger and the other two the three new spears. Tsuu wanted them to be an evil sentai though and their bickering is great. They are in battle with themselves basically even if Malshina did do her research on Super Sentai. I hope we get a lot more of this because this gives the two villain characters some nice scenes and again some good laughs which is good for a comedy series like this.

Even with these nice parts I will say the action was low sadly, even if we got the Hurricangers to appear. The first fight was pretty good since it was interesting to see an evil Sentai fight. They even had a finisher move which it is mostly a lightning effect with three lightning bolts, but remember lightning effects are always cool. There was an odd thing with Kuwaga Raiger as he grabbed the chests of both blue and yellow during the fights, never knew Isshuu was a grabby guy. We even got to see Hurricane Red get a Shurikenger's armor pad which made me think of Burai passing down his shield to Geki, but sadly it doesn't work at all. Then we even had the Gouraigers come back because they see the Akibarangers work hard like they did when they didn't have money. It did come out of nowhere yet it's still a bit funny cause they just have a glance at the three and they change back instantly. The final fight is then just making a new power from both Hurricanger and the Gouraigers as they make a chain and ball as it just hits Tentro Raiger once and done!

Overall there are some great things in this episode, but some other aspects just go too fast at times. I mean the anti-otaku policies could have been worked with more to add some more humor, the Hurricangers could have more of a fight. To give credit though I did love how the evil Sentai just make a technique called "Deflected by the thing in 2001." This thing was the shadow attack performed by the Hurricangers so that was the part that made me laugh the most considering they just use a wall to stop the heroes. This episode is better than five and six, but not by a whole lot since they could have done a little more jabbing for humor. I would give this episode a B- for some great villain scenes. Still this episode lacked a lot of meat and could easily benefited from that.

Next Time: Tentro Raiger again?