REVIEW: Zyuohger 7

Ah, spring: time for flowers, allergies, and the crossover episode. As Sean notes in their review on Kamen Rider Ghost 24, the spring Kamen Rider/Super Sentai crossover is normally a single one-hour special. As Sean also notes, the half-hour Kamen Rider episode was messy. As it turns out, this week’s Zyuohger episode was incredibly messy as well.

The episode had two story lines with zero connection to each other. I quite liked both, but the combination was bizarre to say the least and Takeru’s cameo could have been more important to the plot. Also, we learn that bad guy Kubar has a furry fetish, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

It opens with tension growing between Tusk and Amu. She’s been assigned to do the chores for the day but she leaves them to Tusk so that she can go shopping. Tusk is frustrated by her laziness and flustered by her cute, flirtatious attempts to placate him. It is hard to tell if Tusk has a crush on her, or if she is that good. I suspect that she is just that good – I mean, she made good work of Yamato in the third episode. Tusk runs after Amu to give her a piece of his mind, and this is when the stories split.

Tusk and Amu’s storyline is the better of the two, because it actually has rising and falling action and keeps the viewer guessing. Meanwhile, Yamato’s storyline with Sela and Leo serve solely as a fun cameo scene for Kamen Rider. I think it is cute, but I really wish that this crossover was actually somehow significant to the plot of the episode. Also, as far as I can tell it has zero connection to the Kamen Rider episode, so Yamato’s appearance in it would not be Super Sentai canon. Not that this is a big deal, but I do find it to be messy writing.

The Zyuohgers find themselves accidentally battling the wrong bad guy, and are stopped by Takeru, who turns into Kamen Rider Ghost and kicks some Gamma butt right in front of them. The fight gets the Zyuohgers excited, so they join in on the fun.

Master Ginis is observing – and seems to prefer – this crossover fight to the one that Kubar has created. In fact, he likes it so much that he asks Naria to try to give this non-Dethgalien a Continue. It works, and Kamen Rider gets a taste of the ridiculously cool, chest-pounding ZyuohWild. After they win, Takeru and his creepy mascot wave goodbye and disappear, giving the Zyuohgers a very Scooby Doo moment.

Takeru is adorable, hilarious and kind of makes me want to watch Ghost. But his cameo was still pointless. His lack of significance combined with a lack of any context means that for all the Zyuohgers know, they could have just been dreaming or maybe inhaling whatever Uncle Mori smokes before he dresses up as a seal and flops around the house.

While Ginis may have preferred the crossover fight, I found Amu and Tusk’s story much more engaging. Also Amu looks pretty cool as a bad guy. The initial fight shows us Tusk’s vulnerable side: we get to see him physically and mentally beaten down, and whatever feelings he does have for Amu are causing him great pain in this moment.

Tusk finds Amu, but they both sense evil afoot. He tells her that he has to talk to her later, but that they need to fight first. But Tusk doesn’t get the chance to do this, as they are overpowered by Moeba and Kubar captures Amu, injecting her whole being into a Moeba and making her into his evil minion. She brutally fights and injures Tusk. He finds himself on the losing end of the battle, and runs away until he can call the other Zyuohgers from their crossover battle.

While he waits, Kubar finds himself taking a liking to Amu, treating her like a beloved pet cat in a way that I find both creepy and understandable. I mean, if I were a villain, I’d also like things that are both mindlessly evil and cuddly. And by that, I mean that I would also like cats.

It was nice to have another Tusk-centered episode. Even though the second episode was focused on finding him, it revealed more about Yamato than it did Tusk. He is strong, he is vulnerable, and he is definitely the parent of the group. This episode also reveals how flaky Amu can be, but only in a superficial sense. Tusk is still able to get through to her, and she has the mental strength to resist and eventually break free from Kubar’s power. She and Tusk demonstrate the trust and teamwork needed to stealthily trick Kubar into thinking that she killed him. Even I believed that she shot him – I just thought that he’d survive.

The episode ends with a small mystery solved (or maybe unsolved, depending on how you interpret it.) From the time that Amu is turned into a Moeba to their final fight scene, Tusk seems agitated, pained because he really has to tell her something. In fact, his passionate pleas are what help Amu free herself from Kubar. She – and the rest of the crew, and me – want to know what it is that he was dying to say…

Needless to say, I think everyone was disappointed by that. The gang’s faces are hilarious: Sela looks scared for Amu, while Yamato and Leo seem upset that an elephant-tiger/Green-White romance did not happen.

As a crossover episode, I found it very weak. But the character-driven aspects were wonderful. Given the previews, I’m guessing that the next episode will focus on Leo, who has found a new human friend who is a musician. Also given the previews, Sela and her super hearing are going to have a pretty bad time.

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