REVIEW: Zyuohger 33
DOSUKOI! Cats, sumo, and a better love story than Twilight...what more could you want? When I saw the previews for this episode I was over the moon, right behind the cow. In my opinion Sentai doesn’t do enough with wacky sumo wrestling plots, and it should, because funny but incredibly skillful and impressive combat is practically part of Super Sentai’s DNA at this point. The episode also looked to be another of the “pair focus” episodes where they take a couple of characters who don’t usually interact and throw them in a blender. The previous episode was similar, but we have seen Tusk and Misao together before, so let’s take a look at this Leo/Amu episode and see why it was so great!
I’m honestly a bit amazed that the narrative has acknowledged how shady Amu is. In some ways she’s like a stylish and perky version of Riley for how mercenary she seems to be at times. As a result, she makes a great foil to Leo, who is so straightforward and blunt that he was completely unaffected by the “inner thoughts” spell (shades of Cordelia Chase for anyone who watched Buffy). It makes perfect sense that a no-holds-barred, man-to-man contest of strength and dexterity would appeal to Leo immediately, even if Amu is a little put off by random nearly-naked dudes grabbing each other. Sometimes I’m a bit thrown myself, and then I remember my gleeful hours whiling away in front of WWE (WWF at the time) and other such programs and shut my ethnocentric mouth.
It’s a bit...coincidental that Sumo Bulk and Skull are practicing the “cat trick” when Leo and Amu happen upon them, ensuring that they’ll be interested enough in sumo to be the stars of this episode. More coincidence is that the episode where Amu and Leo really just happen to run into a couple of trainee sumo wrestlers ready and willing to explain sumo to them is the same episode where Azald recruits a player by the name of Sumotron to his team. Sumotron is one of the best and most straightforward monster designs in a while; he’s literally a giant red sumo wrestler monster. And it works perfectly. Every aspect of Sumotron from character to appearance is pitch-perfect, and really, there’s a similar level of lovingly affectionate parody in the entire episode with respect to sumo. It’s almost as if someone on the writing staff is a sumo fan. Sumotron is basically an exaggerated version of any sumo character with a monster-y twist, and I’m glad they chose to go in that direction.
Not so great is the return of Misao’s anxiety tying up the plot. I would like to make it clear that I understand and empathize with people dealing with anxiety, but it a) isn’t particularly entertaining to watch someone so crippled by it that a monster can literally walk up to him and toss him around without him doing so much as lifting a finger to defend himself, and b) isn’t realistic that (a) could occur, not even in a funny sense. And when you think about it too long, you realize that technically the person most skilled in sumo wrestling (however long Misao actually tried to do it versus barely any time for the rest of the Zyuohgers) just lets himself get beaten because he couldn’t be bothered to put up a fight. Increasingly problematic is the point that this is after he already knew that Sumotron increased in strength for each of his victims (and they are victims, considering the fridge horror of having your body’s ability to move completely taken away and forcing them to stomp around potentially forever) and yet he can’t even help his special buddy Yamato that he pledged to be pals with last episode.
I think it’s a good twist to have Sumotron’s undoing come at the hands of Amu, and especially because he gets distracted by Amu’s flirtation. I always find it hilarious when monsters get sweet on the female characters (and vice-versa, though that happens much less often). I seriously can’t with this hilarity. It really works for her to be the one doing it too, because as stated earlier, Amu is the devious one hiding it behind her angelic features. Leo also uses the cat trick tactic in the fight against Sumotron, showing he’s willing to use what works even if it’s not just the “Stand and Fight” manly maneuvering that he loudly proclaims as the best tactic throughout the episode. And of course rounding out the trifecta is Azald, who uses some trickery of his own to help Sumotron rank up all the way to Yokozuna. In fairness, they kind of have to go there, because stopping him before he’s at his absolute strongest isn’t quite as exciting and dynamic as a win against the strongest version of this monster.
Speaking of the trickery, it’s really fun to see how offended the Zyuohgers get at all of Sumotron’s less than legal schemes to win. While, admittedly, it reflects the heroic nature of the Zyuohgers, it also seems a bit funny that they’d expect a monster here to destroy or subjugate everyone in his path to play by the rules. It reminds me of the Riley episode in Dino Charge “When Logic Fails” because like Riley, both Sumotron and Amu consider meeting their goal a more important pursuit than winning within the confines of the arbitrarily set rules of a game. Obviously cheating is wrong, but that’s in the context of actually wrestling or playing chess. When it comes to destroying the world--or saving it--anything goes.
This episode was probably not a big deal as far as the season-long storyline goes, but it was by far my favorite fun episode. You can tell everyone involved had a great time putting this together and playing it out. It’s always fun to see people having fun, and we learn a (very little) bit about the characters in a different situation. The next episode features the return of Bunglay and the continuing Cube Whale arc, so let’s hope for a grand adventure!
