Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Go-Busters Episodes 15, 16 and 17 Reviews


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I'm nitpicking here, but it makes absolutely no sense that the Buglars just disappear from the screen and give the Go-Busters time to morph.
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While Masato is driving off with Enetron, does it ever occur to the Go-Busters that Hiromu could catch him if he tried to use his super speed?



Episode 15 begans with Commander Kuroki meeting Beet Buster and his buddyroid, Beet J Stag in a forest.  Meanwhile, Enter tries to investigate why Enetron has been leaking from the construction site of his megazord.  He creates a new metaroid to gather some replacement Enetron.  The Go-Busters try to stop him, but are distracted by Buglars.  However, Beet Buster and Beet J Stag appear to fight the metaroid.  Beet Buster reveals his identity as Masato Jin, Ryuji's senior.  However, Ryuji suspects he might be an imposter since Masato hasn't aged since he was trapped in the subdimension 13 years ago.  After another encounter with the metaroid, the Go-Busters are unable to split up to deal with the coming megazord because both the metaroid and the megazord are too powerful.  Masato and Beet J Stag appear to help and transform into Beet Buster and Stag Buster.  After Masato gets a little irritated with Stag Buster trying to steal the spotlight from him, he says that those flaws make it interesting.  Ryuji overhears the comment, which confirmed to him that it was the real Masato.  Ryuji, Hiromu, and Yoko leave to defeat the megazord, while Beet Buster and Stag Buster defeat the metaroid.  However, after they defeat the megazord, Ryuji, Hiromu, and Yoko find Masato and Beet J Stag stealing the Enetron which had originally been gathered by the metaroid they defeated.

This episode I felt was pretty good.  It was an interesting twist to see the new Go-Busters also being thieves.  I was hoping they would be on their own side, gathering Enetron for their own purposes and not really on either the Go-Busters or Vaglass side.  That, however, did not happen.  Still, the thievery part was kept, which I felt help makes Masato an interesting character.  He has a rather sly personality, arrogant, jokes around a lot, and attempts to steal the spotlight whenever possible.  It's also kinda funny how his buddyroid, Beet J Stag, tries to take the spotlight from Masato, leading to the latter's irritation.  Masato is played by the same actor who played Tsubasa/MagiYellow in Magiranger.  His acting was pretty bad in Magiranger, but has improved here.  I think his actor fits the role of Masato better than he did the role of Tsubasa, which helps.  Overall, I think this was a pretty good episode.  I give it an 8.5/10.

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Episode 16 begins with Beet J Stag knocking on the door of the Go-Busters' headquarters, wanting Enetron to drink.  Since Hiromu, Ryuji, and Yoko have a lot of questions about Masato and the subdimension, they use it as an opportunity to talk with Beet J Stag.  However, all he gives them are vague answers (some not really answers at all).  Beet J Stag leaves and Hiromu, Ryuji, and Yoko follow him.  However, they have to split up because a metaroid was spoted.  Hiromu pursues Masato, while Yoko and Ryuji go after the metaroid.  Hiromu tries to question Masato, but he doesn't comply.  He challenges Hiromu to fight him in order to get the answers.  This fight is interrupted by the metaroid that Yoko and Ryuji were fighting.  The metaroid targets Hiromu with heat seeking missles, and Masato decides to use himself to shield Hiromu.  He tries to take out Enter with the missle as well, and both Masato and Enter blow up.  However, both are revived and they're revealed to be an avatar, kinda like a physical hollogram.  The real bodies for Masato and Enter are still in the subdimension, but their minds are projected onto this "avatar."  When the megazord arrives, it attacks the Go-Busters while they're fighting Buglars.  Hiromu tries to counter the megazord with Ace, but the megazord  creates its own megazords that hold Ace back.  Masato and Beet J Stag launch their own Buster Machines that drain enetron from the two Megazords holding Hiromu.  Hiromu destroys the main megazord, and Ryuji & Yoko defeat the metaroid.  Later, Masato reveals that on the night he and everyone else were transported into the subdimension, he was working in a different section.  He also revealed that he encountered no human while being trapped in the subdimension.

This episode was also a good episode, with a somewhat interesting twist.  The avatar twist particularly gave a new twist to Enter.  The fight between Masato and Hiromu kinda felt like a copy and paste job of a similar fight in Timeranger between Naoto and Tatsuya (also written by Kobayashi).  Despite that, the fight was well choreographed and entertaining.  We also got to see some internal conflict with Hiromu and Yoko.  On one side they want to know what happened to their parents, but on the other they're afraid of finding out what happened to them.  This was an enjoyable episode so I give it 8/10.

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Episode 17 starts with Ryuji about to confront a megazord.  However, the megazord happens to be Masato and Beet J Stag stealing enetron from an enetron tank.  Ryuji and the commander lecture him about stealing, which Masato replies that he needs enetron for his transports and can't wait around for it to be given to him.  Later, Masato questions why Ryuji isn't as enthusiastic about being an engineer as he use to be, and his reasoning for fighting Vaglass.  Later, as commander Kurohin is about to supply Masato with enetron, Enter attacks, forcing Yoko to drop the tank full of enetron.  This time, along with the metaroid Enter created, the megazord that Enter had spent ten episodes stealing supplies to build it is finally activated.  This megazord splits off from another megazord, which is a beta-type megazord.  They're unable to defeat it with Go-Busteroh, which leads to their individual zords losing enetron fast.  Ryuji tries to shield Hiromu and Yoko with his Buster Machine.  Seeing the chaos, Masato and Beet J Stag summon their zords and save Ryuji.  During the fight, Masato tells Ryuji that he must find his own reason to fight, because Hiromu and Yoko have theirs due to their parents.  Ryuji decides that his reason to fight is so he can become an engineer after the fighting is over.  He begins to suck enetron from Hiromu and Yoko's Buster Machines, and then destroys the weaker of the two megazords.  Masato transforms his Buster Machine into Go-Buster Beet, which is identical to the megazord Enter had built.  Go-Buster Beet defeats Enter's megazord.  The episode ends with Masato giving Ryuji stolen engineer books and also stealing Ryuji's wallet.

This episode was mixed for me.  It had some enjoyable characterization for Ryuji, a funny scene at the end, and I liked the scenes with Masato as well.  Masato has become my favorite character on Go-Busters.  Perhaps because of his personality and the plot twist he brings.  However, the problem with this episode is Enter's megazord plot.  It already had pacing problems, taking 10 episodes from when he first stole the design to actually using it in battle.  Then this episode added another problem to the plot; an anti-climatic defeat.  While it knocked Go-Busteroh around quite a bit, it was defeated easily once CB-04 and SJ-05 entered the battle.  It was extremely disappointing to see Enter's megazord defeated in just one episode after having ten episodes worth of build up.  It makes Enter look like a weak villain, which is disappointing considering that he had been outsmarting the Go-Busters to get all the supplies for this megazord.  The writers could have at least made this a two-parter.  Or even better, they could have had this megazord appear before Masato and Beet J Stag came, in which Masato and Beet J Stag would have came to the rescue.  So despite some enjoyable scenes, the anti-climatic defeat of Enter's megazord made the episode disappointing.  Overall I give it 6/10.

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