Kyoudaikido Soldier Chromacorps

Welcome back to my reviews of Power Rangers Samurai! In this change in my schedule, these reviews will be moving to Tuesdays, so be sure to come by next Tuesday (when the cartoons will be back, as well!)

We open on Emily walking around the empty house, everyone is seemingly gone, but we find that they are all hiding in one room trying to plan a surprise party for Emily’s birthday. Mike is happy that they’re doing something special for her, even though she isn’t with her sister this year. A knock comes on the door, and Jayden sneaks in, asking amout the cake. Mia suggests baking a cake, but the others tell her that Antonio had “already ordered one.” Everyone is doing really well in their parts, but unfortunately that’s about to change.

After the credits roll, we see the monsters on the Sanzu River talking about how Xandred has recently been very angry. This is the first time that Octoroo’s “Oo-a-oo” has really bothered me. I don’t mind some character cues, but when they’re repeated in lines right after each other, it’s a bit too noticable. However, his confrontation of Dayu is nice to see. Dayu ignores his warnings, and for once in quite a few episodes, I like Dayu’s character and attitude towards the other monsters.

Antonio is seen fishing for bass, Emily’s favorite fish, for her birthday. When I get to the wrap up, I’ll cover a few characters that I think stand out in this episode and why, but I will say that Antonio is one of them. He’s talking to the Clawzord, a new Zord that he has sitting in a bucket. He says that he’ll have the Clawzord up and running soon.

Back to the Sanzu River, Dayu and Octoroo are discussing the current state of the river, and how the Nighlock are getting stronger. The monster of the week, Splitface, joins them, saying that he’ll make the river overflow even more by causing misery.

…And another jump, now to Deker, who is ready to fight Jayden. As he walks off, he passes Antonio, who mistakes Deker for a fisherman. Antonio tells him that the fish were biting at the pond he was at. Antonio completely misses the point, but he plays it believably. He gets the call from Jayden that Splitface is attacking citizens, and we cut to a pretty cool scene with the monster tearing spirits out of people. The actor who is attacked is pretty convincing, and we see that he’s taken many more spirits as well. As he charges more victims, the Rangers jump in to stop him. First up are Mike and Antonio, who rush in but are caught off guard by Splitface’s technique Body Swarm, which turns him into many smaller faces that all attack the Rangers, and are too fast to hit. The swarm heads over and attacks the others, and knocks Emily down. He reforms his body and takes Emily’s spirit, causing her to fall asleep. The monster tells the others that her spirit will be his in 24 hours, and that they can’t follow him to the Netherworld, which is where he’ll be hiding out. The Rangers attack him, but once again Splitface turns into a swarm and runs off through a gap. The heroes must now look for a way to defeat him, but mortals can’t go to the Netherworld, and the situation looks grim.

Emily is in bed, and Ji describes the gravity of the situation. Mike and Antonio both share the idea that they’ll do whatever needs to be done to save Emily. Mike stands next to Emily and tries to think of something, and Antonio is out in a field, trying to give some life to Clawzord through power symbols. After looking back, I’ve noticed an error! The symbol here is supposed to be “live.” The reading in Japanese is “katsu” which means “lively” or “bring to life.” However, the symbol they show is missing a stroke. 活 is what it should have looked like.

The Rangers are taking care of Emily, who wakes up, but not for long. The guys are very convincing in their parts, but the girls aren’t. They still feel a bit stiff in their acting. Mike runs off after Emily falls back to sleep, and attacks the gap that the Nighlock escaped through. The others try to hold him back, and Jayden runs in to stop him. However, in his way is Deker. Deker tells him that unfortunately he’s going to have to put off the duel again. He sheds some light on the situation however, telling the team that if they become Nighlocks, they can enter the Netherworld. It will also make them fight in ways that they never believed. However, they have to trade their existence for it. Deker runs off, leaving the Rangers with a choice. Mike says that he’ll do it, trading his life for Emily’s. The others tell him that they have to save everyone, and after some discussion, they all decide to make the sacrifice to save the Earth. Just as they are about to try, however, Antonio comes in. He’s found a way to bring Splitface back into the world from the Netherworld.

They send a lot of symbol power to Clawzord, bringing it to life, and it starts to affect a mark on Splitface. The mark on Splitface reads 海老, something that wasn’t changed from the original Shinkenger episode. See, the Clawzord in Japanese is named “海老折神,” which reads as “Ebi Origami.” “Ebi” is the Japanese word for shrimp, and what Clawzord is actually based off of, despite the puns later in the episode, though it could technically be read as “lobster” as well. Because Genta was a sushi chef, it’s quite obvious to have shrimp and squid (the actual basis for the Octozord) as his mecha. Both are common ingredients in sushi, and shrimp is quite often used for Nigirizushi, placing a shrimp over a small ball of rice that has wasabi under the shrimp. The idea here is that by activating the Clawzord, the symbols are now connected, and brings Splitface out of the Netherworld because of that connection. Antonio has a great line afterwards, and explains how he pulled Splitface out. After trying to complain and whine, Mike tells him to shut his “mouths” (another pretty funny line), and they all morph and charge him. Splitface also can’t do his Body Swarm technique, due to the marking, and they quickly dispatch him.

Splitface grows larger, and without Emily, the heroes can’t summon the Megazord. However, with the Clawzord, Antonio can change into a different mode. Before that, he takes out some Giant Moogers with his claw spinners. Now for some more explanation. Some of you might be confused on the use of North, South, East, and West in the Clawzords alternate mode. Well, the original episode was making puns on the Japanese language, with separate readings, such as the Chinese readings, being used for the change calls. Switching from East, to West, to South, and then back to East again, Antonio takes out more Giant Moogers and finally Splitface, though at one point he did need some help from the Samurai Battlewing This returns all the spirits to the people, waking everyone up, including Emily. At the end, the Rangers surprise Emily with the party they had set up, and Mike gives her a card from her sister.

This episode has some shining moments but once again started out moving way too fast. Plus, Emily and Mia are still delivering their lines in a vey stiff and unemotional way. However, Mike and Antonio seem to put everything they can into their performances, and it really comes out nicely. With this episode, we see a lot more evidence that Mike is interested in Emily, but we also see a bit of interest from Antonio. The way he approached the lines leads me to believe that they might be planning a love triangle. If they are, I give them props for moving away from the original storylines. As for the differences inside the episode, one of the most notable that I have to point out are the extra lines Kotoha had when she was laying in bed. It fits with her character and not Emily’s, so it wasn’t bad to take it out, but I feel like it’s important. Kotoha is a very selfless person, and the only thing she says to the others when she is laying in bed is that she’s glad she got hurt, and not the others. It pulls Takeru out of his shell for a quick moment, and it’s what sends Chiaki off in anger towards the Ayakashi. The emotion of the scene is very strong, and plays into the entire episode as it goes on, and as Takeru’s walls begin to break down over the course of the series, you can see this as a turning point. We know that Jayden has a secret, from previous episodes, but we don’t see any of that playing into his character right now. With Takeru, you saw it in most interactions with the other Shinkengers, and as he slowly became friends with the others, that protection of his secret became more and more noticeable. I think we have to see more of that type of performance from Jayden, but this episode wasn’t too bad. Emily’s part didn’t really push the intensity as well as I had hoped, but the others saved it from being lost entirely. I’d give this episode a 6.5/10.