REVIEW: Zyuohger 24
Welcome to Zyuohger, where the points don't matter and people in rubber suits have the ability to make a grown woman cry. The show is on a great run at the moment; I don't think there have been so many consecutively good episodes before this streak. While I have been less hard on the show lately, I also think the overall story quality has greatly increased. This was a heavy episode that provides something that I've wanted for a while: Yamato's backstory. With that backstory we also get a display of new emotions from him and the rest of the cast.
Yamato is finally back to being the star of the show, and his return is heart-crushingly sad. Out of the Zyuohgers, he has shared the least about himself and while that has added great mystery it has also made him kind of boring. As I've joked before, all we know is that he is a zoologist with no friends. While we still don't know anything about his father, in this episode we learn the fate of his mother/Mori's sister.
This was yet another surprisingly dark episode. The reactions of innocent citizens to seeing their dead loved ones come to life were mixed, but all were ultimately sad. Yamato's mother, also made from his memories stolen by Bangray, seemed to have some sort of autonomy which was even more disturbing: she acknowledges that she has died, and in the end says that it was nice to spend a little more time with him. This suggests that either: a) the memory was literally her revived ghost, or b) Bangray "programmed" Yamato's memory to act like it was a real spirit. I honestly don't know which possibility is worse.
The Dethgaliens' drama continues, with Azald and Kubar finally finding something in common: their hatred of new potential Team Leader Bangray. As I had expected, Bangray has shaken up the villain dynamics in a juicy way. Ginis is back to drinking his wine and the stale competition between Azald and Kubar now has a new dimension. While the secondary motif of the show is games, the Dethgaliens are playing a light version of Game of Thrones.
But the best parts of the episode were the scenes with Yamato and his mother. He is so vulnerable and he takes a lot after his mother - especially in their shared belief that everyone in the world is connected. He has to face his mother's death for the second, heart-breaking time. Bangray has shown himself to be the most cruel of the villains because he takes such joy in psychologically breaking Yamato. The final scenes, in which Amu hints that Yamato is dealing with a larger struggle and Yamato has a painfully quiet experience at the cemetery, added a perfect amount of dimension and mystery. (On a lighter note, the scene in which Misao thought Yamato's mom was his girlfriend was pretty funny.)
It looks like next week's episode will have some more inter-character drama, which I am very excited about. Bangray and Misao have been excellent additions to the show. I'd say at this point that these two characters saved the show for me, and I can't wait to see more from them.
