REVIEW: Zyuohger 10
This is the episode that I have been waiting for: an episode in which the Zyumans’ frustrations reach their climax and the Dethgaliens grow very serious. After a few consecutive episodes featuring trite story lines with a sprinkle of foreshadowed problems, this one crashes into those problems like a runaway train. Most importantly, the Zyuohgers finally taste defeat. If you have been disappointed by the light, silly tone of some more recent Super Sentai series, this show about furries and cubes may actually be what you are looking for.
Much like the audience, the Zyumans are sick of searching aimlessly for the missing Champion’s Symbol. They also miss their families, and this string of fruitless searches and redundant fights has left them weary. Sela especially has grown cynical, but the others also show their grief and angst.
Unfortunately for them, things are about to become worse: Master Ginis has decided to reveal himself to the Zyuohgers and the rest of Earth. Ginis is a hate-filled, wine-drinking, super-intelligent, sadistic Super Sentai villain and one of the better baddies in recent years. He wants to play a fun game, and decides to use the Zyuohgers as his players.
Ginis starts by wreaking havoc Azald-style, sending hordes of Moeba to attack innocent citizens. The team quickly destroy them, and are congratulated by Naria. This confuses them, as thus far Naria has only served the purpose of giving defeated Monsters of the Week a Continue Coin. She speaks more lines in this episode than she has the entire season, and her words show that she has dedicated her existence to Ginis and the game – to the point that she is willing to die in the trap that Ginis has created if the Zyuohgers fail their challenge.
Naria introduces a giant, ghastly hologram of Ginis, who explains the rules of his special game: he has created a shrinking dome over part of the city. Anyone who is touched by the constantly decreasing barrier is destroyed – a point they demonstrate by killing a cat in front of the Zyuohgers. The Dethgaliens go hard, and Zyuohger is not afraid to show human and animal suffering and its impact on the team. The Zyuohgers must find the switch to deactivate the dome – if they do, the humans will be saved and Ginis will give them a “special gift.” They have no choice but to accept the challenge, which reminds them of a certain ongoing search they’ve hated for the past two months.
Ginis wickedly dismisses Yamato’s anger over all this by calling him insignificant and a pawn. The hopeless feelings that the gang has over their destinies is about to explode all over this shrinking dome, as they feel like they have no choice but to aimlessly search - just like they have for the Champion’s Symbol. The Zyumans in particular are growing hopeless. Tusk appears heartbroken and Leo is just plain angry. When Yamato tries to give them his trademark pep talk, they crush him, with Leo physically lashing out at him. Yamato, speechless, is dragged away by Amu, the only Zyuman who is showing any grace under pressure. She gives him her own kind of pep talk, explaining to him that he is able to stay optimistic because he isn’t like them and can’t understand their pain. It can be easy to forget sometimes that the leader is the odd man out in this group.
While Amu and Yamato are searching, the others save a crying girl who has been separated from her parents. This scene is heart wrenching and heightens the sense of urgency. While huddled among the scared masses, Leo, Tuck and Sela realize that they, Yamato and the humans are in the same boat and that they must all work together.
Yamato finds the switch with his super vision and employs the abilities of the whole team to grab it just in time. Their internal conflicts mostly resolved, they are relieved to have saved the day! But Ginis isn’t that nice, and is game is far from over. As promised, he left them a G.I.F.T.: a destructive, emotionless robot with a saw in its chest and the power to destroy worlds.
The Zyuohgers fail in combat against G.I.F.T., which then grows large on its own accord. In space, Ginis is enthralled, demanding more screams and presumably more wine because he’s had a busy day. The team forms both ZyuohKing and ZyuohWild, but still face a painfully one-sided fight against their favor. It was about time to see Yamato shaken to the core…and thrown into the side of a skyscraper. After so many upgrades in recent weeks, they still do not have enough power against Ginis’ ultimate mass murder machine. Much of the town is destroyed, and the Zords broken apart.
Yamato is trapped under rubble, and is about to be hit by more falling debris when a certain Bird Man saves his life. I was very surprised when I initially heard that this character would be appearing so early in the show, but his appearance is going to greatly help push the already quick-paced plot out of its current rut of “search for the missing Symbol, don’t find it, fight a monster, lather/rinse/repeat.” Does this mean that Zyuoh TheWorld will be making his debut as early as next week? I’m excited to see where Zyuohger takes the story next!
