Hikari Sentai Maskman 23 – Mio Returns?!

Well s***.

After weeks of getting trapped inside one giant block of ice, Mio returns to the surface world, but there is something wrong with her. Is this a happy reunion for Takeru and Mio or this is yet another tragedy?

The initial problem I have in this episode is the opening. My problem with it is that it made the emotions that Mio showed us in this episode not authentic because we know from the very start; we are dealing with a fake Mio. In short, I don't feel happy that Takeru reunited with Mio in this episode because it's a trap set by Tube for them to discover their base. To put it simply, if only this episode didn't reveal from the very start that the Mio we meet in this episode is fake, this ending of this episode will be more tragic.

Even if that's the case, for a very brief moment I was able to forget that the Mio we are dealing in this episode is a fake one thanks to Takeru's recent dreams of her and his daydreams of a what if situation that Tube didn't attacked. It's a really touching scene and makes you feel sad that even though he is busy saving the world, there are times that Takeru remembers the woman he loves. This is what I like about this show, we didn't see Takeru whine about his missing GF every episode but there are times we have these scenes that remind us that outside the battlefield, Takeru still remembers Mio.

As for how they pull off the reveal about the fake Mio, they did in a fashion that will look like the audience will be shocked, but to be honest, the "shock" value was never there. We all see it coming and it didn't help that Takeru kinda oversells Mio shooting him. By overselling, I mean he is bloody injured and he is sitting on the bridge but when he is shot by Mio he suddenly stands up, does a spin and drops into the bridge again. It's kinda cheesy that the suppose shock impact that this scene is trying to show us is lost.

Anyway, Takeru later kinda justified what's with the overselling of a single gunshot. Turns out that he was able to figure it out that the Mio he meets is a fake one. But that's not what is important here, the scene wherein he realizes that the Mio we have is fake and telling us that that is not how the real Mio acts. She will encourage Takeru to fight back instead of running away. What's great about this scene is how he remembers Mio; you can feel how Takeru really misses her and still wish that someday, she will come back.

After foiling the fake Mio, the rest of the episode is just nice fight scenes. So yeah, at the end of the day, Takeru is still hopeful that he will see Mio again. But the question is how they will meet again? Will Takeru reunite Mio the way they first met? Or will he later learn Mio's connections with the Tube Empire that she is more than just a girl who knows Tube, but is connected with the Igam royal family as their princess?