Also, getting beaten up by a kid 101 w/ Ryuki Iwasaki
The EMC decided to take a mass approach in hunting the Messiah Cards by posting posters around the city. Thankfully, they received a call coming from a kid who perfectly described what they are looking for. Speaking of the kid, his name is Kenta who is a white belter in karate but he ended up defeating black belters! Does it have something to do with his new red gloves or something else?
It's been a while since the series had an episode focused on Ryuji, one of my initial complains about the series is that they have a lot of episodes focused on Ryuji for at least 2-3 weeks and it's not a story arc to begin with! Thankfully, after the introduction of Jin and J, Ryuji's character focus episodes minimized to make way for the new heroes and the other characters that lacked characterization. So let's start talking about the episode from the very beginning!
Kenta is seen being bullied by black belters earlier in this episode, which means that he is not strong enough to face them. Much to my surprise, he easily defeated the black belters with ease like this isn't the first time he fought these guys. What made it more impressive is that the kid knows how to fight! I don't see any stunt doubles or anything close to it but it's just the kid who is doing all of those stunts like it is just natural for him to do it! If fate permits, I want to see this kid in a different tokusatsu series in the future. Heck, have this kid as the next hero in some Sentai show like Kiba Ranger or King Ranger!
Because this is the kid who sent the message, as expected, the Go-Busters are looking for him and much to their surprise; he denied that he saw the Messiah Card. But based on the hints we have in the show's earlier minutes, his glove contains the Messiah Card or the glove already absorbed the Messiah Card only that it didn't siphon the necessary Enetron to make it evolve. Is it me, or I am starting to notice that the Messiah Cards have their own set of consciousness?
The kid tries to run away from the Go-Busters, only to end getting chased by the Go-Busters and later, by Enter. Much to my surprise, Enter bowed down to the kid and this can only mean two things, the kid himself is the Messiah Metaroid and he is unconscious with it or the glove is the Messiah Metaroid. Either way, it means serious business for our heroes since the kid might end up becoming their biggest threat yet. Thankfully, Enter escaped after his scuffle with Red Buster and the kid with the help of his special gloves, he escaped from the Buglers who tried to corner him.
Since this is a Ryuji focus episode featuring some random kid who suddenly becomes good in karate overnight, the first thing that comes to mind is how can we connect these two together? The answer is the two having something in common; it is not karate but engineering. That is why I just love the look at the kid's face when he saw a Buster Machine. It's the eyes of a kid who loves machines and I saw that kind of spark that I saw every time I see someone stare on an aisle filled with GunPla or Super Robots.
This is when we learned that the kid doesn't want to be a karateka and wants to be an engineer. In the case of the kid, he is forced by his father to become a karateka while as for Ryuji; he is forced to become a Buster because of the incident 13 years ago. Unlike Ryuji, the kid does not love karate unlike Ryuji who slowly likes his current job as a Buster. This caused me to be bothered for a bit since why the heck he decides to fight a group of black belters from his father dojo if he hates karate? Turns out that he wants to prove to his father that he is strong enough to stand on his own.
This is when Ryuji's pep talk comes in about being determined to fulfill your dream with your own hands, which I find really admirable. As we all know, Ryuji still wants to be an engineer after he is done fighting Vaglass. This is the kind of lesson he wants to teach the kid, you can still continue your dream once he is done with karate but he should do it the clean way.
Ryuji then received a call coming from Hiromu that the there is something strange with the kid's glove. Wow, I can't believe it took him time to figure it out since he is the one who had a chat with the kid about the glove. Because he figured out that that the kid's glove has something to do with Messiah, Messiah suddenly took over the kid's body via the glove and starts attacking Ryuji. This can only mean one thing; Messiah is evolving in a different manner. This made me think that all Messiah Cards are connected in some way and that the data transmitted from each card are sent to Enter and the other Messiah Cards that is still on stand-by.
Because Messiah has now taken over the kid's body, he decides to gather more battle data that he need by throwing the same red gloves to random civilians. The first thing that I noticed with these random civilians is that they know how to fight. Granted, they explained it in-story that they are controlled by the red gloves but I am expecting that their fight moves are a bit flimsy but the fight with these random civilians looks really amazing. Stunning, you might say since the kid continues to impress me with his fight skills.
Because of what is happening, the Go-Busters then proceed to stop the kid and this is when Escape appeared to challenge Ryuji. She seriously wants to fight him and I just love that they continued with this rivalry until now and not drop it. But because of the other Busters, Escape is forced to fight them while Ryuji will try to stop the kid. The way how Ryuji tried to stop the kid is something I expect since what he did is to ask him to "wake up" and fight Messiah's influence with his own will. While he is doing it, we see Ryuji getting beat up by the kid but hey, it is all worth it once the kid can regain control of his body.
After the kid regain control of his body, Messiah has no choice but to use the nearby Enetron tank to transform into the Karateroid. Now that Messiah has a form, it is time to Ryuji to fight it. Unlike the fights we have earlier in the episode, Blue Buster's fight with the Karateroid is a bit lame so let's skip that. As for the other Busters, they are now fighting Escape Evolve and before they can finisher her of, Enter save her. This is surprising, since for starters, I don't see the point why he needs Escape in his little "game" of his. But whatever is Enter thinking, about Escape's purpose in this "game", I want to know it.
Back to Blue Buster, he overheated and saw how Gorisaki reacted to it. He feels the heat emitting out of Ryuji's body since hey, he is robot and is currently equipped as armor for the Powered Custom form! Instead of seeing Blue Buster finishing the Karateroid, Yellow Buster is the one who finished the Karateroid with the Lio Blaster. It is a bit disappointing since Blue Buster did a lot of job just to force Messiah to transform into the Karateroid! It feels like Yoko stole the spotlight just to show us that Yellow Buster can use the Lio Blaster if she wants to!
The giant battle in this episode is boring and the only thing noteworthy is that the Ace performed the same finisher it used when they fought Epsilon in Hyperspace. At the end, after seeing his son's resolve, Kenta's father approved his son's dream on becoming an engineer after seeing that he is serious with it and it is not just he is escaping his fate as a successor to a karate dojo. Guess Ryuji will soon have a junior in EMC in the near future then!
