This episode in a nutshell.
It was two nights before Christmas, a young Santa Claus ends up delivering the wrong presents; a small centipede that caused a kid to fall on a coma. Thus, our five ninja heroes and the young Santa venture to Santa Land before these wrong presents delivered to the kids!
For starters, I skipped 41 episode reviews of Ninja Sentai Kakuranger because hey, it's Christmas and this episode is not a major episode in the series! So if you notice that I will post comments about the characters and stuff not related to this episode, please understand. I skipped 41 episodes of Kakuranger just to watch this episode for crying out loud!
To the episode itself, it's pretty fun. Aside that we learn that there is an army of Santa Clauses somewhere in North Pole and they are occupying a piece of land called "Santa Land", these Santas are not riding a sleigh pulled by reindeers and instead, rides a van with reindeer horns! It kinda reminds me of Nekomaru less the cat noises and the cat markings on its body. Also, they have Santas in training and in the case of this episode; we meet a kid named Little Santa, who is kinda clumsy with his job as Santa Claus as he delivered the presents on December 23 and not on December 24!
But thanks to his clumsiness, we learned the Youkai's plan in this episode, to use Centipede's little centipede creatures to make the kids sick! Because of this sickness, the reputation of Santa Claus will be ruined! This is when the Kakurangers becomes involved with this one. Though at first they don't believe Little Santa, but after seeing what happened to him and the Santa van being used by the Youkai Centipede, they decided to help the kid. Same goes with Ninjaman who wants to help them because he wants to have a Christmas present!
I am not sure how he learned about Santa Claus and Christmas presents in general considering that he is stuck in a jar for centuries but what the heck, it's Christmas and everyone wants to have a Christmas present! Another thing I notice is that Ninjaman's voice is less raspy compared to his later appearance in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger's 45th and 46th episodes. This is when I notice that Ninjaman is one childish character in the series. You can say that he is like Go-Busters' J less the ego and that he is a ninja.
Another thing I notice is that Tsuruhime is sidelined during the entire duration of the episode and that Sasuke is leading the team both in battle and in field. I don't know what happened during the 41 episodes that I skipped but I guess some major event that changed both characters made them act like that in this episode. On Santa Land, I notice that the Kakurangers are now really good in infiltrating buildings as the army of Santas (!) in Santa's Castle didn't see them coming until one guy noticed their arrival.
Now comes the fun part of this episode, an army of Santa Claus versus five ninjas! It's one of those rare instances in television that you wish to see more often. I mean, pitting in two types of characters that rarely meet in fiction in one scene? Man, this is awesome! Did I mention that the Kakurangers decided to disguise as Santa Claus to hide from the army of Santa Claus? While they are hiding from the army of Santas, they ended up watching a movie called "Santa Sentai Clausranger". Aside that their role call is similar to the Kakurangers, it is like one of those Super Sentai teams that I wish Toei will make in the future. I mean, a Sentai team composed of five Santa Claus? It will be interesting how this one will turn out!
The movie is then interrupted by a message coming from the Elder Santa Claus about five ninja who are disguising as Santa Claus. For starters, the Elder reminded me of that guy from Kamen Rider Super-1, you know, the scientist who turned Kazuya Oki into Super-1? Second is that for some reason, Santa Land reminded me of Engine Sentai Go-Onger's Christmas World. Third, the Kakurangers' battle with the Elder Santa Claus is just pure fun, especially when Saizou thought that he killed Santa!
After discovering that the Elder Santa Claus is just controlled by the centipede, the Santa who discovered their presence earlier is the fake Santa Claus! What made it more interesting is that Ninjaman didn't notice that he met a fake Santa Claus and only wanted to receive his Christmas gift coming from Santa! Thankfully, the Kakurangers followed them with the Tsubasamaru and told Ninjaman that he is with the fake Santa Claus before fighting him.
The fight between the Kakurangers and the fake Santa Claus aka Centipede is fine I guess. Aside from the constant English words that Centipede is saying, I can't help but notice the lack of energy every time he calls his attacks. At the end, he is defeated by the Kakuranger Ball, which reminded me of the Goranger Ball for obvious reasons. I don't know what episode they started doing this move but I don't see the point of why a group of ninjas should perform an American football inspired finishing move.
As for the giant battle, it's interesting to see the Kakure DaiShogun and Samuraiman fighting the monster of the week while it is snowing. So yeah, there is nothing amazing or stunning with the giant battle. But since this is my first time seeing Kakure DaiShogun and Samuraiman in action, all I can say is, Ninjaman's transformation into Samuraiman is interesting since it's in CGI. As for Kakure DaiShogun, its finisher is just too plain for my taste. It adds up to the Christmas touch in this episode. At the end, Christmas is saved and Ninjaman is sleeping while waiting for Santa to drop his gift in his large stocking. As for Little Santa, it seems that he is just a few steps away before becoming a full fledge Santa Claus!
