Sunday 25 November 2012

Kyoryuu Sentai Zyuranger 46 – The Attack of the Clones


The Zyurangers are attacking random civilians for no reason at all! Since they are attacking random civilians, it can only mean one thing, these are fakes. Because of the rampage of these fakes, the citizens lose fate on our heroes. Can our heroes find someone who believes in them that they are the good guys?


If there is one thing that I learned from this episode, it would be not to reveal to the public that you are a superhero and the Zyurangers learned it the hard way. Since the civilians know their human forms, we see them being stoned by the civilians and if the Zyurangers will try to fight the fakes, the fakes transform into random civilians so that the Zyurangers will look like are fighting random civilians not transformed.

Bandora's plan in this episode is really smart; you see for 45 episodes, the civilians saw how the Zyurangers save them from monsters, an older brother who wants to kill Tyranno Ranger and my personal favorite, some witch who is riding a penny-farthing bike who laughs like a maniac. There is an instance that we saw these civilians angry to our heroes in one episode that featured DoraMimic who mimicked the Dragon Caesar, GouRyuJin and DaiZyuJin but at the end, they regained their fate to our heroes.


Unlike the case with the DoraMimic, the attack of the fakes is more in a personal level and as we all know, personal attacks deal more damage compared to two robots fighting in the city and destroy buildings. By personal level, the fake Zyurangers destroyed public property and according to a kid, aside from injuring some civilians the fake Zyurangers murdered some civilians off screen! To make matters worse for our heroes, a TV reporter who is obviously Lami in disguise reported this incident and the acts of evil made by the fake Zyurangers is now widespread!

Because our heroes can't be trusted, we see civilians attack them, throw stones at them, the usual angry mob. What's more, some parent didn't trust the Zyurangers when Mei tried to bandage the little girl who was attacked by the fake Zyurangers earlier in the episode. With an angry mob wanting to see them dead, our heroes are on a run and it didn't help that the cops are also looking from them! This made me conclude that the civilians in this series are easily convinced by a couple of guys wearing the same costume like that of the Zyurangers.


This made the Zyurangers ask themselves for a moment about their good deeds in the past because the civilians they saved for 45 episodes (!) stopped believing in them this easy. While they are hiding on some bushes, an old lady found them and gave them shelter. The first that I notice about this old woman is that she is too kind to give our heroes new clothes like she is aware that the Zyurangers are running from someone. To make it a bit more obvious, their clothes are dry! But what the heck, it is one of those rare moments in the series that we saw the Zyurangers not wearing their RPG outfits and Mei having a bath!

The old lady is that type of woman who is willing to tell her tale to some random civilian that she just met somewhere and that's how we learn why she is so accommodating with these strangers that she just met. Her reason that they reminded her of her grandkids is quite understandable since she is living alone and seeing the Zyurangers on her backyard, she has this urge to help these kids... or so I thought. The old lady has a TV where our heroes watch a news report about the fake Zyurangers rampaging in the city. Her reason on helping the Zyurangers might be related to this news report after all.


Another thing I notice in the old lady is that she started to act a bit weird based on her body movements, like she is planning to call the cops or something, but nope, she just asked the Zyurangers to celebrate her birthday with them. I find this request a bit suspicious and at the same time, quite interesting. For starters, she acted a bit weird when she asks the request and second, maybe she is just being an accommodating guest. The Zyurangers agreed to celebrate her birthday and saw some great bonding moments between the old lady and the rest of the Zyurangers less Geki and Goushi.

To sum up everything, the old lady accidentally told the Zyurangers that she is aware that the cops want to arrest them and what she is doing is to cheer these guys up and to see if they are actually the good guys. Well that explains why she is making those body movements! The old lady is more than just that accommodating master of the house, but that kind lady who is willing to risk her life just to see for herself that the Zyurangers are actually the good guys at the very end. It's quite an admirable act, especially when she concluded that the Zyurangers are indeed the good guys after all.


Her act of kindness made the Zyurangers think that there are still people who still believe in them, something that they soon realize after the old lady made her conclusion that they are indeed the good guys. To be honest, I expected that they will make this kind of conclusion a bit earlier episode, I mean, they saved a couple of kids earlier in the series who saw their acts of kindness a bit closer and some of these kids were encouraged by the Zyurangers to be strong or be brave in some occasions. After the old lady showed the Zyurangers kindness, they decided to leave after giving their respects to the old lady; it is time to fate the fake heroes of justice.

Unlike their first encounter with the fakes, thankfully, we have some random civilian who witnessed that there is a fake Zyuranger team running lose after she is saved by Geki! After the real Zyurangers transform, they fight the fake Zyurangers. Obviously, I got confused on who is the real Zyuranger and who is the fake one since they don't have any markers help us identify the fake and the original. At first I thought if the Zyuranger doesn't make any noise, he or she is the fake one, I was wrong about that part thanks to one fake asking Tiger Ranger's help and use this opportunity to attack Tiger Ranger.


To make it a bit more interesting is that the real Zyurangers are also having a hard time identifying who is the fake Zyuranger and who is the real Zyuranger! Heck, we even have the scene where Mammoth Ranger is confused on which Tricera Ranger he will shoot! What made it more confusing is that there are times that the fake and the real Zyurangers use the same weapon that at one point, I thought that the real Tricera Ranger is defeated by the fake Tricera Ranger! Also, the scene involving weapons made me realize that they actually made at least a two weapons of the same type for each Zyuranger. Guess they made it just in case they break one or something.

At the end, the Zyurangers discovered that the one behind it is the DoraMirage and much to my surprise, he barely talks and just proceeds in fighting the Zyurangers. His fight style is a bit boring since it involves those multiple mirror effect thing, which means that he can create a mirage of multiple attacks. Around the time they are fighting the DoraMirage; the citizens have regained their faith for our heroes and are now cheering at them!


Because of the cheering, it encouraged the Zyurangers to perform the Babel Attack, something we barely see them do after this move was introduced episodes ago. I think at one point while I was doing research about Zyuranger, I learned that there is such a thing as a Super Babel Attack, which includes the Dragon Ranger in the formation but it didn't happen for obvious reasons with one Burai living in borrowed time. To put it simply, I am disappointed that they barely use this attack in the series.

After they performed the Babel Attack, they also used the Howling Cannon to finish the DoraMirage. This caused me to notice that they are forgetting the existence of the Thunder Slingers for at least 2-3 episodes now. I mean, the finisher involving the Thunder Slinger's combined mode with the Ranger Stick called Ranger Slinger is stronger compared to the Howling Cannon for crying out loud! But hey, it did the job on finishing the DoraMirage. The episode ends with the kids and the adults finally believing on our heroes and that some kids had a chance to have a see the Zyurangers up close and personal! Lucky kids.