Everybody goes kung-fu fighting!
After what happened in the previous episode, King wonders why he is considered weak by Tessai. After agreeing that the only time Tessai will recognize his strength once he makes a crack in his helmet, King enters a forest that plays with his inner fears, only for him to realize a much greater fear.
The episode had a really strong start as it featured a brief battle between Red and Grey, which displays the difference with their strengths. Did I mention that the fight between the two, though a bit brief is really amazing. What's more is that we got a brief flashback scene featuring Tessai. As we all know, he is the first Kyoryuger and that he faced this arc's MOTW years ago. The brief flashback scene is so brief that I have nothing much to say that it showed us that Grey is seriously weak during that the time he first faced the arc's MOTW.
Speaking of the MOTW, he got some upgrades and starts terrorizing the city. With that in mind, Utchy fights him while his teammates will look for King who is now stuck inside the forest that Tessai told him to go. We also saw that Utchy doesn't consider himself worthy to be called a leader. This scene showed us that he respects his friends over some decision made by the older Kyoryuger.
Speaking of King, his struggle inside the forest is quite interesting. We saw him fight illusions in which he easily realized as an illusion. Him trying to realize his true fear is an interesting concept but it feels like the execution is kinda bad. I mean, if you want King to realize his fear, then they should go deeper with his past considering that monsters, KyoryuGrey felt like just obstacles that he needs to face and not true fears that he should face. The illusion of his father is the only illusion that makes sense in my opinion. I mean, it will be interesting if one of his fears is not living up to his father's ideals. But instead, we have a fear that something that I expect coming from King. It's the fear of seeing his friends in danger.
It makes sense in a sense that this is the only time King actually had some friends that he is with for most of the time because he tends to travel a lot prior to the start of the series. Losing them or seeing them in danger is indeed one legit fear and King doesn't want anything bad to happen to his friends. Now that he finally understands fear, it is time for him to face Grey once again. One thing that pisses me off in the exchange of blows between these two is that King didn't transform into KyoryuRed when he made the punch.
I get it, the director wants King to look cool but the thing is it bothers me that boost from learning his fear felt like some massive power up that he can break KyoryuGrey's helmet, which is said to be as strong as the armor of the arc's MOTW without transforming into KyoryuRed and not a strong motivation to become stronger. After breaking Grey's helmet, it is time to save Utchy who is currently being tortured by Dogold. What I like about this torture scene is that they remembered the fact that Utchy and Dogold are rivals. What's more is that they still remembered Dogold's motivation to have a stronger body by making Utchy angry so that he can possess him again.
King and company arrived just in time to save Utchy and this episode's team battle happens. The only thing worth talking about in this scene is the duel between Dogold and KyoryuGold. I just love that it ended in a simple exchange of electric sword attacks. Fast forward a bit and our heroes defeated the MOTW and it is now time for the giant battle as our heroes ride on Kyoryuzin Macho! But hey, since KyoryuGrey already recognized King, it is obvious that it time for a new mecha formation debut!
But first, remember the hobo that wears Eiji's shirt in this episode, it's Tessai in disguise! That twist didn't surprise me a single bit. I mean, he needs to see King's progress and like what most cliché kung-fu masters do, he wears a disguise or act weak so that he can measure the strength of their student. Now that we know that he is Tessai in disguise, we also saw his transformation sequence, which is similar to Ramirez's transformation sequence less the instant weight loss. After summoning Bunpachy, it is time for Kyoryuzin Kung-Fu!
Kyoryuzin Kung-Fu's debut is seriously fantastic, aside from the opening kung-fu scene that is accompanied by the usual "HA HA SIM HA HA" chants, which made the scene cooler, the music made this mecha formation's debut more epic. In addition to that, the use of CGI in this fight scene is really well done. Granted, it still looks bad in modern standards due to the lack of proper shading and shadows, they manage to make it look realistic thanks to the live action shots that accompanied it. As for the finisher, it looks good.
At the end, Tessai leaves them the Bunpachy Beast Battery as he and Ramirez are out to search the last Voltasaur, Voltasaur #10 Bragigas. As for Plezuon, as it turns out that he is coming back soon along with his Kyoryuger partner! The bigger question is why is he coming back? I mean, Ankydon and Bunpachy are hiding somewhere and didn't leave the planet or something. Guess that means that Plezuon is a Voltasaur that is capable of traveling outside of this planet if that is the case then. All I can say is I can't wait to see Plezuon in action!
